Details About Books Independent People (Sjálfstætt fólk #1-4)

Title	:	Independent People (Sjálfstætt fólk #1-4)
Author	:	Halldór Laxness
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Anniversary Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 482 pages
Published	:	January 14th 1997 by Vintage (first published 1934)
Categories	:	Fiction. Classics. Historical. Historical Fiction. Literature

Independent People (Sjálfstætt fólk #1-4) Paperback | Pages: 482 pages

Representaion Conducive To Books Independent People (Sjálfstætt fólk #1-4)

This magnificent novel—which secured for its author the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature—is at last available to contemporary American readers. Although it is set in the early twentieth century, it recalls both Iceland's medieval epics and such classics as Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter. And if Bjartur of Summerhouses, the book's protagonist, is an ordinary sheep farmer, his flinty determination to achieve independence is genuinely heroic and, at the same time, terrifying and bleakly comic. Having spent eighteen years in humiliating servitude, Bjartur wants nothing more than to raise his flocks unbeholden to any man. But Bjartur's spirited daughter wants to live unbeholden to him. What ensues is a battle of wills that is by turns harsh and touching, elemental in its emotional intensity and intimate in its homely detail. Vast in scope and deeply rewarding, Independent People is simply a masterpiece

Specify Books As Independent People (Sjálfstætt fólk #1-4)

Original Title:	Sjálfstætt fólk
ISBN:	0679767924 (ISBN13: 9780679767923)
Edition Language:	English
Series:	Sjálfstætt fólk #1-4
Characters:	Bjartur í Sumarhúsum, Ásta Sóllilja, Nonni, Helgi, Gvendur, Ingólfur Arnarson, Rauðsmýrarmaddaman, Jón, hreppstjóri, Rósa, Finna, Hallbera
Setting:	Iceland
Literary Awards:	Premi Llibreter de narrativa Nominee (2005)

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Ratings: 4.17 From 8603 Users | 1203 Reviews

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What makes Halldór Laxnesss writing looks so terrific is his ability to create and manage every plainspoken and quotidian detail of domestic life feel epic. The overall feeling is of sorrow, darkness and solitude as if you are caught in the shack on the beach and all you can hear outside is the raging ocean waves. But when o-my-god-moment comes, you can feel the epicnessas it happens on every page. If any book can whip your soul back like a wind off the sea, this is it.Ah. The humour and the

"How much can one sacrifice for the sake of one's pride? Everything, of course - if one is proud enough." - Halldór Laxness, The Atom Station, 1948No less than the best book I have read so far in my life. Independent People (original title: Sjálfstætt Fólk) is the tragedy of a man who is proud enough to sacrifice everything. It tells the story of Bjartur of Summerhouses, his family (especially his daughter, Ásta Sóllilja) and the 'world war' they wage against the harsh Icelandic landscape in

I felt together with Bjartur the blistering cold cutting to his bones after he let the reindeer escape, got out of the river and had to walk all wet through snow and blizzard for hours on end to find a shelter. I craved for milk and some meat together with Rosa during her pregnancy days. I discovered universes in the small space of a shabby room and discovered how time and shapes can be redefined in the mind of an innocent child together with Nonni. I felt together with Asta Solillja how it was

Everything that one has ever created achieves reality. And soon the day dawns when one finds oneself at the mercy of the reality one has created.There is a subtle beauty in this text - an expansive desolation that plays as canvas to Laxness' protagonist Bjartur of Summerhouses creation of an independent life. Told in the early years of the 20th century on the hard-scrabble tundra of rural Iceland, the narrative follows the course of this stubborn Bjartur and his quixotic life-long quest for

When you say the word 'culture', watch out. The traps within the simple word are many, a loving gaze on the self and a objectifying fascination with the other, idealization and discrimination two shafts of light within the same grimy crystal. Nothing conveys this truth so well and so thoroughly as literature, as many throughout the centuries bring up their utensil of inkish intent and lay down their views, all for the most part bound within their single subset of country, family, faith. Nothing

An odd, yet intriguing story. Bjartur's drive for independence affects his entire life and family. Their world is bleak and hard. Buried in this story is the story of Iceland. It's the farmers being exploited, the rich being rewarded. It's a hard scrabble life.The prose is rich and deep. This isn't a book to read quickly. It requires a bit of commitment. The richness of the prose is the reward. The story of Bjartur and his family roles out in an interesting pattern. The landscape of Iceland

Independent People is a poetic and insightful portrayal of Icelandic life in the mid-twentieth century. In a foreign land and exotic to most, Halldor Laxness beautifully conveys one man's struggle for independence and questions what it means to be truly independent. Bjartur, Independent People's protagonist, was born into servitude and breaks free the shackles of debt only to become enslaved by sheep, the harsh Icelandic climate, and to a lesser degree the supernatural world and politics.