Vintage Paradise Reclaimed

I am not an avid reader and I usually start a book and don’t finish it but I couldn’t put this book down. I got caught up in the emotions of three generations of women. The description of the surroundings made me feel like I was truly there. The situation was very relatable. I was always hoping for a good ending. However, I was very pleasantly surprised and touched by how the lives of these women worked through life’s challenges and never gave up. It was inspiring and heartwarming. Good read!

As always with Laxness - terrific read. Delivered promptly and in good condition.

This book traces blindly the long itinerary of a naïve fatalist (`One must just take it as it comes'). The protagonist falls under the spell of a sectarian, anti-rational preacher (`I prefer the folly of man, for that has brought him farther than his wisdom') and follows him to his reclaimed paradise. He neglects thereby completely his family, his farm and livestock. He undergoes the same fate as Icelandic horses: `sold, blinded and put to work in the coal mines.' His good-hearted naiveté is also exploited by a `respected landowner-friend', who lets his big livestock herds trample the protagonist's farmland into mud. Into the bargain, he rapes his innocent daughter. Ultimately, the protagonist becomes a preacher himself and returns to his homeland and farm, as if nothing whatever happened in the meantime. One could interpret the story as a `minor' variation on the theme of `the paradise belongs to the innocents'. But the protagonist here is an irresponsible, naïve and dumb fool. Halldór Laxness doesn't evaluate or intervene, as the author, in the story. He tells it more or less as an uninvolved bystander, thereby creating a very ambivalent product. The negative hero is treated as a neutral one, as a kind of village fool. This is certainly not Halldór Laxness's best book and not a good introduction to his work. Recommended only to his fans.

By author of An Independent People. Revealing Icelandic culture

Laxness is a terrible writer. He can and does offer sly asides and insights, some real thought provoking statements that linger long after the book is finished. I see why his writing earned the Nobel.