Synopses & Reviews
A childhood in Iceland is the background to this powerful and evocative tale. Halldor Laxness's wistfully tender novel tells the tale of Alfgrim, an abandoned child, whose mother gave birth to him in the turf-and-stone cottage of Bjorn of Brekkukot, the fisherman, on the outskirts of what is now Reykjavfk. It evokes his boyhood and youth, spent at his grandparents' home in the early years of the twentieth century, a hospitable place where dignified understatement was the norm and where everything from a lumpfish to a Bible had a fixed price that never changed.
Review
"[Laxness is] a poet who writes to the edge of the pages, a visionary who allows us a plot . . ." (Fay Weldon, The Daily Telegraph)
Review
"This weird and wonderful novel, about the price you pay for 'the one true note,' is Laxness at his best . . ." (Nicholas Shakespeare)
Synopsis
*BY THE WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE*
'Laxness at his best: a reminder of the mad hilarity of the Icelandic sensibility. An endearing and unforgettable voice' Nicholas Shakespeare
Abandoned as a baby, Alfgrimur is content to spend his days as a fisherman living in the turf cottage outside Reykjavik with the elderly couple he calls grandmother and grandfather. There he shares the mid-loft with a motley bunch of eccentrics and philosophers who find refuge in the simple respect for their fellow men that is the ethos at the Brekkukot. But the narrow horizons of Alfgrimur's idyllic childhood are challenged when he starts school and meets Iceland's most famous singer, the mysterious Garoar Holm. Garoar encourages him to aim for the 'one true note', but how can he attain it without leaving behind the world that he loves?
'It is a novel (a world) that transmits something of the wonder of life' Murray Bail
Synopsis
A childhood in Iceland is the background to this powerful and evocative tale.Halldor Laxness's wistfully tender novel tells the tale of Alfgrim, an abandoned child, whose mother gave birth to him in the turf-and-stone cottage of Bjorn of Brekkukot, the fisherman, on the outskirts of what is now Reykjavfk. It evokes his boyhood and youth, spent at his grandparents' home in the early years of the twentieth century, a hospitable place where dignified understatement was the norm and where everything from a lumpfish to a Bible had a fixed price that never changed.
About the Author
Halldor Laxness was born near Reykjavfk, Iceland, in 1902. He died in 1998. The undisputed master of contemporary Icelandic fiction, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1955.