Paradise Reclaimed Book

Fabulous


Halldór Laxness by Einar Hákonarson, 1984

I have never read anything by Halldór Laxness before, so I have no idea if this relatively late novel is typical of him'but it is, in a word, fabulous. I chose it at random, because I am trying to work through all the Nobel Laureates. I then put off reading it for years, thinking it a duty rather than pleasure. How wrong I was! I get no further in than page 5, and here Laxness is (in the luminous translation by Magnus Magnusson), describing the birth of a white pony:
The birth took place in a snowstorm nine days before summer; not a flower in sight, not even a dock-leaf crouching by a wall, certainly no sign of the golden plover yet'the fulmar had scarcely started to hurl itself high in the air to see if the mountains were still there; and suddenly a new creature had been brought into the world almost before the spring itself was born. The little foal ran so lightly at the old mare's side that he could hardly be said to touch the ground with his toes; and yet these tiny hooves were not turned backwards, and this seemed to indicate that he was not a water-kelpie after all'at least not on both sides. Fabulous indeed'literally so, for the novel has its roots in a rural Iceland of simple country ways and folk tales. The protagonist, Steinar of Hlíðar (pronounced, I think, Hleethar), is a ordinary farmer, scraping a living on this mountainside farm to support his wife and two children. Uncomplicated and a little credulous, but without a mean bone in his body, he is also an utterly good person, one of the select few in literature. Although richer and more powerful neighbors wish to buy his white pony, he refuses their offers and instead rides to Thingvellir (ancient site of the National Parliament) to present the horse to the Danish King, who has come to celebrate the thousandth anniversary of the settlement of the country, which places the action in 1874. Though taken aback, the King accepts the gift, and later invites Steinar to visit the pony in Copenhagen, where it has become a favorite of the royal children.


Thingvellir, Iceland

But Steinar does not come straight back home. In Copenhagen, he meets a Mormon bishop,* who convinces him to go to Utah to see Paradise reclaimed on earth, and provides the money for him to do so. The two had met twice before, actually, for the bishop had returned to his native Iceland on a Mormon mission, and Steinar twice rescued him from being beaten up or worse. It appears that there is quite a large settlement of Icelandic Mormons in Spanish Fork, Utah; Laxness visited it twice, and based much of the novel on the kindness he had received there. It was a special privilege to see the old Mormon ways through the perpetually wide-open eyes of Steinar, or Stone P. Stoneford, as he is called in America.

This was before polygamy had been renounced by the main body of the Church, and it gave me a more sympathetic understanding of the practice'not as a matter of acquisition or lust, but as a kind of charity towards women whom society would otherwise have pushed aside. It speaks to a spirit that Steinar holds in his very breath, and that underlies the humanitarian socialism of the author himself. Accepting his Nobel Prize, he spoke of his grandmother and "…the moral principles she instilled in me: never to harm a living creature; throughout my life, to place the poor, the humble, the meek of this world above all others; never to forget those who were slighted or neglected or who had suffered injustice, because it was they who, above all others, deserved our love and respect." In Utah, Steinar supports himself as a bricklayer and carpenter, making a place for himself in the community through sheer competence and kindness.


Spanish Fork, Utah

Those who pursue the path of goodness may be kind to the people in front of their eyes, but they can also be blind to the fortunes of those they leave behind. Steinar leaves his wife and two young children at Hlíðar, awaiting his return then losing hope. This is the most eventful section of the book, especially in terms of the young daughter, who has no idea of relations between women and men. But even here, the fabulous tone continues, softening the edges of what would, in reality, have been a desperately painful few years. Eventually, though, Steinar sends for his family to join him. On the ship, his daughter meets a young man, and discovers she has a natural rhythm for dancing, an activity that was banned in Iceland. Laxness weaves his fabulist magic once more, describing the process of falling in love with someone who does not speak a word of your language:
That is why sages believe that language is one of mankind's blunders, and consider that the chirping of birds, with appropriate gestures of the wings, says far more than any poem, however carefully worded; they even go so far as to think that one fish is wiser than twelve tomes of philosophy. The happy assurance that two young people can read in one another's eyes becomes incomprehensible in verbal explanation; silent confession can turn into a denial if the magic spell is broken by words. The author's gentle irony is delightful, but Laxness uses it with a purpose. For the world is more worldly than idealists imagine. What good is paradise in Utah if its price is ruin in Iceland? In the final chapters of the novel, both Steinar and the reader must face some moral calculations. The farmer turned bricklayer does not weigh them out theologically, of course; he does not have the mind for that. But he addresses them in the practical way he has always done, by putting one stone on top of another, building a wall. It is a beautiful, beautiful ending to a radiant book.

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*The bishop has a name, Þjóðrekur. I won't even try to give a phonetic equivalent. Both the "thorn" (Þ) and "eth" (ð) characters are th sounds, one unvoiced as in "with" and the other voiced as in "breathe." Although I once studied Old Icelandic as part of my degree and should be familiar with this stuff, I found it a distinct difficulty with this otherwise delightful translation that proper names were not transliterated'especially when they are as daunting as this!