Caleb's review
Independent People
by Halldór Kiljan Laxness
Caleb's review
Independent People by Halldór Kiljan Laxness
Caleb's review
rating:
recommended for: Vikings, farmers, unwed teenage mothers, fathers of unwed teenage mothers
Sometimes its hard to get up for the greats, you know? I mean, I dig literature, but sometimes you want to read some Calvin and Hobbes, or some Robert E. Howard, or possibly some paranormal romance about "the lonely ones," doomed to jaded, dusty centuries as wampyrs...I'm just kidding. If you read books about vampires, you deserve it when your children become goths.
But it was tough for me to plow through Independent People. Bjartur is about the least sympathetic protagonist since that piece of pig excrement from "A Clockwork Orange." Fortunately, I did plow through, because somehow, as the book fades away, as gloriously bittersweet as any Iceland sunset (I've never seen an Iceland sunset, but I think we can all agree it's gloriously bittersweet) it leaves you sorrowing for all the condemned little people on the planet, breaking their backs and hurting the people they love in order to be free.
And Bjartur does what he can, at the end, to set things right. ...more
But it was tough for me to plow through Independent People. Bjartur is about the least sympathetic protagonist since that piece of pig excrement from "A Clockwork Orange." Fortunately, I did plow through, because somehow, as the book fades away, as gloriously bittersweet as any Iceland sunset (I've never seen an Iceland sunset, but I think we can all agree it's gloriously bittersweet) it leaves you sorrowing for all the condemned little people on the planet, breaking their backs and hurting the people they love in order to be free.
And Bjartur does what he can, at the end, to set things right. ...more
