Bobby's review
Independent People
by Halldór Kiljan Laxness
Bobby's review
Independent People by Halldór Kiljan Laxness
Bobby's review
rating:
bookshelves:
fiction
recommended for: serious readers
To properly appreciate and read this book, on must hunker down on the cold heath, be it your home or abroad, ignore the heat or embrace the cold, and read each line as if it was the first.
Some books can be consumed whole, reading sentences, paragraphs, pages, all at once, your consciousness able to swallow great chunks and extract nutrition. But Laxness' book is not of this nature, it is the opposite - the larger chunks you swallow, the slower you must read, because on a fast reading you have to repeat whole pages and chapters in order to understand.
Yes, Independent People is best appreciated with a moist and slow eye. Each sentence and paragraph is subtle poetry, lyrics of a Norse life, a great vivid imagining of a hard peasant. To read this book is no light undertaking, but nothing could be easier, for Laxness taps into essential, sharable truth.
Some books can be consumed whole, reading sentences, paragraphs, pages, all at once, your consciousness able to swallow great chunks and extract nutrition. But Laxness' book is not of this nature, it is the opposite - the larger chunks you swallow, the slower you must read, because on a fast reading you have to repeat whole pages and chapters in order to understand.
Yes, Independent People is best appreciated with a moist and slow eye. Each sentence and paragraph is subtle poetry, lyrics of a Norse life, a great vivid imagining of a hard peasant. To read this book is no light undertaking, but nothing could be easier, for Laxness taps into essential, sharable truth.
