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The Fish Can Sing

Halldór Laxness,

Magnus Magnusson (Translator),

Jane Smiley (Goodreads Author) (Introduction)

3.89 · Rating details · 2,029 ratings · 280 reviews

The Fish Can Sing is one of Nobel Prize winner Halldór Laxness’s most beloved novels, a poignant coming-of-age tale marked with his peculiar blend of light irony and dark humor.

The orphan Alfgrimur has spent an idyllic childhood sheltered in the simple turf cottage of a generous and eccentric elderly couple. Alfgrimur dreams only of becoming a fisherman like his adoptive g ...more

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Paperback, 246 pages

Published February 19th 2008 by Vintage (first published 1957)

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Sep 01, 2013 Dolors rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Listen to the wind

Recommended to Dolors by: Ema

Shelves: read-in-2016

Laxness brings together a catalog of eccentric characters and peculiar anecdotes to tell the story of Algrimur, an orphan taken in by an elderly couple that becomes his only family in a tiny village in the outskirts of Reykyjavík.
In the turf cottage where Algrimur grows up, a disparate crew of extravagant guests gathers at night. The impoverished farmers, fishermen and shepherds get transformed into vagrant-soothsayers, quack-philosophers, sea captains and specialists in cesspools, who sit by t Laxness brings together a catalog of eccentric characters and peculiar anecdotes to tell the story of Algrimur, an orphan taken in by an elderly couple that becomes his only family in a tiny village in the outskirts of Reykyjavík.
In the turf cottage where Algrimur grows up, a disparate crew of extravagant guests gathers at night. The impoverished farmers, fishermen and shepherds get transformed into vagrant-soothsayers, quack-philosophers, sea captains and specialists in cesspools, who sit by the fire to tell their life stories in an allegoric cannon of fiercely original voices.

More than a delightful literary divertimento, “The fish can sing” offers a painfully accurate portrait of life and its hardships in a rural Iceland that is about to disappear engulfed by impending modernity.
The motley assortment of characters orchestrated by Algrimur, who writes his own story as an omniscient narrator, reveals the classic confrontation between two opposed conceptions of the world: the yesteryear social structure, composed of hardened men, self-sufficient in dignified poverty but with great capacity for compassion; and the new emergent class of businessmen and government administrators, or “the authorities”, as Algrimur calls them employing a very fine irony that brutally denounces their treacherous dispositions; who make use of their influence and financial strength to become even more powerful, enough to rule the future.

It’s with critical eye that the fish in this concert sing; in the small, almost imperceptible details - and tragedies- of the characters’ daily lives that faith in society can be restored; for the “true note” that the young protagonist searches without rest, and seemingly to no avail, is hidden in the inexhaustible wisdom of the ordinary, of the common people: in the worn-out Pastor’s chants in every funeral, in the generous hospitality of Algrimur’s foster-grandfather, in the silent suffering of his grandmother, in the disinterested kindness of a music teacher, in the truth to be found in Schubert’s “Der Erlkönig”.

Laxness’ minute prose generates lucidity rather than nostalgia, but the vivid collage of folklore, myth and tradition, taken as a whole, constitutes a profound meditation on perception, life and death that brims over with philosophical implications.
Algrimur might be the last witness of a world in extinction whose people belong to the past; but the prolonged exposition of their incredible lives, captured slowly, in all their austerity and artistry, achieves a paradoxical goal: to stop the passage of time through the smell, taste and color of Laxness’ fleeting snapshots.

“The movements of her body were like the leisurely tail-movements of the lumpfish, and the soul in her face had the fragrance of strawberries.”
...more

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Nov 20, 2018 Meike rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: iceland, 2018-read

Two years after being awarded the Nobel Prize, Laxness published this bildungsroman about the young Icelander Álfgrímur whose coming-of-age at the beginning of the 20th century coincides with the advancement of capitalist modernity in Iceland. Abandoned by his mother, Álfgrímur grows up with loving fostergrandparents in a cottage named Brekkukot in Reykjavik (the Icelandic original of the book is called "The Annals of Brekkukot"). His fostergrandfather Björn works as a fisherman, never demanding Two years after being awarded the Nobel Prize, Laxness published this bildungsroman about the young Icelander Álfgrímur whose coming-of-age at the beginning of the 20th century coincides with the advancement of capitalist modernity in Iceland. Abandoned by his mother, Álfgrímur grows up with loving fostergrandparents in a cottage named Brekkukot in Reykjavik (the Icelandic original of the book is called "The Annals of Brekkukot"). His fostergrandfather Björn works as a fisherman, never demanding more money for his goods than he needs to survive, and lives values like integrity, humility and charity without making a show of it. A recurring metaphor is the old clock in the living room at Brekkukot that chimes in harmony with the church bell, and that seems to tick a four-syllable word with emphasis on alternate syllables: Eternity. But time passes.

At Brekkukot, Björn helps all kinds of people in turmoil, and large parts of the book deal with Álfgrímur meeting Icelanders and some foreigners from all walks of life. A central character is Garðar Hólm, who is allegedly a celebrated singer abroad and returns to Iceland several times - is art a calling or a profession, is it about happiness or fame, is it about truth or beauty? "People have kept on asking me", Álfgrímur recounts, "did he sing well? I reply, the world is a song, but we do not know wehether it's a good song because we have nothing to compare it with." While Álfgrímur is fascinated by the singer, he would be content to stay home in Iceland and become a fisherman like Björn, but the latter knows that industrialized fishing will change the profession and wants his fosterson to get an education - and he is willing to sacrifice the past for his future.

This is a wonderfully moving tale, full of vivid imagery and quirky characters. Brekkukot was modeled after the farm Melkot on which Laxness' parents met, now a literature landmark in Reykjavik, UNESCO's first non-English speaking City of Literature (https://bokmenntaborgin.is/en/node/7771). Icelandic literature is so unbelievably good. Just read Laxness, and then Sjón. ...more

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Apr 01, 2013 Ema rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: bookish-gems, iceland, read-in-2013, favs, netraduse

The fish can sing just like a bird,
And grazes on the moorland scree,
While cattle in a lowing herd
Roam the rolling sea.

Starting from this Icelandic paradox put in verse, Halldór Laxness weaves an enchanting tale on the outskirts of Reykjavík, in a time when the price of a Bible was equal to that of a heifer and people still tried to cure headaches by smearing their faces with warm cow-dung. Some say that The Fish Can Sing is a coming-of-age novel, but I don't really see it that way; it is more th ...more

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Jan 05, 2017 Ray rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

A gentle comedy set in pre independence Iceland.

Alfgrimur is abandoned as a baby and is brought up in a run down shack on the outskirts of Reykjavik. Passing through the house are a motley bunch of deadbeat lodgers and wacky characters. Most intriguing of all is Gardar Holm, the son of a neighbour. He is a local boy made good overseas as a world renowned singer ....... or is he.

Gardar flits in and out of the boys life during fleeting return trips home, almost but not quite giving a concert to h ...more

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Jul 26, 2011 Dagný rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is the same book as, in the English version, is called The Fish Can Sing

This is very possibly the best book ever written.

Forgive my fretting about translations, I didn't want people to miss a thing. Then I realized that the books' tone, that true tone, will reach through all human languages.

The story is set in Reykjavik in the beginning of the 20th century. These are reminiscences about a boyhood spent with an old couple who adopt this abandoned baby in the same manner they welcome several ...more

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Jan 15, 2012 Antonomasia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: decade-1950s, nordic, iceland, 2014

Loved the earlier part of the book, an Icelandic Cider with Rosie, not so much the latter. That could have had something to do with struggling through the second half in the haze of a seemingly random, day-long migraine-like headache and aftermath. I could see the story was *good*, but wasn't on board with its particular brand of bittersweet illusion-shattering enterprise.

It's going to be easiest to discuss this after quoting the blurb:
Abandoned as a baby, Álfgrímur is content to spend his days Loved the earlier part of the book, an Icelandic Cider with Rosie, not so much the latter. That could have had something to do with struggling through the second half in the haze of a seemingly random, day-long migraine-like headache and aftermath. I could see the story was *good*, but wasn't on board with its particular brand of bittersweet illusion-shattering enterprise.

It's going to be easiest to discuss this after quoting the blurb:
Abandoned as a baby, Álfgrímur 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 Brekkukot. But the narrow horizons of Álfgrímur's idyllic childhood are challenged when he starts school and meets Iceland's most famous singer, the mysterious Garðar Holm. Garðar encourages him to aim for the "one true note", but how can he attain it without leaving behind the world that he loves?
Rural idyll? Household of eccentric, tolerant people? Musicians? Obviously it sounds like something I'd like - I first bought this 12 years ago after finding it in a bookshop. (Long before all you non-hipsters were into Nordic stuff...)

What was most interesting was a sense of Icelandic-ness, which is building up through some other books I've started recently (not yet finished or reviewed). To describe it as a blend of liberality and harshness sounds all wrong, as if it's conflicted - it's more that qualities combine in ways which aren't quite usual in English culture; it makes sense as part of the physical environment and isn't easy to explain in words. This old couple provide an unquestioning refuge for people in various predicaments, yet aspects of their own emotional world would look excessively reticent and restrained to the most stiff-upper-lipped of Brits: with their boy, love and especially falling-in are barely talked of, or as something in "hysterical" imported (Danish) novels, people who are dying are described as "off their food" and so forth. (But in a way it fits as in my own experience, the most supportive people are those who are just quietly, solidly there and let you get on with being however you are at the time, not fussing or being strongly emotional themselves. Or perhaps that's closer to the Millsian / Rogerian philosophy of one visitor to the household: I reckon one should help all creatures to live as they want to live. Even if a mouse came to me and said that it was going to fly over the ocean, and an eagle said it was thinking of digging itself a hole in the ground, I would say 'Go ahead'. One should at least allow everyone to live as he himself wants to live as long as he does not prevent others from living as they want to live.) However the foster-grandparents' emotional buttoned-up-ness filters through later in inconvenient ways as Álfgrímur finds himself more tongue-tied than the average teenage male narrator when he's confronted with attractive girls.

There is a cosiness about the book, but Álfgrímur's lack of interior reflection about his teenage years and schooling, which he found unenjoyable though seemingly not awful, (contrasting with the vibrant descriptions of the childhood he still evidently misses) made him less appealing a narrator as he grew older; his lack of reflectiveness and not-very-rich memory here is at least true to psychological type. The story is well-structured but the later parts didn't give as much insight into the characters (especially Garðar), or even atmosphere and sense of place as the beginnings promised, although it's possible I missed things given the circumstances of reading. Still, the book has the romance of an idyll and its perhaps-inevitable loss. ...more

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May 15, 2017 d.a.v.i.d rated it it was amazing

...and swim underwater, for a really long time.

Great stuff from this Icelander.

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Feb 07, 2012 Friederike Knabe rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: european-lit

Halldór Laxness is undoubtedly Iceland's most famous writer. The story goes that he was in the middle of writing "Brekkukotsannall" - translated (surprisingly) as The Fish Can Sing - when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature (in 1955). Did this recognition change the way he completed the novel? May be, maybe not. Still, reading it with that knowledge in the back of my mind, the novel turns for me into much more that the intimate portrait of a "family", a small village community at the t Halldór Laxness is undoubtedly Iceland's most famous writer. The story goes that he was in the middle of writing "Brekkukotsannall" - translated (surprisingly) as The Fish Can Sing - when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature (in 1955). Did this recognition change the way he completed the novel? May be, maybe not. Still, reading it with that knowledge in the back of my mind, the novel turns for me into much more that the intimate portrait of a "family", a small village community at the turn of the last century and a coming-of-age story of a young orphan boy, Alfgrimur. Couched in the narrator's stream of consciousness, gracefully integrating the child's view of his world with that of his older, reflective self, we discover the narrator/author's insightful musings on tradition and modernity, loyalty and betrayal, poverty and wealth, obscurity and celebrity. In his descriptions of people and place, Laxness's affecting sense of irony often makes light of the precarious situation in which most of the traditionally-minded locals in the "village" find themselves. The closely-knit community - fishermen, former navy men, the local priest, and the "old women" who look after them all - at the outskirts of what will eventually become Iceland's capital, Reykjavik - are lovingly portrayed and contrasted with the up-and-coming, wealthier merchant class that threatens the perceived peaceful and harmonious life of the community. The latter also represent the pro-Danes group as well as the influence of the wider world; a world that will threaten the livelihood of the local fishermen, like Bjorn of Brekkukot, Alfgrimur's grandfather...

Young Alfgrimur lives, in his own words, a happy childhood, despite the fact that he was abandoned by his mother and left at Brekkukot shortly after birth... He is happiest when fishing with his grandfather; closest to the old woman he calls "grandmother", even though he knows "nothing about her". Brekkukot, an old turf cottage, is an unofficial guesthouse where various short- or long-term visitors are staying: some come to die and are buried in the nearby church yard, others live out their retirement and others are just transients. All share the cramped place and even beds in the "midloft"; it is the social centre of Alfgrimur's odd "family".

The novel starts with a series of short, unconnected chapters, more like vignettes, through which the older narrator introduces the odd collection of "guests" in Brekkukot and some of the neighbours; all of them appear totally normal to young Alfgrimur and fill his notion of his "world". His and the wider world come together, in a way, for Alfgrimur at least, in the person of Gardar Holm, the famous son of the village, turned world-traveling opera singer. He returns from time to time to Reykjavik and, surprisingly or maybe not, strikes some kind of friendship with young Alfgrimur. In turn, the boy admires the older man, even embarks on teaching himself to sing the funeral hymn as well as Schubert's "Der Erlkönig". However, his idol is not all that he seems to be and Alfgrimur over time learns more lessons from their encounters than he realizes for a long time.

I must admit that I took quite some time before I was able to engage with the novel and its characters. Its richness and beauty only really came together for me after I finished the last page and went back, picking out sections and chapters, reflecting on the underlying themes of the novel, exploring its depth and wisdom. ...more

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Oct 23, 2009 Lorenzo Berardi rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: a-my-english-library, icelandic, 2013

Reykjavik today is such an interesting place. Half spartan northern outpost, half ambitious capital of a scarcely populated but not diminutive country, the biggest (and some say only) town in Iceland welcomed your humble reviewer in style.

Bygone the hectic days of the financial and real estate bubble followed by the economic crisis that lead the local currency to lose a good deal of its value overnight and the national government to fall, Reykjavik is slowly recovering. Quite reluctantly, many Reykjavik today is such an interesting place. Half spartan northern outpost, half ambitious capital of a scarcely populated but not diminutive country, the biggest (and some say only) town in Iceland welcomed your humble reviewer in style.

Bygone the hectic days of the financial and real estate bubble followed by the economic crisis that lead the local currency to lose a good deal of its value overnight and the national government to fall, Reykjavik is slowly recovering. Quite reluctantly, many Icelanders have to reckon that tourism turned out to be a damn good goldmine for the country. According to the Visitor's Guide handed over by the Tourism Office in Ingolfstorg (a main square shaped by burger joints and marauded by skateboarders), 278,000 people visited Iceland in 2002, while 672,000 did it ten years later. Given the importance and the position of the capital - not to mention the proximity of Keflavik, the only international airport - I have reasons to believe that 9 out of 10 of these tourists passed through Reykjavik (sorry Akureyri folks!).

When I visited the place - at the end of the summer of 2013 - I couldn't help but finding the wonderful Harpa a shiny blackish convention centre cum opera house straight on the waterfront, slightly overdimensioned for a town the size of Reykjavik. Especially considering how, the capital of Iceland already had a Opera House. Ok, the building has just won the prestigious Mies van der Rohe Award 2013 which is to say the Nobel Prize for Architecture and is labelled as 'Reykjavik Latest Landmark'. But still. Personally, I've found the building bearing many a resemblance with the new Royal Library in Copenhagen (aka The Black Diamond) and the Utrecht University Library. But I'm no architect, indeed.

Some Icelanders would have rather preferred, say, a new hospital for their capital - the one I saw looked in a pretty bad shape - or those 164 million Euros to be invested elsewhere. Completed and open to cultural business on 2011, two years later the building does still look like the proverbial cathedral in the desert as no money were left for a development project including a 400-room hotel, luxury apartments, retail units, a car park and the new headquarters of an Icelandic bank (ironically). Which, your reviewer believes, it's a positive thing.

One must not forget that Reykjavik is still administred by a comedian playing the mayor. And sometimes it shows. Formerly a misdiagnosed retarded child, a punk rocker, a cab driver and founder of the self proclaimed Best Party (Besti flokkurinn), Jon Gnarr was dismissed as 'not very entertaining' and a disgrace by all the locals I spoke with. I mean, where else in the world you have the most popular weekly flea market in town being hosted in the ground floor of the National Customs House? Isn't that ironic? I mean not even the bohemian likes of former playwright and Czechoslovakian President Vaclav Havel could have made it better.
(For some additional awe-inspiring fun, just check the Icelandic phonebook which is one for all the country and has people listed on it alphabetically but by their first name).

Anyways, the Reykjavik that you can find in 'The Fish Can Sing' looks centuries away from the one I saw. And yet, merely one hundred years have passed by as Laxness set his novel at the beginning of 20th century. At that time, Reykjavik was the capital of a poor, remote and backwardish Danish province with none of the cultural, technological and environmental zest of contemporary Iceland.
The town itself gravitated around a couple of long streets, the church, a main square and the Danish Government building (formerly a prison). A bunch of shopkeepers with Danishised surnames and toying with Latin mottoes were the bourgeoisie. The price of jet-set commodities such as books and cream cakes was compared to the one of sheep and cows. Cottages still had turf-made roofs. And all that came from Copenhagen - save preachers - was fashionable.

This is the Reykjavik were the orphan Alfgrimur Hansson (a surname meaning the son of Him and thus given to children with no parents) grows up fishing lumpfish with his adoptive 'grandad' Bjoern of Brekkukot, being chased by the plump daughter of the greatest shopkeeper in town and wearing the shoes of the opera singer Gardar Holm, the man who sung for the Pope and made Iceland known worldwide.

Holm is a masterfully built and elusive fictional character who is suddenly appearing and disappearing in town baffling the local authorities and bourgeoisie who always try to give him a kingly welcome. When reading about Holm and his idiosyncrasies, I thought that Laxness was partially talking about himself - just change the profession of singer with the one of writer - and that could be true. At the same time, this Gardar Holm who is reluctantly playing the ambassador of Iceland in Paris, Rome and New York is exactly what Bjork became for her country in the 1990s (and Sigur Ros in the 2000s): a celebrity detached by his/her homecountry due to their talent, but later pining for a return back home with world weary eyes hoping to be left in peace by the media.

To be honest, not that much happens in 'The Fish Can Sing', but for those who are interested in how people lived, thought - and what they dreamed - in Reykjavik one century ago this novel has a historic significance. The coming of age of the protagonist is not that compelling, but it works as well.

Laxness himself was a communist (but driving a Jaguar) who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1955 due to his portrayal of rural Iceland - go and read 'Independent People'! - and hated any foreign influence in his homecountry. If he were still alive, I'm not sure the author would have liked the fact that all of his books in their English translation are easily avaialble in every bookstore, duty free shop and fuel station of Iceland today. Including 'The Atom Station' where Laxness attacks the presence of a Nato base in Keflavik which is exactly what has recently been converted into the only international airport in Iceland.

'The Fish Can Sing' is not Laxness at his best. But this novel does have its charm, includes some decent Icelandic-like humour and I would go for it if you went or are planning to take the next flight to this magnificent and crazy country. Perhaps, if you are lucky, you could get a ticket to see Bjork or Gardar Holm performing at the Harpa seeking for the one note, the same note Alfgrimur Hansson was looking for. ...more

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Jul 26, 2011 Carolyn rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favourites, icelandic-fiction

I am indulging myself by re-reading this literary gem, and what a perfect book it is. It is a gentle, humorous coming-of-age narrative written in the first person set in the early 1900s. Reykjavik was only a town of 5,000 people, and the farm Brekkukot was situated right on the edge of the current cbd.
It is a simple story, beautifully told, of a young boy Alfgrimur, left by his mother on her way to America. He is fostered by Bjorn and his wife, the elderly couple whose farm is a haven and home f I am indulging myself by re-reading this literary gem, and what a perfect book it is. It is a gentle, humorous coming-of-age narrative written in the first person set in the early 1900s. Reykjavik was only a town of 5,000 people, and the farm Brekkukot was situated right on the edge of the current cbd.
It is a simple story, beautifully told, of a young boy Alfgrimur, left by his mother on her way to America. He is fostered by Bjorn and his wife, the elderly couple whose farm is a haven and home for any amount of wayfarers: no-one, apart from drunks, is unwelcome. This couple, especially Bjorn, would have to be the most humane, perfect and moral (in the truest sense) characters ever created in literature. One feels that if the world took Bjorn's ethos as its own, we would live in an earthly paradise. On the pursuit of money, for instance, Bjorn avers that "...all great wealth was inconsistent with common sense."

Even though Bjorn reads from a book of sermons each Sunday,
"...references to ancient eccentrics from the far east of the Mediterranean, enhanced by the rigidly systemic theology of German peasants...", his moral code is all his own. As Alfgrimur observes,
"I think my grandfather Bjorn of Brekkukot would not have been significantly different if he had lived here in Iceland in pagan times", or anywhere else, for that matter.

This glorious simplicity is contrasted with the pretensions of the Danes and their local wannabes. Even the notion of celebrity, in the hero-worship of Gardur Holm, the supposedly world renowned singer, is lampooned. The Brekkukot household is immune from this, staunchly Icelandic with their respect for the old ways. The simple language and old sayings were part of daily currency. Even modern literature was suspect:
"Danish novels...this was the name which applied in our house to modern literature in general, but particularly anything to do with hysteria." This is the reverse of their own traditions:
"....the story-teller's own life never came into the story, let alone his opinions. The subject matter was allowed to speak for itself."
Thus it was in the sagas. Indeed, even Halldor's writing reflects the ancient style in parts. Right at the beginning, when Alfgrimur's mother leaves for America, he writes, "...and she is now out of this story."

However, to me it is not just the story, engaging as it is, but the sheer brilliance of the writing. So many passages are pure poetry. Captain Hogensen, an elderly resident of Brekkukot, is described thus:
"...the light of the world had more or less taken leave of this man, for he was almost blind."
Or this, written in the middle of winter:
"Somewhere, out in the infinite distance lay the spring, at least in God's mind, like the babies that are not yet conceived in the mother's womb."

In the late 17th century, during the Great Fire of Copenhagen, the scholar and great saga collector Arni Magnusson strove desperately to rescue as many of these precious writings as he could.
If a fire broke out in my house, I would fight to do exactly the same with my beloved Halldor Laxness books, especially this one. ...more

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Apr 02, 2019 Sanja_Sanjalica rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nordic

I have a feeling that I describe every other Icelandic book as weird. This is one of those as well. Maybe just call it Icelandic weird (a good kind of weird). The pace is quite slow, you can actually read it as short stories in the majority of chapters, since the main character usually describes people and their life stories. The style of writing is really captivating and beautiful, it really transported me to another time and space. I took me a long time to finish this book, but that's only bec ...more

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Dec 31, 2018 Jo rated it really liked it · review of another edition

It took me fifty pages or so to get into this novel as I think I was expecting something more plot driven but the book is a more of a memoir of Alfgrimur, an orphan taken in by two loving older people to live with them in this small prescribed area in Rekyajik where everyone knows everyone else. It is also about Gardar Holm, the opera singer who has gone out into the wide world to achieve fame for Iceland, someone who is revered and respected yet has secrets that remain only hinted at even by th It took me fifty pages or so to get into this novel as I think I was expecting something more plot driven but the book is a more of a memoir of Alfgrimur, an orphan taken in by two loving older people to live with them in this small prescribed area in Rekyajik where everyone knows everyone else. It is also about Gardar Holm, the opera singer who has gone out into the wide world to achieve fame for Iceland, someone who is revered and respected yet has secrets that remain only hinted at even by the end of the novel.

This is a quiet, slow paced novel where little happens, instead we get pictures of life in Iceland during this period, the fishing, the traditions and the people often told with humor and wit. Alfgrimur’s grandparents’ house is used as kind of hostel by travelers and visitors alike and each of these ‘guests’ has a story behind them that is explored chapter by chapter. The guests often tell stories of adventure, of tragedy and of the ‘ghosts and the Hidden Folk’, stories that contrast with the simple life of Alfgrimur and his grandparents who nevertheless have pasts that are revealed piece by piece.

We see Alfgrimur grow up and begin to study and to sing and all the while the mysterious Gardar is in the background, appearing and disappearing. He becomes larger than life as the novel progresses but it is the minor characters who sustain the interest whether it be Captain Hogensen, Miss Gudmunsen, or the woman from Landbrot all with their foibles and funny ways and it is the love between Alfgimmur and his grandparents that is the heart of the novel for me.

Some favorite lines
‘he never deviates from the special manner of reading that people in Iceland once used for God’s Words, a monotonous and solemn chant in a high-pitched tone that dropped a fourth at the end of every sentence. This style of reading bore no trace of wordliness, although it had certain affinities with the mumblings of some of the mentally deranged.’

‘In Brekkukot, words were too precious to use – because they meant something; our conversation was like pristine money before inflation; experience was too profound to be capable of expression; only the bluebottle was free.’

“The man who wears no socks can acquire things which bestockinged people can never obtain. By saving on socks, one can afford stamps for letters from philosophers throughout the world and get from them the correct interpretation of obscure words in Sanskrit.”

‘Nothing was more natural to her than that turf-sods should be fastened round her thighs in order to increase her earthly strength, or that people should try to stop up her nostrils with warm cow-dung at the behest of some southern dung-doctor with a cleft palate, to see if such treatment could not ease the head pains.’
...more

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Aug 28, 2011 Katie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I want to re-read this book already. I read it in Iceland, continuing my vow to read only local authors when I travel the world. Sitting on top of an Icelandic mountain, surrounded by sheep covered in that famous wool, looking out over the ocean, and reading this superb little book of stories, was just about the happiest I have ever been. He is beyond comparison, but Laxness can perhaps be likened to Hemingway, if Hemingway liked people. Laxness loves them. He loves the lessons they teach each o ...more

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Apr 27, 2015 Stela rated it liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Stela by: Ema

Shelves: neo-realism, nobel-authors, postmodernism, reviews

“Where fish leaves off in Iceland, Latin takes over”

I know I am unjust with my three-star rating, but The Fish Can Sing is one of those books I’ve instantly recognized the literary value of, but I couldn’t care much for. Moreover, it constantly reminded me of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses (I hear some heartfelt protests here!) in a bizarre, twisted kind of way, not only because I had the same mixed feelings about that one too, but also because it is its total opposite: instead of a rich, overc ...more

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Feb 13, 2008 Abi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Those looking for interesting and original writing

Shelves: 20th-century, nobel-prize-winning, iceland

My second Laxness novel after Independent People, this is lighter in subject matter, and more lyrical in style. It is a charming novel dealing with the coming of age of Álfgrímur, an orphan brought up by his 'grandparents' in a small village in Iceland (Reykjavík, in the days when it was a small village). It is not your typical coming of age novel though; it is profoundly odd in a way that is difficult to explain but that stems mainly from the mysterious Garðar Hólm, the singer reminiscent in so ...more

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Jan 20, 2014 Jenny (Reading Envy) marked it as did-not-finish · review of another edition

Shelves: cold-weather-islands, around-the-world, location-iceland, speed-date-4

Blasphemy, but I feel like in reading one book by Laxness I kind of have him covered. He gets repetitive in his patterns and it makes the actual plot in his novels take a long time to get to.

But one of my rules in speed dating my collection is being willing to say NOPE. ...more

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Jul 21, 2013 Michelle rated it really liked it

What a strange and bewildering book! I started it eagerly, then languished a bit in its digressive opening chapters. After ignoring it for a few weeks, I moved it to my 'on hold' shelf – usually the kiss of death – only to pick it up again and find myself drawn in. The story is narrated by a young boy, Alfgrímur, growing up under the care of his adoptive grandparents, who are principled, hardworking, poor, and generous to the point of recklessness. Their seaside cottage outside Reykjavik (still, ...more

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Nov 11, 2012 Sian Lile-Pastore rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I read this because i got all icelandy after reading Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland. Laxness is 'the undisputed master of contemporary Icelandic fiction and one of the outstanding novelists of the twentieth century', so you'd have to be an idiot not to like this right?

I'm that idiot.

It is beautifully written and has a sweet sort of quiet feel to it, and I like reading about coffee and cake.... but... I found it so slow! and I just wanted it to end. There is a lot about lumpfish in this ...more

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Jun 20, 2014 Guttersnipe Das rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

For years now I’ve loved the work of Halldor Laxness, Iceland’s pre-eminent man of letters, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1955 but now is seldom read. I am forever thrusting his books upon people and begging them to read him at once. Usually I urge them to start with “Independent People”, which is regarded as his masterpiece.

This does not always go well.

One of my friends complained, “It’s 500 pages about sheep farming!”

I said, “Yes. It is 500 UTTERLY SCINTILLATING pages about sheep ...more

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Jan 28, 2016 Calzean rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: dysfunctional-family-life, author-iceland, nobel-prize-winner, culture-iceland

A Wonderful portrait of the simple life in a small village near Reykjavik in the days when bibles cost a cow, the need for a barber shop was a point of much debate, fables, little people and simplicity ruled.

It traces the early life of a boy abandoned at birth and reared by two old people who share their poor abode with a great set of mad characters. There is a mysterious famous opera singer, kind people and a few ambitious people.

There's a lot going on this part-saga, part-historical piece. Gre ...more

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Apr 29, 2010 Jessi rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: book-club-book

I know that this book is very well regarded but I was bored. It's very flowery language, well-interpreted but bo-o-o-ring. The other women in the Tumbleweed bookclub liked it alot (except Lisa, she agreed with me). This is a wonderful glimpse into 1950s Icleand and, if you can slog through the entire book, a great ending but dear good in heaven, you have to work for it. ...more

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Aug 05, 2018 Leif rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I cannot speak highly enough about this book. It is marbled through with a deep and abiding concern for the welfare of the fame-less multitude, those individuals who live unnoticed and on what seem to others like the margins of life. It also breaks apart its thematic heart upon the bait-and-switch of the idea of a single, pure note: a moment of perfection that will justify everything and all in a person's life, if only - when only - it occurs. But if, and when?

If people adhere to the doctrine th

If people adhere to the doctrine that words are spoken in order to hide one's thoughts, that words mean something entirely different, sometimes even directly opposite to what they are saying, it is possible, occasionally at least, to reconcile oneself to them and to forgive the poet; not to mention if the words in all their strangeness have the task of indicating the truth in music; one is forced to acknowledge them then to a certain extent – for the music's sake.

And there is the core of the matter, one of the ruminant stomachs of Laxness' laughing wisdom in the busy concision of the orphan Alfgrimur, who is entirely gormless and yet always thinking and beautiful: "for instance, my legs were so long that they always got in my way when I walked, and my arms hung on me like some tatty pieces of luggage that I did not know how to get rid of. My face showed no trace whatever of a smile, just as if the soul had been drained from it leaving nothing behind except the anxiety it felt about its own emptiness: a life-prisoner peering out through the bars."

There is so much to Alfgrimur's story: a refusal of easy celebrity, the ironizing of the conceit of "meaning" that churns below the preference for some lives over others, and the buoyant, ineffable hope and laughter that accompanies wisdom's search for purchase in the everyday confusion of the lives of others. Laxness is, as ever, sensitive and moving while cleverly deploying exaggerated conceits with the grace of a true master.

And behind it all, again and again, the ever-present recognition of humanity. Here is Alfgrimur, on his patient, loving grandmother:

It was not until after I was fully grown that I noticed her sufficiently to feel that I really saw her. Suddenly one day I simply felt that she was probably closer to me than anyone else in the world, even though I knew less about her than anyone else and despite the fact that she had been in her grave for some time by then.

And isn't that one of the saddest, perhaps most inevitable truths? Among the many relationships that The Fish Can Sing charts, none are minor or forgotten. Nor I think can the novel's final gesture be left forgotten: it does not end with these forgettings and deaths that it foresees, but instead the beautiful, final image of the boy's adoptive grandparents on his leaving on a boat. An image of generosity in spirit and action, with no naïf romanticism and, instead, deep love:

When the boat had gone a few oar-strokes away from land they were still standing on the beach, gazing after the boy whom an unknown woman had left naked in their arms. They were holding hands, and other people gave way before them, and I could see no one except them. Or were they perhaps so extraordinary that other people melded away and vanished into thin air around them?
When I had clambered up with my bag on to the deck of the mail-boat North Star, I saw them walking back together on their way home: on the way to our turnstile-gate; home to Brekkukot, our house which was to be razed to the ground tomorrow. The were walking hand in hand, like children.

...more

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Mar 09, 2018 Justin Evans rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction

Solid, if a bit unfocused. I confess I'm not very keen on short novels that have digressions in them; if you're going to digress, do it properly! Or just write a great novella about a young man's artistic awakening, and his attempt to square the urge to create art with the certain knowledge that you're going to fail. ...more

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Dec 23, 2018 Richard Levine rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2018

An off-beat, amusing, and somewhat sweet novel, The Fish Can Sing was very different from the only other Laxness novel I've read, Independent People, which I recall as powerful and bleak. This is much more of a gentle, comic tale, a coming-of-age story filled with odd characters who speak in wry, almost mystical Icelandic aphorisms. It's kind of like an Icelandic Great Expectations, but with a simpler plot, less action, and more fish.
...more

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Jan 14, 2014 Neal Adolph rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: european, nobel-prize, 2014-reads, translated

After having finished this novel this morning, I'm grateful for it.

The Fish Can Sing is the story of a building, community, and place in Iceland that is a part of the growing city of Reykjavik. This place is changing rapidly, even though the protagonist - a young boy named Alfgrimur - is mostly unaware of the changes because his adopted grandmother and grandfather live very traditional lives. They impart a great deal of wisdom to Alfgrimur because of their traditions - morals about life, love, m After having finished this novel this morning, I'm grateful for it.

The Fish Can Sing is the story of a building, community, and place in Iceland that is a part of the growing city of Reykjavik. This place is changing rapidly, even though the protagonist - a young boy named Alfgrimur - is mostly unaware of the changes because his adopted grandmother and grandfather live very traditional lives. They impart a great deal of wisdom to Alfgrimur because of their traditions - morals about life, love, money, gossip, relationships. It is quite beautiful and, seemingly, plotless. But change happens, and Alfgrimur accepts it cautiously - he wants to grow up and become a Lumpfisherman, like his grandfather, even after attending school and finishing at the top of the class, and even after learning how to make music - admittedly, how to make music quite poorly - and even after meeting the world famous Gar(th)ur Holm. Unfortunately, or fortunately, that is no longer possible, and so the plot picks up once Gar(th)ur Holm returns to Iceland for his first visit.

From this point onwards I found the book quite difficult to put down. Beforehand, it is a bit more challenging to stay interested in, despite the beautiful writing and the great characters. The construct the place that Laxness is so fond of remembering he tells random stories about its inhabitants and those who pass through. The reader in me wanted to ascribe some kind of moral importance to every passage, and this was not Laxness' intention. From the first paragraph to the last he had a total vision of the book (as great novelists do), and the passages and stories that fill the pages between were only part of the journey to get there rather than themselves perfectly constructed, carefully selected, and concise, precise story-telling. This is not Coetzee; this is Laxness, and he did something beautiful for it. The fullness of this place was able to breath because he did not trim his imagination down to the few pages or characters that were centrally important. This chronicle of Old Iceland is just as much about Iceland as it is about Alfgrimur. As such, the ending is all the more appropriate - sad, but just right.

This novel is filled with a great deal of humour, wonderful writing, and memorable wisdom. It is a story of any place in the world that has found itself losing its traditions to the process of development over which they have little control and in which they have little interest. And for this it is beautiful. I was quite stunned by some of the observations Laxness makes in this story, and how he used humour - something I find I can rarely appreciate in a story - to push a long his ideas and themes. There were passages that were a little unclear, and moments where I was reading text that I didn't know why it was of any value, but I felt like it was important in setting up the mood and sensation of place. The important thing about tradition to Laxness, it seems, is that part of it is nonsensical - what a lovely observation that is!

I look forward to reading more Laxness in the coming years. Many of his works have been translated into English, and so getting my hands of some of his more major accomplishments shouldn't be that challenging. ...more

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Mar 03, 2014 B. Asma rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Nobel Laureate literature

Recommended to B. Asma by: Maggie

Many reviews are very ecstatic about this coming-of-age novel, set in Iceland. That genre generally is not my first choice in reading. Nevertheless, the main character Alfgrímur is quite mature, having a firm mind and knowing the value of self-worth, just needing some guidance about the larger world. It seems that several characters speak about the "one pure note". Even the clock chimes it as the syllables of "eternity" and the old pastor is certain of it daily. The opera singer Gárdár Holm desc ...more

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Dec 06, 2008 Matt rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I gave a copy of 'Under the Glacier' by Laxness as a Christmas gift. But I would not give 'The Fish Can Sing' as a gift. For 'Fish' it takes awhile to see the merit or brilliance in it. I'm aware things went over my head to, it's easy to get lost in the paragrahs, but I think this worth reading, and I realize merit even though I had difficulty with it.
'Under the Glacier' is so bizarre and funny because of how outlandish the content is. This is bizarre too, but a more subtle bizarre. For the firs ...more

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Feb 25, 2020 Yuri Sharon rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction

This apparently simple, plainly-told chronicle is enhanced by an off-hand, engaging drollery, which is rather like the conjurer’s flourish that distracts us from the rabbit (ultimately revealed to be a dove) we suspect is in the hat. Beautifully crafted and paced, with an authorial voice that doesn’t miss a trick, this novel has me looking for more from Laxness.

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May 06, 2015 Sylvester rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: quirky-families, 2015

I've been wanting to read "Independent People" for ages, but this title was much more appealing so I read this instead. It was harder to read than I expected, some bits were delightful, other times I wasn't sure what Laxness was getting at - I'm not sure if this is a translation thing or simply his style. He can be clear as a bell, and then obfuscate to the point that I want to quit. It's odd, too, leafing through the book after I finished it I saw little moments here and there that glinted at m ...more

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May 17, 2018 Alan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: novels

Vastly enjoyable portrait of a bunch of eccentrics living in Reykjavik before it was called that, in a time when cow dung poultices were used to cure headaches and the old ballads were still sung. Singing is the main theme, as the singer Gardar Holm is Iceland's ambassador abroad, and the townspeople relate tales of him filling vast concert halls all around the world and winning awards. The main protagonist Alfgrimur becomes his protege as he grows up and searches for the 'one true note', and Ho ...more

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About Halldór Laxness

Halldór Laxness

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Born Halldór Guðjónsson, he adopted the surname Laxness in honour of Laxnes in Mosfellssveit where he grew up, his family having moved from Reyjavík in 1905. He published his first novel at the age of only 17, the beginning of a long literary career of more than 60 books, including novels, short stories, poetry, and plays. Confirmed a Catholic in 1923, he later moved away from religion and for a l ...more

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“A wise man once said that next to losing its mother, there is nothing more healthy for a child than to lose its father.” — 8 likes

“If he believed it all, he was just like those theologians who store their theology somewhere in a locked compartment of the brain, or rather, perhaps, like those travellers who carry a bottle of iodine in their luggage and take care to keep it tightly corked in case it leaks and ruins their belongings.” — 5 likes

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