Independent People
Feb 2009 · Sold by Vintage
4.7star
3 reviews
Ebook
512
Pages
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Eligible
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About this ebook
From the Nobel Prize-winning Icelandic author: a magnificent novel that recalls Iceland's medieval epics and classics, set in the early twentieth century starring an ordinary sheep farmer and his heroic determination to achieve independence. • "A strange story, vibrant and alive…. There is a rare beauty in its telling." —Atlantic Monthly
If Bjartur of Summerhouses, the book's protagonist, is an ordinary sheep farmer, his flinty determination to free himself is genuinely heroic and, at the same time, terrifying and bleakly comic.
Having spent eighteen years in humiliating servitude, Bjartur wants nothing more than to raise his flocks unbeholden to any man. But Bjartur's spirited daughter wants to live unbeholden to him. What ensues is a battle of wills that is by turns harsh and touching, elemental in its emotional intensity and intimate in its homely detail. Vast in scope and deeply rewarding, Independent People is a masterpiece.
If Bjartur of Summerhouses, the book's protagonist, is an ordinary sheep farmer, his flinty determination to free himself is genuinely heroic and, at the same time, terrifying and bleakly comic.
Having spent eighteen years in humiliating servitude, Bjartur wants nothing more than to raise his flocks unbeholden to any man. But Bjartur's spirited daughter wants to live unbeholden to him. What ensues is a battle of wills that is by turns harsh and touching, elemental in its emotional intensity and intimate in its homely detail. Vast in scope and deeply rewarding, Independent People is a masterpiece.
Ratings and reviews
4.7
3 reviews
Paul Demetre
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November 25, 2022
This a an epic story of a crofter who wishes for nothing more than independence, but being at the bottom of society is not an easy place for anyone to find indepedence.
About the author
HALLDÓR LAXNESS was born near Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1902. His first novel was published when he was seventeen. The undisputed master of contemporary Icelandic fiction and one of the outstanding novelists of the century, he has written more than sixty books, including novels short stories, essays, poems, plays and memoirs. In 1955 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in 1998.
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