Halldór Laxness, Independent People **** 1/2

To prolong the glow of our recent trip to Iceland, I reread Halldór Laxness' masterpiece Independent People. Perhaps I was inspired by seeing the book in the window of every book shop and souvenir stand in the country?

Independent People tells the story of Bjartur of Summerhouses, a sheep farmer living in a turf-roofed croft in the Icelandic highlands. His sole goal is to not be in debt to anyone, neither financial debt nor social indebtedness. It's an admirable goal, but it makes Bjartur difficult to get along with, especially for his wives and children.

Most of Independent People takes place at Bjartur's croft. We learn a lot about the sheep and about the harsh, beautiful moors that form his land. The outside world intervenes only rarely until near the end. Laxness' prose is sardonic and lovely. There are a few vivid chapters that I'll not forget: the night of terror that Bjartur's first wife Rosa spends alone in the croft, Bjartur's nearly fatal search for a missing ewe, the crofters discussing the stroke of good fortune provided by World War I. The relationship between Bjartur and his (foster) daughter Asta Sóllilja is well drawn and even heartwarming.

The book loses some of its power when it expands its borders in the final 50 pages or so. On the one hand, introducing the politics of wider Iceland helps put Bjartur's struggles into perspective, but at the expense of the focus on character and setting. It also felt a little rushed to me; I'd adjusted to the pace of Bjartur's life.

Michael Steinberg, The Fiction of a Thinkable World ***

The Fiction of a Thinkable World argues that Western philosophy and institutions presuppose a false picture of people as autonomous thinking subjects confronting stimuli that is external to the self. In fact, our conscious thinking is not independent from, but rather continuous with, our subconscious and social actions. However, modern capitalist society depends on the myth of independent autonomous individuals –– in economics, in the voting booth, in the marketplace –– and our everyday experience therefore reinforces the illusion of an integrated self.

The author takes a different approach to denying the mind/body distinction. The question is not whether thoughts are any more than brain states, but whether abstract thought is in any way distinct from the subconscious activities of our bodies. He also shows how deeply engrained individualism is in modern society, and some of the ways it is destructive to our well-being.

Unfortunately, though, he doesn't even attempt to describe an alternative way of thinking/acting. A couple of times he says that other social models existed before Western capitalism bowled them over, but he doesn't describe them beyond some vague hand-waving in the directions of Taoism. I was left with a compelling critique but nowhere to go with it.

Sjón, From the Mouth of the Whale ** 1/2

Not surprisingly, bookstores in Iceland promote Halldór Laxness and various Icelandic crime writers. I've read several Laxness books and wasn't interested in the crime genre, so I went for a book by Sjón, the Icelandic novelist, poet, and playwright.

As expected from a book by a poet, From the Mouth of the Whale is stronger in its imagery than its plot. The narrator is Jónas Palmason, a self-taught healer in the 17th century. His talent for curing "female maladies" and his obsession with examining dead ravens make him an outcast, suspected of witchcraft. He is banished to a deserted island off the coast, where he considers man's origins and his place in the natural world.

From the Mouth of the Whale has some striking passages, especially in its vivid depictions of the world from Adam's perspective, but it completely lacks narrative drive. Maybe I should have tried one of the crime novelists.