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Halldór Laxness (1902–1998)

Forfatter af Frie mænd

132+ Works 6,869 Members 207 Reviews 48 Favorited

Om forfatteren

When presenting the 1955 Nobel Prize to Laxness, the Swedish Academy of Letters cited "his vivid writing, which has renewed the Icelandic narrative art." Laxness has been by turns a Catholic convert, a socialist, and a target of the radical press, some of whom accused Laxness of a class ambivalence vis mere the Saturday Review summarized this way: "Though Laxness came to believe that the novelist's best material is to be found in the proletariat, his rejection of middle-class concerns was never complete, and the ambiguity of his attitude toward the conflict of cultural values accounts for the mixture of humor and pathos that is characteristic of all his novels." Independent People (1934--35) was a bestseller in this country; Paradise Reclaimed Reclaimed (1960), based in part on Laxness's own experiences in the United States, is a novel about a nineteenth-century Icelandic farmer and his travels and experiences, culminating in his conversion to the Mormon church. Laxness owes much to the tradition of the sagas and writes with understated restraint, concentrating almost entirely on external details, from which he extracts the utmost in absurdity. An Atlantic writer found that The Fish Can Sing (1957), the adventures of a young man in 1900 who wants to be a singer, "simmers with an ironic, disrespectful mirth which gives unexpected dimensions to the themes of lost innocence and the nature of art." (Bowker Author Biography) vis mindre

Serier

Værker af Halldór Laxness

Frie mænd (1946) 2,886 eksemplarer
Islands klokke (1951) 672 eksemplarer
År og dage i Brattekåd (1966) 629 eksemplarer
Under the Glacier (1968) 609 eksemplarer
Atomstationen (1961) 407 eksemplarer
Salka Valka (1948) 361 eksemplarer
World Light (1937) 326 eksemplarer
Paradise Reclaimed (1960) 273 eksemplarer
Kæmpeliv i nord (1952) 147 eksemplarer
Den store væver fra Kashmir (1927) 111 eksemplarer
The Honour of the House (1933) 47 eksemplarer
Die Litanei von den Gottesgaben (1972) 34 eksemplarer
Innansveitarkronika (1970) 28 eksemplarer
Sieben Zauberer (1942) 24 eksemplarer
A Quire of Seven (1974) 21 eksemplarer
Halldór Laxness Hjemme på tunet (1975) 19 eksemplarer
København brænder (1946) 10 eksemplarer
Úngur eg var (1980) 7 eksemplarer
Alþýðubókin 6 eksemplarer
Grikklandsárið (1983) 5 eksemplarer
Os Peixes Também Sabem Cantar (2015) 5 eksemplarer
Kvæðakver (1992) 5 eksemplarer
Barn náttúrunnar (1992) 5 eksemplarer
Skaldatimi 4 eksemplarer
Ásta Sóllilja 4 eksemplarer
Gerska Aefintyrid 4 eksemplarer
Ein Spiegelbild im Wasser (2012) 4 eksemplarer
Die Geschichte vom teuren Brot (1970) 4 eksemplarer
Þjóðhátíðarrolla 4 eksemplarer
Hemma på Island 4 eksemplarer
Mein heiliger Stein (1923) 4 eksemplarer
Fuglinn í fjörunni 3 eksemplarer
Dagar hjá múnkum (1989) 3 eksemplarer
Undir Helgahnúk (1991) 3 eksemplarer
Smásögur (2000) 3 eksemplarer
Ozgur Insanlar (2015) 3 eksemplarer
Reisubókarkorn (1963) 3 eksemplarer
Fortid og nutid : essays (1986) 3 eksemplarer
Indensognskrønike (1971) 2 eksemplarer
Höll Sumarlandsins 2 eksemplarer
Silfurtúnglið 2 eksemplarer
Straumrof 2 eksemplarer
Norðanstúlkan 2 eksemplarer
Drei Erzählungen 2 eksemplarer
Dagur i Senn 2 eksemplarer
Gerpla En Kämpasaga 2 eksemplarer
Við heygarðshornið 2 eksemplarer
Vi islendinger (1974) 2 eksemplarer
Jóhannes S. Kjarval 2 eksemplarer
Gjorningabok 2 eksemplarer
Noveller 2 eksemplarer
Thaettir 2 eksemplarer
Af menníngarástandi 2 eksemplarer
Křesťanství pod ledovcem (2011) 2 eksemplarer
Hús Skáldsins 1 eksemplar
Menntaskólaljóð 1 eksemplar
Fegurð Heimsins 1 eksemplar
Romanzi. 1 eksemplar
Lesebuch 1 eksemplar
Af ska ldum 1 eksemplar
ngfri︢n ga̧̤ og hs︢i ̧ (1999) 1 eksemplar
Af skáldum 1 eksemplar
Thu Vinvidur Hreini 1 eksemplar
Og árin líða 1 eksemplar
Úa : Leikrit 1 eksemplar
Laxdæla Saga 1 eksemplar
Heimsljos I-II 1 eksemplar
The happy warriors, 1 eksemplar
Thjohatidarrolla 1 eksemplar
Njerëz të pavarur 1 eksemplar
Sommerlandets Slot 1 eksemplar
Dzwon Islandii 1 eksemplar
*ANY 1 eksemplar
Werkausgabe, 11 Bde. (2002) 1 eksemplar
Himlens skn̜hed 1 eksemplar
Verdens lys 1 eksemplar
Islandsk saga 1 eksemplar
Opere 1 eksemplar
Bread of Life 1 eksemplar
Sommerlandets Slot 1 eksemplar
Utsaga 1 eksemplar
Ásmundur Sveinsson 1 eksemplar
Paradisarheimt 1 eksemplar
Islandsklukkan 1 eksemplar

Associated Works

Satte nøgleord på

Almen Viden

Kanonisk navn
Laxness, Halldór
Juridisk navn
Guthdjonsson, Halldór (birth)
Andre navne
Laxness, Halldór Kiljan
Fødselsdato
1902-04-23
Dødsdag
1998-02-08
Begravelsessted
Mosfellskirkjugarður Mosfellsbæ, Mosfellsbaer, Höfuðborgarsvæði, Iceland
Køn
male
Nationalitet
Iceland
Land (til kort)
Iceland
Fødested
Reykjavík, Danish Iceland
Dødssted
Reykjavík, Iceland
Dødsårsag
Alzheimer's disease
Bopæl
Mosfellssveit, Iceland
Uddannelse
Reykjavík Lyceum
Erhverv
novelist
screenwriter
playwright
Priser og hædersbevisninger
Nobel Prize (Literature, 1955)
World Peace Council Literary Prize (1952)
Sonning Prize (1969)
Kort biografi
Halldor Laxness, an Icelandic author, received world-wide recognition after being awarded the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature. According to the Nobel Prize committee, he received this coveted award "for his vivid epic power which has renewed the great narrative art of Iceland." By 1948 he had received from literary scholars from around the world 25 nominations for the Nobel candidacy. As of 2021, he is the only Nobel Prize recipient from Iceland. During his writing career, he authored more than 60 works including novels, poems, plays, essays, short stories, memoirs, and travel books.

Medlemmer

Discussions

July 2015: Halldor Laxness i Monthly Author Reads (juli 2015)
Group Read, June 2015: Independent People i 1001 Books to read before you die (juni 2015)
Ligiloj: eo.Wikipedia - epo i Esperanto! (marts 2012)

Anmeldelser

A set of vikings set out to loot the world. Quite a large number of them survive the effort. Written by an Icelander, it is gritty yet quite amusing on occasion.
 
Markeret
DinadansFriend | Jan 27, 2024 |
The weather is as brutal and unforgiving as some of the characters in Halldor Laxness' arduous and earth-and-sky-bound family saga (an almost obligatory word for a review of an Icelandic novel), and both snow and intransigence make for hard lives and hard reading at times.

The ironic title foregrounds the way in which Laxness' isolated sheep crofters are unable to escape the weather and each other, as well as time and place (with one exception), limited as they are by geography, politics, disease, ignorance, distrust and delusion. Much of the time they seem free only to make bad choices, hurt one other, and suffer the ups and downs of world war or sick sheep.

The story centers on Bjartur, a stubborn, harsh and myopic crofter who attempts to assert his financial, social and political independence in the face of an inhospitable landscape, disaffected family members, economic hardship and local superstition. His daily concerns and those of his busybody neighbours and local potentates revolve around sheep worms, mythical evil spirits, Icelandic poetry, debt and ownership, and coffee and food. Shepherding is foremost in his mind, and he is a disaster as a husband and father. The plot takes several tragic turns, through which Bjartur largely plows unbowed, unrepentant and unaware of his fundamental dependence on the world around him.

If this all sounds grim, it is. However Laxness manages to bring a sardonic humour to bear on the misunderstandings, illusions and impulses of his characters that allows the reader to find a lighter perspective on these lives that allows - in some admittedly narrow crevices - for signs of hope and redemption. Not to mention his frequently lyrical writing, as translated by J. A. Thompson, and his compassion for his characters' limitations and impoverished lives. This rich and complex novel continually reminds us that our dependencies, not just our autonomies, can provide meaning and beauty:

". . . but weeping too is an independent element in the breast of man, another current, and weeping also is controlled from another world, and man is defenceless against his own tears and cannot get away and cannot get away and cannot get away"
… (mere)
 
Markeret
breathslow | 100 andre anmeldelser | Jan 27, 2024 |
It deals with the struggle of poor Icelandic farmers in the early 20th century, only freed from debt bondage in the last generation, and surviving on isolated crofts in an inhospitable landscape.
Laxness won Nobel prize in Literature, in 1955.
 
Markeret
NordenClub | 100 andre anmeldelser | Jan 11, 2024 |
A harsh ode to sheep, the men who tend them, the women lost to those humble endeavors in remote places, and humanity's delusion of total self-reliance.
½
1 stem
Markeret
dele2451 | 100 andre anmeldelser | Dec 29, 2023 |

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Associated Authors

Marcel Otten Translator, Afterword
Bruno Kress Translator
Hubert Seelow Afterword, Translator
Annie Posthumus Translator
Philip Roughton Translator, Translator.
Magnus Magnusson Translator
Tone Myklebost Translator
Anthea Craigmyle Cover artist
Brad Leithauser Introduction
John Freeman Introduction
Ion Vinea Translator
J. A. Thompson Translator

Statistikker

Værker
132
Also by
4
Medlemmer
6,869
Popularitet
#3,563
Vurdering
4.0
Anmeldelser
207
ISBN
318
Sprog
20
Udvalgt
48

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