ISLANDIA Y LOS MORMONES

El viaje de un recién convertido granjero islandés a Norteamérica en busca del Paraíso prometido por los mormones.
Steinar Steinsson, hombre generoso pero de poas economías, vive junto a su esposa y sus dos pequeños en la paz de una pequeña granja en la Islandia del siglo XIX. Cuando el Rey de Dinamarca visita el país, un impulso lleva a Steinar a ofrecerle como regalo el pony blanco tan amado por sus hijos, hecho que desencadenará una serie de trágicos eventos que dejará en la ruina a su familia, y a él, en el otro lado del mundo, construyendo un hogar entre los devotos polígamos de La Tierra Prometida de Utah...

Paradise Reclaimed was a strange read. Having read two pre Nobel prize books by Halldór Laxness, Independent People, and Iceland's Bell, Paradise Reclaimed left me somewhat perplexed. Had Laxness lost his touch after winning the award? Was he writing of a world with which he was less familiar?

The hero, Steinar of Hlíðar, at first seemed a fairly typical nineteenth century small farmer with his sheep and meadows. Although poor, he kept his farm far better than any in the neighbourhood, and his dry stone dykes and walls were wonders to behold. At first the reader sees this as a quirk in his personality, only to realize it is the first hint that Steinar can fall prey to obsession.

In 1874, Steinar went off to the one thousandth anniversary celebrations of the first settlement in Iceland, attended by no less a personage than the Danish king. There two major events happened which would shape his entire future. Steinar gave King Kristian Wilhelmsson his dazzling white colt, the fairy pony so loved by his children. Then, out walking, he encounter a man gagged and tied to a boulder. Upon freeing him, Steinar discovered the man was Bishop Pjóðrekur, an Icelandic Mormon living in Utah.

Through numerous adventures, Steinar travelled to Denmark and on to the Territory of Utah, leaving behind his wife and children while he sought the Promised Land. Part Candide, part Quixote, always innocent and simple, Steinar made a life for himself while back in Iceland his family's life was destroyed.

Laxness displays his usual humour and satire here, creating in Steinar a sort of folk hero. However, the Utah sections did not always work for me. I didn't know if it was because I don't know enough about Mormons to appreciate Laxness's comments, or if I was beginning to find it too far fetched. It's been five and a half months since I finished the novel. For some time I was unsure about it, and so unable to write about it. Going back over it now though, it strikes me in a far better light than it did originally, especially now that the title makes a certain sense to me.

I wouldn't recommend this as an introduction to Laxness, but it does give a sense of his skill. In her introduction, [[Jane Smiley]] says"While it doesn't seem to have the sweep and general applicability of the larger works, it functions like a parable or folktale, not operating out of basic verisimilitude, but out of material that is not understandable by reason, only through belief." Steinar was based on the story of Eirikur Bruni, a real nineteenth century Icelander who travelled to Spanish Fork, Utah, to be with other Mormons who had been expelled from Iceland because of their faith. As Smiley says, Bruni provided the raw material. "Laxness's job was to make sense of it and find meaning in it, and the meaning he found was in the exploration of innocence." In that, the novel definitely succeeds.

Another Laxness character that I want to SHAKE--hard! Steinar has some lovely qualities (generosity, naiveté, a simple faith in himself, trust in others, and a very wry sense of humor). But: he is singleminded and simpleminded, and his simple faith can lead to unforeseen consequences.

The beginning of the book details Steinar's journey to greet the King of Denmark, and to present him with his white pony Krapi, the finest horse in the country. The King of Denmark is visiting Iceland in order to celebrate the thousandth anniversary of The Settlement and to give the Icelanders their constitution. Many Icelanders seem not to be duly grateful for this honor. After all, "despite the fact that they were the most indigent nation in Europe, all traced their ancestry back to kings." When Steinar meets the King, this engaging dialogue ensues:

"Sheriff Benediktsson spoke up...'I crave your Majesty's pardon that our farmers all speak like this,' he said. 'They cannot help it. The sagas are their lifeblood.' King Kristian replied, 'This has just about convinced me that most kings would find it does not pay to argue genealogies with farmers here in Iceland. '"

"Perhaps too many Icelanders felt that the gift [of the constitution] merely represented something which was already theirs by right...". This sentiment is also expressed, eloquently and concisely, by the poor farmer Steinar himself when he first meets the king: "I wish to proffer you the thanks of my district for giving us what is already ours, namely, permission to walk upright here in Iceland." Still he chooses to give the King his most valued possession, harkening back to the sagas and Audun's similarly selfless gift of a bear to the King of Denmark some 800 years earlier.

Steinar's growing relationship with Mormons shows similar anomalies. His first contact with a Mormon is when he happens upon one who is preaching his faith at Þingvellir, and is about to get soundly trounced for it. When confronted the Mormon replies, "I always stop when people are going to beat me up." Steinar befriends this Mormon, and their growing relationship dictates the action of the novel. When Steinar leaves his hapless and helpless family to visit Denmark, and subsequently leaves for Utah to seek out what the Mormons have found there, the reader is left crying "why, why?" Why leave your family to the lecherous and ill-intentioned landowner, Björn of Leirur; why give away your most valued possession, the pony Krapi that your children love so; why follow a whim with no thought for the future?

Laxness creates interesting, albeit frustrating characters, and his prose sings. How about this description: "she shut her eyes and threw herself headlong into the surf-topped ocean of laughter, where she was tossed from wave-top to wave-top until sorrow washed her ashore again and she opened her eyes."

I never regret reading Laxness, but I love many of his other books more than Paradise Reclaimed. ( )

This got a shining review on NPR; maybe it was the translation but I just didn't get it. ( )