Iceland's Bell

Halldor Laxness

ISBN 10: 1400034256 / ISBN 13: 9781400034253

Published by Random House USA Inc, 2003

About this Item

One of the most beloved of Halldor Laxness's novels among Icelanders, ICELAND'S BELL encompasses themes of the dignity and pride of a tiny downtrodden country that clings to the memory of a once-glorius past. Seventeenth-century Iceland suffers under the oppression and contempt of its Danish overlords, as well as from plague and famine. The poor of Iceland suffer from local oppression as well, as archaic justice is served out annually at the convening of the Althing, the ancient Icelandic assembly, where thieves are branded or have their hands cut off for stealing a bit of fishing line, adulterers are beheaded, and adulteresses are drowned in the Women's Pool. ICELAND'S BELL follows three very different main characters whose stories entwine over twenty years. One is a semi-literate peasant. John Hreddvigsson, an irrepressible farmer with a wry sense of humor who is accused of murdering the king's hangman and who spends years in and out of prison and court in an increasingly complicated welter of lawsuits. He is being used as a pawn in a struggle between two more powerful figures - the dazzingly beautiful and highly educated Lady Snaefridur, known to the people as "Iceland's Sun." who is the daughter of Iceland's Magistrate, and the learned and wordly aristocrat and scholar Arnas Arnaeus. who serves the Danish king in Cophenhagen and eventually risks his fortune and career in a doomed effort to save his despised and lowly homeland. Arnaeus and Snaefridur had fallen in love years earlier, only to find themselves years later on opposite sides of a political struggle, one in which rumors of their adulterous affair will spread through Iceland and reach the Danish court, with disastrous results.

Seller Inventory # CIN1400034256G

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Iceland's Bell
• Publisher: Random House USA Inc
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1400034256
• ISBN 13: 9781400034253
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition: 4th Edition
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner: At the close of the 17th century, Iceland is an oppressed Danish colony, suffering under extreme poverty, famine, and plague. A farmer and accused cord-thief named Jon Hreggvidsson makes a bawdy joke about the Danish king and soon after finds himself a fugitive charged with the murder of the king’s hangman.

In the years that follow, the hapless but resilient rogue Hreggvidsson becomes a pawn entangled in political and personal conflicts playing out on a far grander scale. Chief among these is the star-crossed love affair between Snaefridur, known as “Iceland’s Sun,” a beautiful, headstrong young noblewoman, and Arnas Arnaeus, the king’s antiquarian, an aristocrat whose worldly manner conceals a fierce devotion to his downtrodden countrymen. As their personal struggle plays itself out on an international stage, Laxness creates a Dickensian canvas of heroism and venality, violence and tragedy, charged with narrative enchantment on every page.

Sometimes grim, sometimes uproarious, and always captivating, Iceland's Ball is at once an updating of the traditional Icelandic saga and a caustic social satire.

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 60 books, including novels, short stories, essays, poems, plays, and memoirs. In 1955 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in 1998.