Independent People

Infobox Book
name = "Independent People"
title_orig = "Sjálfstætt fólk"
translator = J. A. Thompson


image_caption =
author = Halldór Laxness
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = Iceland
language = Icelandic
series =
genre = Novel
publisher = Vintage Books
release_date = 1934 (Part I), 1935 (Part II)
english_release_date = 1946
media_type = Print (Paperback)
pages = 512 pp (first vintage international edition)
isbn = ISBN 0-679-76792-4
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"Independent People" ( _is. Sjálfstætt fólk) is an epic novel by Halldór Laxness, published in two parts in 1934 and 1935. 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 an isolated croft in inhospitable countryside.

The novel (and author) is considered among the main proponents of social realism in Icelandic fiction in the 1930s. [ [http://www.nordals.hi.is/page/literature_of_the_19._and_20.%20Century Sigurður Nordal Institute - Literature of the 19th and 20th Century] ] It is an indictment of materialism, the cost of the "independent spirit" to relationships, and capitalism itself. It helped propel Laxness to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1955Fact|date=April 2008.

Plot summary

"Independent People" is the story of the sheep farmer Bjartur from just after he escapes his virtual enslavement to a local rural family on a remote area of Iceland, up through his attempts to build a family, a home, and a future for himself.

Themes

The novel reveals Laxness's anti-war leanings in a chapter that consists of Icelandic farmers sitting around talking about how the livestock sales sure have gone up since the Europeans started murdering each other for no good reason.

The work can also be interpreted as an indictment of the idea of independence — not the good kind of independence, but independence taken to such an extreme that it becomes willful ignorance, and a sort of slavery of family members to the patriarch's ideas. To Bjartur, his ideas are unquestionable and inherently linked to his 'freedom'. This ends in alienating his family, in tragedy, in every minuscule and minute detail that Laxness paints with. Then he pulls back, and the reader realizes that just about every person out there on this part of the Icelandic ground was going through similar experiences. Poor health, near starvation, exploitative merchants, ignorance, hatred, etc. People will probably notice that Laxness, although he shows clearly that the main character destroyed the lives of some members of his family, the author seems to have a deep understanding of how that character came to exist, of why he exists, of why everything happens. Laxness still manages to dig out some shred of hope and love from the abysmal rural disenfranchised powerless poverty depicted in the book, and to find some human tenderness inside the burly troll monster of the main character.

Footnotes