Tony's Reviews > Independent People

I kept waiting, waiting, for Bjartur Jonsson to break from his character. Not about his politics, which were entirely pragmatic. And not about his essential philosophy, that a man must be independent and reliant on no one. But surely to his family. Surely there would be one wife or a child that would turn his soul - when one has a flower. There were moments, or more precisely near-moments. And you could read into the text, I suppose, and believe that he actually had a moment when he loved a daughter or a son. But Bjartur spoke only in insults; and, given a choice between a family member or one of his sheep, well, can you say baaaaaa?

It would have been a lesser book, though, if he had ever warmed. Through two wives, more children than Laxness could count, some stillborn, but all dying in one way or another, Laxness assures us. Bjartur remains resolute in his beliefs. And so we learn about Iceland's winters, and her nascent politics. Life and government are reduced to their simplest terms. Hardscrabble, brutal. There are lessons learned:

-- Someone, somewhere, will benefit from a war.

-- Never forego a pre-paid trip to America because of some girl.

-- Sooner or later, all sheep get worms.

-- And this, from a deathbed:

"There are two things I want to ask you to remember when you've gone," she said, the wrinkled old face trembling much more than usual. "I want to ask you never to be insolent to those who hold a lowly position in the world. And never ill-treat any animal."

There are discourses within about politics, religion, and the nature of war. This is a land where people read about Noah and sniff, having experienced 200 days of steady rain without a flood. A land where the World War was the most bountiful blessing that God has sent our country.

There is plot here, too, but in one vignette after another. You get invested. Bjartur, don't kill the cow. Bjartur, don't kill the cow! Bjartur............!!!!

Bjartur, as I said, does not stray from character, even as you grip the seat and beg him to.

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There is an old woman here, Bjartur's second mother-in-law. She is mostly bedridden, but as she asks for little, Bjartur is not overtly annoyed with her. She has her oracle moments, which I like in my female octogenarians. In Bjartur's hovel, with diminishing children, and a dog and a cat, she remains.

When the bitch had gone, the cat would spring down on the old woman's bed and, after washing himself with meticulous care, would lie down to sleep with his head across his hind legs. The old woman never called him anything but that scum of a cat or that brute of a tom, and yet he liked her best, for he valued not vocabulary but disposition. She had never been known to hurt any animal. It is strange what a great liking cats have for old people. They appreciate the lack of inventiveness, rich in security, which is the chief virtue of old age; or was it that they understood the grey in each other, that which lies behind Christianity and behind the soul?

Such a place.