The Review of Contemporary Fiction

The Fish Can Sing by Halldor Laxness
Philip Landon

Halldór Laxness. The Fish Can Sing. Trans. Magnus Magnusson. Harvill, 2000. 246 pp. Paper: $15.00.

Awarded the Nobel Prize in 1955 "for his vivid epic power which has renewed the great narrative art of Iceland," Halldór Laxness writes in an idiom far removed from the hectic sensibility fostered by Hollywood (where Laxness, incidentally, sought employment after the First World War). One hurdle a contemporary reader faces in reading Laxness is the slow paced, bardic style of telling; another is the sheer geographical and cultural remoteness of the early-twentieth-century Icelandic community evoked. Against the backdrop of the homogenization of world culture, a process whose early stages are powerfully recorded here, the rootedness of the local community that Laxness describes seems almost shockingly exotic. I found myself marveling at the headway made by globalization since the initial publication of The Fish Can Sing (1957; first English translation 1966). Globalization is in fact a key theme of the novel, in which the narrator-protagonist’s boyhood in a fishing cottage is contrasted with the cosmopolitanism of an Icelandic singer who wins fame and wealth touring the world’s greatest opera houses. The juxtaposition serves to affirm what Laxness, in his Nobel acceptance speech, called "the humble routine of everyday life." The ecological didacticism and stubborn parochialism of the novel, together with its complete lack of spectacular effects and sentimentality, highlight, by sheer contrast, the pervasiveness of the thrill-seeking culture that has since prevailed. Magnus Magnusson’s translation is exemplary. The importance of Laxness is not in question; whether he still has an audience is another matter. [Philip Landon]


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction The Fish Can Sing by Halldor Laxness Philip Landon Halldór Laxness. The Fish Can Sing. Trans. Magnus Magnusson. Harvill, 2000. 246 pp. Paper: $15.00. Awarded the Nobel Prize in 1955 "for his vivid epic power which has renewed the great narrative art of Iceland," Halldór Laxness writes in an idiom far removed from the hectic sensibility fostered by Hollywood (where Laxness, incidentally, sought employment after the First World War). One hurdle a contemporary reader faces in reading Laxness is the slow paced, bardic style of telling; another is the sheer geographical and cultural remoteness of the early-twentieth-century Icelandic community evoked. Against the backdrop of the homogenization of world culture, a process whose early stages are powerfully recorded here, the rootedness of the local community that Laxness describes seems almost shockingly exotic. I found myself marveling at the headway made by globalization since the initial publication of The Fish Can Sing (1957; first English translation 1966). Globalization is in fact a key theme of the novel, in which the narrator-protagonist’s boyhood in a fishing cottage is contrasted with the cosmopolitanism of an Icelandic singer who wins fame and wealth touring the world’s greatest opera houses. The juxtaposition serves to affirm what Laxness, in his Nobel acceptance speech, called "the humble routine of everyday life." The ecological didacticism and stubborn parochialism of the novel, together with its complete lack of spectacular effects and sentimentality, highlight, by sheer contrast, the pervasiveness of the thrill-seeking culture that has since prevailed. Magnus Magnusson’s translation is exemplary. The importance of Laxness is not in question; whether he still has an audience is another matter. [Philip Landon]

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