Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #133062 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Customer Reviews

wonderful
All Laxnes novels are wonderful, but this is one of the very best - along with Independent People and The fish Can sing. It's set in the past and there is a laconic restraint in the narrative manner - Laxnes does not indulge in telling the reader much about the inner stirrings of the characters, just about what you can see and the surface manifestations of their reactions. But the inner stirrings are very powerfully present in the story. From the opening pages there is a crisp sense of immediacy and reality about these people in that setting.

The Colonization of Identity
This is a magnificent novel which examines the damage of imperialism to both the colonizers and the colonized. That it does so through detailed actions of characters who are simultaneously invention, history and metaphor makes it as readable as it is provoking. Political philosophy rarely goes down this smoothly.

Laxness expects intelligence and attention from his readers and he rewards us very well indeed. I'll be reflecting on his concepts and his delivery and rereading it for years to come.