There are several Icelands in history. Best known is the Iceland of the Vikings, roughly from the time of settlement in the 9th century to the transfer of the country to the Norwegian King Haakon in the 13th century. Then we skip the better part of a millennium to come to the hip modern Iceland, land of the runtur and of bankruptcy. In between those two extremes was the Iceland of poverty and servitude. The Danes took over Iceland from the Norwegians and installed their merchants, gifting them with monopolies that made the merchants wealthy, but impoverished the natives. Halldór Laxness, the country's only winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature (in 1955), wrote Iceland's Bell to remind his countrymen of the utter waste and fecklessness of the Danish rule. (This theme is similar to the same author's World Light, which is set in a later period.)Iceland's Bell is set early in the 18th century and is presented in three acts, each with a different hero. We begin with Jon Hreggvidsson of Skagi, who is arrested for stealing a length of cord. (Apparently, the Danes, not needing fish themselves, deliberately made it harder for the Icelanders to feed themselves with the piscine riches of their island.) Things go from bad to worse for Jon, who is then arrested for murdering the hangman who whipped him for his crime. But he is let loose on the night before his hanging by ...Snaefridur Bjornsdottir, daughter of the magistrate who sentences Hreggvidsson, is a young beauty whose hand in marriage is sought by Icelanders of the best families. Unfortunately, the fair maiden weds a drunk, though really she loves the Icelander Arnas Arnaeus, a thinly disguised portrait of Arni Magnusson, famous for collecting texts of the old Icelandic sagas and advising the Danish king how to control his subjects.Arnaeus is a patriot of sorts, but an unfaithful suitor to Saefridur. His belief is that the texts which he has collected, and which are almost burned in a massive fire in Copenhagen, are the source of his people's pride and fame. It is Arnaeus who says, "A fat servant is not much of a man. A beaten servant is a great man, because in his breast freedom has its home." On another occasion, he says, "I regret nothing that has happened, neither in words nor thoughts. It may be that thye most victorious race is the one that is exterminated."And under Danish rule, Iceland did come close on several occasions to being utterly annihilated, from plague and smallpox; from the volcanic eruption at Lakagigur in the 1780s that led to an even more vicious plague; and starvation.Laxness is not only a great Icelandic and Scandinavian author: He is perhaps one of the very best novelists of the Twentieth Century -- period! His love for Iceland and its sad plight shows itself frequently throughout the book:Over verdant lowlands cut by the deep streamwaters of the south hangs a peculiar gloom. Every eye is stifled by clouds that block the sight of the sun, every voice is muffled like the chirps of fleeing birds, every quasi-movement sluggish. Children must not laugh, no attention must be drawn to the fact that a man exists, one must not provoke the powers with frivolity -- do nothing but prowl along, furtively, lowly. Maybe the Godhead had not yet struck its final blow, an unexpiated sin might still fester somewhere, perhaps there still lurked worms that needed to be crushed.I have now read all but three novels by Laxness that have been translated into English. I intend to read them all, and to hope against hope that the novelist's other work finds a translator.
Não sei muito bem como é que acabei a ler este livro. Acho que fui "apanhada" numa daquelas promoções para prémios Nobel e a verdade é que ao ler a sinopse pensei: porque não?, não sei nada sobre a Islândia... :)"O Sino da Islândia" conta-nos a história da Islândia e dos islandeses no século XVII/XVIII. Os anos em que foram uma colónia da coroa dinamarquesa.A história começa com a ordem do rei da Dinamarca para que todo o cobre e estanho da Islândia seja enviado para a reconstrução de Copenhaga. Conhecemos Jón Hreggviðsson e o carrasco do rei, que Hreggviðsson há-de matar, quando este participa na retirada e destruição do Sino de Þingvellir, um símbolo da justiça, da lei e da independência da Islândia.Jón Hreggviðsson é um agricultor, a cumprir pena por ter roubado corda, utensílio essencial, e escasso na ilha, para a sobrevivência de um povo empobrecido, esfomeado e doente, que vivia com dificuldades devido às restrições comerciais que eram impostas pelo reino da Dinamarca. Mais tarde é preso por ter difamado o rei, mas o que se arrasta na justiça durante mais de trinta anos é o julgamento onde é acusado de ter assassinado o carrasco do rei, o mesmo que o obrigou a retirar e destruir o sino da Islândia, em Þingvellir.O julgamento, e todas as personagens que nele participam, directa ou indirectamente, vai servir de pretexto para conhecermos as condições de vida dos islandeses, a forma como viviam, o que pensavam e o que ansiavam. A forma como eram tratados pelo dinamarqueses e pela coroa, como se não passassem de animais sarnentos e fedorentos que não mereciam mais do tinham. Ver todo um povo, orgulhoso da sua história e dos seu heróis, ser subjugado desta forma, durante tanto tempo que acabam por acreditar, eles próprios, que não merecem melhor, é angustiante.Embora não conhecesse o autor, Hálldor Laxness, é natural que por ser um Nobel existissem algumas expectativas, que não foram, infelizmente, totalmente satisfeitas. Achei o ritmo da história um pouco lento, as personagens pouco desenvolvidas e a escrita pouco envolvente. Não sei se se perde algum do encanto na tradução. O islandês é tão diferente do português, que de certeza alguma da alma acaba por se perder na tradução. Este livro vale pela história e pelo que nos dá a conhecer da Islândia e dos Islandeses. É muito interessante nesse aspecto. Conhecemos tão pouco sobre este nosso parceiro do continente europeu, com uma história tão rica e interessante, que é impossível acabarmos o livro e não irmos pesquisar mais um pouco sobre ele. Eu tive de ir, logo no início, para perceber como ler as letras "estranhas" que surgem ao longo do livro. :) Não fazia ideia de como pronunciar Þingvellir, por exemplo ou mesmo o nome de Hreggviðsson... Difícil, muito difícil o islandês. ;)Recomendo por isso, pelo interesse histórico que tem. Se a escrita fosse mais cativante, tenho a certeza de que voltaria a este escritor, porque gostei muito do universo por onde se move, mas não o sendo, tenho dúvidas se voltarei a ele.Boas leituras!
What do You think about Iceland's Bell (2003)?
I've never read a better historical novel, free of anachronisms and sentimentality, witty yet never 'light history,' as are too many historical novels written these days. Laxness writes such vivid, complex characters and depiction of life in the 17th century, when Iceland was under the heel of the Danes -- scorned in every way yet unbowed. The narrative sags in places, but is well worth one's patience. Joh Hreggvissson, Snaefridur, Arnas Arnaeus, are all unforgettable. I will be reading more Laxness, for sure.
—Kallie
Tells a fascinating/spellbinding story of Iceland's difficult years in the 17-18th centuries, when the country and its trade are beholden to support Denmark, which displaced the island's Catholicism with Lutheranism. It's more the story of how characters rich or poor (dispensing authority or being the object of it) respond to curtailments to acquire their livelihood and to retain their proper honor in society. As if the Danish trade monopoly were not enough hardship, the Icelandic justice institution produces injustice, without attention to rights commonly granted in constitutions. Such hardships, even taking fishing cord is prohibited, are complicated further upon the malnourished, lice-ridden population by smallpox, famine, volcanic eruptions, piracy, witchcraft persecution, disease from malnutrition, and illiteracy. In Iceland's history, this era is not the Golden Age of independent, saga-writing Icelanders during the Old Commonwealth, 930-1262 CE. Nevertheless, that once, prolifically literary period takes importance in Laxness's novel. The historical/real-life character of Arni Magnusson goes everywhere to collect scattered pages of vellum manuscripts and lost Icelandic books, finding them by visiting other characters, as the items could be in a barn or even a mattress stuffing. There's an on/off again love affair between the scholarly manuscript collector (he's also the Danish assessor of Iceland's judicial adjudgments and of its land titles) and the aristocratic, presumably unhistorical female protagonist Snaefidur Iceland's Sun, who has the middle section of the book, part 2, all to herself. A third plot brings in both Arni and Snaefidur onto opposing sides for or against the historical, shadily accused farmer Jón Hreggvidsson, who seems to accept the label of bad guy and whose case being retried time and again over thirty years catapults him between Iceland's Althing and Denmark's king. Subplots surrounding each of these three characters bring in appearances by other characters for a rounded scenario of life.
—Asma Fedosia
*3.5 stars."The mire seemed to be endless and the travelers floundered for a good part of the night in this forecourt of Hell" (14)." 'I beg my venerable excellencies to pay no attention to this she-creature…'" (18)."…who here napped, freshly flogged, upon his bed" (19)." 'I'm like every other nameless man, healthy today, dead tomorrow'" (32)."He'd had little to do with women, mostly because of his lack of sheep, so he'd tried to remedy both shortages by resorting to sorcery, which was frequently in fashion in the Westfjords, though with disproportionate results" (35)." 'Stop whining and try to show me one of your magic signs.'" 'No,' whined the man" (36)."The other hanged men descended from their snares and started dancing clumsily around them and reciting intolerable, poorly worded poetry built on dubious assertions" (94)."…pack of slaves that lived on that funnel of Hell" (100-101). *Hmm. I never thought of Iceland that way.“A thousand little turf-roofed farms cowered down upon the earth--not, however, out of irreconciliation with the sky” (173)."He now began his monological delivery of the petition's massive quantity of text in a tone rich in edificatory word-windings and entangled sentence constructions, so that his audience was for a very long time prohibited from determining where the text was headed" (256)."But as his endless prattle stretched one even longer, unwavering in its overwhelming sheen, the men's expressions became as dull as those of strung-up ling heads" (256).“Certainly there was nothing more preposterous than for the magistrate’s couple to take any stock of the drunken gurglings of Magnus Sigurdsson, whether written or spoken…” (261).“...the man who was as much a curse to his motherland as the endless death-dealing winters and the fire-spewing mountains” (261).“...then, bidding farewell for the time being, wished her two girls the same, though sorrow might rage or the world’s false fortunes smile, and prayed their forgiveness for this tearstained, hastily written missive, their faithful and simple mother” (261).“ ‘You know that I stand defenseless before your ice-cold innuendo’” (269).“ ‘My king is just,’ said the old, oft-flogged tramp” (277)."Iceland's weather was a mill that left nothing unpulverized but for the country's basalt peaks" (334)." '…I promise to henceforth comport myself according to the example of Your Learnedness except at those times when my unmanageable unwisdom gets in the way'" (347)."On one table lay two thick books, a Bible with clasps of copper and a medical textbook on diseases of horses, as thick or eve thicker" (358)."…or approximately, might he be permitted to say, the length of one medium-sized horse's penis…" (367).
—Katherine
