“Suicide - masturbation multiplied by itself”Browsing through the used bookshop this weekend I came across this book and it was the author’s last name that made me slip it off the shelf and into my hands… Laxness… the name had a calming effect on me. Then I saw just below his name in bright red letters ‘Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature’. Ok… might be worth a go. And then the blurb at the bottom kind of made me wary, ‘Laxness has been hailed as Iceland’s John Steinbeck, Sinclair Lewis and Upton Sinclair combined. His is a significant voice in world literature’… I never did like comparisons to other authors (though it seems every country has a Camus and a Kafka or two, and yes, even a Steinbeck).The Atom Station proved to me worthy of being set free from the cluttered shelves of the bookshop and into my hands. It was an interesting ‘cold war’ romp and if I had to tie this book to Steinbeck it would have to be with Cannery Row. The characters were brilliant. Ugla, a simple country girl from the north works as a housemaid in the home of one of parliament’s ministers, a household where the mother names her children with African names because it’s chic. The characters were some of the strangest I’ve read this year. I found myself looking at the copyright date a couple of times because the writing seemed so fresh, but there it was, copyright 1948.The U.S. wants to buy a bit of Iceland to build a nuclear base. The government wants to sell because money is the current god of their alter. The communists do not want the country sold; they want free nurseries for children and a youth assembly hall, the organ teacher is a philosopher that has a senile mother that offers strange tidbits to guests, and a couple of gods make appearances, one sings verse while the other plays a salted fish… This book had me spinning.I read a review of this book just now at Amazon and one critic gave the book 1 star because, as the he says, “Halldor Laxness is a world-class writer as his masterpieces like Independent People and The Fish Can Sing demonstrate. There is however, one aspect of Mr. Laxness' life that casts a shadow over his career, and is, regardless to say, quite disturbing. That is his lifelong love affair with communism and the former Soviet Union.” Quite disturbing? And that should dictate whether someone should enjoy his books? I could care less if Laxness slept with pigs while courting sheiks and declared that all bananas were gods. Plus, who today could write “that foul fellow Muhammad” in a book and not have a death fatwa chasing his tail? He strung together a jumble of words into a book that had me laughing and thinking and longing to visit the countryside of Iceland, in summer. A good read, a good read indeed. I’ll be looking for more of his books.
Although it is sixty years since it was written that Icelandic satire remains a potent tale of political and class absurdity. Narrated by Ugla – a self defined “clod-hopper”, ‘crude and clumping girl from the north’ – who has moved to the city to act as housemaid for her local Member of Parliament and learn the harmonium, this tale of political and social hypocrisy centres on a decision to sell part of the country to provide a US/NATO airbase as part of Cold War anti-Soviet politics. Amid the ensuring furore, the left claims its class position while the government seems to rouse up nationalist fervour to obscure its ‘sale of the nation’. This crude description fails to do the novel justice, as Ugla appears as both wide-eyed ingénue bewildered by the goings on around her, and the most disciplined and rational person in a world that seems irrational. Her narrator’s voice shifts between bewildered outsider, naïve observer and sharp critic, often in the same paragraph – she is sharp voice in literature and an admirable character. The world she finds herself in piles seeming irrationality on absurdity: the political right claims to be defending the nation while selling it off, the Communists demand a world class alliance but seem obsessed with small and local issues (such as a day care centre) and the protests in the streets have no identifiable group participants. Ugla’s father’s church appears as both Catholic and thoroughly indigenous animist while the frankly dubious men who frequent the house of her music teacher seem both criminal and God-like at once. She is surrounded by absurdity and the irrational, while claiming and defending her right to subjectivity – she asserts a material existence and resists objectification in deeply profound and personal ways but seems fully in touch with a supernatural state. In short, nothing is quite as it seems – the refined culture of the city is shallow and facile, the happy bourgeois family torn apart by tensions and contradictions, and authority devoid of integrity. At heart, though, there is a romantic aspect to the story as the unfancied and derided northern, rural, peasant life emerges as an authentic source of power and strength against the pretentions of the city and the south, while the Sagas emerge as Ugla’s constant reference point. That is not to say this is a conservative nationalist novel; Laxness unpacks power in a manner that resembles the great critical realists of the mid 20th century with Steinbeck’s sensitivity to the tales of ordinary life and Traven’s subtle politics of resistance and integrity. He is the reason that Iceland has the highest per capita number of Nobel Prize winners and this book is a marvel of satire with hints of the magic realist about it. Quite wonderful.
What do You think about The Atom Station (2004)?
I had trouble with this short novel by acclaimed Icelandic author Halldor Laxness. I could see that it was a satire on post WWII Icelandic society and politics, and an exploration of the north-south divide, the contrast between town and country, rich and poor, and so on, but I found it hard to engage with any of the characters or in fact care about the Iceland depicted in the novel. The central character is Ugla, a young plain-speaking girl from the north who comes to Reykjavik to work in the house of a Member of Parliament. There she is introduced to a motley collection of political figures, and also goes out and meets some Communists. There is much unrest in the capital with the news that the Americans want to buy some land to build some sort of nuclear base. But I found it all pretty tedious and didn’t care about anyone, not even Ugla herself, who seems quite a cold and distant protagonist. It’s an interesting look at Icelandic society at particular place and time, but I want more from a novel than a historical snapshot, and this one didn’t hold my attention.
—Mandy
Halldor Laxness is probably my favorite writer, but this book is almost flawed enough for me to take him off that pedastal. It was written in 1948, during the fever stage of the Cold War, a time when absurdist allegories and overwrought social generalizations were all the rage among the literati, and the Atom Station is proof that even a writer as inventive as Laxness can succumb to the unfortunate trends of his age. It tells the tale of a post-war Iceland riven between two factions, one looking to take a collectivist turn and the other looking to "sell the country" out to the Americans, a story told by a young country girl who has come to the city to work as a maid for a wealthy family and learn to play the harmonium. Like in almost all of Laxness' work, there are many memorable characters, but in this book almost all of them are saddled with the responsibility to blurt out precious generalizations about the state of the world with only the slightest of provocations. Buried within are a handful of vintage Laxness insights, my favorite in this book being his description of a wealthy young woman who had lost her will to party, as "youth's faith in something new and unique had turned into everyday bread-slavery." But to find these gems required slogging though a lot of slop. Other than possibly "A Paradise Reclaimed", this is Laxness' least rewarding text available in the English language. If you want to read Laxness, I recommend the following (in order): 1- The Fish Can Sing; 2- Independent People; 3- World Light.
—Hundeschlitten
This is my second Laxness, Independent people was excellent but I feel this is a flawed novel. Laxness attempts a satire but as a normal person who is not a literary expert I failed to grasp the subtleties of this novel. The contrasts between the rural north and Reykjavik are clear but someone will have to help me with the atom poet.As a protest novel, it was lost on me and I suspect a little too clever for many of us. Disappointing as it is, Iwould like to think that I will try another Laxness as he certainly is talented and captures the soul of a vibrant nation.
—Neil Hodgson
