Halldór Laxness: Man

“For man is essentially alone, and one should pity him and love him and grieve with him.”

Halldór Laxness

Love

“Philosophy and theology have no effect on him, much less plain common sense. Impossible to convince this man by arguments. But humor he always listens to, even though it be ill humor. A typical Icelander, perhaps.”

Halldór Laxness book Kristnihald undir Jökli (bók)

EmBi describing Pastor Jón
Kristnihald undir Jökli (Under the Glacier/Christianity at Glacier) (1968)

Sense

“He came to a halt in a hollow and got his breath back. He felt himself freed of a great burden by getting out of sight of other people. The previous days and nights had been eventful, and he had lost himself. But now he was sure he would find himself again, like a dead man who finds himself, little by little, in the next world. In spite of everything, and although he was in reality a newborn babe in this new world, it was delightful to be born anew and to own a share of the sun like others instead of having to wait half the year perhaps for one little ray of sunshine.... No, there's probably no way of making something cease to exist once it has come into existence. He was no longer afraid of the immortality of the soul, that doctrine which for a time had seemed to him the height of human cruelty. Today it was the many and various abodes of the Creator which enchanted the mind.... and death did not exist.”

Halldór Laxness

Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Two: The Palace of the Summerland

Death , People , World , Way

“The reason a man talks is to hide his thoughts.”

Halldór Laxness book The Atom Station

the self-conscious policeman
Atómstöðin (The Atom Station) (1948)

“Hope springs eternal in the human breast. (Original to Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man”

Halldór Laxness

1734)
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Four: The Beauty of the Heavens

Hope , Spring

“A married man has only one duty towards his wife in order to make her happy, and that is to ensure that she is constantly pregnant, and with a child in her arms.”

Halldór Laxness

Reimar Vagnsson
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Four: The Beauty of the Heavens

Happiness

“When I was in Bessastaðir I had a jug of water—and an ax. A well-sharpened ax is a fine tool. On the other hand I've never been fond of the gallows, and never less than when I wrestled a hanged man.”

Halldór Laxness

Jón Hreggviðsson
Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part II: The Fair Maiden

Water

“It's an honor to be beheaded. Even a little churl becomes a man by being beheaded.”

Halldór Laxness

Hólmfastur Guðmundsson
Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part I: Iceland's Bell

“Mine is a bad doctrine. And, what's more, I cannot substantiate my doctrine. The man who has the best doctrine is the one who can prove that he has the most to eat; and good shoes. I have neither, and live in a dugout.”

Halldór Laxness

the Lutheran
Paradísarheimt (Paradise Reclaimed) (1960)

Shoe

“A man's conscience is an unsteady judge of right and wrong.”

Halldór Laxness

Arnas Arnæus
Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part II: The Fair Maiden

“Really," said the poet, without enthusiasm.
"Mm—you say 'Really,' young man?" said the secretary. "That is undeniably a rather peculiar reply. Might I ask what you mean by that word?"
"I mean that I'm such an insignificant poet that it isn't worthwhile getting me to compose a poem," said Ólafur Kárason modestly.
The secretary gave the poet a stern and searching look and finally said, "I no longer understand young people nowadays. It's as if nothing serious or important makes any impression on young people any longer. The modern craze seems to be to squander money needlessly if possible. But luckily it isn't possible. Even you, young man, who are said to have a poetic bent, yes, and some say you even possess a modicum of intelligence, you just say 'Really' when you're invited to take part in a ceremony which is destined to revolutionize the religious, scientific, and moral life of the nation.”

Halldór Laxness

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Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Two: The Palace of the Summerland

Life , Money , People , Search

“He wandered for a long time along the canals and over the bridges... Steam rose from one boat where men were heating their tea water. He shouted to them and asked them to give him some tea. They asked who he was and he said that he was from Iceland, where Hell is. They invited him out to the boat and gave him something to drink and questioned him about Mount Hekla. He said that he was born and raised at the foot of the mountain and for that reason was called van Hekkenfeld. They asked whether a man could see down into Hell from the summit of Hekla, through the swarm of noxious birds that hovers eternally, shrieking and quarreling, over the crater. He said no, but added that he'd once caught one of these birds with a hooked pole that he'd brought with him up onto the mountain; they were similar to ravens, he said, except for their claws and beaks, which were iron. They asked whether such birds could be eaten and he laughed at their foolishness, but said on the other hand that one could use the claws for hooks and the beak for a pick.”

Halldór Laxness

Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part I: Iceland's Bell

Men , Mountain , Hell , Drink

“You have fettered yourself of your own free will, man—break the fetters!”

Halldór Laxness

Jórunn of Veghús
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Three: The House of the Poet

“They walked together like that all night, and there was no night, just a slight unreality, a momentary trance, with mist here and there as if the landscape were about to dissolve, and then nothing dissolved and the mist had vanished again. There was a crimson glow on the highest mountain ridges, and shining birds swarming in their thousands over the flame-gilded, mirror-smooth sea. And they went on talking together. Ólafur Kárason had no perception of the passing of time; only that voice with its dark, silk-edged, golden tones reverberated through his consciousness. When a man has lost what he loves most, there is no need to write poetry; the timber of a man's voice expresses all the poetry of life.”

Halldór Laxness

Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Two: The Palace of the Summerland

Love , Life , Mountain , Bird

“Pray God for guidance, man. It's thirty-odd years since I sold the last copy of Orvar-Odds saga. The country stands on an entirely different cultural footing nowadays. I can recommend the story of King Solomon's Mines there, all about the hero of Umslopogaas, in his own way a great man, and in my opinion no whit inferior to Orvar-Oddur.”

Halldór Laxness

Sjálfstætt fólk (Independent People) (1935), Book One, Part II: Free of Debt

God , Way , Country

“After Bjartur had become a person of great worth, even he was prone to admit on occasion that life had sometimes been pretty hard in Summerhouses in the old days, but one has to take a few knocks if one wants to get on, surely, and anyway we never ate other folk's bread. Other folk's bread is the most virulent form of poison that a free and independent man can take; other folk's bread is the only thing that can rob him of independence and the one true freedom.”

Halldór Laxness

Sjálfstætt fólk (Independent People) (1935), Book Two, Part II: Years of Prosperity

Life , Freedom , Personality

“Of all the creatures that man kills for his amusement there is only one that he kills out of hatred—other men. Man hates nothing as much as himself. That is why war is called the leprosy of the human soul.”

Halldór Laxness book Kristnihald undir Jökli (bók)

Saknússemm II
Kristnihald undir Jökli (Under the Glacier/Christianity at Glacier) (1968)

War , Men , Hate , Soul

“A wise man once said that next to losing its mother, there is nothing more healthy for a child than to lose its father. And though I would never subscribe to such a statement wholeheartedly, I would be the last person to reject it out of hand. For my own part, I would express such a doctrine without any suggestion of bitterness against the world, or rather without the hurt which the mere sound of the words implies.”

Halldór Laxness

Brekkukotsannáll (The Fish Can Sing) (1957)

World , Parting , Hurt , Personality

“Over verdant lowlands cut by the deep streamwaters of the south hangs a peculiar gloom. Every eye is stifled by the 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.”

Halldór Laxness

Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part III: Fire in Copenhagen

Children , Bird , Sun

“In the end one is no longer sure which is the greatest evildoer, the man who gets up early or the man who goes to bed late.”

Halldór Laxness

Steinar
Paradísarheimt (Paradise Reclaimed) (1960)