Salka Valka
For those who haven’t seen my Instagram stories in the past month: I have finished Salka Valka by the late Icelandic novelist Halldór Laxness, and it is Annie Proulx’s “favorite Halldór Laxness book” according to a back blurb on this new translation by Philip Roughton and published by Archipelago Books. I don’t think many people outside of certain literary circles even know who Halldór Laxness is (I was in this camp, for sure), so I got a chuckle about how the heck had Annie Proulx (Barkskins, Brokeback Mountain, etc.) read enough Halldór Laxness books so that she could say Salka Valka was her “favorite”??
I made it through this 600-page novel about a young girl who is eventually orphaned and becomes a union leader. Christianity (specifically The Salvation Army), Marxism, capitalism, and “Bolshies” provide the thematic underpinning for exploring personal vs. political. Salka Valka (a nickname for its protagonist, Salvör) is, indeed, masterful, but it’s like Tolstoy: If you’re not in the mood, it’s not going to hit right.
But let me tell you about a July piece in The New Yorker about Laxness, whose work is experiencing a renaissance, much like the late American novelist John Williams experienced about 10 years ago. First, the piece really sets the stage for what early-20th-century Iceland was like — bleak, early deaths…much “remained mostly unchanged since the Middle Ages.” Laxness (who took this surname after the farm where his parents found work) had polio and wrote a 600-page novel at age 13. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1955, and his novel Independent People was translated to English and at one point was a Book-of-the-Month selection.
But why is Laxness not better-known to readers like myself? It’s posited that, well, he was “blacklisted” for his support of socialism. He went to Hollywood to write a screenplay, but a studio wanted to set it in Kentucky, not Iceland. Etc etc etc. Lots to unpack!
I wish I had found this piece before I blindly jumped in. And I’d like to read Independent People. This way I can one day have a conversation with Annie Proulx about which Halldór Laxness book is, in fact, my favorite. 🤔
originally published on instagram