Word: bjartur
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...dark, cold, turf-walled farmhouse, Bjartur's wife lies dead in a pool of her own blood. The fire in the stove has gone out. The oil lamp is empty. On the bed, with only a half-starved dog to warm it, lies a newborn baby...
...Bjartur has been gone for days. He knew his wife's time was near, but one of his sheep was lost, so he tramped off across the moors to find it. His wife begged him to stay at home, but he told her to hush: "I'm sick of listening to this hysterical babble." Bjartur is used to doing things his own way. He takes back talk from no one. He is, he likes to boast, an independent...
...Bjartur of Summerhouses is the central figure in Independent People. This grim, graphic novel of life on the Icelandic uplands, circa 1900-1920, is the Book-of-the-Month Club's choice for August and, according to the publisher, an "epic in the grand tradition of great fiction." It may be less expansively described as a half-sympathetic, half-scornful portrait of the Icelandic peasant mind, done with broad "epic" touches and special political intent. For Author Halldór Laxness uses his fine portrait, which is drawn in almost Holbein-like detail, as the text...
...Bjartur's children get no coddling: "I had boiled fish and tallow and cod-liver oil in my sucking-bag before I was a year old, and throve well on it." Food is scarce; winters are cold...
Worker in Flight. Bjartur doggedly hangs on, growling at his family, glorying in his independence. World War I-that "blessed war," that "beautiful war," which sends the value of Icelandic exports sky-high-makes Bjartur prosperous. But only for a time; and when the crash comes, Summerhouses is sold to satisfy creditors...
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