Saga - 2002, Page 140

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HELGA KRESS
Torfhildur Hólm (1845-1918) was not only the first Icelandic author to
write historical novels but also the first Icelandic woman to publish a
novel and the first Icelander to make a career of writing. Altogether she
published four long historical novels: Brynjólfur Sveinsson biskup (Bishop
Brynjólfur Sveinsson), which appeared in 1882; Elding (Lightning), which
was based on the Saga Age; Jón biskup Vídalín (Bishop Jón Vídalín); and
Jón biskup Arason (Bishop Jón Arason). Her novels were well received by
the public, but critics accused her of lacking both talent and a knowledge
of history, for she was an unmarried woman with no formal education or
social standing. She defended her use of history in these works, however,
arguing that with her fiction she was recovering forgotten sources on
Icelandic history and rescuing them from being lost forever. At the same
time, she invited those writers of true competence to take advantage of
the historical materials, settings and periods to which she had steered
them and encouraged them to follow in her footsteps. Many authors
accepted her challenge, and the historical novel reached its zenith in
Icelandic literature during the 1920s and 1930s with the works of Icelandic
authors who had emigrated to Denmark and wrote in Danish. Most of
these works dealt with the very same subjects as Torfhildur Hólm's nov-
els. A case in point is Laxness's first novel, the now lost Afturelding
(Dawn), which he himself once described as a response to Hólm's Elding.
An analysis of íslandsklukkan reveals the influence of Hólm's novels,
especially Jón biskup Vídalín, which provided the idea for a romance
between Arnas Arnæus/Árni Magnússon and Snæfríður Islandssól, a plot
element that has no historical basis. It is also interesting to see how these
two writers differ in their approach to the connections between reality,
history, and narrative art: Torfhildur Hólm emphasizes historical truth
whereas Halldór Laxness bends history to accommodate what he called
the narrative truths of the work.