Reykjavík Grapevine - 01.03.2013, Blaðsíða 19

19
A frank and poetic meditation on nature, relationships, and the choices
that define us, Bergsveinn Birgisson’s ‘Reply To A Letter From Helga’
paints an unflinching portrait of Bjarni, an elderly man on the verge of
“the Great Relocation congenital to all men” who is ready to finally face
the defining decision of his life and respond to a letter left unanswered
for so many years.
When, in his youth, his lover Helga offered him the chance to follow
her to a new life in Reykjavík, Bjarni chose instead to remain on the farm
which had been in his family for generations, choosing his love for the
land over romantic love and companionship. This decision was, and re-
mains, a fraught and painful one for him. Even so, he maintains a clear
sense of pride throughout the novel, a strength of purpose which sepa-
rates his story from more conventional narratives of love lost. “I thought
of what kind of person I would become in Reykjavík,” Bjarni writes.
Could I love you...under such circumstances? Is it so certain,
Helga, that everything would have been fine for us? I would have
dug a ditch for you and filled it back up again, the same ditch all
my life...But abandon myself, the countryside and farming, which
were who I am; that I couldn’t do.”
While his brief, but passionate, affair with Helga provides the basis
for his reflections, his other lifelong love, “the district where my forefa-
thers had lived for an entire millennium,” is what gives him purpose. For
Bjarni’s message is as much a love letter to the country and to a nearly
forgotten way of life as it is a paean to Helga. His language is simple
but always richly sensual, particularly in its descriptions of nature, and
its evocations of desire and longing. Often these elements combine, as
when he describes the “Helga Tussocks,” which, “with their smooth, flat
tops and steep, rounded sides, are made from the same mold as your
breasts, by the same creative hands.”
Bjarni’s recollections also dramatise the seasonal rituals and complex
relationships in a small, rural village, alighting on yearly sheep round-ups
and ram exhibitions, on taciturn men sagely discussing politics at the
local co-op, on the regular meetings and heated debates of the district
Reading Club. (Bjarni has been an avid reader all his life, and quotes po-
etry, sagas, and psalms throughout the novel. This English translation in-
cludes a glossary of works cited, making for an excellent primer to great
Icelandic literature.) His stories are not all happy ones: “I’m not saying
that everything is so heavenly [in the country] and the people are utter
angels,” he says. “Of course there is rumormongering and jealousy and
all sorts of other hogwash. But these same people loan you a tractor tire
in a pinch.”
‘Reply to a Letter from Helga’ is a rare novel in its capacity to measure
and examine regret, courageous in its recognition that loving another
person is not always enough in itself. “Love is also in this life I’ve lived
here in the countryside,” Bjarni writes. “And when I chose this life and
pursued it and didn’t regret it, I learned that one should stick to one’s
decision, nurture it and not deviate—that this is an expression of love.”
- LARISSA KYZER
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R E V I E W
Reply To A Letter
From Helga
By Bergsveinn Birgisson, Translated by Philip Roughton
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