Studia Islandica - 01.07.1982, Blaðsíða 187

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yet Gunnarsson is convinced that innate mental qualities are profoundly
significant - that eternal powers, both divine and satanic, are found in
the depths of the human soul. The way he sees it, alienation within
the self, lack of contact with the core, is the main cause of the inner
exile. The three outcasts - pastor Sturla, Úlfur and Grímur - have
been divorced from the divinity that is part of every individual’s
mentality in the author’s opinion. They are strangers to themselves so
the meaningless existence that they perceive crystallizes as inner dis-
harmony and emptiness.
Gunnarsson’s character portrayal resembles Dostoyevsky’s in many
ways. Both describe mentalities that swing between extreme poles,
across the whole spectrum; both judge man to be divided, positive as
well as negative; in their works, the human being is presented dia-
lectically, as a paradox. Dostoyevsky shows that man cannot live without
faith and purpose; man is doomed in a Godless world, in his view. The
essence of Gunnarson’s novels is the same: disharmony results when
man loses sight of what is universal - loses God and himself, too. The
outcome from that, both authors point out, is self-destruction of one
kind or another. Pastor Sturla, Úlfur, Grímur, Kirilov, Stavrogin and
Ivan Karamazov all either commit suicide or fall victim to insanity.
The existentialist pessimism notwithstanding, a vision of harmony
is found in Gunnarsson’s works. A vision of coherence and values indeed
permeates his fiction as a real possibility and an open choice, though
the hope offered seems gravely threatened. He wants to belive because
he feels that man cannot live without values, and that the human being
must overcome rootlessness, break out of the agonizing isolation. Will
and ability, however, are two different matters; in Gunnarsson’s fiction,
tragic experiences more often than not crush the will to believe; aliena-
tion and sense of futility prove weightier than the moments of harmony.
The hope held out in Gunnarsson’s works is based partly on the
notions of human nature outlined above. The belief that the human
soul has an immutable core - an element not subject to physical laws -
makes it possible to hope that man may eventually succeed in over-
coming the inner alienation.
Given such a view of human nature, harmony seems a reaiistic choice.
Interwoven with that faith in man are Christian ethical ideas about
the value of love and sacrifice. In short, Gunnarsson implies that man
can escape from his lonliness and join others if he lives according to
his own true nature. Such views are expressed in particular through
tho portrayai of the balanced man who serves as a foil to split per-
sonalities. The commendable characters draw their perception of har-
mony either from actively charitable faith tempered by suffering, ad-
versity, naive innocence or creative selfless work.