The Icelandic connection - 01.06.2010, Qupperneq 22

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ICELANDIC CONNECTION
Vol. 63 #1
Halldor’s description of Hemmingway’s
character portrayal directly to the sagas
themselves, and in doing this it is easy to
see how his work on the Hemmingway
translation helped him to prepare for his
next novel. Doubtless, both his essays,
and his work translating Hemmingway,
helped Halldor find the special style and
tone to express the spirit of his next work,
Iceland’s Bell, but perhaps no project
assisted him more in this task than the
assemblage, and publication of his -
fiercely debated - modern-spelling edi-
tions of the Old Icelandic sagas. For, as
large a part as the cultural struggle played
in Iceland during the 1940s, Halldor was
still an artist, and his interest in the sagas
and the cultural traditions of Iceland were
not solely entrenched in battle, but also
had “its roots in his [artistic] struggle with
narrative methods.” Perhaps it was during
this period- when his leftist ideology was
eclipsed by the narrative of Icelandic his-
tory and tradition, when he realized that
he could work his way to full legitimiza-
tion “only though an investment in tradi-
tion, when he first managed “to create a
space for himself as a ‘guide’ to the qual-
ities and values of novelistic and national
narratives” - that Halldor fused his former
role as an artist, and his future role as a
“national” poet nearest to perfection.
Turning now to Iceland’s Bell, in
approaching the piece one is presented
with a work that is flooded with direct
references to the Old Icelandic sagas, and
medieval Norse literature. From the boor-
ish rogue Jon Hreggvidsson’s perpetual
invocations of Gunnar of Hlf5arendi; his
embarrassing effort in contesting the troll
women of Husafell; his wrestling match
with a dead man; his journey to, and
through, the European kingdoms, which
echoes the common journey of his saga
forefathers - though in a quite perverted
manner; to the manuscript collector Arnas
Arnteus, whose singular mission in life is
to collect and to preserve the “soul of the
Nordic peoples,” which “is to be found in
Icelandic books.” However, Halldor was
not only interested in compiling fleeting
references to the old works, and in the
character of Snaefrl&ur Islandssol - the
third canvas in Halldor’s protagonist-trip-
tych - he truly channels the narrative
forms of the Old Icelandic sagas and
medieval Norse literatures into his mod-
ern novel. In SnaHrf5ur, Halldor has
assembled “all that is mysteriously unas-
sailable in the life of the nation: the dream
and the saga above and beyond the grim-
ness of each new day.” According to
Halldor himself - from a 1944 interview
- in Iceland’s Bell, he had been “trying to
describe things from the exterior rather
than the interior,” and he hoped to
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