The Icelandic connection - 01.06.2010, Qupperneq 27

Vol. 63 #1
ICELANDIC CONNECTION
25
not as a challenge, but rather as a curse
upon the young writer. Eventually
though, he came to realize the value of the
golden age works to the Icelandic novel-
ist, and Halldor (Hall D'Or ), accepting
this challenge, engaged openly with the
Old Icelandic Sagas, and medieval Norse
literature, and, in at least one instance,
used this experience to craft not only an
exceptional character, in Snaefrixbur, but
an exceptional novel, which stands on the
meeting place of tradition and modernity.
Perhaps one important question that
remains regarding Laxness’ sourcing of
the Old Icelandic Sagas, and the
medieval Norse literature in the character
of SnsefnSur in Iceland’s Bell is: why did
he chose a female character to represent
these literatures? Surely the heroic feats
of Gunnar of HliSarendi or those of
Sigur5ur the Volsung are more famous,
the feuds among the early Icelandic farm-
ers more numerous, and was it not Arnas
who held the soul of the Nordic people on
his bookshelves in Copenhagen? Perhaps
Halldor had asked himself the question of
whether it is an inherent property of
islands to make their women into the
guardians of their memory.
Works Cited
Primary Sources
Laxness, Halldor. Iceland’s Bell,
trans. Philip Roughton (New York:
Vintage International, 2003).
Njal’s Saga, trans. Robert Cook (New
York: Penguin Books, 1997)
Sans soleil (Without Sun; Sunless).
[PilmJ Directed and Written by Chris
Marker (Prance: Argos Pilms, 1983).
The Sagas of Icelanders, ed. Ornolfur
Thorsson (New York: Penguin Books,
2001).
The Saga of the Volsungs, trans. Jesse
L. Byock (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1990).
Critical Sources
Andersen, Lise Praestgaard. “On
Valkyries, shielcl-maidens and other
armed women - in Old Norse sources and
Saxo Grammaticus” in Mythological
Women: Studies in Memory of Lotte Motz
(Wien: Passbaender, 2002),
pp. 291-318.
Durston, Linda Suzanne. Irony in Old
Icelandic Family Sagas: A Rhetoric of
Reconstruction (Michigan: UMI
Dissertation Services, 1994).
Eysteinsson, Astra&ur. “Halldor
Laxness and the Narrative of the
Icelandic Novel” in Scandinavica: An
International Journal of Scandinavian
Studies (London: Norvik Press, 2003),
Vol. 42, No. 1, pp.47-66.
Gu5mundsson, Halldor. The
Islander: A biography of Halldor
Laxness, trans. Philip Roughton (London:
MacLehouse Press, 2008).
Hallberg, Peter. Halldor Laxness,
trans. Rory McTurk (New York: Twayne
Publishers, Inc., 1971).
Miller, William Ian. “Emotions and
the sagas” in From Sagas to Society:
Comparative Approaches to Early
Iceland
(Middlesex: Hisarlik Press, 1992)
Thomsen, Grimur (eds. Cowan,
Edward J. and Palsson, Hermann). “On
the Character of the Old Northern Poetry”
in Studia Islandica 31, ed.
Steingnmur J. Porsteinsson (Reykjavik:
University of Iceland - Faculty of
Liberal Arts and the Icelandic
Cultural Fund, 1972)