Way back when. My wife and went to our prominent local bookseller over the holidays in 2003. She asked me if I had read anything by Laxness and I adroitly responded, "who?" She bought something else and the following day I jogged down to the public library. My face burning with shame I checked this out from the stacks and returned home. I read such over two days. Jonsson the sheep farmer is everyman and he's screwed. Modernity arrives along with a nascent globalization. Never razor sharp, the farmer does possess a tradition and a rustic skill set. I loved that. Ultimately it may be a meditation on living in a bleak landscape: such is helpful in Indiana.

It's a very large, epic work. The author uses different types of narrative throughout the novel. It accomplishes in make you feel in your own flesh and bone the hunger and despair of the characters.

It details with clarity the human being's all-time feelings, corruption and evilness.
It delivers in terms of taking you away to another country, another culture and another world. Despite geographical differences and times, in the very bottom of our beings lies the same fears and aflictions.
Are we really free and independent? Or, even if we don't want it, we depend on others?
I appreciated the way the author changes the narrative according to the characters age and sex.
In the end I found it reality-crushing and pessimistic, maybe that's the real world true essence. I have to admit that it took me a long time to finish it, it has really deep chapters about sheep, politics, poetry; well in the end it really pays off.

I loved the spanish translation, it made me look for a few words in the dictionary which I enjoyed.

One of the few books that made cry. It oozes humanity.

One of the best Icelandic Sagas I've ever read! But seriously, though this book took me forever to read, I drank in every word, enchanted by the poetry of it and entranced by the cold and the light. The translation was superb, and natural, by a Scottish translator, who used lots of our shared Norse words. This book came from a book swap but I think I'll be buying my own copy and maybe trying out some of Laxness's other works. I'm usually quite frivolous when it comes to books and if it takes me a while to get into something I often give up, but this books wasn't like that. I knew from page one it wasn't going to be easy, but I loved every word. Fantastic and highly recommended.

A long tale exploring the influence of family and community in one’s life.

I read this in Icelandic, called "Sjálfstætt Fólk" as a part of an Icelandic course in school. Very nice.