The Atom Station: Halldór Laxness, Magnus Magnusson (Translator)
People don't have the imagination to understand politicians. People are too innocent.
When the Americans make an offer to buy land in Iceland to build a NATO airbase after the Second World War, a storm of protest is provoked throughout the country. Narrated by a country girl from the north, the novel follows her experiences after taking up employment as a maid in the house of her Member of Parliament. Her observations and experiences expose the bourgeois society as rootless and shallow and in stark contrast to the age-old culture of the concrete and less fanciful north.
I have struggled a little when reading and digesting the political satires and some strange terms like "gods," "Two hundred thousand pliers," "F.F.F," etc. It's a serious book that needs a sense of Icelandic history and a further understanding of the regional culture. However, I've managed to find some great pieces of prose sounded very philosophical and relevant. The sequences are about how men do not possess the children they seed in their wives (or significant others) in the world's different races. About drunkenness, growing up, and the overall position of women.
The writing is quite strange, but anyway, it paints a picture of Iceland in 1948, grappling with the cold war, the impact of consumerism, and the move away from traditional values. It could be read as cynical, but I thought Laxness was just telling the truth through a great, strong female character and conversations. It also gives great respect to the Sagas, writers, and people of the past.
Comments