Under the Glacier [Paperback]

Halldor Laxness (Author), Magnus Magnusson (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 8, 2005

Nobel laureate Halldór Laxness’s Under the Glacier is a one-of-a-kind masterpiece, a wryly provocative novel at once earthy and otherworldly. At its outset, the Bishop of Iceland dispatches a young emissary to investigate certain charges against the pastor at Sn?fells Glacier, who, among other things, appears to have given up burying the dead. But once he arrives, the emissary finds that this dereliction counts only as a mild eccentricity in a community that regards itself as the center of the world and where Creation itself is a work in progress.
What is the emissary to make, for example, of the boarded-up church? What about the mysterious building that has sprung up alongside it? Or the fact that Pastor Primus spends most of his time shoeing horses? Or that his wife, Ua (pronounced “ooh-a,” which is what men invariably sputter upon seeing her), is rumored never to have bathed, eaten, or slept? Piling improbability on top of improbability, Under the Glacier overflows with comedy both wild and deadpan as it conjures a phantasmagoria as beguiling as it is profound.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“One of the world’s most unusual, skilled and visionary novelists.” –Jane Smiley

“Laxness is a beacon in twentieth-century literature, a writer of splendid originality, wit, and feeling.” –Alice Munro

“The qualities of the sagas pervade his writing, and particularly a kind of humor–oblique, stylized and childlike–that can be found in no other contemporary writer.” –The Atlantic Monthly

“One of the world’s most unusual, skilled and visionary novelists.” –Jane Smiley

“A marvelous novel about the most ambitious questionsÉ. It is also one of the funniest books ever written.: --Susan Sontag, from the Introduction

“The qualities of the sagas pervade his writing, and particularly a kind of humor–oblique, stylized and childlike–that can be found in no other contemporary writer.” –The Atlantic Monthly

“Laxness is a beacon in twentieth-century literature, a writer of splendid originality, wit, and feeling.” –Alice Munro

From the Inside Flap

Nobel laureate Halldor Laxness's Under the Glacier is a one-of-a-kind masterpiece, a wryly provocative novel at once earthy and otherworldly. At its outset, the Bishop of Iceland dispatches a young emissary to investigate certain charges against the pastor at Sn?fells Glacier, who, among other things, appears to have given up burying the dead. But once he arrives, the emissary finds that this dereliction counts only as a mild eccentricity in a community that regards itself as the center of the world and where Creation itself is a work in progress.
What is the emissary to make, for example, of the boarded-up church? What about the mysterious building that has sprung up alongside it? Or the fact that Pastor Primus spends most of his time shoeing horses? Or that his wife, Ua (pronounced "ooh-a," which is what men invariably sputter upon seeing her), is rumored never to have bathed, eaten, or slept? Piling improbability on top of improbability, Under the Glacier overflows with comedy both wild and deadpan as it conjures a phantasmagoria as beguiling as it is profound.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 2nd edition (March 8, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400034418
• ISBN-13: 978-1400034413
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.5 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #606,246 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Metaphysical Hoot, April 8, 2006

By 

Joel Rafi Zabor (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Under the Glacier (Paperback)

One of the funniest "spiritual" books ever written, this one gets better as it goes along and ends astoundingly. The sketchy prose style is wonderfully transparent and must have been a pleasure to write: no muss, no fuss--an old man's work, with no words to spare and none extra needed. My only warning would be to avoid Susan Sontag's introduction, which makes so many claims for the book's comprehensive greatness that Laxness's novel sinks beneath their weight. It's best read afterward, certainly. I'm an odd reader: once a book has won me over, it has me completely, and this is one of them.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Icelander who went up a glacier and came down with ghosts, July 30, 2005

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James W. Muir (Toronto, ON Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Under the Glacier (Paperback)

In her introduction, Susan Sontag described Under the Glacier as being a sci fi, comic, dream and philisophical novel. That may be, but to me it was something more like a long ghost story told not around the campfire but in a report. The narrator is sent to a small town on the western edge of Iceland to investigate weird goings-on in the local church. He meets people, interviewing some and just recording the conversations of others. He tries to follow what is happenning around him, sometimes getting it, and sometimes not (which means, as readers of his report, we at times don't know what is happening either). Some parts of the book are very funny, others quite thought-provoking. Although a much easier read, it reminded me of Gass's Omensetter's Luck. My biggest complaint is that at times the translation reads rather opaquely. Laxness chose words and phrases and situations that are obviously important in Icelandic culture. Some explanatory notes at the back of the book (as there are in the Inspector Montalbano mysteries) would help readers who first come into contact with Iceland through this novel.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Soul on Ice, October 22, 2005

By 

John Petralia (Loveladies, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Under the Glacier (Paperback)

It's never been easy or popular to challenge established religious doctrines. Jesus was crucified for his teachings. Copernicus and Galileo unsuccessfully used science, math and logic to confront Church teachings. And, monk Martin Luther never did get the Church elders to buy his argument that every individual should be able to interpret the Bible for himself. With a decided tip of his literary hat to his better known rebel predecessors, Haldor Laxness uses analogy and humor to critique what he sees as misplaced priorities of established organized religions: Protestants (especially Lutherans), Catholics, Muslims, and Jews.
The book is written as the eyewitness report by a young man sent on a mission by the local Lutheran Bishop to investigate the "goings on" at a remote Icelandic parish located by the glacier. "We're asking for a report that's all; don't try to put anything right---that's our business in the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs, " the Bishop says in what later you realize is the first of many ironically funny shots at the literal interpretation of the Bible including the current day favorite, intelligent design. Because of the author's clever analogies that spoof and cut, Under the Glacier is not an easy book to read. Like the Bible that it seeks to parody, you can take it literally; you can read it as pure fable; or, you might read it as a combination of myth and reality. Whatever your response, it is unlikely to be indifferent.