As I have mentioned in previous episodes, literature plays a big role in Icelandic society. Halldór’s nobel prize for his literature about Icelandic society is something that Icelandic people are very proud of.







He was born in Reykjavík in 1902 and his parents moved to the Laxnes farm near Mosfellsdalur when Halldór was three. His birth name was Halldór Guðjónsson but he changed it later on in life. In his own memoirs, he describes himself as an odd child. He learned to read and write at an early age, and spent a lot of time scribbling away in his notebook. From 1915 to 1916, he attended a technical school in Reykjavík and had his first article published in Morgunblaðið, a local newspaper, when he was 14 years old. By the age of 17, Halldór had already published his first book “Barn náttúrunnar”. He also had traveled abroad to other countries in Europe.



Laxness Converts to Catholicism



Surprisingly, he joined a Benedictine monastery in Luxembourg in 1922. Halldór was baptized and confirmed Catholic in 1923. After being confirmed, he took on  the last name Laxness, after the farm that he grew up on in Reykjavík. He also took on the name Kiljan, which is the Icelandic version of the name Irish martyr Saint Killian.



In episode 29, which is right before this, I talk about Iceland’s unique and strict naming system. Very few people in Iceland have family names and Laxness is one of them.



During his stay at the monastery, Halldór read lots of books and studied French, Latin, theology and philosophy. He also joined a group in the monastery that prayed for the reversion of Nordic countries back to Catholicism. He wrote about his experiences during that time in the books Undir Helgahnúk and Vefarinn mikli frá Kasmir (The Great Weaver from Kashmir). The Icelandic critic Kristján Albertsson gave Halldór’s “The Great Weaver from Kashmir” a great review. He said the following about the novel that had been published in 1927,



"Finally, finally, a grand novel which towers like a cliff above the flatland of contemporary Icelandic poetry and fiction! Iceland has gained a new literary giant - it is our duty to celebrate the fact with joy!"Kristján Albertsson







Socialism



Laxness lived in the United States from 1927 until 1929. During this time, he gave lectures on Iceland and even tried to write screenplays for Hollywood films. The most significant shift during his time in the U.S. is that he stopped being religious and became a socialist. He says that he,



"...did not become a socialist in America from studying manuals of socialism but from watching the starving unemployed in the parks."Halldór Laxness



His book Alþýðubókin or The Book of the People, which he published in 1929, was based on the fundamental ideas of socialism and Icelandic individuality. During that same year, Laxness found himself in hot water with the United States.. He published an article in Heimskringla, a Canadian newspaper, that criticized the United States. The U.S. was not amused and charges were filed against him. Laxness was detained and his passport was confiscated. Thankfully, the author Upton Sinclair and the law group ACLU came to his aid. They were able to get the charges dropped and Halldór was able to return to Iceland later that year.



The 1930’s



The shift in Halldór from the 1920s to the 1930s was quite drastic. He went from almost becoming a monk in the early 1920s to harshly attacking the Christian spiritualism of Einar Hjörleifsson Kvaran, an influential Icelandic writer who had been considered for the Nobel prize. It seems socialist ideas really resonated with the younger generations in Iceland and Laxness was at the forefront of expressing these principles at the time.



His novel Salka Valka, which was published in 1931, was the beginning of his sociological novels that he wrote over the next 20 years. The novels written and published during that time are considered the greatest period of his career.