World Light
A Novel by Halldór Laxness
Reviewed by Sean Grayson
The greater a person's importance, the more gleefully we watch them err. Finding out that our perception of others is wrong tells us that our self-perception is also wrong; an adjustment in one leads to an opposite adjustment in the other.
It is perhaps unsurprising then that Günther Grass's history as a Nazi guard was greeted with such animosity. The issue touches many nerves: Naziism, the Nobel Prize and the need for honesty in particular.
The merits of any prize are hard to argue, particularly in an era of their ubiquity: while winning a literary prize once carried the note of distinction, they are so commonplace that aspiring writers are routinely advised to win one as a way to "break in." It makes sense then that the bigger a prize, the more contentious the winner: too predictable, and the prize is soft; too controversial, and the prize is partisan. The Nobel Prize in Literature is particularly contentious, perhaps because it is so secretive and prestigious. For years, the Swedish Academy was accused of parochialism: a disproportionate number of Scandinavians won the prize.
It's fortunate that you can't please all of the people all of the time; were that the case, Halldór Laxness might never have won the Nobel. Haven't heard of him? Don't be surprised. There are 98 Nobel Laureates in Literature, many of them unknown and untranslated in English. Laxness, an Icelandic writer of novels, plays and epic sagas, was last translated in the 1970s for Northwestern University's Nordic Translation Series. Laxness's major novels were reprinted this year by Vintage International. Had it not been for his Nobel status, it might not have been reprinted at all.
Enough about the man; let's talk about the book. World Light, set in colonial Iceland at some point in the early 20th century, tells the story of Olaf Karason, an orphan and would-be poet, from his childhood to his premature death. Olaf is not an orphan exactly, but a foster child, abandoned by his mother to live with a family that does not want him. He is born and dies without friends, and the few who understand him do so imperfectly.
Olaf Karason's life is a series of misfortunes, which he copes with through empathy and permissive tenderness. He tries to please everyone, but can please no one, as all that is wanted from his is his loyalty, something he cannot give. By refusing to stake his loyalty in one camp or another (in the most prominent case, Icelandic spiritualism or the labor union), he earns opprobrium of all.
The characters in Laxness's work are clearly satirical: Peter Palsson, a Dane and one of two rich men (the other being the snuffmaker) in ___vik, is the closest thing the book has to a villain. He refuses to lend him the money to bury his child; he takes money from a town already deep in debt and spends it on luxuries; he spends his time with obvious spiritual charlatans. And yet, neither he nor any of the characters in Laxness's work are treated without a degree of sympathy. Even at the most ridiculous, Laxness is never malicious. Through Olaf, who feels the pain of all men, he allows the innate goodness of each character to shine through the base, reprehensible actions they take. It is for this reason that his work has such power: were this a savage mockery of Icelandic life, an O'Connor-esque takedown, it would miss the point. The characters in World Light are not glorious: they are human, just like us, and in their missteps, failings and frustrations we can see our own. That Laxness can make them worth studying is a testament to his skills as a writer, and perhaps that he is alone among Scandinavians in deserving the Nobel Prize in Literature.