I'm finishing up a challenging but infinitely interesting book -- "Independent People" by Halldor Laxness. He's an Iclandic author who won the Nobel Prize for Literature, partly based on this book, back in 1955. Despite its pedigree, the book has been out of print in English for 50 years. Many think that this was due to the McCarthyism of the 1950's. Some have read socialist leanings into the book. The main character values independence above all else, yet in climate and industry where strict independence can mean the death of you. Some "socialist" type cooperatives show up later in the book to improve the fate of the farmer but I haven't finished the book yet to discover whether they live up to their hype. Whatever the reasoning for it being out of print in English for so long, it's an interesting thing to "re-discover" this book that is so obviously a masterpiece but that has been fairly unknown in the U.S. for half a century.

I am amazed at how much I'm enjoying this book. One commentary I read claims that this could be the most realistic portrayal of poverty ever written. There is no sugar-coating on this destitution. The main character, Bjartur, laments the addition of a cow to the household because the milk "deprives" his children of their appetites. (i.e. they aren't starving to death). You may gather what kind of man Bjartar is from this sentiment. The loneliness, the boredom, the sheltered upbringing where you've never been past your own pasture land, the difficulty of life, the difficulty of farming in the far north where winters last more than half the year and many die in the Spring before the warmth and food returns -- it is gut-wrenching. Yet the author's voice and characters are also supremely funny at times, capturing these characters as if they were alive. Certainly in Alaska, you can imagine these people as living beings. You feel like these characters could leap out of the pages.

Warning -- this book is not for the faint-hearted. It'll have you laughing and crying and moaning out loud that so many hard times could come to these people. And be prepared for pages of dialogue about the tapeworms in the dogs that are so important to these sheep-rearing farmers. The language is not for the faint-hearted either -- it's rich and poetic and challenging enough that I sometimes am amazed that I've only read 20 pages when it seems like enough language to fill 100 pages. I don't recommend it as light reading for your next trip to the beach. But if you're up for a challenging book that will fully engage you -- give it a try. You'll be part of the redisovery of this book.

Check out this recent NPR review http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103524675