Novel
Halla
Not translated into English
Jón Trausti · 1906
Opening lines
Engin vera á jarðríki er eins hamingjusöm eins og ung stúlka, sem er hraust og fríð sýnum. Og enga veru leggur óhamingjan eins í einelti.
No being on earth is as happy as a young girl who is healthy and fair to look upon. And no being does misfortune pursue so relentlessly.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from netutgafan.snerpa.is
Synopsis
An orphan raised in the countryside, Halla is a farm servant so skilled and hardworking that she earns the highest wages in the district. Lively and teasing, she amuses herself with the young men who court her without committing to any of them, and above all with the shepherd Ólafur, who is not well favoured and saves money to win her through his prudence. When Halldór, a young pastor from Reykjavík, arrives in the parish without his wife, who has stayed in town for the winter, Halla is placed in his service and begins to idealise him.
Context
His poetry collections, Heima og erlendis in 1899 and Íslandsvísur in 1903, had gone largely unnoticed by the critics, so the author chose a pseudonym to move to the novel, and the book appeared in 1906 without anyone knowing who had written it. It opens the story of the people of Heiðarbýlið, which is continued in four volumes published from 1908 to 1911, Barnið, Grenjaskyttan, Fylgsnið and Þorradægur, set in a district of northern Iceland around the middle of the nineteenth century. In twelve years he wrote eight novels and nine shorter narratives, without ever leaving the printing house.
Who it is for
A realist tale of the countryside, the first part of a cycle of five books; readable in Icelandic only.
Prizes and reception
Often regarded as Iceland's first bookshop success; the cycle has been read continuously ever since.