Hamsun and Laxness: Opposition or literary dialogue?

Abstract

The novel Independent People by Halldór Kiljan Laxness was published in 1934, and it is now considered to be one of the best Icelandic novels. Actually, this work was a response to Knut Hamsun’s novel Growth of the Soil, in which peasant patriarchal relations were presented in an ideal light. In both of these novels, the image of a proud independent person, existing in isolation from society, is central. Both of them are national types: Bjartur is an Icelander and Isak is Norwegian, but they also embody a kind of universal personality with the ability to act at their own discretion for good or evil. Hamsun provides the ideal model of existence, his hero is the winner in the fight against civilization, but the depiction of Laxness’ hero appears as the crucial facet of the Icelandic national character: Bjartur is stark, precise, educated, and quick-tempered, but he has great tenacity. His ideas and aspirations are very similar to Isak’s aims, but they are just utopian. He brings only grief and death to those whom he loves, and to those who love him. Hamsun and Laxness both criticized the capitalist civilization, asking the same question: what are the greatest values in this life? However, they found very different answers. Hamsun tried to find his ideal in the patriarchal peasantry, and Laxness was enthusiastic about communist ideas. It was actually an ideological confrontation where Laxness, denying Hamsun’s ideology, greatly contributed to the leftist ideology and its attack on democracy. There is no doubt that Laxness as an author borrowed a lot from Hamsun’s manner of writing and his novel, under certain conditions, can be considered as a reinterpretation of Hamsun’s novel.