7 best short stories - Iceland. Steingrímur J. Þorsteinsson
to be sought. It was not until about the middle of the nineteenth century that modern short stories, novels and plays began to be written on anything like a scale worthy of note. The earliest of these were romantic in spirit, though most of them had a realistic tinge. With Realism, the short story came into its own in the eighties and nineties of the last century. This trend came like a fresh current to take its place side by side with Romanticism, without, however, ousting it from the literary scene. But owing to the realistic technique and the tragic endings of much in the ancient literature—Eddaic poetry and sagas alike—Realism was never the novel force it generally was felt to be elsewhere. Still, it brought social criticism into our literature. This was introduced through the activity of young literary-minded students who, while studying at the University of Copenhagen, had become full of enthusiasm for Georg Brandes and his school.
One of these young men was Einar H. Kvaran (1859-1938), a clergyman's son from the North, who, after beginning as a student of politics, soon turned his attention to literature and journalism. He became editor of Icelandic newspapers in Canada (1885-95), and, later, in Iceland, mainly in Reykjavík. His chief preoccupation, however, became the composition of short stories and novels, and besides these he also wrote some plays and poetry. The delicacy and the religious bent of his nature could not for long remain the soil for the satirical asperity and materialism of the realist school, though his art was always marked by its technique. As he advanced in years, brotherhood and forgiveness became an evergrowing element in his idealism, and he became the first bearer of the spiritualist message in this country. With his stories he had a humanizing influence on his times, especially in the education of children, and in the field of culture he remained actively interested right up to a ripe old age. If somewhat lacking in creative fervour and colourful raciness of style, he made up for it by the abundance of his intelligence, his humanity and culture.
He wrote A Dry Spell (Ðurrkur) at the beginning of the present century, when he had disengaged himself from the strongest influence of Realism, but before moral preaching and the belief in the life hereafter had become the leading elements in his stories. He had then, for a few years, been living in the north-country town of Akureyri, which obviously provides the model for the setting of the story. It was first printed in the 1905 issue of the periodical Skírnir.
In addition to the travelled, academic realists, there appeared a group of self-educated popular writers, some of whom had come into direct contact with this foreign school. They were farmers, even in the more remote country districts, who had read the latest Scandinavian literature in the original, and who wrote stories containing radical social satire. Guðmundur Friðjónsson, for instance, had begun his career in this way. In many of these authors, however, we find rather a sort of native realism, where there is not necessarily a question of the influence of any particular literary tendency. Their works sprang out of the native environment of the authors, whose vision, despite a limited horizon, was often vivid. They convey true impressions of real life.
Of this kind are most of the works of Guðmundur Friðjónsson (1869-1944), a radical who later turned to conservatism—and the best works of Jón Trausti (1873-1918). These, who had their debut as writers about the turn of the century, are the authors of the next two stories in our collection. Both were North-countrymen. The former, a farmer's son from a district enjoying a high standard of culture, himself settled down as a farmer in his native locality in order to earn a living for his large family. In his youth he had attended a secondary school in the neighbourhood for a couple of winters, but he never had his experiences enriched by foreign travel and was during the whole of his life anchored to his native region. Jón Trausti, the son of a farm labourer and his wife, who had been born on one of the northernmost farms in Iceland in a barren and outlying district, was brought up in dire poverty. From an early age he had had to fend for himself as a farmhand and fisherman, finally settling in Reykjavík as a printer. Apart from his apprenticeship with the printers, he never went to any sort of school (school education was first made compulsory by law in Iceland in 1907); but on two occasions he had travelled abroad.
These energetic persons became widely read, especially in Icelandic literature, and wrote extensively under difficult circumstances:—in fact all the modern authors represented in the present book may be said to have been prolific as writers. Guðmundur Friðjónsson was equally versatile as a writer of short stories and poems. He has a rich command of imagery and diction, and his style, at times a little pompous, is often powerful though slightly archaic in flavour. The ancient heroic literature doubtless fostered his manly ideas, which, however, sprang from his own experience in life. One must, he felt, be hard on oneself, and on one's guard against the vanity of newfangled ideas and against the enervating effect of civilization. It is in the nature of things that with this farmer and father of a family of twelve, assiduity, prudence, and self- discipline should be among the highest virtues. This is notably apparent in The Old Hay (Gamla heyið), which he wrote in 1909, and which was published in Tólf sögur (Twelve stories) in 1915.
Jón Trausti (pseudonym of Guðmundur Magnússon) is best known as the author of novels and short stories on contemporary and historical themes, but he also wrote plays and poems. He was endowed with fertile creative powers and the ability to draw vivid sketches of environment and character. At times, however, he lacks restraint, especially in his longer novels. Still, his principal work, The Mountain Cot (Heiðarbýlið)—one of the longest cycles in Icelandic fiction—is his greatest. The little outlying mountain cot becomes a separate world in its own right, a coign of vantage affording a clear view of the surrounding countryside where we get profound insight into human nature. Like the bulk of his best work, this novel has a foundation in his own experiences. In reading the story by him included in this volume, the reader may find it helpful to bear in mind Trausti's early life as a fisherman. What he attempts to show us there is a kind of inner reality—an offset to reality. When I was on the Frigate (Þegar eg var á fregátunni) first published in Skírnir for 1910.
Jón Trausti and Einar H. Kvaran—who between them form an interesting contrast—were the most prolific novelists at the beginning of the present century. By that time prose was becoming an increasingly important part of Icelandic literature. It would be more or less true to say that in the first thirty years of the century it had gained an equal footing with poetry. For the last thirty years, however, prose has taken first place, after poetry had constituted the backbone of Icelandic literature for six hundred years, or since the end of saga-writing.
But there were several writers who felt that the small reading public at home in Iceland gave them too little scope. So they emigrated, mostly to Denmark, and in the early decades of the century began to write in foreign languages, though the majority continued simultaneously to write in the vernacular. Pioneers in this field were the dramatist Johann Sigurjónsson (1880-1919), and the novelist Gunnar Gunnarsson (b. 1889). Both of these wrote in Danish as well as in Icelandic. Early in the second decade of the century three of this overseas group produced works that were accorded immediate acclaim, and which have since become classics, being widely translated into foreign languages. These were Eyvind of the Hills (Fjalla-Eyvindur) by Johann Sigurjonsson; The Borg Family (Borgaraettin, in English Guest the One-eyed) by Gunnar Gunnarsson; and Nonni, Erlebnisse eines jungen Isländers, the first of the famous children's books by the Jesuit monk Jón Sveinsson (Jon Svensson, 1857-1944). With these works modern Icelandic literature won for the first time a place for itself among the living contemporary literatures of the world. Since then, Iceland's contribution has been steady, not only in the works of those who wrote in foreign languages, but equally—and during the last couple of decades exclusively—in vernacular writing. In fact, with the return to his native country of Gunnar Gunnarsson in 1939, the vogue of writing in foreign languages virtually came to an end.
On his arrival in Iceland Gunnarsson had settled in his native east- country district though he afterwards moved to Reykjavík, where he now lives. Indeed he possesses many of the best qualities of the gentleman-farmer—firmness, tenacity of purpose, and a craving for freedom in his domain,—combined with a writer's imaginative and narrative powers and understanding of humanity. He often describes human determination and man's struggle with destiny, especially in his historical novels, which are set in most periods of Icelandic history. More moving, perhaps, are his novels on contemporary themes. The greatest among these is the cycle The Church on the Mountain (Fjallkirkjan; of the five novels