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Overview
Abandoned as a baby, Alfgrimur is content to spend his days as a fisherman living in the turf cottage outside Reykjavik with the elderly couple he calls grandmother and grandfather. There he shares the mid-loft with a motley bunch of eccentrics and philosophers who find refuge in the simple respect for their fellow men that is the ethos at Brekkukot. But the narrow horizons of Alfgrimur's idyllic childhood are challenged when he starts school and meets Iceland's most famous singer, the mysterious Gardar Holm. Gardar encourages him to aim for the "one true note", but how can he attain it without leaving behind the world that he loves?Synopsis
The Fish Can Sing is one of Nobel Prize winner Halldór Laxness’s most beloved novels, a poignant coming-of-age tale marked with his peculiar blend of light irony and dark humor.
The orphan Alfgrimur has spent an idyllic childhood sheltered in the simple turf cottage of a generous and eccentric elderly couple. Alfgrimur dreams only of becoming a fisherman like his adoptive grandfather, until he meets Iceland's biggest celebrity. The opera singer Gardar Holm’s international fame is a source of tremendous pride to tiny, insecure Iceland, though no one there has ever heard him sing. A mysterious man who mostly avoids his homeland and repeatedly fails to perform for his adoring countrymen, Gardar takes a particular interest in Alfgrimur’s budding musical talent and urges him to seek out the world beyond the one he knows and loves. But as Alfgrimur discovers that Gardar is not what he seems, he begins to confront the challenge of finding his own path without turning his back on where he came from.
Publishers Weekly
Laxness, Iceland's best-known fiction writer and winner of the 1955 Nobel Prize for literature, authored well over 60 novels and other books before his death in 1998 at the age of 90. This lyrical novel, first published in English in 1966 (nine years after its original publication in Iceland), concerns a boy named Alfgr mur Hannson of Brekkukot, the humble fishing cottage where he is raised by adoptive grandparents. The novel's plot--if so formal a term may be used to describe the tale's slow and meandering progress through Alfgr mur's uneventful youth--involves an Icelandic singing star known as Gardar H lm. All Iceland, except for H lm's own mother and the folks at Brekkukot, dote on H lm because of his international reputation for performing lieder. Yet few have ever heard him sing--the beloved H lm is growing old and he is mysteriously elusive. Young Alfgr mur may also be a gifted singer, and he tracks H lm down assiduously. Once he finds him, however, he learns that singing is only one way of seeking "the one true note"--and he who has heard that note never sings again. Laxness portrays the backwardness of turn-of-the-century Iceland with gentle humor and irony. Tiny Iceland needs its "singing fish"--celebrities like Gardar H lm, and perhaps Alfgr mur Hannson--but the moral of Laxness's lovely fable references a simpler sentiment: glory may just as well be sought in the humblest walks of life. (Feb.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Laxness, Iceland's best-known fiction writer and winner of the 1955 Nobel Prize for literature, authored well over 60 novels and other books before his death in 1998 at the age of 90. This lyrical novel, first published in English in 1966 (nine years after its original publication in Iceland), concerns a boy named Alfgr mur Hannson of Brekkukot, the humble fishing cottage where he is raised by adoptive grandparents. The novel's plot--if so formal a term may be used to describe the tale's slow and meandering progress through Alfgr mur's uneventful youth--involves an Icelandic singing star known as Gardar H lm. All Iceland, except for H lm's own mother and the folks at Brekkukot, dote on H lm because of his international reputation for performing lieder. Yet few have ever heard him sing--the beloved H lm is growing old and he is mysteriously elusive. Young Alfgr mur may also be a gifted singer, and he tracks H lm down assiduously. Once he finds him, however, he learns that singing is only one way of seeking "the one true note"--and he who has heard that note never sings again. Laxness portrays the backwardness of turn-of-the-century Iceland with gentle humor and irony. Tiny Iceland needs its "singing fish"--celebrities like Gardar H lm, and perhaps Alfgr mur Hannson--but the moral of Laxness's lovely fable references a simpler sentiment: glory may just as well be sought in the humblest walks of life. (Feb.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.Carolyne Larrington
Halldor Laxness makes considerable play with the comforting insularity of nineteenth century Reyjavik...the strangeness is entirely plausible, created, in part, by the deadpan narrative style, adn by a gallery of affectionately drawn eccentrics...—Times Literary Supplement