BIOGRAPHY'HALLDÓR LAXNESS was Europe's last national poet. Not because the entire Icelandic nation loved him but because almost everyone in the country took an interest in his writing." Thus opens this biography of the most successful Icelandic writer of modern times.
Extremely well known in Scandinavia, elsewhere his fame is less, although more readers are becoming familiar with his best works, particularly Independent People. One possible reason why one of the great novelists of the 20th century, and winner of the Nobel Prize (1955), is not as well known as he ought to be in English translation is that Laxness was unofficially blacklisted in the United States during the Cold War. Even though Independent People, first published in 1939, was translated, brilliantly, to English by J A Thompson and published by Knopf in 1946, who selected it for their Book of the Month Club, boosting its sales from 7,000 to 400,000, it was not reprinted again in English for half a century.
This omission was probably in retaliation for Laxness's passionate communist sympathies and his outspoken protests against the establishment of an American army base in Iceland.
It was not the only repercussion of his political stance: the Icelandic government withheld his writer's grant in 1946, and his tax affairs were subjected to intensive scrutiny, at the behest of the American ambassador to Iceland. This episode, throwing interesting light on the interaction of politics and literature in a country where writers participate in public debate and politicians control arts bursaries (in those days) is typical of Laxness's life: as dramatic and eventful as any of his novels. In 1909, at the age of seven, he had a vision which convinced him of his destiny as a writer. Totally committed to literature from that time until the end of his life in 1998, the longest stint of ordinary work he ever did lasted for a grand total of eight months. This was in 1931, just after the birth of his first child with his wife Inga - he was a receptionist for Icelandic radio, apparently acquitting himself rather well.
Halldór Guðmundsson's biography takes as its theme Laxness's fusion of cosmopolitanism and nationalism. When he was just 17, the novelist began a practice which became a lifelong habit. He went abroad, in the first instance to Copenhagen, then the usual initial destination for young Icelanders. The first thing he did was pin a card to the door of his room: "Halldór from Laxness, Poeta". From then on he travelled widely, and wrote much of his work in hotel rooms.
Often the guest of some generous landlady - kind Danish ladies seemed to own hotels in many pleasant places - he wrote in Sicily, Rome, Barcelona, Luxembourg and elsewhere. He had the old-fashioned artist's knack of being able to survive on no fixed income. "He became convinced that others would always offer to assist him, without question, whether with money or other gifts." And usually they did - which is not to say that he did not endure hard times. When writing The Great Weaver from Kashmir in Taormina, he went without food for a whole week, until a friend sent him money. (His mother, a poor woman, bailed him out frequently).
One unlikely source of support in the early years was the Catholic Church. Laxness, originally a Lutheran like almost everyone in Iceland, was attracted to Catholicism in his 20s. This was his first idealistic infatuation, which began when he read Thomas à Kempis's Imitation of Christ, a book which he loved until his death. At one stage he lived for a year as a guest of the monks in a monastery at Clervaux in Luxembourg, where he was well looked after - for him it was a sort of Annaghmakerrig.
Eventually he abandoned Catholicism, and in later life was more attracted to Taoism. From the 1930s, his idealism switched from religion to politics and he became a communist. He visited the Soviet Union for long periods as an official guest and refused to accept the truth about Stalinism until the 1950s, in spite of the evidence of his own eyes (a friend of his, a journalist, was arrested while he was with her in her flat in Moscow, in March 1937, and imprisoned for eight years because her estranged husband (executed) was accused of dissidence).
Laxness wrote 20 novels - two of them three volume works - six collections of stories, 10 plays, poems, memoirs, travel books, as well as countless essays and articles. An excellent linguist, and at home in many countries, at one point he considered writing in Danish, at another - when he was in Hollywood - in English. But finally he wrote only in Icelandic, and his most important novels, such as Independent People, Iceland's Bell, and The Atom Station, are about Iceland and Icelanders.
He wrote great novels which combine savage social criticism, lyricism and biting humour - and are eminently accessible. Stylistically, he experimented with surrealism, and was aware of modernism - he admired Joyce. But he was at his best as a social realist. Among his key influences were Sinclair Lewis - whom he befriended while in America - Theodor Dreiser and Ernest Hemingway.
Guðmundsson interweaves the diverting story of Laxness's life with critical commentary on his work, in the manner of the best literary biographers. His tone is appealing: intimate and understanding but far from hagiographic, and not averse to critical irony (Iceland loved its Nobel laureate but could poke fun at him too - in his lifetime he became a character in Icelandic oral tradition, the subject of many jokes and humorous anecdotes).
Guðmundsson had the advantage of having at hand a number of previous biographies and memoirs, as well as a great archive of personal correspondence, and contact with the subject, his friends, and relatives. One result of this close connection is that he conveys a vivid sense of Laxness's personality, in all its complexity and ambivalence. The man comes to life in the pages of the work - something which does not always happen, even in the best biographies.
Halldór Laxness was a completely authentic writer. He wrote from a deep inner need. Intellectually, artistically and politically, he was brave, outspoken, and experimental. A man of the world, a real European, he was also completely Icelandic. He "led his nation into the 20th century", and created characters who have become symbols of Iceland, almost as powerful as the great heroes of the medieval sagas. "In his fiction he gave voice to the perceptions and feelings of his countrymen during the greatest uprooting in Iceland's history."
Iceland is an unusual country - though it has much in common with Ireland - and Laxness is an extraordinary, if not unique, literary phenomenon. The translation of this exemplary biography to English is very welcome. It provides readers of English with a perfect introduction to the life and works of an outstanding writer, one whom everyone should read.
• Éilís Ní Dhuibhne's latest novels are Fox,Swallow, Scarecrow (Blackstaff) and Dún an Airgid (Cois Life)