Verwandte Artikel zu Salka Valka

Salka Valka - Softcover

Laxness, Halldor

 
9781953861245: Salka Valka
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1953861245 ISBN 13: 9781953861245
Verlag: Archipelago Books, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

"This is a remarkable achievement and will hopefully lead to a revival of interest in an oft-overlooked literary genius." – Publishers Weekly, starred review

A fresh translation of Nobel Prize–winning author Halldór Laxness's modernist masterpiece, Salka Valka.

A feminist coming of age tale, an elegy to the plight of the working class and the corrosive effects of social and economic inequality, and a poetic window into the arrival of modernity in a tiny industrial town, Salka Valka is a novel of epic proportions, living and breathing with its expansive cast of characters, filled with tenderness, humor, and remarkable pathos.

On a mid-winter night, an eleven-year-old Salvör and her unmarried mother Sigurlína disembark at the remote, run-down fishing village of Óseyri, where life is "lived in fish and consists of fish." The two women struggle to make their way amidst the domineering, salt-worn men of the town and their unsolicited attention, and, after Sigurlína's untimely death, Salvör pays for her funeral and walks home alone, precipitating her coming of age as a daring, strong-willed young woman who chops off her hair, earns her own wages, educates herself through political and philosophical texts, and, most significantly, becomes an advocate for the town's working class, ultimately organizing a local chapter of the seamen's union.

“Nowhere in Laxness’s novels is the conflict between the shining ideal of socialism and the dignity of individual people on plainer display than in Salka Valka… It never even occurs to Salka that the bastards might grind her down.” –- Salvatore Scibona, The New Yorker

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Halldór Laxness (1902-1998) is the undisputed master of modern Icelandic fiction. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1955 "for his vivid epic power which has renewed the great narrative art of Iceland." His body of work includes novels, essays, poems, plays, stories, and memoirs: more than sixty books in all. His works available in English include Independent People, The Fish Can Sing, World Light, Under the Glacier, Iceland's Bell, and Paradise Reclaimed.
Philip Roughton is an award-winning translator of Icelandic literature. His translations include works by many of Iceland’s best-known writers, including Laxness, Jón Kalman Stefánsson, Bergsveinn Birgisson, Steinunn Sigurðardóttir, and others. He was  awarded the 2015 American-Scandinavian Foundation Translation Competition Prize, for his translation of Laxness’ novel Gerpla (Wayward Heroes), the Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize for 2016, for his translation of Jón Kalman Stefánsson’s The Heart of Man, and an NEA Literature Translation Fellowship for 2017.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1
 
The coastal steamer attends faithfully to its course, slipping down the middle of the fjord between the mountains, taking its bearings from the stars and peaks and arriving on schedule at Óseyri in Axlarfjörður, its horn blasting through the blowing snow.  In the first-class smokers’ lounge, two smartly-dressed travelers from Reykjavík are discussing the village’s faint gleams of light.  Their conversation goes something like this:
 
“When sailing on such a cold and bleak winter’s night along these shores, you get the impression that nothing in the world could be more insignificant and meaningless than such a small village under such high mountains.  How do people live in such a place?  And how do they die?  What do they say to each other when they wake in the morning?  How do they look at each other on Sundays?  And what does the priest feel when he steps into the pulpit at Christmas and Easter?  I don’t mean what does he say, but what, in all honesty, does he think?  Does he see how pointless it all is?  And what do the merchant’s daughters think about before going to sleep?  Yes, what sorts of joys and what sorts of sorrows in fact thrive around those dim glimmers from their little oil lamps?  I’m certain that in such places, people’s conviction of the futility of existence is reflected in each other’s eyes.  Surely, everyone must admit that it’s absolutely useless to live in such a place, there being no low ground here except for that little valley, which apparently owes its bottom entirely to the river’s sediments.  All culture, all human contentment, are created on level ground.  In a place that’s impossible to escape, and where there’s never any hope of meeting strangers, nothing can ever be expected, either.  What would happen, for instance, if the priest’s son stopped fancying the merchant’s daughter?  Yes, what would happen?  I’m just asking.”
 
But now a boat is launched from shore and several hoarse, gruff men with beards and moustaches seize their chance to come alongside the steamer.
 
“Down with the mail and passengers!” they roar, as if fomenting a frightful revolt.
 
A traveling salesman from the south pushes his otter-fur hat down over his ears, buttons up his coat, and carefully climbs down the rope ladder into the boat.  A mailbag, half full, is handed down to the boatmen.  Nothing more?
 
“Yes!” someone calls from the deck above.  “We’ve got a woman with a girl here in third class.  She says she’s going ashore.  Don’t leave without them.  They’re on their way now.”
 
“Well, we don’t have any orders from the merchant Jóhann Bogesen about waiting here all night for some wretch of a woman.  The passengers ought to be ready,” complained the head boatman.
 
From deck came the reply:  “We couldn’t get the woman out of her bunk any sooner.  Seasickness has left her dizzy and cramping.”
 
“Well, it’s none of our concern how seasick she’s been.  We have no orders from Jóhann Bogesen about that.”
 
Despite no one being able to cite any orders from Jóhann Bogesen, the woman appeared a few moments later, along with her child.  The child was bundled quite well in woolen wraps, while the woman herself was pathetically ill-equipped for winter journeys at these northern latitudes, wearing an old, faded, ready-made coat that was far too small for her, dirty cotton stockings and shabby boots that would normally have been laced up to mid-calf, except that now one of the laces was broken, leaving half the shaft hanging loosely against her leg.  Around her head she had tied a paltry cloth.  In one hand she held the hand of her child, and in the other a small sack containing her worldly possessions.
 
She stared fearfully at the boat as it bobbed up and down in the swell.
 
“Down with you, woman!” said the men.
 
“God help us, Salka, if we’re supposed to go down there.”
 
“Well, it’s pointless hanging about there like shark bait in the shade,” said the men.
 
One of the steamer’s crewmembers gave the child a hand in starting down the rope ladder, and a boatman climbed halfway up it and helped her descend into the boat.
 
“Mama, I made it,” said the child.  “It was terribly fun!”
 
Then they passed the woman down in the same manner.  She was heavy and broad-waisted, with stocky legs and beefy loins; in short, quite a corpulent woman.  Her face was gray and peaked from her discomfort and vomiting, while her hands were all red and swollen, like pickled meat, freshly boiled.
 
Mother and daughter were seated on a thwart opposite one of the rowers.  The woman held her sack snug in her lap, to keep it from getting wet.  It was just an ordinary, hundred-pound gunny sack that appeared to contain a small coffer and perhaps a few scraps of clothing.  The waves rose and fell, the empty boat rocked mercilessly and the woman stared fearfully into the darkness, while the girl at her side felt safe as could be.  As the boat rose on the next wave, the girl asked her mother:  “Mama, why are we going ashore here?  Why aren’t we continuing south?”
 
The woman clung desperately to the thwart as the boat slid into the next trough, turned her anguished face away from the spray and blowing snow, and finally replied:  “We’ll try staying here for a while before going south in the spring.”
 
“Why aren’t we going south straightaway, as you said?  I’d been so looking forward to going to Reykjavik.”
 
At a glance, the most peculiar thing about this girl was her deep voice, which sounded almost like a man’s.  She had the nervous habit of screwing up her eyes and mouth, both when she spoke and when she said nothing.  She would occasionally toss her head and could never keep her legs and feet still; her whole body roiled with unruly vitality.
 
“Ever since we left, I’ve been looking forward to coming to Reykjavík and seeing those big painted houses and those pretty rooms with pictures on the walls, as you spoke of, Mama.  I want to live in such a room.  And everyone in their Sunday best, Mama, always.  Or maybe it isn’t true, then?”
 
Yes, it’s true, but we can’t go any farther just now, Salka dear.  I’m so unwell.  We’ll stay here for the winter, and try to find something to occupy us.  Then in the spring, we’ll go south to all the fine weather.”
 
“So the weather is always fine in the south?  No, Mama, we should go on now.  It’s only five more days….”
 
“I’m so unwell.  And it will make no difference to us if we wait here until the spring.  I know that we’ll make it together, as we’ve always done.  Don’t be angry with your mother, even if she’s unable to go to Reykjavík straightaway with her darling Salka.  We must always be good friends.”
 
“Yes, Mama, but it’s still a terrible pity.”
 
Then the rower opposite them spoke up, looking at the girl:  “We must walk in the
 
...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Archipelago Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2022
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1953861245
ISBN 13 
9781953861245
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
624
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar