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1 Burnside Literature- A to Z

Other titles in the Vintage International Original series:

  1. Guerrillas
  2. Mona and Other Tales
  3. The Sunset Limited

Under the Glacier

by Halldor Laxness and Magnus Magnusson and Susan Sontag

Under the Glacier Cover

ISBN13: 9781400034413
ISBN10: 1400034418
Condition: Standard
All Product Details

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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Nobel laureate Halldor Laxness’s Under the Glacier is a one-of-a-kind masterpiece, a wryly provocative novel at once earthy and otherworldly. At its outset, the Bishop of Iceland dispatches a young emissary to investigate certain charges against the pastor at Snaefells Glacier, who, among other things, appears to have given up burying the dead. But once he arrives, the emissary finds that this dereliction counts only as a mild eccentricity in a community that regards itself as the center of the world and where Creation itself is a work in progress.

What is the emissary to make, for example, of the boarded-up church? What about the mysterious building that has sprung up alongside it? Or the fact that Pastor Primus spends most of his time shoeing horses? Or that his wife, Ua (pronounced "ooh-a," which is what men invariably sputter upon seeing her), is rumored never to have bathed, eaten, or slept? Piling improbability on top of improbability, Under the Glacier overflows with comedy both wild and deadpan as it conjures a phantasmagoria as beguiling as it is profound.

Review:

"One of the world's most unusual, skilled and visionary novelists." Jane Smiley

Review:

"Laxness is a beacon in twentieth-century literature, a writer of splendid originality, wit, and feeling." Alice Munro

Review:

"The qualities of the sagas pervade his writing, and particularly a kind of humor — oblique, stylized and childlike — that can be found in no other contemporary writer." The Atlantic Monthly

Review:

"Readers familiar with Laxness's earlier works shouldn't overlook this fascinating appendage to them. Those unfamiliar might do better to begin with Independent People or World Light." Kirkus Reviews

Review:

"A marvelous novel about the most ambitious questions. It is also one of the funniest books ever written..." Susan Sontag, from the Introduction

Product Details

ISBN:
9781400034413
Translator:
Magnusson, Magnus
Introduction:
Susan Sontag
Translator:
Magnusson, Magnus
Author:
Haldor Laxness Translated by Magnus Magnusson
Author:
Halldor
Author:
Halldor Laxness
Publisher:
Vintage Books USA
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
European - German
Series:
Vintage International Original
Publication Date:
February 2005
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Pages:
256
Dimensions:
7.98x5.32x.57 in. .43 lbs.

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