Wayward Heroes

Viking Invaders, Bayeaux Tapestry

Wayward Heroes and Cold War Iceland

John’s examination of Wayward Heroes…

After the international success of his bitter Icelandic evocation of a stubborn farmer in Independent People, Halldór Laxness (1902-1988) found himself as isolated as his protagonist from sustained success. That 1933-34 novel won him a Book-of-the-Month selection in the US in its 1946 appearance in English, with the royalties and acclaim that sales of nearly half a million garnered. It helped him win the 1955 Nobel Prize for Literature. Yet, Halldór (I follow his homeland’s convention in using given names, as his “surname” is a pen-name derived from his family’s farm “of Laxnes”) as a Communist and a longtime defender of Stalin, earned the censure of J. Edgar Hoover.

Until two decades ago, most of Halldór’s novels languished out of print in America, or as untranslated. Now, Philip Roughton, arguably the best choice to render the idiosyncratic style of Halldór into our language, tackles what his diligent 2004 biographer Halldór Guðmannson labels “his most difficult novel”. This review provides some of the background that’s lacking within this new edition. Roughton appends a few sparse notes about allusions, but that is all. Challenges await readers of Wayward Heroes, if they are unfamiliar with the saga-hoard.

To begin with, take the original title. Swedish critic Peter Hallberg explained Gerpla as derived from garpur, or warrior, and its -la suffix makes this a titular saga. Halldór’s frequent translator, Magnús Magnússon, complicated this. He suggested “Heroica” as fitting the jibe Halldór implies at the venerable story form, but I’ll invent my own coinage for “hero rogue, herogue”, for fun.

Whichever way one prefers, Roughton’s choice of Wayward Heroes improves on that previous title in English, The Happy Warriors. Although linked to Al Smith and Hubert Humphrey, this phrase dates back to Wordsworth’s approving praise for a man of arms. It may have also been influenced by Cold War geopolitics when the first version appeared in our language. When nobody could be found for an English translation from the Icelandic, in 1957 Katharine John was found to adapt the 1952 Gerpla via its Danish version. From what I can determine from passages examined by Hallberg, Roughton improves on the stately, muffled pace of John. Roughton prefers a sardonic, sharpish, or snarky voice.

This mood may stem from the author’s middle-aged doldrums. Despondent over the post-war barriers placed by publishers and politicians against his popularity in Red circles, Halldór courted controversy doggedly. His homeland notoriety, cocky persona, and defiant Marxism rankled many neighbors, as in his 1948 send-up of Iceland’s capitulation to an American military base and NATO, The Atom Station (translated 1961). That polemic roused opposition in the four-year-old republic, and the author was forced to compromise. Grimly, Halldór labored four years on Gerpla.

In this biting northern exposure to the Icelandic sagas, audiences may be chilled by Wayward Heroes. Halldór’s frosty air stings. Early on, the pair of Þorgeir Hávarsson, more a killing machine devoid of comprehension than a noble aspirant, and his sidekick, Þormóður Kolbrúnarskáld, a middling bard, find themselves scolded. “In none do the Viking ideals of piracy and pugnacity wax stronger than in old widows in remote valleys. In our day and age, little distinction is to be had in costuming oneself like a long-dead sea-king from Norway—there’s far more to be found in following the example of the lord of Rome, who offers good men profit through peace. Yet many might excuse you for the deed you now have described—stupid man that you are.” Halldór employs a chronicler’s voice to comment on the foibles of his protagonists, contrasting their quixotic (the adjective fits) pursuit of the outmoded ideals, reduced in Þorgeir’s clumsy pursuit to a dour, often deadpan critique of fanaticism.

Halldór’s radicalism (notwithstanding his desire for fine clothes, swank hotels, paramours, a country retreat, and fancy cars) earned the teller his own disdain from many of his compatriots. Yet this novel’s tone may reflect his growing unease with doctrinaire Stalinism, amidst the “Doctor’s Plot” in the USSR percolating prior to Gerpla‘s appearance, and the intransigence of Halldór’s attempts to extend his American breakthrough, foiled by the FBI. Far as these situations roam from a tale reviving the Fóstbræðasögu (“Foster Brothers’ saga”) in Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla (ca. 1230), Gerpla sustains Halldór’s mission. It resembles social analyses by contemporaries John Steinbeck, Sinclair Lewis, and Upton Sinclair. Beneath a take-down of feudal fealty, commentary on modern hero worship surfaces. As Halldór grew more critical of those on both sides of the Iron Curtain, from his perch in Iceland, observing superpowers, he sharpened his critique of group-think.

Ideals curdle. Þorgeir boasts to his scraggly few followers: “We shall procure wares in valiant fashion: claiming stockfish, whale oil, woolen cloaks, homespun, and tusks from farmers, and forcing those of means to buy peace with whatever valuables—gold and silver—they possess. When we have gained ample spoils, we shall kill our men and trade our wares for weapons and shares in a ship, and sail to foreign lands.” The weight of forced tribute paid a warlord, as under capitalism or totalitarianism, burdens those in Viking Age Iceland, where anarchic loyalty was granted for a local ruler. The eventual breakdown of this system has been blamed on the inevitable power struggles and concentration of wealth, tipping control to those most cruel and conniving, despite settlers’ idealism.

Here, the humiliations escalate, in a society cutting itself off from its pagan forebears. The freshly baptized mock “these two frozen-turfers agreeing to go halves on the lice crawling on them, and said such losers would likely never have any other other loot to share.” Indeed, lots of lice feature in these pages. Wayward Heroes conveys a meager depiction of any goods the hapless pair accumulate, and across the harsh landscape, vermin multiply as whales beach and rot beside forlorn homesteads. Farts and flensing knives total riches the inhabitants present to the dogged two warriors, as their scanty booty.

When conflict rises, this depiction rivals the original sources in its arch account. “In Iceland, battles were conducted according to an Old Norse practice,” the omniscient reciter relates. Then, “men would pair off and hammer away at each other as long as their struggle lasted, using shoddy, blunt little axes, for the Norsemen were poor smiths, forced to use poor-quality metal.” Halldór as with his fellow-citizens was schooled in their literary forebears’ gallant legacy. But he suspected monomania.

“Trolls take your valor and your warrior fashion.” Even this old woman in Normandy lashes out against the two bandits. “And as for your murderous deeds, they are worthy of praise by none but the fools who sniff along after you, whom you call your skalds.” Without divulging plot points, midway the buddies are separated, and Þormóður must search out his companion’s fate. The saga incorporates both the story by Snorri mentioned above and the paean to Norway’s king, later canonized Ólafur Haraldsson, Óláfs saga wedges itself into Gerpla’s middle section conspicuously, but this interpolation attests to the saga-structure accurately, when cameos appear and digressions ramble on.

This content allows the long-lapsed Catholic convert Halldór to get in plenty of jibes at what he regards as a life-dooming Christian mindset, enforced by a relentless, mind-numbing regime. The future saint “ …declared nothing to be better than torture and flame for persuading people to repent and to reform and for bringing them, through vivid visions, to an understanding of their salvation that Christ granted men, particularly if the leading peasants were roasted alive, mutilated, or beheaded.”

But Gerpla wisely departs from excoriation as its central motif. Passages of beauty amid icy decay persist. So does Halldór’s echo of the rhythms energizing his own language, a thousand years on. Irish slave Kolbakur at Þormóður’s settlement, dragged as were so many to Iceland by raiders, hears from the poet’s wife and his own mistress a burst of Old Norse versifying. “I am the bane of a hero’s or a skald’s glory, the wispy fetter forged for the Wolf from cat’s tread, fish’s breath, and bird’s spittle. I am the wall standing between the skald and the seductive sea-voyages, between him and the clamor of battle and the favor of kings—and therewith: a reputation that never dies.” While parts of this novel slow and the direction wanders along with Þormóður’s own perambulations far from his home turf, Roughton sustains a steady pace. The intricate Icelandic re-invention pioneered by Halldór has stymied translators (as the earlier version demonstrated), but here, the heft of the original dark satire resounds.

In one of the narrative’s most gripping scenes, the by-now doddering poet ventures into the Arctic’s northern fastness. Wounded while battling the Inuit, Þormóður cannot grasp their kindness. “It was bewildering to him how this Greenlandic rabble completely lacked any eminent men who are capable of taking advantage of those beneath him.” This clashes with an earlier celebration of the Norse model, one that Halldór saw mirrored in his own nation’s connivance in surrendering to NATO. In the custom of Scandinavians, “ …the scoundrel who had the greatest stamina and best success in decimating the populace in a particular place should have that name… ” of king. So proclaims the father of St. Óláf.

In this new age tired of skalds if not swords, Þormóður finds his repertoire of pagan champions outmoded. The fashion turns to sacred miracles and monk’s chants. “The Norwegians feel quite strongly that they can do without any long, complicated poems croaked out ad infinitum by a beggarman from Iceland.” The wandering minstrel concludes his pilgrimage in search of old gods at the side of Óláf the king, the night before battle at Stiklestad. Their vigil elicits from the ruler, facing rebels, a plea addressed to a cairn where a vision of Christ with two Norse predecessors beckons. He begs the spirits to take the hand of “this inglorious arsonist, bereft of the backing of champions and the service of clerics, devoid of women’s love and skalds’ praise, a man friendless and alone. Your names are worthless to me, but your comfort is everything.” This poignant vignette lingers long after dusk.

Halldór deftly kicks out the fastidious trappings from his heritage immediately following this scene. Yet the delicacy crafting so much of the telling of this conflated and overlapping saga-pair testifies to the admiration the experimental author possessed, in his maturity, for the images and the vocabulary he sought to transform from a rural and hidebound form of expression into a living language for today’s ideas, places, and politics. While he removed any word not traceable to the 11th century, this novel speaks to us today. Wayward Heroes, for all its tangled itinerary, endures in this long-awaited translation as a cautionary tale for all who flock around despots or who applaud the cries of diehards.

First published in PopMatters, 24 October, 2016

---

Eric’s Goodreads review…

I was very excited for this one, because it’s been years since another Laxness book has been translated into English - despite him remaining a legend in Iceland nearly 20 years after his death. It’s a very entertaining novel, both in its blatant humor and its not-so-subtle mockery of epic sagas and the ridiculous notion held by many proud Scandinavians that vikings were noble warriors with dignity, valor, and any semblance of morals. Laxness takes this epic tale of sworn brothers Þorgeir and Þormóður, the former a psycho killer and the latter a wannabe poet/skald whose main wish is to glorify the evil, base, “valiant” deeds of his sworn brother and their ilk. Throughout their absurd paths, together or separated, Laxness constantly illustrates how unblinkingly violent and undignified these 11th Century warriors were, with heads being chopped off at every turn, entire townships being burned without regard, and games where babies are thrown up into the air only to be skewered on spear-tips. As much as Laxness has previously demonstrated his love for the language and poetry of the old Sagas, he makes it perfectly clear how much he despises these morally-corrupt scoundrels. He isn’t merely “poking fun” at the sagas, he’s ripping them apart in hilarious fashion.

On par with his mockery of these warriors is his disgust with the Church of old and their corruption, thievery, and murder. Also getting doused in Laxness’ flammable words are Kings and politicians of all sorts. Indeed, it could be read as a condemnation of 20th century world leaders (the book originally came out in Iceland in the early 1950s). “Such was King Olaf’s learning that he knew only two solutions to any predicament: one being baptism and the other murder. Due to his childish ignorance, he constantly had to have others at hand to tell him when to baptize and when to strike.”

Perhaps my favorite part of the book is when Þormóður goes on his quest for vengeance and ends up in the northern parts of Greenland, “… farther north than any other humans.” In these parts, he‘s nearly left for dead and subsequently nursed back to health by the Inuits, who the Scandinavians in Greenland consider subhuman “trolls.” It’s fascinating to see the details Laxness gives us about the lifestyle, culture, and entertainments of the Inuits. He’s extremely compassionate about their people and dignity, and holds no bars when it comes to contrasting them with the Norsemen and their evil, base ways.

The middle section gets bogged down a bit when it moves from Iceland to Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Rome, and Kiev, introducing a bunch of history and new characters and virtually ignoring our sworn brothers for about a quarter of the book. However, some of the most scathing indictments of the Church of that time are in this section, so it holds interest.

All in all another pretty essential Laxness book, and one with a very unique tone (which says a lot about a writer whose books often have rather diverse tones).

---

Stephen’s review…

This is Philip Roughton’s new translation of Gerpla, (previous English title: The Happy Warriors) which is a retelling of the Fóstbræðra (“Sworn Brothers”) Saga. This translation completely supersedes the Katherine John translation from the Danish. That version was written in an awkward pseudo-Middle English style and had converted the Icelandic characters “ð” and “þ” to “th”.  Roughton also chose to preserve the literary device of changing from past to present tense at dramatic events—a device found in the sagas—that Laxness had featured but was lost in the John translation. It gives the narrative an added dimension, as if it was being delivered orally (as the Sagas were originally presented) rather than as a dispassionate history. While reading it in the new translation, I also got a better sense of the sarcastic veneer that Laxness gave to the story, particularly in the dialog of various women who offer a counter-point to the two hapless “heroes” on their misguided quest for glory. Roughton also supplies the reader with helpful end-notes about some of the more obscure points in the story.

Historical fiction, if it is to succeed in transporting the reader to a distant era, must impart a sense of verisimilitude in the events it depicts. Even more difficult is the re-creation of the literary style of a past era. The crowning achievement is, of course, the creation of a truly great novel. Wayward Heroes succeeds on all three counts. First published as Gerpla in 1952, it is written in a strict Saga style. It is the story of two “oath-brothers”, Þorgeir Hávarsson and Þormóður Koalbrúnarskáld, in their quest to recreate the glory of the warriors of old. The changing world of 11th century finds them are both out of date and in over their heads. The majesty and power of the pagan ways has been supplanted by the strange and even more barbaric cult of Josa mac Dé: Christianity.  After a few Icelandic misadventures they split up: Þormóður, the poet, becomes distracted by a woman’s wiles and domesticity while Þorgeir, the would-be heroic champion, ends up in England and France in the service of Olaf Haraldsson (later to become the self-made King Olaf.) Þorgeir, disenchanted with the European ways of warfare, is sent by Olaf to Iceland on virtual suicide mission where he does indeed meet an ignoble end. After much brooding over the skull of Þorgeir, Þormóður leaves his wife and children to avenge Þorgeir’s death. Ultimately reaching far northern Greenland, living with Inuits (a peaceable society that he is unable to appreciate) and enduring much suffering and hardship, he fails in his mission. Crippled and bitter, Þormóður makes it back to Iceland and then, finally, to Norway, where he seeks out and meets Olaf on the eve of the Battle of Stiklestad. Þormóður finally comes to the realization that his dreams of heroism and glory have led to only death and destruction.

This is a book full of strange and terrible things, sprinkled with archaic words and obscure references. A familiarity with the Sagas and that historical era (c.1000-1030) would be a definite aid in comprehension. Laxness’ literary mastery manages to come through: the language is powerful and direct and any archaic aspects only add to the story. Laxness uses the women and common folk to introduce social criticism, starting subtly and building steadily. By the final scene, which culminates in a moving climax, Laxness’ message is felt all the more for its prior restraint.

A few notes on the Archipelago edition: This is a high-quality softbound book with an attractive cover. The typeface is Hoefler Text, a good choice in that it complements the Icelandic characters.

---

Dustin et al. in-depth look at Gerpla in Scandinavian-Canadian Studies (2019)…

Matteo’s look at Gerpa from a linguistic point of view…

Aldred’s review of Wayward Heroes…

Beau covers WH in Asympote…

Heather’s Bits and Bobs review…

Justin’s Harpers review…

K.B. expounds on WH…

Taylor Kang’s article on Wayward Heroes in Culture Trip…

Taylor Eggan’s “late arrival” to Heroes…

Tyson looks at Laxness and Heroes…

Tobias on Neil Gaiman, Laxness and the Sagas in Electric Lit…

Steve’s Gerpla and the struggle for National identity in Iceland article in Gale Literature Resource Center…

---

Publishing history:


Gerpla, Helgafell, Reykjavík, 1952

Translated by Katherine John (as The Happy Warriors) (from the Danish):
Methuen & Co Ltd, London, 1958
Allahabad, Calcutta, 1960
Rupa, Bombay, 1960

New translation by Philip Roughton (as Wayward Heroes):
Archipelago Press, Brooklyn, 2016