Declare Regarding Books Himnaríki og helvíti (Heaven and Hell Trilogy #1)
| Title | : | Himnaríki og helvíti (Heaven and Hell Trilogy #1) |
| Author | : | Jón Kalman Stefánsson |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 214 pages |
| Published | : | 2007 by Bjartur |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Historical. Historical Fiction. European Literature. Scandinavian Literature. Contemporary. Literary Fiction. Novels. Literature |
Jón Kalman Stefánsson
Hardcover | Pages: 214 pages Rating: 4.16 | 3267 Users | 529 Reviews
Commentary Conducive To Books Himnaríki og helvíti (Heaven and Hell Trilogy #1)
“Nothing is sweet to me, without thee.”
“I just don’t know who I am. I don’t know why I am.
And I’m not entirely sure I’ll be given time to find out.”
And I’m not entirely sure what I’ve read.
But I am sure that it was profound, beautiful, and brilliant. A tribute to the tenacity of life and the dark depths of one person’s loyalty, even beyond the watery grave.
“It’s one thing to be able to read and another to know how to read.”
There is a short, ethereal introduction, whose significance I didn’t fully appreciate until later. It then launches into the story described in the blurb: a century ago, a nameless boy of 19 and his bookish friend, Bárður, leave Iceland with four others: experienced fisherman, but non-swimmers, in an “open coffin”. Tragedy strikes, after which the boy goes on a perilous journey to return the borrowed Paradise Lost. The reader is hooked as surely as an arctic cod.
But then the tide turns and philosophical digressions and peripheral characters almost swamp the main story. The “we” who narrate, cast their tangled lines through the minds and lives of villagers, all of them lonely, isolated, regretful, and all of whom daily live the pain of the words quoted at the top of this review. And finally, the waters recede, and the narrative returns to the boy.
The harsh and dangerous beauty of an arctic environment is ever present. Dandelions and stars may be kindled, but there is resigned respect for the capricious sea that sustains life - even as it snatches it away; the mountains, too. The fishermen trust God, and “perhaps a minuscule amount of ingenuity, courage, longing for life”. There’s edgy camaraderie, deep bonds of unusual friendships, and the power - and danger - of words, leaving me touched by “snowflakes… born of the heavens… white and shaped like angels’ wings”.
Words as Rescue Teams
“We might not need words to survive; on the other hand, we do need words to live.”
The words of this book spoke to me, especially the words about words.
“Some words can conceivably change the world, they can comfort us and dry our tears. Some words are bullets, others are notes of a violin. Some can melt the ice around one’s heart, and it is even possible to send words out like rescue teams when the days are difficult and we are perhaps neither living nor dead.”
The joy of that is that words can be whispered in an ear, shouted across a room, printed in ink, carved in stone, written in blood, typed or spoken into a computer, and sent across the world, and across time. However helpless we sometimes feel when we see those we love and care about floundering in the treacherous waters of life, we can always cast a net of rescuing words.
Bárður and the boy adore literature, but the captain, Pétur, has a more visceral verbal power, reciting obscene verses: “This is a primitive force, a language with deep roots in a dim subconscious sprung from harsh life and ever-present death.”
Memories, important and comforting as they are, “don’t keep us afloat”. Telling how someone died is almost like resurrecting them:
“break into the kingdom of death armed with words. Words can have the might of giants and they can kill a god, they can save lives and destroy them. Words are arrows, bullets, mythological birds that chase down gods… they are nets vast enough to trap the world and the sky as well, but sometimes words are nothing, torn garments that the frost penetrates, a run-down battlement that death and misfortune step lightly over. Yet words are the one thing this boy has.”
Horizon, Boundaries, Balance
One character dies because of his love of literature, leaving another obligated to live, at least for a while, for the same reason.
Almost everything here is perfectly balanced - except the title. Life and death. Good and evil. Ebb and flow. Winter and summer. Sky and earth. No wonder the horizon is mentioned so often.
* “The sea is the wellspring of life, in it dwells the rhythm of death.”
* “The more light, the more darkness.” And “The light of the moon… makes the shadows darker, the world more mysterious.”
* “The world is gone and a dense black cloud where the horizon should be. The storm is approaching.”
* “Those who live in this valley see only a piece of the sky. Their horizon is mountains and dreams.”
Hell - but no Heaven?
Despite the balance, there are many explicit examples of Hell, but none of Heaven. Heaven comes from the writing itself, and the dedication of the boy.
"Hell is having arms but no-one to embrace."
“Hell is not knowing whether we are alive or dead.”
“Hell is to be dead and to realize that you did not care for life while you had the chance.”
“Hell is being seasick in a sixereen… many hours from shore.”
“Hell is a library and you’re blind.”
Hell is also injustice, where ravens come from, and being too drunk to remember your wife’s name.
Joy is simpler: “It is ridiculously good to have solid ground beneath one’s feet. Then you haven’t drowned and can have something to eat.”
The (un)Dead
This is not a ghost story with supernatural themes. However, a dead person is seen and heard (or imagined), and there are two types of spirits in limbo who are neither seen nor heard. These aspects reflect traditional Icelandic beliefs, as well as being a novel lens through which to see the corporeal world.
“The large group of fishermen who ramble about the seafloor, jabbering to each other about the jogtrot of time, waiting for the final call… Waiting for God to pull them up, fish them up with his net of stars, dry them off with his warm breath, permit them to walk with dry feet in Heaven, where one never eats fish, say the drowned, always just as optimistic, busy themselves with looking up at the boats, expressing amazement at the new fishing gear… but sometimes weeping with regret for life, weeping as drowned folk weep, and that is why the sea is salty.”
“We died and nothing happened… Here we are, above ground, restless, terrified and embittered, while our bones are likely peaceful down in the ground”, with “something invisible between us and you who live”, so we “ask constantly, why are we here? Where did the others go?... Where is God?” It’s not fair that “God certainly called her… while we, who ramble here, dead yet still alive, listen and listen but never hear anything.” Their mission is nothing less than “to save the world” - and the boy - by telling this story. “Our words are a kind of rescue team on a relentless mission to save past events and extinguished lives from the black hole of oblivion.”
Blind Eyes See
Milton was blind when he wrote Paradise Lost, but he could certainly see into hearts and minds. Kolbeinn is a retired captain, now blind. “His dead eyes slip through the boy like cold hands.” His Hell is that he can no longer read his 400 books, something Jorge Luis Borges, who also went blind, would have understood when he wrote "I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library".
* “Eyes are invisible hands that stroke, feel, touch, find.”
* “Eyes must be somewhere… We must think about where we point them and when… They can be canons, music, bird song, war cries. They can reveal us, they can save you, destroy you.”
* “Both of them blind, he physically, she morally.”
* “No living being can stand to look into the eyes of God because they contain the fountain of life and the abyss of death.”
* “Eyes so bright they vanquish night.”
* “A woman staring at nothing, she has big eyes, recalling a horse that has stood all of its life outside in heavy rain… Once, it was a long time ago, she laughed quite often and then her eyes were suns above life… where now is the joy in these eyes?”
The Meaning of Life - and Death
“Is it a loss of Paradise to die?”
"Our existence is a relentless search for a solution, what comforts us, whatever gives us happiness, drives away all bad things... We take cure-alls instead of searching, continually asking what is the shortest path to happiness, and we find the answer in God, science, brennivin, Chinese Vital Elixir."
We often ponder the meaning of life, but this also considers the meaning and the purpose of death - especially for the several characters who consider choosing it. But we are reminded that “When there is a choice between life and death, most choose life”. Most.
Miscellaneous Quotes
* “The evening condenses against the windows, the wind strokes the rooftops.”
* “The sea floods into the dreams of those who sleep on the open sea, their consciousness is filled with fish and drowned companions who wave sadly with fins in place of hands.”
* “Memories turn to nothing, fish come and nibble the lips that were kissed yesterday.”
* “A dead man is so much heavier than one who lives, the sparkling memories have become dark, heavy metal.”
* “It is not possible to thread the tears together and then let them sink like a glittering rope down into the dark deep and pull up those who died but ought to have lived.”
* “April comes to us with a first aid kit and tries to heal the wounds of winter.”
* “She likely only knows the verb to hesitate by reputation.”
* “Bryndis, he whispers softly… as if to get his bearings, discover the taste… The air trembles.”
* “Music is unlike anything else. It is the rain that falls in the desert, the sunshine that illuminates hearts, and it is the night that comforts.”
* “Sometimes one world needs to perish so that another can come into being.”
The author* indirectly credits his country for his lyricism, “There is nothing to see in Iceland except mountains, waterfalls, tussocks and this light that can pass through you and turn you into a poet”.
Three-Volume Novel
This is not a trilogy; it’s one novel in three, very closely-related parts, covering just a few weeks:
1. Heaven and Hell, this book.
2. The Sorrow of Angels, reviewed HERE.
3. The Heart of Man, review HERE.
For a more concrete idea of setting, plot, characters, and writing style, see my overview HERE.
Photo is of Jón Gunnar Árnason’s sculpture “Sólfar” (Sun Voyager).
The photo source is HERE.
Information on the sculpture is HERE.
*Note: “Jón Kalman Stefánsson. The last name is a patronymic, not a family name; this person is properly referred to by the given name Jón Kalman”. From Wikipedia.
Be Specific About Books Toward Himnaríki og helvíti (Heaven and Hell Trilogy #1)
| Original Title: | Himnaríkí og helvíti |
| ISBN: | 9979788976 (ISBN13: 9789979788973) |
| Edition Language: | Icelandic |
| Series: | Heaven and Hell Trilogy #1 |
Rating Regarding Books Himnaríki og helvíti (Heaven and Hell Trilogy #1)
Ratings: 4.16 From 3267 Users | 529 ReviewsWrite Up Regarding Books Himnaríki og helvíti (Heaven and Hell Trilogy #1)
When I was reading this book, the hymn For those in Peril on the Sea kept coming into my head.....the descriptions of the terrible conditions faced by the crews of Icelandic fisherman seeking to harvest Cod from an unforgiving ocean, in such basic boats when they had already expended huge amounts of energy rowing to the fishing grounds, were so vivid, that I found it truly frightening to read.....those men really were in peril.The author gives short, but insightful character studies of the men,The writing in this book is phenomenal - completely on another level. It is a thought provoking book that begs to be read slowly. So many times when reading I was astounded by the way he brought in such beautiful words, such meaningful phrasing to tell us this story. My family visited Iceland, the country where this book is set, in 2015. While there I learned of the extremely high literacy rate in the country and the large number of books read annually. This one reinforces the idea that
That awkward moment when you are supposed to be writing your thoughts about a book then you realise you are not exactly sure how you feel about it.The collective voices from the past come to tell us stories of people long gone and forgotten. In Iceland, a hundred years ago, fishermen prepare to go back to the sea in search for cod, their main source of sustenance and income. Their lives are difficult, bleak. They are poor, the weather is unfriendly, the dangerous sea is both friend and foe and
This is a book about hell. About death, about feeling helpless and having no reason to go on anymore. Its a book about choices and contrasts.But heaven is found in the words.The reality of a village somewhere in northern Iceland in the 19th century is the perfect setting for such a contrast. When everything is as uncertain as it was back in those times, when darkness is all we have for a good half of the year and no matter how much we fight the cold, it will reach us eventually, we have to find
It's not about the story, it's about the words, the way the story is put together. You can feel every emotion of every character. The dead souls who work as narrators of the story and the collective "us" in the book somehow brings you right where the author wants you. The images of a storm, or the snow blizzard, or simply the way Pétur sings on the boat to keep the sailors from freezing is marvelous, let alone the way the boy speaks about Bardur. Somehow, you lose contact with your reality as
The environment of the novel is harsh and capricious: a physical manifestation of the unseen forces of nature to which we are all subject. Between these elemental forces there is conflict and contrast, darkness and light. But this frame creates diverse subjective experiences; it affects us all in different ways. Jón Kalman explores the inner world of his characters individually and successively, in a manner that reminded me somewhat of Woolf's The Waves. The epic tone is diminished a little in
This has to be one of the finest books I have read in a very long time. One can open just about any page at random and find a phrase, a paragraph, of such astonishing poetic beauty that one is compelled to re-read it immediately. Jon Kalman said in an interview that, for him, poetry and narrative were the same thing, and he cannot help but blend the two.The plot is simple, but profound. At its most elemental, it is the coming of age story of an unnamed boy, beset by tragedy, hardship, loss and
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