Gerpla
Gerpla is a novel by the Icelandic writer Halldór Laxness . The German translation is entitled The Happy Warriors . The Saga - Pastiche is Laxness' second historical novel after Die Icelandglocke and was published in 1952, three years before it received the Nobel Prize for Literature .
Conditions of origin
Laxness began work on his novel Gerpla immediately after the end of Atomic Station in the fall of 1948. Both novels are under the immediate impression of the Second World War .
content
The two sworn brothers Thorgeir and Thormod ( Þorgeirr and Þormóðr ) are at the center of the story, whose other protagonists are historical figures, including Olaf the Fat , who will later be called Olaf the Holy, the vagant bishop Grimkel , the skald Sigvat Tordsson , and Knut the Great and the English king Æthelred . The plot can therefore be classified as early as the 11th century and ends with the Battle of Stiklestad , in which both King Olaf and Thormod are killed.
The Kämpe Thorgeir and the skald Thormod enter into a sworn brotherhood in their youth with the obligation to blood revenge beyond death. Both succumb to the literary myth of a heroic ideal , which stands in stark contrast to the poor rural surroundings and also to the greed and brutality of the Vikings . Thorgeir and Thormod consistently reinterpret reality. So they justify their work reluctance by saying that the sagas do not report anywhere that heroes work.
For a while, the two press the farmers of Hornstrande , the poorest part of Iceland, from what little they have for a living. In vain do they pursue the greatest "hero" of this region, Butraldi, in truth just a violent vagabond, in order to compete with him in battle. When the two separate, Thorgeir goes abroad to gain fame in the entourage of a great king, while the poet Thormod leads a happy life as a rich farmer and family man.
Thorgeir takes part in Viking raids in England and France. He belongs to the crew of Olaf the Fat, an insignificant sea king who has earned some appreciation among the Normans for performing torture and mutilations with surgical precision. After Olaf's betrayal fails, he sails to Norway and gains royal dignity there. Later, on a mission in Iceland, Thorgeir is slain in the most dishonorable manner by the tramp Butraldi in his sleep - for the simple reason that he is convenient for manslaughter.
Thormod, the poet and warrior loved by women, is more complex than his oath brother. When Thorgeir's decaying skull is set up on his farm as a stake of envy, he leaves his wife, children and farm to fulfill his obligation to avenge his oath brother and sing a song of praise to his employer, King Olaf. The search for the murderers of Thorgeir leads Thormod to the Nordic settlements on Greenland and beyond to the Skraelingers , the Eskimos , without even getting close to Butraldi. Bald and without teeth, lame on both legs, with frozen limbs and clad in rags, he finally reached Norway and the army of beggars of Olaf, who had meanwhile been driven out of the country. When the latter wants to hear the price song to dispel his fear of battle, Thormod can no longer remember his poetry. Both perish a few hours later.
Fabric and motifs
The narrator explicitly refers to two high medieval Icelandic sagas, the "Great Brother-Sworn Saga" ( Fóstbrœðra saga ) and the "Book of Kings " ( Heimskringla ) Snorri Sturlusons and includes other sagas and medieval histories. Even if the style is borrowed from Old Norse poetry and Laxness retells events from Icelandic and Norwegian history , there are still numerous references to contemporary history.
The stark contrast between the terms of honor and the primitive acts of violence of the warriors arouses associations with the Second World War, which was only three years ago when work on Gerpla began. The description of the unsightly, vicious Vikings is to be understood on the one hand as a saga criticism, on the other hand as a criticism of the racial ideology of the National Socialists . The cunning and cowardice of the leaders as well as the demagogic rhetoric of Olaf the Dicken point to the Nazi propaganda .
style
Halldór Laxness' style is based on that of the medieval sagas. The title Gerpla is already a new creation, which directly ties in with the tradition of short titles from old Icelandic sagas such as Grettla for Grettis saga or Egla for Egils saga . The starting word of the title is garpur , the hero. The narrator gains apparent authenticity through the use of old Icelandic forms of language from the 13th century, which are still directly understood in Iceland. As much as the novel is formally based on medieval works, Laxness inverts the heroic sagas in terms of content into an anti-saga, whose heroism is exhausted in bloodthirsty lust for murder and robbery as well as unrestrained greed for money and power.
Gerpla is less of a parody than a pastiche , since it lacks any comical or polemical tone. Instead, the hero myth is exposed through a dry description of what happened and violence, greed and poverty are taken for granted. Under these conditions, the glorification of the heroic pose through the scald poetry appears to be a cynical lie.
Editions and German translation
The first Icelandic edition appeared in 1952. In 1977, the East Berlin Aufbau-Verlag published a translation into German by Bruno Kress . This translation was also the basis of the edition, which, revised by Hubert Seelow and provided with an afterword, was published under the title The Happy Warriors in 1991 by Steidl-Verlag.
literature
- Wilhelm Friese: Halldór Laxness, the novels. An introduction. Helbing & Lichtenhahn, Basel 1995, ISBN 3-7190-1376-6
- Halldór Guðmundsson : Halldór Laxness. A biography. btb, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-442-75142-X
- Halldór Guðmundsson: Halldór Laxness. Life and work. Steidl, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-88243-997-1
- Hubert Seelow: Epilogue. In: Halldór Laxness: The happy warriors. dtv, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-88243-996-3 , pp. 351-355.