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Archipelago Books

Wayward Heroes

Wayward Heroes

by Halldór Laxness, translated from the Icelandic by Philip Roughton

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First published in 1952, Halldór Laxness’s Wayward Heroes offers an unlikely representation of modern literature. A reworking of medieval Icelandic sagas, the novel is set against the backdrop of the medieval Norse world, complete with Viking raids, battles enshrined in skaldic lays, saints’ cults, clashes between secular and spiritual authorities, journeys to faraway lands and abodes of trolls, and legitimate claimants versus pretenders to thrones. Laxness exploits such medieval tropes to criticize the global militarism and belligerent national posturing rampant in the postwar buildup to the Cold War. He satirizes the spirit of the old sagas, especially through the novel’s main characters, the sworn brothers Þormóður Bessason and Þorgeir Hávarsson, warriors who blindly pursue ideals that lead to the imposition of power through violent means. The two see the world around them only through a veil of heroic illusion: kings are fit either to be praised in poetry or toppled from their thrones, other men only to kill or be killed, women only to be mythic fantasies. Replete with irony, absurdity, and pathos, the novel more than anything takes on the character of tragedy, as the sworn brothers’s quest to live out their ideals inevitably leaves them empty-handed and ruined.

Additional Book Information

Series: Archipelago Books
ISBN: 9780914671091
Pages: 472
Publication Date:

Praise

A welcome, major contribution to modern Nordic literature in translation and a pleasure to read.
—Kirkus, Starred Review

Brilliant, bleak, uproariously funny, and still alarmingly prescient, Wayward Heroes belongs in the pantheon of the antiwar novel alongside such touchstones as Slaughterhouse-Five and Catch-22....

Wayward Heroes, with its despotic kings, hypocrite Christians, and bloodthirsty mercenaries, is not merely a medieval epic ... but a trenchant critique of that timeless avaricious urge we have grown regrettably accustomed to calling 'market forces.' ... Laxness looked from the ancient literature of his homeland to the novelties and cataclysms of the modern world around him, only to discover how little had changes in a thousand years.
—Justin Taylor, Harper's Magazine

Drawing on historical events, including King Olaf’s reign in Norway and the burning of Chartres Cathedral, Laxness revises and renews the bloody sagas of Icelandic tradition, producing not just a spectacular historical novel but one of coal-dark humor and psychological depth. The old-fashioned violence Porgeir and Pormóður admire is rendered in all its futility and cruelty, and readers will find that these honorable but deluded heroes become objects of pity.
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

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