Soon I Will Stop Being a Girl: Halldór Laxness’ “Salka Valka”
Icelandic literary great and Nobel Prize-winner Halldór Laxness is not a name oft on English tongues, but it’s high time he receives his flowers. His sprawling bildungsroman “Salka Valka”, his most famous work, merits similar treatment.
Originally published in 1931, it reads like an epic poem, following its titular Salka Valka from the moment she and her mother set foot, destitute, in the small town of Óseyri to young adulthood. It was first translated in English in 1936 by F.H. Lyon, remaining in print throughout the 30s, in 1965, and in 1973. Since then, it’s been out of print. Lucky for the English-speaking public, in 2022, this Icelandic classic received a second English translation by Philip Roughton for Archipelago Books.
Though the text is set at the turn of the century, where industrialization looms over a poor fishing village, much of the main themes are startlingly relevant in today’s global landscape: the resolute independence of Salka Valka, the mercantile greed of the town’s resident capitalist Johann Bogesen, the menace of men, and the communist wave that washes over townspeople whose ignorance leads them to stumble from one dogma to the next. They feel eerily prescient to today’s global unrest, inequity, and despair.
Laxness was born in Reykjavík on April 23rd, 1902 and was surrounded by a family that revered Icelandic tales of old. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Laxness said: “I am thinking of all those wonderful men and women, the people among whom I grew up. My father and mother, but above all, my grandmother, who taught me hundreds of lines of old Icelandic poetry before I ever learned the alphabet.” (1.) This Icelandic spirit and recitation of traditional poems courses through “Salka Valka”, as well as his respect for the women who helped shape him.
Laxness spent some years in Europe considering becoming a Catholic monk, but abandoned his religious zeal when he arrived in America in 1927, where he became interested in socialism. These institutions feature heavily in “Salka Valka”. Salka’s deeply flawed mother, Sigurlina Jonsdottir, upon arrival in Óseyri, promptly gets saved by the Salvation Army: “She was joyful in her Saviour, and was convinced that it no longer mattered so much if the world was unkind, for now she was saved from its cruel tortures and treacheries,” (2.) Sigurlina remains steadfast in her faith regardless of how often it results in repeated ridicule or worse, utter disappointment. The village of Óseyri’s economy follows a different God, Johann Bogesen, the town’s only merchant and creditor, to which all the wages and fishing profits flow and are withheld—for their benefit, as Bogesen would put it. The townsfolk consider themselves lucky if they can pay for their funerals. Later, Salka’s childhood friend and first love returns from schooling to challenge Bogesen with the Russian export of communism.
From the frantic genuflections of the Salvation Army, to the god-like adoration for Johann Bogesen, and finally to the sprouting of communism, Salka remains central, but noncommittal. She is unimpressed by religion, only attending meetings for the music. She is dazzled at first but ultimately embittered by Bogeson’s ilk, eventually unionizing against him. She does join in on the communist fervor, but it’s unclear to her and to the reader if she’s interested out of passion for her fellow comrades or for her love of their leader, Arnaldur Björnsson. After all, she declares herself a simple girl, unable to truly understand those books he reads.
This focus on Salka saves the novel from becoming a manifesto and instead focuses on its female figure as she navigates the shifts in power. At age 11, Salka defiantly declares: “It won’t be long before I put on trousers too and stop being a girl.” (2.) She repeats this throughout the entirety of her childhood, seeing as her mother has been used and abused by men her entire life. This desire to separate from femininity doesn’t lead to transformation into a man or into role-playing as a man. In fact, Salka ends up accessing a different kind of womanhood, one that cares for poor neighbors, funds others’ snuff habits, and represents fellow workers to get them decent pay. A womanhood not defined by relationships to men.
This kind of womanhood baffles and enchants the men around her. Steinthor Steinsson, her step-father and eventual romantic interest, becomes obsessed with her spirit and defiance, while Arnaldur Björnsson carries a similar flame for the straightforward Salka. She is their muse, as they fight to control the village, respectively representing capitalists and communists. She remains unfettered to either movement, involved in both.
Still from the 1954 adaptation of “Salka Valka”
In the end, none of the ideologies are willing or able to do any of what they have promised. Even the Salvation Army packs up and moves on, only to be replaced by another church. In Salka Valka, individualism fights collectivism, old clashes with new, and the god-fearing offset the godless. Regardless, rain still falls, women and men tangle in alleyways, children are born, and people die. As Salka puts it: “I suppose there’s no other God but fish.” (2.)
“Salka Valka” suggests that all systems are merely different iterations of the same evil. Perhaps what matters beyond blind idealism, capitalist greed, and declarations of love is food, shelter, and independence. This struggle for basic necessities is something Salka knows well, having spent a majority of her life in abject poverty. In the last half of the novel, she takes in the children of her recently deceased friend, a particularly tender act by a self-sufficient and crass character.
“Salka Valka” is a triumph not only for how it underlines the futility of embodying an idea on either end of the spectrum, but also in how it centers a female character, tapping into her psyche and giving her dimension not often afforded to books of this stature or time. Salka is conflicted, irrational, and terrified. She is also headstrong, courageous, and generous. Men feature in her life, but this is not a story about love.
In regards to the 1936 English translation, journalist Phillips D. Carleton wrote in The Saturday Review’s review of the book: “Halldor Laxness has portrayed a world without hope, without gentleness, without even the concept of progress.” (3.) Perhaps that was true and perhaps it is true even now, that the pain of life grinds and beats down its kindest souls, unfairly and without reason.
Of all his ideologies—Catholicism, Communism, and later Taoism—Laxness stayed most faithful to his nation’s characteristic individualism, much like his Salka. While receiving his Noble Prize, Laxness recalled his grandmother and “the moral principles she instilled in me: never to harm a living creature; throughout my life, to place the poor, the humble, the meek of this world above all others; never to forget those who were slighted or neglected or who had suffered injustice, because it was they who, above all others, deserved our love and respect.”
Such messages feel urgent now, as urgent as they did in Salka’s day. One hopes with the reintroduction of a powerful novel such as this, a new generation of English-speaking Laxness readers will be able to dive into his work, with new translations of his repertoire on the way. This book review is but a humble appeal.
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