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The Fish Can Sing
The Fish Can Sing is the 1957 modern classic of Icelandic fiction from celebrated novelist Halldรณr Laxness; a tender coming-of-age story of a boy and a nation, dragged unwillingly into the modern world.Abandoned as a baby, รlfgrรญmur is content to spend his days as a fisherman living in the turf cottage outside Reykjavรญk with the elderly couple he calls grandmother and grandfather. There he shares the mid-loft with a motley bunch of eccentrics and philosophers who find refuge in the simple respect for their fellow men that is the ethos at Brekkukot. But the narrow horizons of รlfgrรญmur’s idyllic childhood are challenged then he starts school and meets Iceland’s most famous singer, the mysterious Gardar Hรณlm. Gardar encourages him to aim for the ‘one true note’, but how can he attain it without leaving behind the world that he loves?