„climbing over […] sacred boundary-fences“

On Daoism, Society and the Renewal of the Narrative in Halldór Laxness’s The Fish Can Sing; The Atomstation and Happy Warriors / Wayward Heroes

Abstract

This paper deals with the way Halldór Laxness uses his knowledge of one particular branch of world culture, Eastern wisdom, in the middle of the last century. He transforms his own narrative methods with the aim of engaging the readers and simultaneously scrutinising social issues, bringing forth the weaknesses of capitalistic social order. First and foremost, the paper focuses on Daoism and argues that Laxness not only knew it through studying the Dao De Jing, but was aquainted with the writings of the philosopher Zhuangzi as well. The film director Sergei Eisenstein is also brought up as a sort of common denominator of the many authors and artists who drew on Eastern wisdom in the first half of the 20th century. It is shown that similar methods manifest themselves both in his and Laxness’s work. Finally Confucius’s idea of the “rectification of names” is mentioned and revealed how Laxness handles it; a possible connection to the writings of Stefan Zweig is also pointed out. Most of the examples from Laxness’s novels are from The Fish Can Sing (Brekkukotsannáll), but in the discussion of the “rectification of names” also from The Happy Warriors/Wayward Heroes (Gerpla) and The Atomstation (Atómstöðin).