[In Salka Valka] Halldor Laxness has portrayed a world without hope, without gentleness, without even the concept of progress….

In [a] fishing village on the coast of Iceland, the common people live in such misery that the birth of a child is a misfortune, and death a wretched commonplace…. The civil and state officials are either corrupt or indifferent to the poverty of their charges…. (p. 12)

One group of the populace—the seamen—start to benefit themselves at the cost of the shore workers; the town is divided by snarling hate. Then communism comes to town and there begin the long privations of a strike and port blockade. Even now Halldór (Kiljan) Laxness 1902– © Lütfi Özkökthe author allows no amelioration of the grim scene…. The long strike ends by giving new masters to the village; the new coöperative is quietly absorbed; the dreams, feeble...