[Certain difficulties confront the Mormon reader of Paradise Reclaimed who is] unaware of the background of the novel and its position in Laxness' literary output, and it is in an effort to overcome these that I would like, by way of apologia for the novel, to make four points. The first is that Laxness' humor is an enigmatic and puzzling feature of virtually all his fiction. His creative energy thrives on tension between humor and satire on the one hand and melancholy pathos on the other. (p. 30)

An ironist with a keen eye for incongruities, Laxness lets nothing, however sacred—not the sagas, not Christianity, not socialism, certainly not himself—escape this "twofold vision" of sympathy and satire. (pp. 30-1)

Secondly, in several of his novels Laxness draws heavily but imaginatively on the writings of obscure figures whose lives are nevertheless well-documented. Thus the overall plot of the...