Þórbergur Þórðarson posing for a photography in Suðursveit where he grew up, isolated from the rest of the world.
Þórbergur Þórðarson, the legendary satirist
Like most people of his generation, Þórbergur Þórðarson was born on a farm, in the winter of 1888.
The Hali property is today situated by Iceland’s Road Number One, the ‘Ring Road’, which makes it hard to fathom how isolated the region once was.
Suðursveit, as the region is known, was essentially landlocked by glacial rivers streaming down the mighty Vatnajökull glacier. Instead of wading the powerful streams, travelers crossed outlets of the glacier on foot.
The ongoing exhibition at Hali – inside the Þórbergssetur museum – says the farm was “cut off from the world” until the building of a bridge in 1960.
But Þórbergur found a way out.
Farming – or manual labor in general – was only of mild interest and he moved to Reykjavík to work as a fisherman. In between seasons, he was a starving bohemian.
Þórbergur was an aspiring scholar but struggled with the discipline of attending classes and completing tests. He tended to, instead, get obsessed with subjects of his own choosing.
After publishing his most critically acclaimed book “Bréf til Láru” (Letters to Lára), ahead of Christmas in 1924, he stopped writing for six years to dedicate his mind to the pursuit of Esperanto, the international auxiliary language.
Þórbergur did not care much for the future of the English language – but today one of his book, “The Stones Speak”, is available in translation. Why not many more? His prose was full of joy and play, specific to the Icelandic language.
Another reason is his lack of narrative. Unlike Halldór Laxness and Gunnar Gunnarsson, he wrote autobiographical stories, in first person, full of humor and opinion. “The Stones Speak”, for instance, is about his childhood in Suðursveit, described as an “affectionate portrait of a time”.
Þórbergur Þórðarson passed away in 1975. He is remembered for his work – “Ofvitinn” and “Íslenskur aðall” are classics – and his idiosyncratic lifestyle, full of Müller-exercises and cold baths in the sea. He was, in short, the forefather of Reykjavík hipsters.
