The Great Weaver From Kashmir

<b>From Nobel Prize winner Halld&#243;r Laxness </b><br> <b> </b><br> <b>&#147;Laxness brought the Icelandic novel out from the &#145;sagas' shadow&#133;to read Laxness is also to understand why he haunts Iceland&#151;he writes the unearthly prose of a poet cased in the perfection of a shell of plot wit and clarity.&#148;&#160; &#151; <i>The Guardian</i></b><br> <b> </b><br> <b>&#147;Finally finally an imposing work of fiction which rises like a cliff from the flatness of Icelandic poetry and fiction of recent years!&#148;&#160; &#151;Kristj&#225;n Albertsson <i>Vaka 1927</i> </b><br> <b><i> </i></b><br> <i>The Great Weaver from Kashmir</i> is Laxness&#146; first major novel the book that propelled Icelandic literature into the modern world. Shortly after World War One Steinn Elli&#240;i a young philosopher-poet dandy leaves the physical and cultural confines of Iceland&#146;s shores for mainland Europe seeking to become &#147;the most perfect man on earth.&#148; His journey leads us through a wide range of moral philosophical religious political and social realms from hedonism to socialism to aestheticism to Benedictine monasticism. Upon his return to Iceland Steinn finds himself more conflicted than before torn between love of the beauty and traditions of his homeland longing and regret for his great adolescent love Dilj&#225; and his newfound monastic ideal forcing him to make choices with fateful consequences. <br><br> Published when Laxness was only twenty-five years old <i>The Great Weaver from Kashmir</i>&#146;s radical experimentation caused a stir in Iceland which would soon reverberate throughout Europe. <i>The Great Weaver</i> is much more than a first major work by a literary master&#151;it is a groundbreaking modernist classic.