Halldór Laxness - 1920s

1920s

In 1922, Laxness joined the Abbaye St. Maurice et St. Maur in Clervaux, Luxembourg. The monks followed the rules of Saint Benedict of Nursia. Laxness was baptized and confirmed in the Catholic Church early in 1923. Following his confirmation, he adopted the surname Laxness (in honor of the homestead where he had been raised) and added the name Kiljan (an Icelandic spelling of the Irish martyr Saint Killian).

Inside the walls of the abbey, he practiced self-study, read books, and studied French, Latin, theology and philosophy. While there, he composed the story Undir Helgahnjúk, published in 1924. Soon after his baptism, he became a member of a group which prayed for reversion of the Nordic countries back to Catholicism. Laxness wrote of his Catholicism in the book Vefarinn mikli frá Kasmír, published in 1927: "For a while he reached a safe haven in a Catholic monastery in Luxembourg, whence he sent home surrealistic poetry and gathered material for the great autobiographical novel recording his mental development, 'a witch brew of ideas presented in a stylistic furioso' (Peter Hallberg), Vefarinn mikli frá Kasmír. I have long thought that this work was marked by the chaos of German expressionism; at any rate it has the abandon advocated by André Breton, the master of French surrealism. It created a sensation in Iceland and was hailed by Kristjan Albertsson as the epoch-making book it really was. In the future Laxness was always in the vanguard of stylistic development..."

"Laxness's religious period did not last long; during a visit to America he became attracted to socialism.". Partly under the influence of Upton Sinclair, with whom he'd become friends in California, "With Alþydubókin (1929) Laxness... joined the socialist bandwagon... a book of brilliant burlesque and satirical essays... one of a long series in which he discussed his many travel impressions (Russia, western Europe, South America), unburdened himself of socialistic satire and propaganda, and wrote of the literature and the arts, essays of prime importance to an understanding of his own art..." Laxness lived in the United States and attempted to write screenplays for Hollywood films between 1927 and 1929.