Reply to a Letter from Helga Paperback – January 29, 2013

To be fair, this book could get more stars perhaps if I understood its Icelandic historical references outlined at the end of the book. I enjoy first person unreliable narrator novels as this is. For the most part it was a good book. Not great but short enough for me to want to keep reading to the end. Difficult the critique succinctly but it seemed to ramble a bit much and I would say that the author could have edited it a bit more. Some nice writing though and still a nice little read.

Reply to a Letter From Helgaby Bergsveinn Birgisson,Philip Roughton (Translator), Kjartan Hallur (Illustrator)Bjarni, a sheep farmer in an isolated village in Iceland, lives with his infertile wife whose botched uterine operation has made her unable to take physical or emotional pleasure in lovemaking. Into his life comes Helga, a richly sensuous married woman who makes him feel alive in ways he never has. They had an affair during the era of World War II. That could sum up this book in one sentence, but this book is much, much more than that. A lyrical and poetic meditation on the things that matter most in life, the novel focuses on a man who is torn between the love of his life and his true sense of self. Bjarni has long held on to a letter from former lover Helga, with whom he shared an illicit, impassioned love. Her letter invited him to leave his wife and his farm and pursue prosperity in the city, where World War II had brought an influx of American marines and opportunities for work. But he chose not to reply.We learn of a man who loved the country and loved his animals and loved a woman. He loved a woman that was not his and a land that was very much his own. He made decisions that seemed to him to be practical and right yet he was always unsure if he were true to himself or not. Should a man be with his love in a soulless, empty landscape or should he remain free in the wilderness that is a part of him yet be unloved? As he narrates the tale of his life to his love we learn quite a bit about Bjarni and about the old ways of sheep-herding and how people lived in a harsh world where they only had each other and their animals and nothing outside themselves and their farms to sustain them - no cell phones, no computers, no fancy technology that would throw a wedge between them although there were plenty of conventions to divide people - forbidden lust being one of them.Years later, as he reflects on a long and simple life among the sheep in the Icelandic hillsides, he finally finds himself ready to explain why. The lure of the land is seen in the ordinary and the extraordinary – the annual sheep round-ups, on men going over the same fundamentals and politics at the local co-op, of neighbourly communions in the nearby Reading Club. Bjarni reflects, “I’ve heard my stomach grumble back at the thunder, a little man beneath a big sky; heard the stream whisper that it’s eternal. Made the earth my beloved. Held a powerful salmon. Let a fox teach me what it is to be clever.”Man’s existential dilemma, Bjarni believes, “consists of having to choose everything in this world, which is the root of his unhappiness.” So he lives his days “with the rediscovery of love as my embers of hope”, accepting that even the deepest love is not enough if it means losing one’s connection with his very nature. This is a thinking person’s book that is infused with feelings, a tale of love, regret, passion, and ultimately, acceptanceA turning point is reached and Bjarni must make a choice: leave his home of birth with Helga and start anew or allow her to exit his life. But is a choice ever that simple? Bjarni feels another type of love – a deep pull – from the land that he feels akin to. In one striking passage, he writes, “I would have dug a ditch for you and filled it back up again, the same ditch all my life. I would have walked miles for you every single day…But to abandon myself, the countryside and farming, which were who I am; that I couldn’t do.”

This is one of those books that, if someone tells you what it is about, you probably think: "Not for me." But it is a story that will stay with you and is written so beautifully. The person who is 'replying to a letter from Helga' is an old Icelandic farmer writing to a former neighbor and lover with extraordinary honesty about himself and his life. He examines his lies to himself, the strengths of the small community he lives in, the experiences he has had and others he has missed. I recommend this book!

The premise of the story was interesting to me (as was the setting in Iceland) however the writing style was very simplistic and left out the detail development that I normally enjoy.

Listened to the audio version of this novella set in Iceland. It is a story of love, lust and loss. Bjarni had an illicit affair with Helga (both married to others at the time of the affair). She wrote him a letter asking him to leave his farm and start a new life with her in a big city. This reply, written decades later, explains why he didn't make that choice. A bit graphic at times but not offensive. Good story, narration was great.

I gave this story 5 stars. I was so struck by the lyrical quality of the storytelling. Although fiction, it is a true story, the hallmark of great writing. Some reviewers have expressed shock at the integral event late in the book but if you know anything about human nature, isolation and psycology, the event will not shock but sadden one. A very human story.

I have no idea what this book was about. Was hard to read, understand, and digest. I'm so disappointed. Don't bother to read this book.

Not my cup of tea. Confusing and anxious

The structure is that of a letter the narrator is writing to a woman he has long loved. He is an old man; feeling himself not long for this world, and having recently lost his wife, he looks back, evaluating his life and reconsidering his choices. He is a farmer; not only his life but his entire way of thinking is bound up with the landscape around him.This is in many ways a strange book. It is written with a lyricism and love of the land that is truly beautiful. Bjarni is rooted in the culture of his people; he quotes readily from Icelandic poets, finding their words a natural vehicle to express his feelings. But his outlook is rooted in his environment too; he is account is earthy and graphic about the day-to-day realities of smallholding life.Beautiful, sad, magical.The woodcut illustrations perfectly complement the story. Unfortunately, I received a review copy which does not identify who the artist is.

This is the simple story of Bjarni, a farmer who loves his neighbour's wife yet when given the opportunity to run away with her to Reykjavik and a new life together, chooses instead to stay behind and live out a traditional rural existence. His passionate affair with Helga takes place during the Second World War, when (a friendly) occupation first by the British and then by the Americans changed traditional Icelandic life forever due to the money and modern culture it brought to the country. Bjarni is besotted with Helga, but she may be more besotted with the prospect of escape to the bright lights, and therefore represents the pull of modernity, while Bjarni's hold on his country's traditional culture in the end remains firm, although at immense cost to his personal happiness. Little more than a novella - which would be slimmer still were it not for Kjartan Hallur's atmospheric illustrations - it is chock full of references to the Icelandic sagas and more recent poetry and hymns which are the heartsprings of Icelandic culture, and also of the dehumanisation brought about by the rapid growth of Greater Reykjavík, fed by rural depopulation and farm abandonment. For this reader, Bjarni's reply, finally, on his deathbed, to Helga's letter imploring him to join her in Reykjavik, is no more and no less than a paean to a lost Icelandic rural paradise, hard paradise that it was. It's beautifully written, and worth reading if only for the wonderful chapter about the corpse of an old lady for whom Bjarni made a difficult winter journey to bring to the church for burial.

Everything you ever wanted to know about life as an Icelandic sheep farmer during the last century might not sound immediately appealing however this is a compelling story from beginning to end. To go into too much detail would be to spoil each little secret divulged and that would be a great shame as this does feel like reading, not so much a letter, but someone's private diary.In places the writing is as stark as the land yet this simply adds to the story. Bjarni's life, his feelings towards his wife and towards his neighbour's wife, Helga are perhaps not to everyone's taste. Indeed there are parts of the novella that are quite startling and even off putting for some, however it is worth giving this a chance - not all Scandinavian books are of murderous intent.

I guess Icelandic culture is fairly chilly, brittle and alien as its landscape. This slight novel, though I feel certain, is excellently translated it feels a long way from this reader. I found it difficult to penetrate the heart of the book and was ultimately depressed by the actual pointlessness of it. I dont want to cause a spoiler here but basically Helga doesnt get the letter.The poetry in the language is exquisite though I did have a bit of trouble with the names, my Icelandic barely copes with early Bjork lyrics.Birgisson presents a lovelorn and ultimately impossible love story that just has far too many wounded people in it. It is well worth persevering however as the picture revealed is one of the aching and longing of the human heart tested to the maximum

Bjarni and Helga are having a passionate affair,when the formerreceives a letter from Helga asking him to leave his farm and wife,to go with her to live in the city.He does not reply to this letter until very many years later,at theend of his life.Beautifully written with acute observation,this novella (123 pages long),is not only an expression of love and regret,but a passionate evocation ofone man's atavistic attachment to the land.