Statement of responsibility: Translated by Larissa Kyzer. Statement of responsibility: Marked up by Martin Holmes. Marked up to be included in the Scandinavian-Canadian Studies Journal. Translated by Larissa Kyzer. Text classification: Keywords: article-themed.
It situates the novel within its sociohistorical context and reads it as an incisive critique of its contemporary milieu, rather than simply a brilliant reimagining of the sagas. I have, for instance, occasionally opted to employ an active voiceβmore common to English writingβwhere Kristinn used passive sentence constructions. For ease of reference, I have included page citations for this work after each quote. I shall not spend much time describing the external attire of this work.
For those who are accustomed to reading medieval texts, the language of Gerpla will feel familiar, as if one were reading a brand-new Icelandic saga, albeit one with a more challenging styleβwordier and transformed by a defter hand. For those who have little familiarity with medieval texts, Gerpla will doubtless seem impenetrable at first; these readers will find the story to be a very heavy read, although neither the beauty of its language nor the force of its style will escape anyone.
Gerpla is explicitly written in the style and spirit of the Icelandic sagas. The author makes it very clear where he stands in the beginning. This is an event-driven story, rather than a character-driven story. One might recall how restricted the sphere of action is in Independent People βit mainly takes place at one small croft. Here, the setting encompasses the better part of the world as it was known at the time of the sworn brothers. It is divided into 54 chapters, each with its own unique style, but many of them with multiple settings.
The main characters are not always at the fore. One of the primary challenges in Gerpla is to maintain suspense and balance across a complex, global narrative set in various countries and to channel countless competing narratives into a single stream. It should be as if it were an ancient saga. I have heard from a leading historian that Gerpla is the best source he has read about the middle ages in Iceland. Nevertheless, scholars will be able to identify a variety of perspectives put forth by the author of Gerpla.
