The Old Man and His Sons in Around the World

Oct 18, 2011 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it liked it

Shelves: cold-weather-islands, read2012, around-the-world, location-faroe-islands

This book was too short, and over too soon! It took a long time to track down a book written in the Faroe Islands that had actually been translated into English. This was written in the 1940s, depicting a quickly fading "old way" of living as a Faroese Islander. Brutal whale hunt, brutal living, but debt-free!

This is a simple story with memorable characters, but tends to drive home the message of the old ways having value and being disregarded a little too forcefully.

Because the Faroe Islands a ...more

12 likes · Like · see review

Dec 31, 2012 Rusalka rated it liked it

Shelves: own, nordic, original-52-books-around-the-world, europe, translation, around-the-world

This was one of those books that leapt out of the huge list of the books people had already found for their own Around the World list. Scrolling down the page: Estonia, Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Faroe Islands, Fiji…. Hold on what? The Faroes? There are books written about or in the Faroes? I have to read it!

So on I went, and ordered the book and it arrived in the giant shopping spree of parcels I had delivered to work (the postman was very grateful I was solely keeping him in a job). And then This was one of those books that leapt out of the huge list of the books people had already found for their own Around the World list. Scrolling down the page: Estonia, Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Faroe Islands, Fiji…. Hold on what? The Faroes? There are books written about or in the Faroes? I have to read it!

So on I went, and ordered the book and it arrived in the giant shopping spree of parcels I had delivered to work (the postman was very grateful I was solely keeping him in a job). And then it sat patiently waiting until I managed to get to it.

I will state first of all, this is one of the nicest covers on any of the books I own. It’s gorgeous. I frequently took it off the shelf over the last 9 months just to look at it. Not only I think this, but Lexx in his grumpy, judging, Graphic Designer way even said it was a really nice cover. Get it for the cover. Make it a coffee table book. It’s pretty!

Story wise though, I didn’t love it. It was another story of a country fighting with modernisation and the problems with loosing ones own culture while developing as a country. And that is sad. It must have been heartbreaking for these old Faroe people to see their children doing what they deemed as rejecting their heritage and culture. I am sympathetic to that. I think it is important while developing and modernising to still keep your identity and culture in check. Those are the things that make you and your country different and interesting. For example, while not the same in any way shape or form, it annoys me that Aus is getting more and more Americanised. So I am sure these people felt this annoyance and then sadness a thousand times more than my feelings.

However, I feel that if their children, all of them, are that big a jerks that they insinuate, then maybe, just maybe, they may need to work on their parenting skills. They just went on and on about how ungrateful, and rude, and horrible, and whatnot their children were. And how their grandchildren were always begging from them. Well maybe, one of the reasons ALL of your MANY children are horrible may come down to the common factor with all those children? And you can say “No! Go home!” to your grandchildren once in a while. I couldn’t sympathise with that. It bugged me.

But as much as that annoyed me, this did not even compare to the son who was still living at home, Kálvur. Dear god I wanted to slap him upside his face and tell him to get the hell over himself. He was a complete and utter drip. 24ish years old and crying all the time because things were scary. Seriously boy! Grow a pair! Living at home (in a 2 room house) with his parents, and then lying in his bed yelling at his mum to bring him food because he couldn’t be bother getting up. Then getting pissed off as she wasn't there as she had gone out. Once. Ever. I’d tell you what would happen if I ever tried that with my Mum, there is very little chance I would still be here writing this.

Whinging aside, both mine and sniveling boy’s, the book was very well written. I wanted to keep reading it, even though I found the people not overly engaging. The way of storytelling was, and the culture and customs were intriguing. And it was only a short book, so you knew that even though the snotty-nosed boy was crying again, you only had another 50 pages with him.

The whale hunt at the beginning of the book, and the premise for the whole book was really interesting and eye opening. I had always thought that if people could hunt whales traditionally with a spear and a wooden boat, good on them. I had the idea that these cultures only kill as much as they need, therefore being much more sustainable than the horrible commercial whaling that has just started up in the oceans below me as we speak.

This book changed that way of thinking though. It was so real and evocative. I was so upset for the whales, and I am not sure if I was supposed to be. I have a feeling that is a product of reading the book with my background and in my time. 70 years ago I may have identified with the hunters more, been on their side. Not now, I was so drawn in to the book, hoping a whale would get away or take someone with them. It almost made me cry this hunt.

Also there wasn’t that idea of sustainability I thought went with it. They killed as much as they possibly could, which allowed Ketil to get into the mess he did by accidentally buying some obscene tonnage of whale meat. It really opened my eyes.

So with saga-esq storytelling, a rare insight for me into the lives of another place in the North and Norwegian Seas, another story of the struggle of traditional vs modern ways of living, and an eye opening account of traditional hunting methods, that I will admit has changed my thinking immensely, I felt outweighed the frustration with annoying characters. One day, one day I will read a book with characters I like. Or I’ve just become a cantankerous old lady who hates everyone already… oh dear… ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

Aug 02, 2011 Vicky rated it it was amazing

Shelves: ethnography, scandiwegian-stuff, 2011-reads, on-an-island, around-the-world

Around the world = Faroe Islands.

The Old Man And His Sons by Heðin Brú is an account of the daily struggle for survival in a rural village on the wave-washed Faroe Islands, set against creeping modernisation of the society. The opening chapter details the grindadráp, the communal whale hunt, in all its bloody magnificence. Drunk and adrenaline-fueled by the kill, Ketil, the old man of the title, buys a huge chunk of whale meat beyond his means, and with the assistance of his (as he sees it) feck ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Jun 13, 2021 Nina ( picturetalk321 ) rated it liked it

Shelves: author-man, author-white, genre-fiction, landscape-island, europe, a-reviewed, publdate-1940s, zchallenge-eu, europe-faroe, theme-olderwoman-man

An unexpectedly entertaining and moreish tale of life in a fishing community on the Faroe islands in the 1940s.

First, there's the whole Faroe milieu. I've never read anything written by an author from those islands and, indeed, had to confirm their exact location on the map. I also hadn't known that Faroese is a language of its own. So there was the sheer smug sense of reading something "niche".

Second, the Faroese milieu described is almost comically what one would expect of a traditional Euro An unexpectedly entertaining and moreish tale of life in a fishing community on the Faroe islands in the 1940s.

First, there's the whole Faroe milieu. I've never read anything written by an author from those islands and, indeed, had to confirm their exact location on the map. I also hadn't known that Faroese is a language of its own. So there was the sheer smug sense of reading something "niche".

Second, the Faroese milieu described is almost comically what one would expect of a traditional European setting: bark roofs that leak, rugged old fishermen with home-made skin shoes and blood-flecked beards, chickens roosting on the rafters, whales speared, gnarled characters, weather-beaten landscapes, stormy seas. This could be a parody out of Itali Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler -- except it's not. It's real.

Third, the comical element. The tone is like a folk tale or a story told around a campfire by an entertaining spinner of yarns who throws in farcical elements and outré characters. Here is a hilarious flavour:

'Ketil wanted some nails for his boat.

Certainly, he could have some, the shopkeeper told him, scratching himself under his cravat. "But just now I was so clumsy as to drop the packet of nails into the treacle barrel." He looked above him. "Maybe I could use these fire tongs hanging there, to pick them out again." He climbed up to the beam, and got the tongs, but slipped down, and ended with both arms in an open drawer full of flour. A sort of fine snowdrift filled the whole room.' (loc 1124)

And fourth, the contrast between the old 'uns' ways and the new-fangled ways of the next generation. It reminded me of Dörte Hansen's Altes Land where there is also a contrast between old and new rural ways. The young want to modernise (and, of course, from our vantage point today their modernisation is very modest) and the old are deeply suspicious of these modern ways and stubbornly cling to their leaky bark roof, their stinky offal-littered fishy room, their non-motorised row boats.

This is a rather male-dominated story. The wives do get a look-in, and what we glimpse is great, but they hardly feature as anything but "wife of".

Read for end.notes' and anovelfamily's #readtheworld21 challenge: June in Scandinavia. ...more

Like · see review