Read "The Fish can Sing" by Halldór Laxness online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I have now described how my grandfather was a man of orthodox beliefs without its ever occurring to him to ask God to model Himself upon men, in accordance with that strange passage in the Lord's Prayer which says: "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. " My grandfather said plainly to the fellow from Steinber: "God cannot forgive you, but to me, Björn of Brekkukot, it doesn't matter a damn. " So I cannot help suspecting that my grandfather had a special scale of standards for most of the things that happen in the life of a fisherman.
To corroborate this, I shall now mention briefly the question of fish as we saw the matter at Brekkukot – or rather, the moral law relating to fish. It could be said that my grandfather's ideas about the fishing industry had only a limited relevance in the rapidly evolving society that during my boyhood was developing beyond the turnstile back-gate of Brekkukot; on the other hand, we had not yet reached the stage of becoming palpably aware of that society which was beginning to ferment all around us. At any rate I can assert that I was brought up with an assessment of money very different from normal banking values.