The Fish can Sing by Halldór Laxness

In a book by a major author it says about a certain place that the air in the city was pregnant with the name of a certain lady. I have sometimes thought that something like that could be said about our air round the churchyard and the name of Garar Hólm. His portrait was always hanging there, both in our living-room and the living-room at Hríngjaraber, as well as in the drawing-room of the King's Minister; and although one never heard him mentioned spontaneously in our house, I soon realized that his name was closely connected with the workings in our old clock. If a visitor brought up his name, as if by accident, the question was evaded; at the very most they might say something to the effect that little Georg had been a nice boy when he was growing up in the churchyard here; but these evasive replies were not least what made him so exciting in my eyes. It was strange that this man who performed in concert halls all over the world and had become such an Ariel that we scarcely dared mention his name aloud, should once have been a little boy here in the churchyard just like myself. I always felt sure that whenever my grandmother and Kristín of Hríngjaraber were talking together in private with pious expressions on their faces, they were talking about this supernatural creature.

I do not know whether it was the awareness of this world singer, who had once been a boy here like myself, that was responsible for the fact that from my earliest childhood I began to take notice of singing and everything connected with singing, and had now begun to sing at small funerals for Pastor Jóhann; but it was not because I was taking Garar Hólm as a model, at least not deliberately – his portrait was too remote from me even though it hung in people's living-rooms.