Read "The Fish can Sing" by Halldór Laxness online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Late in the winter, my grandfather Björn started calling me at six o'clock every morning so that I could help him see to the lumpfish-nets in Skerjafjörur. These mornings have always remained fresh in my memory.
What happened? Nothing really happened, except that the sun was getting ready to rise. The stars are seldom as bright as they are in the morning, either because one's eyesight is clearest just after waking, or because the Virgin Mary has been busy polishing them all night. Sometimes there was also a moon. A tiny light had been lit in a cottage on Álftanes; probably someone was going out fishing. Often there was frost and frozen snow, and the ice creaked in the night. Somewhere out in the infinite distance lay the spring, at least in God's mind, like the babies that are not yet conceived in the mother's womb.