Illness and Sense of Place in Rural Iceland: The Stones Speak by Þórbergur Þórðarson

Abstract

This paper intersects two areas of human geography research: therapeutic landscapes and literary geography. Using Þórbergur Þórðarson’s The Stones Speak (2012) as a case study, the paper explores the mixing of the rural environment and the wilderness in a farming community in Iceland at the turn of the twentieth century, as well as the health-related properties of this space. The built environment can function as a site of physical and social health, while the wilderness provides emotional healing and normalcy for the physically sick. Though elements can be recognized separately, this paper highlights how local people experience both wilderness and rural elements as one landscape, as well as how human activity shapes the landscape and its inhabitants’s sense of place. Literary geography limits the study to a single cultural context, thus more study is needed to articulate the intersection of rural and wilderness space.

本文涉及人文地理学研究的两个领域：医疗景观学和文学地理学。通过Þórbergur Þórðarson于2012年发表的《The Stones Speak》，本文探索了在20世纪初，冰岛的一个农业社区对乡村环境和自然环境的融合，以及该地区与健康有关的属性。人工环境可以提供身体健康和社会健康的场所，而自然环境可以为患者提供情绪治疗和恢复。尽管各因素可以单独识别，本文强调了当地人如何将自然环境和乡村环境一起做为整体景观，以及人类活动如何塑造景观、居民如何感知其位置。由于文学地理学的局限，本文只研究了单一文化背景，而对乡村和自然环境关系的描述还需要开展更多的研究。.

En este trabajo convergen dos áreas de investigación de la geografía humana: los paisajes terapéuticos y la geografía literaria. Usando como estudio de caso The Stones Speak [Hablan las piedras] de Þórbergur Þórðarson (2012), el artículo explora la mezcla del medio ambiente rural con la naturaleza silvestre en una comunidad agrícola de Islandia, al doblar al siglo XX, lo mismo que las propiedades relacionadas con la salud de este espacio. El entorno construido puede funcionar como sitio de salud física y social, mientras el área silvestre proporciona curación emotiva y normalidad a quien esté físicamente enfermo. Aunque estos elementos pueden reconocerse de manera separada, el artículo destaca cómo experimenta la gente de la localidad con lo silvestre y los elementos rurales como un solo paisaje, lo mismo que el modo como la actividad humana configura el paisaje y el sentido de lugar de sus habitantes. La geografía literaria restringe el estudio a un contexto cultural singular, por lo que se necesita más estudio para articular la intersección del espacio rural y silvestre.

Key Words:

• Iceland
• literary geography
• rural space
• therapeutic landscapes
• wilderness

 :

• 冰岛
• 文学地理学
• 乡村地区
• 医疗景观学
• 自然环境。

 :

• espacio rural
• geografía literaria
• Islandia
• naturaleza silvestre
• paisajes terapéuticos

In geography literature, as well as popular culture and tourism promotional materials, Iceland is primarily characterized as a wilderness environment. In many ways, this is a valid characterization. Definitions of wilderness based on the presence of human-made structures indicate that thirty-four percent of Iceland’s land mass is wilderness (Ólafsdóttir and Runnström 2011). Though this definition of wilderness provided by the Icelandic Ministry of the Environment takes a spatial method in defining wilderness, geographers note the subjective nature of the term. In interviews with tourists, Saeþórsdóttir (2010) found that most visitors came to Iceland seeking a nature space free of human impact, an experience of solitude, and the opportunity to remove themselves from the crowded places of their daily lives. However, the enjoyment of the Highlands’s “wilderness” is only made possible by the network of roads and bridges built throughout the twentieth century (Saeþórsdóttir, Hall, and Saarinen 2011). Furthermore, the English language etymology of “wilderness” refers to forested places with wild animals (Nash 2014). Iceland does not have mammals like the “wild beasts” of mainland Europe or North America and no longer has forests, due to Viking-era demand for timber, heating fuel, and cleared land for grazing animals (Saeþórsdóttir, Hall, and Saarinen 2011). The barren Icelandic landscape is therefore not natural, but instead the result of human activity and years of poor resource management. Saeþórsdóttir and Saarinen (2015) also note that ideas of solitude connected to wilderness are subjective, as tourists from densely populated European cities likely have high thresholds for what they consider crowded places compared to Icelanders. These examples demonstrate the challenges of applying the wilderness term to the Icelandic context, as well as the contentious and often contradictory nature of the term itself. As a result, the stories, perceptions, and cultural myths tourists create are largely what define wilderness spaces (Brookes 2001; Deary and Warren 2017; Saeþórsdóttir 2010). Given Iceland’s recent growth as a tourism destination, tourists’s sharing of their experience in Iceland acts as a significant force in shaping perceptions of the Icelandic environment. As such, this paper will consider wilderness to be a nature space containing rocks, mountains, bodies of water, vegetation, and other natural features.

The evidence of human activity, and in particular agricultural activity, are evident within the Icelandic landscape, despite population notions of wilderness reproduced by tourists. Indeed, farming is a significant economic activity in Iceland and has been for the majority of its history. Prior to the late nineteenth century, the average person lived in an isolated rural area and spent long hours farming (Jóhannesson 2013). At the same time, they lived in close proximity to nature and faced the dangers of the elements. For instance, Magnússon (1995) discusses the experience of Icelandic children in the nineteenth century; environmental dangers taught children survival skills and how to cope with tragedy at a young age, especially when sent into the Highlands in search of suitable pastures for the family’s grazing animals (Ólafsdóttir and Runnström 2011). These historical accounts demonstrate an intersection of rural and wilderness spaces. In general, rural spaces are associated with farming and the pastoral, while wilderness is an uninhabited, natural area. Despite the differences between these two spaces, the rural and wilderness often co-exist within the lives of people living in these landscapes. For instance, a person living on a farm next to a mountain can experience the landscape as both rural and wilderness; it is not possible to split the two. Vepsäläinen and Pitkänen (2010) explored the overlaps between notions of wilderness and rural-ness, though in the context of second-home ownership in Finland, rather than everyday life. At the same time, the two terms are often conflated or otherwise grouped into one category. For example, Øian (2013) explores the ways in which the labels of rural and wilderness can be differentially applied to the same space in the context of hunting and fishing in Norway. Overall, the current work in this area demonstrates the need to articulate the intersection of rural and wilderness landscapes in geography literature.

This paper examines The Stones Speak by Þórbergur Þórðarson (2012). Set at the turn of the twentieth century, the novel tells the story of a boy growing up on his family’s farm in southeast Iceland. Þórbergur, the protagonist and narrator, has a profound connection to the landscape and provides vivid descriptions of the natural places he inhabits. Yet, he also lives on a farmstead and describes the ways in which the agrarian lifestyle interacts with the wildness of the landscape. In addition, Þórbergur frames many life events according to health, and depicts a multi-faceted understanding of health and well-being. As a result, we have positioned this paper within literary geography and the therapeutic landscapes literature. Literary geography is useful for understanding life and landscape situated in a particular historical period (Briwa 2018), while therapeutic landscapes illuminates the health-related aspects of the landscape (Gesler 1992). The novel expresses the creativity and imagination of an eccentric child, yet is also largely autobiographical. So, while it is impossible to generalize, the novel does serve as a source of detailed and vivid information about the Iceland of its temporal setting.

This paper begins with a literature review focused on literary geography and therapeutic landscapes, two sub-disciplines within cultural geography. Next, it provides a summary of The Stones Speak and biographical information concerning the novel’s author, Þórbergur Þórðarson. Lastly, the authors present an analysis of the novel focused on three main themes: creating rural and wilderness space, illness and landscape, and sense of place.

LITERATURE REVIEW

The purpose of human geography is not only to study the physical landscape, but also to explore how people interact with and connect to the spaces they inhabit. Literary geography emerged as a means to understand the human relationship with space through literature (Alexander 2015). This interdisciplinary sub-field has a rich history in geographic thought and focuses primarily on works of fiction, as fiction is “intended to conjure up the image and feel of a place in a manner in which geographers … can only dream of achieving” (Sharp 2000). Among those examining fiction, the majority of research in literary geography may be roughly divided into two categories: employing geographic techniques to understand fiction, and using fiction to explore geography. While there is evidently overlap and gray area between these two categories, they are useful because they describe whether the approach primarily aims to study literature or geography.

The first category may be best described as the use of a geographical lens to study literature. Several geographers have examined the novels of Irish writer James Joyce,¹ as the city of Dublin is a major focal point for his work (Saunders 2010). Scholarship related to Joyce’s work is diverse, including digital mapping, population statistics, and urban studies (Alexander 2015; Johnson 2000; Mulliken 2017). Joyce rooted the spaces and places of his novels in the actual historical geography of Dublin, though scholars have also examined novels that blend imagined and real geographies. Hones (2011) discusses three novels that combine and blend geographies across: historical time (The Last American²); space (The Man in the High Castle³); and both space and time (The Great Gatsby⁴). Edquist (2009) explores the deliberate lack of clarity in which The Seven Poor Men of Sydney⁵ presents certain areas of inter-World War Sydney, Australia; the historic town and bay area is vivid, but the suburban North Shore is vague, representing the characters’ rejection of the modernizing city. Briwa (2018) and Steffler (2017) discuss the ways in which human activity and natural forces change the physical landscape over time, concluding that these changes allow fictional characters to situate their own memories and identity within a larger history of the space. Further to the human history and memory of a space, Noxolo and Preziuso (2013) argued the importance of examining postcolonial places and literature to expand the field of literary geography beyond Western thought. For instance, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981) constructs India through dreams and memories that are sometimes comprehensible and identifiable, but sometimes unintelligible. In making readers feel like they cannot understand and belong in India, the novel depicts the challenges of identity for diaspora communities (Sharp 1996). Pieprzak (2007) also explores the role of memory in creating a city subject to colonial change throughout history. In The City of Brass,⁶ the citizens can only create the ancient pre-colonial city through memory and stories, trapping the post-colonial citizens in nostalgia for a city they never knew, and perhaps never existed (Pieprzak 2007).

Though Iceland does not have a colonial history like that of India and Morocco, memory is nonetheless a significant theme in the novel; it tells the story of an adult Þórbergur recalling the events of his childhood in a bygone era of Icelandic history. As a semi-autobiographical novel, the role of author, Þórbergur Þórðarson, is also important. In addition to expanding literary geography beyond Western Europe and North America, Jiang and Xu (2016) highlight the need to consider the social role of both the author and the reader in literary geography study. In some cases, the author takes a real place and gives it a certain character or identity. For instance, Walter Scott’s poems gave spiritual significance to the Scottish landscape, resulting in the landscape becoming Scotland’s primary tourism marketing asset (Fabio 1996). Also relating to tourism, the Taiwanese author San Mao became associated with the “San Mao Teahouse,” a tourist site for her fans. Though she never wrote about this place directly, themes of wandering and utopia in her novels became associated with this real-life house in Zhouzhuang (Jiang and Xu 2016). In both of these examples, the author’s novels draw the reader to associate a specific place with their stories and can entice them to visit. Further to the author’s role, Mendes and Lau (2019) suggest that imagined geographies of a place do not result from a single literary work, but a collected body of literature from one or more authors. In their examination works of Indian returnee migrant authors,⁷ they discuss how Delhi is difficult to describe as either colonial or post-colonial, or global or local because the authors are Indian, but have migrated elsewhere (Mendes and Lau 2019). Thus, they write with a mix of perspectives that are not as easily defined as those taken by Scott or Mao. Though they examined nonfiction works, their notion that the author’s perspective influences the depiction of geography undoubtedly applies to works of fiction too.

The second main category of research within literary geography is the use of literature to explore geographical concepts, with our primary interest being therapeutic landscapes. Gesler (1992) introduced the term “therapeutic landscapes” to describe places associated with physical, psychological, and spiritual health or well-being. The concept of therapeutic landscapes has since evolved significantly, as the concept and its applications have expanded to recognize the dynamic affective, socio-cultural and material experiences of health and wellbeing in particular places (Bell et al. 2018). Collectively, therapeutic landscape research recognizes the healing power of place, recognizing people’s experiences with healing places as relational, and contingent on shifting material/physical, emotional/affective, social, and spiritual qualities of place encounter, alongside one’s own memories and life circumstances (Bell et al. 2018). Consequently, diverse psychosocial, spiritual, material, cultural, and political qualities of landscape encounter and experience are now understood as they relate to feelings of health and well-being. Fiction is useful in studying therapeutic landscapes because fiction explores the experience of states like health and illness, offering new perspectives outside the biomedical approach. As summarized by Gesler (2000), “one needs to step outside … scientific experiment … to fully comprehend disease and health. In addition, health geographers need to step outside their normal academic concerns to embrace imaginative literature.”

Therapeutic landscapes research using fiction began with Gesler’s (2000) analysis of Mann’s The Magic Mountain (1924), where changes in physical environment represent changes in the main character’s knowledge of disease and illness. Baer and Gesler (2004) then examined Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (1951), which presents ambiguous spaces, where the therapeutic quality of a space depends upon other life experiences or social factors, not only the space itself. Tonnellier and Curtis (2005) focused on the symbolic environment in De Balzac’s The Country Doctor (1833), suggesting that the landscape creates emotion and affects the characters’ health. Williams (2007) then discussed the mountain environment in Spyri’s Heidi (1861), and its supposed ability to improve physical, spiritual, and emotional health. Drautzburg (2012) also explored the capacities of outdoor spaces to provide physical healing and emotional growth, contrasting the spaces of disease (India, the Manor) with the spaces of health (the garden) in Burnett’s The Secret Garden (1911). Most recently, Steffler (2017) described the mirroring of illness of the female body in the natural landscape in Munro’s “What Do You Want to Know For?” Bell (2017) then employed the therapeutic landscapes concept and the literary geography tradition to analyze the films The Village (2004) and Safe (1995). The analysis of these novels and films speaks to the power of fiction in understanding the complex interactions between people, the environment, and health. In addition, they demonstrate that fiction, like all mediums, cannot represent a definitive truth given that knowledge is always partial, situated, and constructed through multiple truths, but can reveal the dynamic social and temporal contexts of the author and the world their characters inhabit (Bell 2017; Saunders 2010).

Within the sub-field of literary geography there is a range of landscapes analyzed, though our primary focus are those types of landscapes presented in The Stones Speak—the wilderness and the rural. The treatment of wilderness in fiction draws upon the Romantic tradition of early nineteenth century England and America, which focused on mountains, forests, bodies of water, and valleys as places physically and spiritually unspoiled by the ills of the growing industrial urban space (Bhatt and Lainsbury 2004). Physically, fiction depicts wilderness spaces as vast, untamed, and void of human presence. Characters in these novels “go back to nature” in the wilderness, where they meet “physical challenge, emotional wonder, spiritual hope, and the exploration of the unknown” (Dean 1982). These spaces function as a means for male characters to assert their identity and strength, through both the challenges of living in the wilderness and the rejection of “modern” social life (Carroll 2001). While the toughness of the wilderness can create psychological peace, the rural environment in fiction is itself peaceful (Dean 1982). Fiction depicts rural spaces as unchanging and stable, thus able to create narrative order out of a chaotic and troubled character or story (Mergenthal 1998). The rolling hills and roaming shepherds of the countryside represent the possibility of a simple and quiet life away from the physical and spiritual dangers of the city, particularly for children (Finello 1994; Squire 1996). Upon many reproductions of this notion of wilderness and the countryside, these works of fiction can be employed to create a collective nationalist identity (Miller 1992). Oftentimes this occurs in public schools, where the reading curriculum “[informs] a particular ‘taste’ for literature in students” and promotes a national imagery (McGennisken 2010). Particularly in the case of rural places, depictions of rural life and landscapes can create a sanitized and romantic image of rural life that is at odds with its harshness, and oftentimes, poverty (Price 2016; Squire 1996). In a study of American tourists, Price found that family stories, tourism marketing, and postcards create a comforting and tranquil picture of rural Ireland that gives these tourists a sense of belonging to their ancestral homeland. At the same time, it ignores the actual space and the challenges people faced there, while promoting the pleasant sentiment it evokes (Price 2016). With the countryside as civilized and the wilderness as the untamed past, fiction tends to oppose the two landscapes, yet at the same time, romanticize them both as ways to escape urban social ills.

ÞÓRBERGUR ÞÓRÐARSON’S THE STONES SPEAK

Þórbergur Þórðarson (1888–1974) is one of Iceland’s most celebrated authors. Born in Suðursveit, Þórðarson’s childhood and adolescence was that of a typical rural Icelander at the time, characterized by farming, family, and relative isolation. He moved to Reykjavik at the age of eighteen but struggled to make a living at first. He entered the university in 1909, and though he left without a degree, was able to secure work as a teacher. His life changed drastically in 1924 when he published his first book, Bréf til Láru (Letters to Lára), a scathing criticism of capitalism, the Church, and a range of other social issues. He lost his teaching job, but its immense popularity established Þórðarson as a serious writer and, according to some, ushered in a new era of literature in Iceland. He then published two semi-fictional books about his life in Reykjavik (Islenzkur adall/Icelandic Nobility and Ofvitinn/The Prodigy) before committing his efforts to learning about communism and Esperanto, even translating some of his short stories and writing textbooks for learning Esperanto. Þórðarson then traveled around the world for many years, but by the mid-1950s, had returned to Reykjavik permanently.

He published Steinarnir tala (The Stones Speak) in 1956, along with several other volumes about his family’s farm, known as Hali. Throughout most of Iceland’s storytelling history, the family saga dominated (Rancew-Sikora 2016). Sagas began in Iceland as oral tales around the tenth century, appearing in the written form in the twelfth and thirteenth century. While the sagas of other Scandinavian nations focused on kings and heroic epics, sagas of Iceland were prose tales that focused primarily on the lives and history of everyday people: farmers, settlers, warriors, and the feuds that occurred among them (Byock 1984). Though writers began to move away from the saga as a literary custom in the twentieth century, The Stones Speak draws on the saga tradition in focusing on an individual’s daily life, representing an authentic retrospective experience of place in a particular time, and consequently constructing a strong sense of place, broadly defined. Today, a farm still exists in the area of Þórðarson’s childhood home, alongside a small hotel and The Þórbergur Center, a museum dedicated to Þórðarson and local history. Most of Þórðarson’s work is available only in its original Icelandic; portions of Islenzkur adall and Bréf til Láru have been published in English, German, and Dutch, though The Stones Speak is his only work available in its entirety in English.

The novel is an imaginative, autobiographical account of the author’s childhood, with young Þórbergur serving as the narrator. It begins in the early to mid-1880s with a French ship running aground on the beach near Hali, offering new resources to the local families, quickly followed by three weddings. Þórbergur himself is born in 1888, an event which attracted great concern among the local people due to the lengthy labor and lack of nearby medical assistance. Þórbergur marks the periods of his life with illness, both his own and others. The intervening time consists of descriptions of his home, the landscape around him, the various labors of farming, and retelling of stories told by family members. Þórbergur suffers from an unknown illness as a young child, which causes him to be smaller and less able to perform farm work compared to the other boys. However, he plays freely outdoors and the illness abates as he ages. Next, an old and sickly woman comes to stay at the family home. Þórbergur recalls the various stories his family told him about her difficult and transient life, but nevertheless she leaves a few months later. Her departure is shortly followed by the illness of his grandfather’s horse and Þórbergur associates it with another sick women billeted at the farm before he was born. The remainder of the story is primarily occupied by Þórbergur’s growing fascination with measuring distances.

Þórðarson and his family live on a turf farmstead, an Icelandic style of architecture where turf covers and connects a series of small buildings. The farmstead is in a rural, coastal area and mostly surrounded by wilderness, including glacial mountains, the ocean, and a lagoon. The family engage in subsistence farming, primarily sheep farming, and have almost no social contact with others beyond the few farmhands and two neighboring families.

METHODS

Within therapeutic landscapes literature, spaces are explored with respect to four main domains: psycho-social environment, spiritual environment, natural environment, and built environment (Williams 1998). These four domains formed the basis of the initial coding scheme for deductive content analysis; the four environment types functioned as major categories and the authors created additional sub-themes through a close reading of The Stones Speak (see Figure 1). Following initial analysis, the authors focused on the built and natural environment because the novel provides rich, detailed descriptions of the physical environment and the significance of its various components. In addition, literary geography aims to explore how the manifestation and creation of landscapes through text, as well as their associated multi-sensory experiences (Alexander 2015; Briwa 2018). The novel discusses these concepts most prevalently in relation to the physical environment, so it took the focus of further analysis. The second phase of analysis was inductive: the authors identified themes in the novel related to the physical environment, then put them into larger categories (see Figure 2). The following section explores three thematic categories: creating rural and wilderness space; illness and landscape; and sense of place.

FIGURE 1 Initial coding scheme

FIGURE 2 Final coding scheme

THEMATIC FINDINGS

In The Stones Speak, human activity constantly shapes and re-shapes the environment through the building of structures, the plowing of land, and the raising of domesticated animals, among other activities. Thus, the farmstead is a built environment. Yet wilderness elements such as mountains and the ocean surrounded the farmstead, bringing the wilderness into Hali’s landscape. The space inhabited by Þórbergur and his family represents an intersection of built and natural environments, specifically, rural space.

Creating Integrated Rural and Wilderness Space

Throughout the novel, Þórbergur provides several extended descriptions of Hali that create an image of rural space. In one, he notes the fields are dotted with sheepcotes, stables, and vegetable patches, all of which “had names just like folk and the cows and the sheep and the dogs and the horses” (Þórðarson 2012, 133). Giving the structures names alongside people and farm animals highlights their importance to Þórbergur and his family, as well as reveals Þórbergur’s notion that non-living elements have life-like qualities. The life/soul of non-living things forms a theme throughout the novel, and will be further elucidated with different examples. The preceding quotation also highlights the rural character of Hali by noting two characteristic elements of an agrarian life: domesticated animals and crops. Further to the significance of the sheepcotes and stables, Þórbergur associates specific memories with these spaces. For instance, he recalls the squeak of the wheelbarrow his father pushed around the fields, and remembers when farmhands killed a cat in one of the stables (Þórðarson 2012, 132, 134). These memories allow Þórbergur to attach emotional significance to each of these spaces, creating a strong sense of place.

In addition to its rural character, wilderness spaces surround the farmstead, notably bodies of water. Þórbergur notes early in the novel “the home field … lay before a beautiful lagoon” (Þórðarson 2012, 28). Beyond mere esthetic appreciation, Þórbergur feels “almost entranced looking out over this gleaming expanse” (Þórðarson 2012, 172). His experience at the lagoon reflects long-held associations between blue spaces and healing in therapeutic landscapes literature, which notes the ability of water to provide relaxation, renewal, and spiritual wellbeing (Doughty 2019). In addition to the lagoon, Þórbergur has powerful emotional experiences at the ocean. On his first visit with his father, Þórbergur feels a sense of power in watching its motion, and feels frightened by the loud crashing of waves on the shore (Þórðarson 2012, 47–48). The multi-sensory components make the experience engaging and memorable, eliciting a fascination with the ocean seen throughout the novel. Upon repeated visits, Þórbergur’s perception of the ocean is no longer tied to specific events and occasions. Instead, he recognizes the ocean’s spiritual quality and healing value that is not tied to any one moment in time. He says, “an almost mystical grandeur ruled there which had a near paralysing effect on you, even though it was evoking in you an enchanting sense of the sublime” (Þórðarson 2012, 174). The ocean is at once shocking and alluring, demonstrating the multiplicity of experiences possible within a landscape (Foley and Kistemann 2015). Removing the bounds of time allows the ocean to take on these abstract qualities, as well as form a relationship between Þórbergur and the ocean (Game and Metcalfe 2011). Þórbergur becomes a part of the coastal landscape and it becomes a part of Þórbergur’s personal, emotional landscape. While some literature focuses on the coast’s wildness as its chief therapeutic quality (e.g. Game and Metcalfe 2011; White et al. 2013), the lagoon and ocean depicted in the novel lie in close proximity to the family farmstead. While the family home and various sheds lie near the coast, these built structures are composed of organic materials and maintain access and sightlines to the coast. The subtle human presence preserves the wildness of the lagoon and ocean, maintaining the coast’s therapeutic qualities (Kearns and Collins 2012). The novel reflects the integration of the rural and natural landscapes throughout, contrasting the challenges Þórbergur has in engaging with the manual labor of the farm due to his illness, with the curiosity and awe propelling willingness to engage with the wilderness surrounding the farm.

While Þórbergur’s description of the physical landscape points to its undoubtedly natural elements, defining wilderness spaces remains a contested topic. The literature often defines wilderness according to the “Yellowstone Model,” referring to the United States’s National Park system and its goal to designate pristine nature areas for conservation purposes and allow no permanent human activity within them (Adams 2005). Even within natural spaces not under any specific protection, the notion of wilderness as rugged territory free of human structures or activity prevails. The Stones Speak thus presents an alternative perspective of the wilderness, where the wild, natural spaces co-exist with the human population and built environment. Common notions of wilderness also suggest that these places and their therapeutic qualities exist as a third place outside home and work; essentially, they exist for the benefit of visitors—usually wealthy and urban ones–rather than the people living in or near them (Bell et al. 2018). So while leisure activities undoubtedly do occur within the wilderness spaces depicted in The Stones Speak, regular life and work occurs there too. This mixing of agrarian life and healing in nature within one space points to the social and cultural dimensions of wilderness. Those who live an agrarian life in a so-called wilderness year-round do not experience it as a third place, but rather one place with mixed uses one must use responsibly and sustainably (Øian 2013). As such, Þórbergur does not make strict divisions between places of work, leisure, or healing: all of these activities occur in one space that contains elements of wildness and agrarian life.

Illness and Landscape

Despite the psycho-social and spiritual wellbeing Þórbergur derives from the landscape, he spends his early childhood plagued by a physical illness. He has episodes of shortness of breath and is even bedridden for a period of time, though he never receives a firm diagnosis. The illness abates as he grows, but Þórbergur remains sickly and the illness influences his experience within the physical landscape. For instance, walking up steep inclines leaves him wheezing and he is unable to perform heavy farm labor as well as the other young men. That said, Þórbergur plays outdoors as a child, running, jumping, rowing, and cartwheeling around Hali just like his healthy friends (Þórðarson 2012, 58). Yet Þórbergur cannot convince himself to build up his strength for farm work, since it lacks the “divinity” of the mountains and ocean (Þórðarson 2012, 59). The wilderness holds spiritual significance and excitement, which allows Þórbergur to feel normal and serves as a source of healing, at least emotionally if not physically. As a result, Þórbergur copes with his physical illnesses in order to experience the wilderness. On the other hand, the rural space holds no spiritual or emotional attraction—it simply exists—so Þórbergur does not attempt to engage in it more than necessary.

While the availability of medical care in nineteenth century rural Iceland was certainly an influential factor, Þórbergur deliberately chooses not to seek a cure or receive a definitive diagnosis. He spends his childhood knowing something is wrong, but ignores it and lives a full and active life. As an adult, his roommate suggests he suffered from a heart condition as a child, which proves to be correct. Þórbergur then states:

I was so happy not to have known about this. […] If I’d known I was walking around with a very serious heart condition, I’d regard myself as a sickly weakling who could’ve dropped down dead at any given moment or passed away in my sleep. I would’ve always been reminding this flickering flame to be careful and not to over-exert its mortally sick heart. (Þórðarson 2012, 59–60)

This quotation clearly highlights the psychosocial aspects of physical illness; Þórbergur suggests that regarding oneself as sick (not the symptoms of illness itself) is the most damaging as it causes one to live in fear and avoid living a full life. In light of Þórbergur’s belief in the healing power of the wilderness throughout the novel, a critical engagement with the literature contests the notion of access to wilderness as healing. For example, current work highlights the ableist assumptions that underpin notions of wilderness; Macpherson (2009) notes the dominance of the idea that landscapes are something to experience visually, ignoring the possibilities for visually impaired people to participate in wilderness spaces. In the case of The Stones Speak, Þórbergur emphasizes physical movement as a means to experience the landscape; despite the symptoms that arise during physical exertion, Þórbergur runs, jumps, and climbs the rugged hills surrounding his home. The use of willpower to overcome physical limits is a long-held tradition in wilderness adventure sports, whose culture glorifies pushing the body—particularly a disabled body—to achieve extreme physical feats (Jaquette Ray 2009). In Þórbergur’s belief that one can mentally reject illness and perform ablebodiedness by overcoming fear, the novel reiterates this ableist concept of wilderness. In addition, the contemporary environmental movement characterizes the wilderness as a masculine space (Jaquette Ray 2009). Accordingly, The Stones Speak reflects gendered notions of who can benefit from the healing power of nature: Þórbergur has frequent therapeutic encounters in the wilderness, while the family confines two sick women billeted at the farm to indoor spaces. While the novel presents Þórbergur’s physically active life as a choice, it is evident that ableist, gendered customs do not allow others the same choice.

The novel further explores the connection of illness and landscape through the story of Guðbjörg, a young woman who lived on the family’s farm. She suffered from an unspecified mental illness and was unable to care for herself, so the church billeted her on the various farms in the area. Spending one summer at Hali, she was locked in a stable and left completely alone, except when handed food and drink through a small gap in the door. Though she lived at Hali before Þórbergur was born, he felt a strong connection to her through the stable she inhabited. He states, “All this happened before my time, but this poor human being’s stay in the Hundrað stable weighed on me, all the same, whenever I needed to go in. I felt something sad has been left behind which shouldn’t be there” (Þórðarson 2012, 137). Þórbergur’s family housed Guðbjörg in an animal’s lodging and generally treated her like an animal while at Hali. But in calling her a “poor human being,” Þórbergur asserts Guðbjörg’s humanity and expresses his disagreement with her treatment. Þórbergur’s understanding of Guðbjörg and the stable builds on the novel’s theme of non-living things having life-like qualities, namely, health. Þórbergur suggests Guðbjörg transmitted her illness to the stable, which then passed the sickness to Jarpur, a horse who lived in the stable and later died of a tumor. In addition to physical illness, Þórbergur believes the stable transmits negative emotions, representing the interplay between emotion and health. As Þórbergur experiences early in the novel, the pain, suffering, and social exclusion associated with ill health can bring about any number of negative emotions; in the case of mental health, the overlap between a poor emotional state and poor health will be even greater.

Þórbergur’s notion of the stable retaining illness and emotions may also be understood in relation to palliative research on dying in the home. After someone dies in the home, family members often feel they cannot be in certain rooms without recalling the suffering that occurred within them during the last stages of their loved one’s life (Koop and Strang 2003). Here, the room does not hold ill health itself; rather, it holds the actions and emotions of its inhabitants. Some families renovate and/or repurpose the room where the death occurred, while others sell the home altogether. This is a fairly literal interpretation of the relationship between emotion and the built environment: the room triggers negative and upsetting memories. Other family members take a more abstract approach, speaking of the “energy” in the home. For example, one family caregiver said they did not want sad people visiting their dying family members, as it ruined the home’s “happy energy” and lowered her family member’s mood (Williams 2004). The idea that inhabitants’s mood can affect the home’s “energy” is similar to Þórbergur’s belief that Guðbjörg’s suffering, whether a result of her mental illness and/or the treatment she received, remained in the stable long after she was gone.

Þórbergur’s social environment at Hali is heavily influenced by the architecture of the family home. There is one room, known as the “dwelling room,” where everyone spends time and which is above the cowshed to keep it warm. Þórbergur lays out the arrangement of this room and its inhabitants at the beginning of the novel, noting the location of everyone’s bed; a total of eleven people slept in the room and they were often joined by farmhands who lived elsewhere during the evening. The room was dimly lit in the evening and the family engaged in activities such as knitting, reading, and playing games. Þórbergur notes that despite the dim light and tight quarters, no one ever went blind or got consumption (tuberculosis), suggesting that the close social bonds and interaction were healthy. At the time when Þórbergur wrote the novel, 1956, blindness was simply understood as a biomedical condition, whereas today, disability scholars interpret blindness more broadly, as a different way of perceiving the world. These evening gatherings are meaningful for Þórbergur and he describes them with great joy: “It was as if it was always Christmas in the evening get together at Hali once the oil lamp had been lit and the whole dwelling room was in a bright glow. I looked forward to the evenings as if they were holidays” (Þórðarson 2012, 92). According to Icelandic historian Magnússon, this also would have been the time when Þórbergur learned to read and write (1995). Given his evident interest in literature and writing, it is no surprise that these gatherings were important to him. The built environment forces the family to spend all of their indoor leisure time together, creating a warm social environment at Hali.

In addition to close social bonds with the family, Þórbergur describes a sense of connectedness between the neighboring farms, regarding them like an extended family (and many are in fact relatives). He recalls a sense of joyful abandon while playing with the local children in the fields: “we then rushed about fighting fierce battles on the edges of the earthbanks. We shouted magnificent war cries and jumped high in the air” (Þórðarson 2012, 133). The physical environment also influences their play, as the land reminds them of ancient sagas about warriors and the plentiful open space allows them to be physically active and noisy. The adults also have important social bonds with their neighbors, as they work together on mutually beneficial tasks. The “Crag Olympics” (the rescue of a sheep from a rocky outcrop on the cliff face) is particularly exciting for Þórbergur. Not only does it avoid the loss of a farm’s sheep, it also provides an opportunity for all the neighbors to come together and enjoy the entertaining spectacle of the rescue. In addition, this scene demonstrates the rural-wildness interface depicted in the novel. Living in a sparsely populated area, there is not much opportunity for social contact outside the immediate family, so neighbors serve an important role as friends and community supports.

Much like many rural people, being constantly surrounded by friends and family is a way of life for Þórbergur. On one hand, the close-knit social dynamic can create emotional warmth and lead to strong community support in times of need, as seen in the previous examples. But on the other hand, the high visibility and lack of anonymity in rural life creates a feeling that neighbors are always watching and judging (Parr, Philo, and Burns 2004). As a result, local inhabitants may self-police their behavior to avoid stigmatization. For example, Þórbergur wants to measure the width of the lagoon by carefully counting his paces as he walks across its frozen surface. But he worries “to go pacing across the Lagoon all the way out to the beach, that would’ve been seen as such unprecedented idiocy that folk would’ve been literally scared of me” (Þórðarson 2012, 164). At the time of this incident Þórbergur already knows the consequences of breaking social rules. After he accidentally wore his hat into the church, Þórbergur faced ridicule from the whole district and felt ashamed; understandably, he does not want to repeat his mistake by pacing across the lagoon. Perhaps even more potently, Þórbergur knows of Guðbjörg and the poor treatment “mad” people receive in his community. In any case, Þórbergur recognizes social treatment of those who do not conform to established standards of behavior and seeks to avoid it.

The coexistence of social support and social control depicted in The Stones Speak is a key characteristic of rural life and discussed in literature about people with mental illness living in rural areas. Rural life comes with a distinct lack of anonymity that is both social and physical: a sparse population leads to a high degree of familiarity among residents, while the small number of public gathering places means one person’s absence or presence is noticeable (Philo, Parr, and Burns 2003). In this tight-knit social setting, news of a person’s mental illness becomes widely known. In some instances, people report positive interactions, such as neighbors offering help or making social visits. At the same time, others experience name-calling and social exclusion (Parr, Philo, and Burns 2004). Among rural people whose mental illness is not yet known to the community, the lack of anonymity creates worry about how the community perceives them and can be a deterrent to seeking health services (Cremers, Cogan, and Twamley 2014; Smalley et al. 2010). For instance, “when an entire town knows where the psychologist’s office is located, it is difficult for an individual to even park at that office without word spreading of his use of service” (Smalley et al. 2010). Though The Stones Speak does not present Þórbergur as having a mental illness, it is clear that if he were to go pacing across the lagoon, it would be publicly known and have a social stigma in much the same way as a modern rural person’s mental illness. The inclusion of this characteristically rural social situation in the novel further establishes the rural nature of its setting.

Sense of Place

In keeping with the geographical literature on sense of place (Relph 1976; Tuan 1980; Wyckoff 2014), we have adopted the following conceptualization of sense of place: a geographical concept “intended to describe the particular ways in which human beings invest their surroundings with meaning” (Hubbard, Kitchin, and Valentine 2004). Related to this, The Dictionary of Human Geography defines sense of place as: “the attitudes and feelings that individuals and groups hold vis-à-vis the geographical areas in which they live. It further commonly suggests “intimate, personal and emotional relationships between self and place” (Wylie 2009). Consequently, sense of place is, therefore, simultaneously understood in this research as pertaining to geographical environment, social/community place, and having psychoanalytic meaning.

Þórbergur writes retrospectively about his early life living at Hali, memorializing the landscape, people, and the connection between the two. In addition to spatial and social dimensions, the novel recognizes the temporal dimensions of the landscape, where human activity alters and is altered by the landscape. In one scene, Þórbergur visits the neighboring Breiðabólsstaður farmstead and notes the ruins of old buildings, which his grandfather had to abandon due to the growth of the lagoon. The ruins, as well as the many stories he narrates about Hali’s history, demonstrate that Þórbergur creates a symbolic landscape through his family’s history on the land. The record of the landscape includes not only physical indicators like ruins, but also relies on the role of memory. Throughout the novel, Þórbergur repeats the phrase “from the time I started to remember things” to position his stories in time. Here, the lived experience of life on the land, not units of measurement like years or days, constitute the temporal dimensions of the landscape. Þórbergur’s references to the history of Hali in The Stones Speak express the role of physical and symbolic indicators to establish the act of dwelling, which necessarily requires time and successive groups of people.

As the novel progress, Þórbergur wants to not only measure the lagoon, but to know the size and origin of several physical parts of the landscape. He begins with measurements taken by counting his paces, and then uses these measurements and the positions of the sun and stars to establish bearings. Without instruments like a compass, his measurements lack accuracy. This bothers Þórbergur and he seeks to measure more and more distances. His quest for accuracy demonstrates the role of position and relationships in creating a sense of place; Þórbergur has a deep emotional and symbolic connection to various aspects of the landscape, but he needs a way to connect these aspects. Measurements provide these connections between the landmarks, while simultaneously capturing it at one moment in time. Furthermore, the use of standard measurements provides a way to understand the landscape of Hali within a larger cultural framework. While only Þórbergur and his family know the symbolic environment of Hali, anyone in Iceland can understand measurements, allowing comparison between Hali and other landscapes. As such, they allow Þórbergur to position his landscape and himself among others. It is telling that Þórðarson eventually left his family home and moved to Reykjavik; the small, personal landscape of Hali was meaningful, but not enough and he needed to define himself with a larger cultural landscape.

Alongside his interest in measurement, Þórbergur develops an interest in the origin and position of stones. He wonders about naturally occurring stones and their rock face of origin, as well as stones that have fallen from a ruined wall (Þórðarson 2012, 191, 236). In a way, Þórbergur attempts to give the stones a home and to understand their place in the landscape. He believes the stones are alive and “definitely had the longest memories” of any part of the landscape (Þórðarson 2012, 239). Þórbergur’s focus on the life of the stones reflects an understanding of the natural environment as having a dynamic force of its own, separate from human life. Given that Iceland has an unusually high degree of geologic activity, it is unsurprising that Þórbergur finds significance and meaning in the ability of the landscape to physically change. At the same time, the very nature of the novel—recording Þórðarson’s childhood—means the novel captures the landscape in a single moment in time; the novel’s plot is not long enough to depict physical changes in the landscape. As a result, the physical, social, and cultural landscape of the novel remains fixed at one point in time. By the time Þórðarson wrote The Stones Speak in the 1950s, industrialization had occurred in Iceland and the turf farmstead lifestyle was no longer the reality for most Icelandic people. So for all the novel’s focus on themes of change and history, it simultaneously bears witness to a way of life set firmly in the past. It is not only the environment as it is that constitutes the landscape, but also its history, both human and natural.

CONCLUSION

The Stones Speak demonstrates interaction with rural landscapes as a means to create a sense of place and to position oneself in the world. Þórbergur recognizes the ways in which the built, natural, and symbolic environment of Hali changes over time, through a mix of human and natural forces. Memory keeps the landscape’s history alive in the present, while also giving Þórbergur the chance to position himself within the landscape’s temporal progression. In contemplating the position of the stones, Þórbergur contemplates his own position at Hali and the world at large, which is fraught with social constraints.

Moreover, the novel depicts the health-related qualities of a rural environment. As seen in Þórbergur’s love for the family dwelling room, the built environment can also be a source of both physical and social health. But at other times, like in the case of housing Guðbjörg in a stable, the built environment retains ill health and energy. In addition to aspects of the environment itself, the tasks associated with rural space and its physical isolation makes it a less than ideal environment for those with a physical illness.

This paper provides several contributions to geography literature. First, it contributes to the understanding of therapeutic landscapes within the agrarian context, which has been under-represented in the literature. Second, it addresses the intersection of rural and wild elements in the lives of people who live in sparsely populated areas. While distinct spaces by definition, they are not so easily separated in practice, as Þórbergur demonstrates in his array of experiences in the outdoors at Hali. Yet combining rural and wilderness spaces within one category due to population measures is also inappropriate, since their physical environments are so different. Though this paper demonstrates the mixing of wild and rural spaces, it explores one story, set in a particular historical and cultural context. Thus, more research is needed to fully explore the intersection of wilderness and rural spaces.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kaelan Brooke

KAELAN BROOKE is a graduate of the Arts and Science Program at McMaster University, 1280 Main Street W, Hamilton, ON L8S 4L8, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include therapeutic landscapes and wilderness in the global North.

Allison Williams

ALLISON WILLIAMS is a Professor in the School of Geography and Earth Sciences at McMaster University, 1280 Main Street W, Hamilton, ON L8S 4L8, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include therapeutic landscapes, informal/family caregiving, and urban health and quality of life.

Notes

1. The Dubliners (1914); A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916); Ulysses (1922).

2. The Last American (1889) by John Ames Mitchell.

3. The Man in the High Castle (1962) by Philip K. Dick.

4. The Great Gatsby (1925) by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

5. The Seven Poor Men of Sydney (1934) by Christina Stead.

6. The City of Brass (1999) by Abdelkrim Jouiti.

7. India Becoming: A Portrait of Life in Modern India by Akash Kapur and Capital: Eruption of Delhi by Rana Dasgupta.