Burial Rites

Author: Hannah Kent

I spent a week in the summer of 2016 driving around Iceland with my family. I was enthralled with the beautiful landscape and couldn’t help but fall in love with the land and it’s people. On my return from Iceland, while looking for my next audio book, I found that “Burial Rites” was one of the most highly recommended books that you could listen to. I quickly got myself a copy and started listening.

First off, this is a rather long narrative, clocking in a little over 12 hours. Christie Morven does an amazing job of conveying the pathos in the story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir's sad and difficult life in mid-nineteenth century Iceland. I couldn’t help but reflect on the rather comfortable life we live today and how our ancestors must have had to struggle, especially in places like Iceland which are frozen stiff for half the year.

The basic premise is as follows. There’s a grisly murder that has been committed in an Illugastaðir farmhouse in Northern Iceland. Agnes Magnúsdóttir along with two others have already been convicted of the murder. The verdict is for her to be executed, but they have to figure out where and by whom. The District Commissioner Björn Blöndal decides to bring Agnes back to the region where the crimes were committed. However, these parts of Iceland do not have the facilities to house a criminal and so Agnes is placed in prison-foster-care with a local farmer. The stark reality of life in a remote farm in Iceland and the oddity of this arrangement make for some rather interesting episodes. The story of Agnes’ life unfolds as she tells it to her priest Reverend Tati and the farm wife Margrét. Most of the dialogue is set in badstofas - traditional communal bedrooms in Iceland - and most of the family is within earshot.

The book is rather dark and Ms. Kent does an admirable job to recreate the environment replete with knitting, childbirth, death, blood, piss and other gore. This book is definitely not for the faint of heart. The only reason to re-live those times is to appreciate how good we have it in our little corner of the world.

I was tempted to speed up the narrative, but quickly abandoned that as I got to enjoy Christie’s soft and clear voice as the story unfolded. Her musical pronunciation of the Icelandic names adds a richness and authenticity to the story that enhanced my enjoyment of the book.