A Meeting of Distant Minds

Taoism in the Works of Halldór Laxness

Abstract

This paper discusses Halldór Laxness´s understanding and use of Taoist themes, with particular emphasis on his essays and reviews. An introductory section summarizes the results of recent scholarship on Taoism, which now appears as a much more complex and important phenomenon than was previously assumed. The focus then shifts to short texts written over a period of almost half a century, where Laxness comments on the classic Taoteking (his transcription of the title is used) from various angles and seems to keep open different lines of interpretation; but he is disinclined to develop any approach in a thoroughgoing way. A more sustained but less explicit reworking of Taoist themes can be found in his novels, This part of the story cannot be discussed here; but the paper concludes with a case study of the only text that places Taoism at the centre of a narrative: a short story about the Mongol conqueror Chinggis Khan, for whom Laxness uses the original name, Temujin.