The Lost Musicians

Heinesen succeeds in making the everyday world of Tórshavn at the beginning of the 20th-century the stuff of a Greek tragedy. Devotion to music is at the heart of this book. A group of amateur musicians, the Boman Quartet, prevents a series of dramatic events from turning into heart-rending tragedy, as music enables each of the musicians to rise above his own bleak situation. There is humour in the satirical, larger-than-life portrayal of the local sectarians, led by the bank manager Ankersen, as they seek in vain to break the spirit of the musicians, as well as earthy humor in Janniksen, the huge blacksmith who is completely at the mercy of his petty-minded wife.