#3. More Than 40 Chapters – Burial Rites by Hannah Kent (Audible)

 

This book was announced as a recommended read as part of the ‘Eurovision-themed book club’ on BBC2 Between the Covers (UK TV program.) It piqued my interest when I realised that, though a work of fiction, the book is based on a real incident in Iceland in 1828, where three people were tried and convicted of a double murder. Kent learnt about Agnes Magnúsdóttir whilst she was an exchange student in Iceland, and this inspired her to write a story of the months leading up to Agnes’ execution. 

“Iceland, 1829 – Agnes Magnúsdóttir is condemned to death for her part in the murder of her lover.

 

Agnes is sent to wait out her final months on the farm of district officer Jón Jónsson, his wife and their two daughters. Horrified to have a convicted murderer in their midst, the family avoid contact with Agnes. Only Tóti, the young assistant priest appointed Agnes’s spiritual guardian, is compelled to try to understand her. As the year progresses and the hardships of rural life force the household to work side by side, Agnes’s story begins to emerge and with it the family’s terrible realization that all is not as they had assumed.

 

Based on actual events, Burial Rites is an astonishing and moving novel about the truths we claim to know and the ways in which we interpret what we’re told. In beautiful, cut-glass prose, Hannah Kent portrays Iceland’s formidable landscape, in which every day is a battle for survival, and asks, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?”

 

1829, Agnes Magnúsdóttir, a 34-year-old servant, became the last woman in Iceland to be beheaded for the murder of two men, one of whom was her employer. Set against the harsh winter landscape of Iceland, this book tells of her final months before her execution. As there were no prisons in Iceland, she was sent to live with the family of an Icelandic district officer, on a farm she had formerly lived on as a girl. 

Despite the subject matter, this is a beautifully crafted book, which has obviously been thoroughly researched. It is a tough read, both emotionally and historically. We become so inhabited by Agnes’s tale, that you can’t help but feel an emotional attachment to a woman who was described as "an inhumane witch, stirring up murder." Kent tries to make this Agnes’s story, but all that research means she is also compelled to use the archival material that has been collected, and so there are chunks of a narrative that cut through Agnes’s voice and confuse the reader as to whether they should be rooting for Agnes or not. 

The character development is both vivid and clever, creating ambiguity as to how much Agnes was involved in the murders. There is little privacy in an 1829-year-old farmhouse, especially during the winter months. Curtains form walls within rooms, and as she relates her tale to a young priest Tóti, the family, initially horrified at the thought of having a murderer live with them, overhear her story. Horror turns into curiosity; relationships are formed and sensitivity is shown towards Agnes. 

When you try to understand the events which have taken place via Tóti and through those who know Agnes, you sway in your opinions and remember that two people were brutally murdered. But when Agnes speaks directly to the reader, that is when the impact of her story hits the hardest and you can’t help but want history to have a different ending. 

"They said I must die. They said that I stole the breath from the men, and now they must steal mine."

 It is like a blow to the heart. She’s not admitting to the murders, but she is admitting defeat. She has been accused and there is little she can do about it but tell her story to Tóti, whilst he helps her to prepare for her death. 

Tension is built, drawing on the harsh, dark, cold, unforgiving Icelandic landscape so exquisitely you feel transported there. You are reminded that, in an emergency, there is no escape. There is nowhere to go, and even if there was, there was no means to get there, so much so, that if the weather didn’t improve, the execution may have to be postponed. This uncertainty conflicts with whether it is better to know when your impending death will be, or whether postponement would give new hope, perhaps being spared the blow of the axe. 

As the change of seasons are described, you can imagine the bleakness of winter changing into the welcome warmth of spring, bringer of new life. It is a poignant reminder, however, that death awaits around the corner. The interactions between Agnes, Tóti and the family, are a stark reminder that this is the tale of a real person; one who wakes every day knowing that they face a horrific death. As the novel progressed, it became harder to read, knowing that this person, one who had so much more life to live, was going to have her life cut short. 

Burial Rites is an exceptional, poetic, powerful read. It is an astonishing and captivating look at a snapshot of Icelandic history and deserves the literary accolades it has achieved. This is a book that will stay with the reader, long after the final page has been read. 

Whilst interesting, I thought the historical records should have been placed at the end of the book once the story had finished. I enjoyed listening to Agnes’s voice; I wanted to hear her version of her story and therefore I found the inserted historical texts a little intrusive. 

 

Genre: Biographical Fiction, Historical Fiction, Crime,

Release Date: 29^th August 2023 – Audible Audio

Publisher: Pan Macmillan Publishers Ltd

Listening Time: 12h 02m

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