Pierre Loti

An Iceland Fisherman Pierre Loti

"An Iceland Fisherman" is a novel by French author Pierre Loti that depicts the romantic but inevitably sad life of Breton fishermen who sail each summer season to the stormy Iceland cod grounds. Literary critic Edmund Gosse characterized "An Iceland Fisherman" as "the most popular and finest" of all Loti's writings." Loti's style is a combination of the French realist school, such as Emile Zola, and a form of literary impressionism. Loti used a simple but fragrantly poetic vocabulary. Somehow, words (as used by him) take on a new value, awakening sensations lying deep within the reader. Loti's characters in "An Iceland Fisherman" are humble and simple working class people, and the incidents are normal every day affairs, dealing with the themes of love and separation. One of Loti's greatest strengths is his depictions of nature, and how he places it on center stage. In "An Iceland Fisherman," Loti adapts some of the Impressionist techniques of contemporary painters, especially Monet, to prose. First published in 1886 as Pêcheur d'Islande, "An Iceland Fisherman" is considered to be a classic of French literature today.