[1] Ugla, an unrefined girl from the countryside, moves from an outlying area of northern Iceland to the capital city of Reykjavík in order to work for Búi Árland, a member of parliament, and to learn how to play the organ.

In contrast, she comes from a rural area where the Icelandic Sagas of the Middle Ages constitute the majority of what people discuss and ponder and are viewed as more important than reality.

While many of the characters in the novel can be understood as satires of real figures in Icelandic business and politics (or otherwise modeled on Laxness's friends and acquaintances), the work is too sophisticated simply to be read as a roman à clef.

[5] However, more recent critics have seen it as offering more enduring theological,[6] philosophical[7] and political commentary: Giuliano D'Amico, for example, argues that 'neither with the Americans nor with the Soviets, the characters of Atómstöðin seem to advocate for a "Third Europe" that ... resembles the "third space" articulated by postcolonial theory'.

[4] Laxness endured political persecution for the novel: the Alþingi withdrew his state writer's stipend; he was prosecuted for describing an abortion; and 'Icelandic and American authorities even started investigating his periods of residence in America, with the hope of finding some fiscal irregularities and ruining him'.