Lögberg-Heimskringla - 28.01.1983, Side 4

4-WINNIPÉG, FÖSTUDAGUR 28. JANÚAR 1983
Ritstj órnargrein
Vesturfarar
í stuttri frétt í Lögbergi-
Heimskringlu, eigi alls fyrir löngu var
greint frá því að nærri tveir tugir
íslendinga búa utan íslands, og var sú
könnun gerð á síðasta ári. I áður-
nefndri frétt, er það þó tekið fram að
í þeim tölum sem birtar voru (12-14
þús) séu námsmenn. Reiknað er með,
að mestur hluti þeirra snúi aftur að
námi loknu. Hins vegar er með öllu
óljóst, hversu margir hafi tekið upp
nýtt ríkisfang, en meðan íslenskum
stjórnvöldum berst ekki tilkynning
um slíkt, verða viðkomandi taldir
íslenskir ríkisborgarar.
Hvernig má það vera, að svo
margir íslendingar dvelji árum saman
erlendis? Hvers vegna fer hópur
þeirra vaxandi? Varla eru nein
fullnægjandi svör til við þessum spur-
ningum. Það gefur þó auga leið með
námsfólkið. Það leitar sér menntunar
erlendis vegna þess að viðkomandi
greinar eru ekki kenndar við Háskóla
Islands. Þeir, sem hins vegar flytja
búferlum, sumir fyrir fullt og allt, eru
kannski, óánægðir með gamla landið
eða haldnir óseðjandi ævintýraþrá.
Hafa ber í huga bættari samgöngur og
nú á dögum þykir ekki merkilegt að
fljúga vestur um haf í ævintýraleit. Ef
illa tekst til og ævintýrin úti, þá má
fljúga til baka.
Á dögum Sigtryggs Jónassonar, Páls
Þorlákssonar og séra Jóns Bjarnar-
sonar voru ferðir yfir Atlantsála ekki
eins auðveldar og nú. Flestir gerðu
sér að góðu að komast vestur, lítil von
var til að aurar fengjust fyrir
heimferð fyrstu árin. Þegar þessir
kappar stofnuðu Nýja Island hafði
varla hvítur maður stigið þar fæti. Því
var í mörg horn að líta og land-
nemans beið erfitt líf.
Það er af sem áður var, eins og kerl-
ingin sagði forðum. Nú bíður
fyrirheitna landið komu þinnar með
bros á vör, af hverju strái drýpur
smjör. Þú getur lesið þér til um lofts-
lag, jarðveg, moskítur og það helsta
sem landnema á sléttunni bíður.
Kanadísk þjóð er nú til eftir meir en
hundrað ára gerjun. Þjónusta öll til
fyrirmyndar og því ólíklegt að
ævintýrið taki skjótan endi.
Því verður samt ekki leynt að allir
verða fyrir einhvers konar menn-
ingaráfalli (cultural schock). Siðir og
venjur framandi, tungutak annað.
Sumir eru svo forsjálir að búa sig
undir slíkt, aðrir renna blint í sjóinn.
Það er því algengt að nokkur ár líði
þar til innflytjandinn er búinn að ná
sér og ^etur hafið ævintýraleitina að
fullu. Ymsir, bæði fyrr og nú, komast
aldrei yfir þetta áfall og verða hálfir
Halldór
Cominued from last issue
by Sigurdur A. Magnusson
The techmcal device of having an
uneducated girl tell the story is in-
deed hazardous, but proves on the
whole successful and lends the novel
a special flavor. The dominating
figure of the Organist is the most in-
triguing feature of the story, es-
pecially as he prefigures similar
characters that come to play ever1
more important roles in subsequent
novels.
After a long pause Laxness publish-
ed another controversial novel, The
Happy Warriors (1952), based on
saga motifs and written with un-
faltering brilliance in the exact style
of the thirteenth-century sagas; it was
a feat that most people would have
thought impossible. The novel deals
with certain well-known saga figures,
mainly from the Sworn Brothers'
Saga, and their viking activities at
home and abroad. It was at first
received with very mixed feelings,
for many people were embittered by
the treatment of the all but hallowed
heroes of the medieval Scandinavia.
Rebel that Laxness had always been,
he had turned all traditional notions
topsy-turvy. He made a fat, bar-
barous villain out of one of the most
renowned kings of the North, St.
Olav of Norway (d. 1030), and most
of the other characters received
similar treatment, including Canute
the Great of Denmark. The book is
an utter deflation of the heroic spirit
as extolled in Old Icelandic and other
medieval literature. Classic scholars
menn það sem eftir er.
Margir velta því áreiðanlega fyrir
sér hvort ástand á íslandi sé svo
bágborið að fólk hrökklist brott. Svo
er ekki. Þar búa flestir vel, hafa næga
atvinnu, í sig og á. Hins vegar verður
því vart neitað að sómsamlegt líf
útheimtir mikla vinnu. Algent er að
karlmaður sé í tveimur atvinnum og
were understandably upset at this
unorthodox onslaught, but few ever
challenged the brilliant style or the
fertile imagination of the author, nor
for that matter the historical veraci-
ty of his interpretation. The book is
one of Laxness's many great artistic
successes.
Alternative to
Hero Worship
One of the reasons that prompted
Laxness to undertake this monumen-
tal task was the state of international
affairs during the Cold War. There
are many striking allusions to
modern European history in the
delineation of some major characters,
St. Olav being a precursor of Hitler,
to take one example. Laxness himself
has declared that his objective was to
preserve Iceland's medieval literary
treasures from being used by modern
warmongers. His intention is to lay
bare the illusions inherent in popular
definitions of the heroic ideal, to ex-
pose the folly of blind adherence to
ideals of ideologies that collide with
reality. At the same time he
endeavours to present an alternative,
a positive form of life that can replace
the militaristic culture of Europe.
Two opposing lifestyles are
presented: on the one hand, the sim-
ple, peaceful and self-sufficient one
of ordinary people, exemplified by
the Eskimo culture of Greenland and
the peasant society of Iceland; on the
other, the false heroic life of warriors,
which entails constant violence and
the fruitless pursuit of a chimera.
Comparing the warrior-poet Thor-
modur in The Happy Warriors and
the poor folk poet Ólafur in
Worldlight, one realizes that the lat-
ter, despite all his high-flown dreams,
is the more realistic of the two,
because he faces and acknowledges
reality and draws the correct conclu-
sions from his experience.
At this point Laxness had a change
of heart in the sense that he was com-
pletely disillusioned with the political
doctrines he had adhered to and ad-
eiginkona hans í einni, eða öfugt. Öll
þessi vinna skapar endalaust stress og
til að losna úr því verður annað hvort
að minnka við sig, eða flytja erlendis.
Hvað sem líður, og hverjar sem
ástæður eru, þá virðist útþrá íslend-
inga fara vaxandi. Kannski hefur
hún blundað lengi en er nú ræst á ný.
En nú er mál að linni. J.Þ.
vocated. Turning his back on class
struggle, he embraced a more
humanistic attitude, concerned with
the individual seeking a mode of ex-
istence that would enable him to live
in harmony with his environment,
without infringing upon the right of
others to do the same. In this new
phase the Taoism of Lao-tse was of
paramount importance; it came to
color all of Laxness's later works.
Tolerance and
Self-Sufficiency
His first novel in the new vein
(there had been many hints before)
was The Fish Can Sing (1957), a fine-
ly wrought, lyrical description of life
in Reykjavík at the turn of the cen-
tury, before modern methods of pro-
duction and commerce were
adopted. The theme of the novel is
the distinction between illusion and
reality, or more concretely, between
the genuine way of life as lived daily
in a Reykjavík homestead and the
misguided pursuit after false renown.
The young narrator is pitted against
his older counterpart, a famous
singer who has sacrificed his integri-
ty and inner peace for outward fame.
It is the perennial contest between in-
ward and outward directed life, set
in the social context of pre-industrial
Iceland on the verge of a new and
radically different age of modern
capitalism. This is one of Laxness's
most endearing and many-faceted
novels, with a large gallery of un-
forgettable individuals. Rarely has
the Taoist ideal of tolerance and self-
sufficiency been so graphically and
trenchantly depicted as in in the fan-
tastic person of the Superintendent.
This fascinating fable about
"Paradise Lost" was foliowed by
another parable, Paradise Reclaimed
(1960), where man's everlasting
search for the eternal and absolute
in human existence is symbolized
by the adventures of the poor
farmer Steinar, who leaves his
paradise of a home to seek salva-
Continued on page 5
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