Lögberg-Heimskringla - 30.05.2003, Page 4

page 4 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • Friday, 30 May 2003
My Career as an lcelandic North American
This column recognizes people oflcelandic descent who have made or are making a contribution to the Icelandic/North American community. Please let us know ifthere is someone
you would like to see featured. Contact (204) 284-5686 or email us at logberg@mts.net
Terry G. Lacy Feels at Home in Iceland
Author of the acclaimed Ring ofSeasons, Terry G. Lacy recently published her fírst
novel Raven Gunnar
She’s lived in Iceland for
thirty years. She’s written
more than one book about
Iceland. When it came out five
years ago, Ring of Seasons
(University of Michigan Press,
1998) was well reviewed in
five countries, including the
United States, Sweden and
Britain. Now Terry G. Lacy has
written a novel, Raven Gunnar,
set in the thirteenth century
when Iceland lost its independ-
ence, when its glorious period
of independence, democracy,
peace and prosperity came to
an end. She has also, with Þórir
Einarsson, written the second
edition of the English-
Icelandic Dictionary of
Business Terms (Mál og
Menning, 1990). The second
edition of the Icelandic-English
Dictionary ofBusiness Terms is
planned for November, 2003.
Terry translated music terms
from Italian, French, German,
Latin and English into
Icelandic for the Music
Dictionary /Tónlistarorðabók
(1994). Forthcoming in 2003
from the University of Iceland
Press is an English translation
entitled Illnesses and Causes of
Death in the Icelandic Sagas,
by Sigurður Samúelsson.
After she had been in
Iceland for a year or so,
Bergsteinn Jónsson, author of a
history of Iceland, said, “Terry,
you should write a book about
PHOTO COURTESY OF TERRY G. LACY
Terry G. Lacy, after thirty years in Iceland has come to
have a place there.
Iceland. You know it from both
sides.” And so she did. It took
her six years to write Ring of
Seasons, as she was teaching at
the same time, but she knew
she had a “clear idea of how to
present Iceland to a foreigner.”
The success of the book is a
credit to that surety.
Terry G. Lacy came first as
a tourist to Iceland in 1971. “It
was like a magnet,” she said.
Then in 1973, when she was at
Colorado State University
teaching, she responded to an
advertisement for a Fulbright
Scholarship in Iceland. She got
it, came, tried it out and stayed.
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After that year she had no real
position, and so she began
teaching at the Mímir Business
School. She ended up teaching
at the university, a nursing
school, and the banking school.
Now she has a translating and
editing business which she
operates out of her Reykjavík
home.
When she came to Iceland,
there “was very little help to
learn the Icelandic language. I
started writing my own word
lists. Now I read it fluently,
write it, and have a wide vocab-
ulary in Icelandic.” Icelandic is
Terry’s fourth language after
English, Italian and French
(with some Latin).
She observed that in
Iceland “There is a huge belief
that English is easy and
Icelandic difficult to leam. In
fact their leaming English is no
easier and no harder than our
leaming Icelandic.” She went
on to explain that there is a fun-
damental difference in the way
in which the two languages put
ideas together. While Icelandic
uses words and phrases “like a
string of beads, English has
subordinating clauses. English
uses words like ‘although,
whereas, however, moreover,’
while Icelandic uses ‘and’.”
The result is “a different way of
reasoning.”
Her most recent book
Raven Gunnar (2002) is written
in an active style. It is neither
descriptive nor introspective.
Feelings are something that
happen. This is also the way the
sagas were written. Raven
Gunnar is available in America
and Europe through Oxbow
Books (easily accessed through
her website), and from the
University of Iceland Press in
Iceland.
Terry finds in Iceland
reflections of her childhood on
Squirrel Island off the coast of
Maine where she spent her
summers. “The key difference
is the lack of trees in Iceland.
It’s the same sea, after all.
There’s some of the same feel-
ing to it, the same kind of fish-
ermen. In Maine it was granite
not lava, clamming, white
beaches. But the same seals,
seaweed, blue mussels, ravens.
The people here are very like
the people in New England.
There is a reserve on the sur-
face, but when they do open up,
there is a real warmth.” She
says, “Árbœjarsafn is much like
the Maine of my childhood.”
She wanted to know how
her ancestors thought. They
were English, but spoke some
version of Norse as they were
from Yorkshire and Essex.
“Reading Beowulf didn’t do íl
for me,” she said. Icelandic
has brought her ancestors
closer to her.
Terry is a keen observer of
the worlcf"around her. She has
been in Iceland during a
tremendous pace of change.
She has observed “a huge
change in thinking” in Iceland.
Now it has “a govemment that
speaks English as well as
Danish, one which is looking
outward. Icelanders participate
in the modern world, are com-
petent in many fields, send pop
bands and opera singers abroad,
and write software for foreign
companies.” She says her time
in Iceland has “been a chal-
lenge, but I’ve liked it. I was
bored in Colorado.
Occasionally it was too much
of a challenge, but I am happy
to have leamed about it all. It’s
a different world.”
Now seventy-six years old,
Terry G. Lacy is always busy
with new projects and activities.
She has sung in more than one
chorus, including the
Filharmonia Choms, and is now
a member of the Senorítas, the
senior branch of the Kvennakór,
which has about sixty members.
She says she is “comfortable
with the people. I have come to
have a place here.”
You can read more about
Terry G. Lacy at her website
terryglacy.com
An excerpt from Raven
Gunnar and a review will
appear in later issues.
Ivbmh
984 Portcigc Avenue
at Aubrey St.
Ph: (204) 949-2200
Fcix: (204) 783-591 6
www.nbcirckil .mb.ca
The Jon Sigurdsson Chapter IODE
and the Icelandic Canadian Fron
Cordially Invite You to be Present
For the
Twenty-First Annual Wreath-Laying Ceremony
At the
Jon Sigurdsson Statue
Manitoba Legislative Grounds
Tuesday, June 17, 2003 at 7:00 p.m.
Serving Winnipeg
& Rural Manitoba
Ö® Program and Reception to follow at 8 p.m.
At the Viking Saga Ship at the Forks
Everyone Welcome
June 17,2003 marks the Fifty-Ninth
Anniversary of Iceland’s Independence.
Those attending the ceremony are asked to meet
at the steps of the Legislative Building at 6:45 p.m.
Ö0
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