Reykjavík Grapevine - 16.07.2010, Blaðsíða 50

Reykjavík Grapevine - 16.07.2010, Blaðsíða 50
WELCOME CARD See more and save more when visiting Reykjavík. Free admissions and discounts off tours, shopping and services for 24, 48 or 72 hours. Great value for money. The Welcome Card can be purchased at: The Centre, major hotels, museums, tourist information centres and Hlemmur and BSÍ bus stations. WELCOME CARD2009 - 2010 48 INCLUDING CITY BUS TRANSPORT, FREE ADMISSIONS, DISCOUNTS OFF TOURS, SHOPPING, AND SERVICES AVAILABLE FOR 24, 48 AND 72 HOURS. WELCO ME CA RD ÍS LE N SK A S IA .I S H B S 48 59 2 01 .2 01 0 www.visitreykjavik.is Aðalstræti 2 • 101 Reykjavík • Tel +354 590 1550 • info@visitreykjavik.is Activity adventure A visit to the Glacier lagoon and an ATV excursion in the area of Europe’s largest glacier Vatnajökull. Adventure tours Air charter servicesScheduled flights +354 562 4200 info@eagleair.is www.eagleair.is Monday to Saturday 38 The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 10 — 2010 Hot-shot Chinese businessman, million- aire poet and patron-of-the-arts, Huang Nubo, recently decided to start a fund to promote the cultural relations between Iceland and China, inventively named “The China Iceland Cultural Fund.” Reminiscent of pure Icelan- dic small-town nepotism, one of the main catalysts for Huang Nubo’s interest in Icelandic culture was rooming with Hjörleifur Sveinbjörnsson, translator from Chinese (and husband of Ingibjörg Sólrún, re- tired goddess of Icelandic social-democrats), when they studied together at the University of Beijing in the seventies. Besides being one of the richest businessmen in China (as if that was somehow insufficient), Huang Nubo is, according to the information web- site factsanddetails.com, a former Communist Party Propaganda department section chief as well as be- ing a poet in his own right. Richer than most poets, he’s worth around 770 million dollars, says Forbes Magazine, making him the 114th richest guy in China—so, according to a 2010 CIA Factbook esti- mate, there should be around 1,338,612,854 people in China who are poorer than him. Give or take. And Huang Nubo has guaranteed The China Iceland Cultural Fund one million dollars in the next ten years. Out of the goodness of his heart. Now, Icelandic artists are no strangers to being bartered and bought by the infinitely rich. Until a few years ago, Landsbanki Íslands, or should I say the owners of that particular financial institution, played Medici-like patrons to artists—and used their image to promote their loans, overdrafts, sav- ings and pension-plans in national ad-campaigns. Everybody (more or less) played along. Hell, I even published a poetry book, whose printing was mostly financed by Landsbanki Íslands. And I defended it vigorously. The printing was not the same as the publishing, I argued, and even though I got mon- ey from them that didn’t mean I was their whore (‘cause I’d never copulate with them bastards) and whatever, whatever, it feels like aeons ago and I was wrong. How do I feel about that now—post-meltdown? I feel ashamed. I feel I was opportunistic and naïve. I feel it gags me more than I expected, and in differ- ent ways. I don’t remember ever finding a reason to directly criticise Björgólfur Guðmundsson, the chair of Landsbanki Íslands and silver-haired chief of our modern Medici clan—at the time he was one of the most popular people in Iceland. A cute old man with class, a filthy-rich philanthropist who’d been victim- ized and put in white-collar jail and re-risen for a second helping. And I didn’t feel any reason to at- tack him personally—international capitalism, yes, but Björgólfur Guðmundsson, no. Maybe that was sensible—and maybe sensible is what it feels like to be somebody’s bitch. I’ll never know. I was robbed of that option when the banks collapsed. But more than this, I feel that whatever I say to- day is tainted with a) the fact that I did partake in the financial adventure, however peripherally and b) I feel guilty about it and might therefore be willing to lash out at other participants who don’t seem the least bit guilty. Perhaps I just don’t find it fair, that everyone else is so calm about it. I’m not asking for self-critique à la Mao Zedong, but a shrug of the shoulders—a collec- tive “yes, shit happens and we’re sorry, we’ll try to be smarter and less egotistical” —that’d be nice. I don’t think the most important thing in dealing with the meltdown is that measly poets and artists engage in any kind of purgatory so that they can be re-allowed into the heaven of artistic bullshit—I don’t want to make the crisis about us. But it saddens me to see so many critical minds—superbly intelligent people— sitting around and behaving like politicians in deni- al: “Nothing happened, please, everybody just move along. There’s nothing to see here.” Yes. Politicians, bureaucrats, the media, businessmen—the list of culprits is long and poets are way-back. But let’s not do like everybody else and act as if we recognise the scene of the crime. Maybe this is just one of my useless manias. But I’d still like—in all humbleness—to advise those invited to participate in the projects of the newly founded China Iceland Cultural Fund to be careful in what they lend their names or faces to, their repu- tations and their artistry. Because, in my experience, it does matter—even though artistic autonomy may be only a far-fetched ideal, it might still be some- thing worth striving towards. And in case you’ve forgotten, Chinese state capi- talism/market communism isn’t anything worth cheering on. Stuff may be relative, but fuck me, it’s not this relative. Poetry | Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl Gung Ho Literature | Marc Vincenz “Grönlænderstiv” is a Danish phrase which means essentially “drunk as a Greenlander.” However, recent research suggests that the Danes drink at least as much as the Greenlanders, and teenagers in Denmark drink even more than their counterparts in Greenland do. When it comes to drunken 15 year olds, Danes hold the world record, while Greenland is somewhere way down the list. One of the reasons for this may be that after attaining nationhood, the local government in Greenland has introduced severe alcohol taxes. This has actually worked in Iceland too. Post- collapse, the price of beer at the state liquor outlet has risen by almost 50 percent. The cash-strapped government introduced yet higher booze taxes to help cover the budget short fall. But rather than do their patriotic bit for their country and drink their way out of depression, Icelanders have largely elected to stay sober. You wouldn’t think it from walking down Laugavegur on a Saturday night, but Icelanders are actually drinking less now than they used to. What about homegrown drinking products, always a favourite in times of crisis? While we may safely assume that this industry is doing quite well, and with less employment people need a hobby, it nevertheless seems to be the case that Icelanders are actually more health conscious now than they used to be. The boom was one perennial bender, but while sales of alcohol and junk food went up in those days, so did sales of health foods. One might have been excused for thinking that once that was all over, and since health foods tend to be more expensive than the other kind, people would be even more interested in a quick fix. Quite the contrary, after the focus on wealth came focus on health. An example of this is that Svarti Svanurinn by Hlemmur, once a local favourite for nutritionless and tastefree late night burgers, is now a health store. Perhaps it’s a knee jerk reaction. At least we’ve still got our health. So let’s take care of it. So what’s all this got to do with elves, I hear you say? Well, not only Danes but Icelanders too have often used the Greenlanders as an excuse for their drinking. “If you think we’re bad, just see what they do.” Drinking too much is something someone over there does, not us. The same seems to apply to elves. If you go through the sagas, you find all sorts of fantastical creatures. There are trolls, giants, wolfsheads, unipeds, elves, dwarfs, ghosts, flying dragons and even the occasional blámaður (a person bearing dark skin). However, these beings are rarely seen in Iceland. And if they are, they’re something very much out of the ordinary and only seen rarely in special places. However, if you go to more exotic locales (from the Icelandic point of view), such as Northern Norway and Sweden, beings such as elves and even flying dragons are a much more common occurrence and if you go as far as Finland, you will be hard pressed to find a person who is not at least a half-troll. From the Icelandic point of view, then, elves and other such beings are something that exist somewhere else. From the point of view of most of the world, however, Iceland is precisely somewhere else. That’s what you get from living on the periphery of pretty much everything. This is why we got stuck with them. But if you really want to see an elf, you probably have to go to Greenland. Just be careful of all the drunken teenagers. Do Icelanders Believe In Elves? Really? Opinion | Valur Gunnarsson “Serious crimes [in Iceland] are few and far between. This is, of course, great for the general public, but ex- tremely depressing for a crime writer. Writing about crime in Iceland is a bit like fishing in uncharted wa- ters.” — Yrsa Sigurðardóttir A recent article in the New York Times by Julie Bos- man made it abundantly clear that publishers and booksellers in the US are desperately seeking more Nordic crime fiction to follow in Stieg Larsson’s Mil- lennium footsteps. Stieg’s books have now sold over 35 million copies worldwide; the third and final of the series ‘The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest,’ re- leased in the States last month, became an overnight bestseller. “The intense interest in the Larsson books prompted the staff at Powell’s Books in Portland, Or- egon, to create a special section in the store for two dozen Scandinavian mysteries, by Karin Fossum, Jo Nesbo, Kjell Eriksson and Yrsa Sigurðardóttir.” Stieg passed away before he could complete his fourth novel, and although there are discussions about his as yet unfinished manuscript, MacMillian will be marketing Arnaldur Indriðason’s books this autumn directly to Stieg Larsson’s fans. “Independent book- sellers, giddy over the bump in sales, said that many customers in their stores are just learning about the Millennium series for the first time. At Powell’s in Portland, Mr. Larsson’s books are selling so quickly— at least 1.500 a week—that the store’s grateful em- ployees have given them a nickname. “We call them ‘The Girl Who’s Paying Our Salaries for the Next Few Months,’ ” said Gerry Donaghy, the new-book purchas- ing supervisor.” This might just be the ‘in’ that Icelan- dic authors have been waiting for. Thus far, Yrsa has released three of her Thora Gud- mundsdottir (thus spelt in the Anglicised version, in Iceland she is known as Þóra Guðmundsdóttir) novels in English—published by Hodder and Stoughton in the UK and HarperCollins in the US. They include, ‘Last Rituals’ (2007), ‘My Soul To Take’ (2009) and the just-about-to-be released, ‘Ashes To Dust’ (July 2010). All in all there are five in this Agatha Christie-styled series, where Thora Gudmundsdottir, protagonist, lawyer, single mother of two, and amateur detective, takes on the grizzliest murders Iceland has ever seen. In reality there are very few murders here. Iceland has been dubbed the safest country in Europe, but that hasn’t held back Yrsa. Interestingly enough, in the HarperCollins ver- sions, ‘Last Rituals’ is billed as ‘A Novel of Suspense’ and ‘My Soul to Take’ as ‘A Novel of Iceland’, presum- ably to make it clear to the reader that what we’re dealing with here is Nordic fiction. Each of the novels draws on the magic, witchcraft, superstition and mystery of the Icelandic landscape. ‘Last Rituals’, set predominately at the University of Iceland, involves the murder of a German student, Harald, who has been studying me- dieval history, and is smitten with a 15th-century trea- tise on witchcraft. Thora is hired by Harald’s family to assist their own lawyer Matthew Reich in an unofficial investigation. As might be expected, it’s Thora who takes the Sherlock Holmes role; but it is the strained, yet romantic relationship between Matthew and Thora is where much of the charm of this novel lies. ‘My Soul To Take’ unfolds on the Snæfellsnes Pen- insula at a recently opened, and possibly haunted, ho- listic/spiritualist/New Age spa (one of the first scenes talks of a séance), where a host of hotel guests, employ- ees and neighbours come under scrutiny as the poten- tial murderer. The resort-owner Jonas becomes prime suspect for the murder of the spa’s architect. Matthew Reich, Thora’s Sherlock-Holmes-come-Watson side- kick and former romantic interest, suddenly appears on the scene again for somewhat arbitrary reasons. This time, the banter between the two of them does not take on the same quirky level that was so endearing in ‘Last Rituals’. Yet, despite all of this, critics seem taken with Yrsa. The Spectator called ‘My Soul To Take’, “a crime novel that's both chilling and witty.” The Times said “Sigurðardóttir delivers terrific clammy atmo- sphere and frequent frissons of fear; she is entitled to join the front rank of Nordic crime writers.” And so she has. Yrsa’s novels have more of a moderate pace than a Dan Brown cliff-hanging style thriller. At times, Yrsa’s characters come across as slightly predictable, yet this is not experimental literature, this is genre-fiction at its best: dark, moody, brooding, sparkling with faint glimmers of light. There is an underlying edge to Yr- sa’s novels which somehow seem to convey something of the impending doom of the economic crisis to come (bear in mind Icelandic versions were released two years earlier than the English-language versions), or perhaps it’s just Yrsa’s fascination with the landscape of her birth that make her novels brood. The Guardian’s Jane Jakemen, in a review of ‘My Soul To Take’, said, “Not everything in Iceland has col- lapsed. Its crime fiction is thriving, as this chilly thrill- er demonstrates, though perhaps the whale carcass in the background of the investigation may symbolise something rotten in the economy.” Yrsa, Icelandic Queen of Crime And Suspense Noir

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