Reykjavík Grapevine - 08.04.2011, Blaðsíða 12

12
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 4 — 2011
Words
Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl
Photography
Hörður Sveinsson
Literature In
The Land Of The
Inherently Cute
- the search for literary crisis
(Practically) all political writing engages in
representation and a form of adjudication—
i.e. “picking a side”. Classic social realist
writing of capitalist societies not only repre-
sents the exploited classes, but furthermore
represents them against their mortal enemy,
the bourgeoisie classes; nationalist literature
not only represents a certain land and a cer-
tain people, but it represents the land and
people as different (unique) from other lands
and other peoples; feminist writing repre-
sents women against male domination (and/
or “men”); postcolonial literature represents
“natives” or “immigrants” vs. “colonials”,
“locals” or “nationals”; pacifist writing rep-
resents those willing to “be friendly” against
those who feel aggression is the only viable
course of action; post-modern capitalist lit-
erature represents “the individual” vs. the
alienating, dystopic horrors of society (and
ritually asks: do I deserve to be selfish?).
And, at least theoretically, if not in practice,
vice versa (i.e. Ayn Rand represents the “en-
ergetic” bourgeoisie against the “lazy” class-
es who allow themselves to be exploited).
(Practically) all Icelandic writing rep-
resents Iceland, regardless of the author’s
intentions. The mere size of the population
(320 thousand) creates a situation where
anything said aloud becomes first and fore-
most “Icelandic” and what is actually said
takes second place to that fact, which in
and of itself is peculiar enough to demand
most of your attention—because statistically
speaking only around 0,0046% of all words
spoken (or written) in the world are spoken
(or written) in Icelandic. An Icelandic opinion
is thus a rarity like Bigfoot or The Abomina-
ble Snowman—so rare in fact that most peo-
ple who’ve come into contact with it aren’t
entirely sure if they did at all, and think that
perhaps what they saw was just a really big
cow or a really small Danish person. When
best-selling crime novelist Arnaldur Indriða-
son is sold to German readers, the book
cover will generally sport a picture of an old
Icelandic farm and perhaps a horse, despite
the fact that his books are about the crimi-
nal horrors of big city living (in as much as
Reykjavík—pop. 120.000—can be considered
a “big city”); that is to say: drugs, alienation,
loneliness and murder.
This form of representation is not limited
to books written for a foreign market—the
Icelandic condition is one of constant aware-
ness of the (ridiculous) size of the country
as well as the speaking population and the
limits that this imposes. Thus Icelandic lit-
erature tends first and foremost to represent
Iceland to Icelanders, and this reaches back
to (Nobel laureate!—woohoo!) Halldór Kiljan
Laxness teaching Icelandic farmers basic
hygiene (and thus claiming they were filthy)
and propagating the literary myth that goes
all the way back to the Sagas, that Iceland-
ers were first and foremost a stubborn inde-
pendent people not willing to be subjugated.
Although Laxness did not necessarily glorify
these traits, as is done in the Sagas (and in
some modern literature), he nevertheless
maintained that they were present, which
still today means that Icelanders cannot by
definition be “complacent”, “tame” and eas-
ily led—despite any evidence to the contrary,
such as the national ecstasy over the “suc-
cess” of “our” “financial vikings” (known as
the “outvasion”—Iceland invades the entire
world, “outvades” the world); or the vilifica-
tion of protesters before and after the imme-
diate uproar surrounding the actual financial
crash; or the easily manufactured consent
for lax civil liberties to uproot “undesirable”
organisations (such as Hell’s Angels) or al-
low inclusive privately-owned genetic data-
banks with everybody’s medical information;
or the current national lunacy, which claims
that reducing spending on health, culture
and education can be done while simultane-
ously jumping for joy that “we finally have a
left-wing government”.
Icelanders have their own personal
agenda; they are individualists who refuse
their common identity. Or so goes the myth.
Someone like me might in turn argue (bitter-
ly, foaming at the mouth) that Icelanders are
in fact a bunch of easily manipulated sheep.
BOWING TO THE MIGHTY MEDICI
Up until the crisis many of the financial in-
stitutions in Iceland played Medici-like pa-
trons to artists—and used the artists’ image
to promote their loans, overdrafts, savings
and pension-plans in national ad-campaigns
and carefully orchestrated media events,
complete with oversized cheques, hand-
shakes and photo-ops. Everybody (more or
less) played along. There were sponsored
squats for artists and a rubbing of shoulders
with European jet-set elites—including the
president’s wife, Dorrit Moussaieff and the
Baroness Francesca von Habsburg—a con-
siderable portion of the young art scene in
Reykjavík had in this way direct access to
some of the most powerful people in the
European art scene. And the financial insti-
tutions—mainly Landsbanki Íslands—would
throw petty alms at the starving artists,
who proved more than willing to prostitute
themselves (including me and my friends)
for what was in all honesty a mere pittance.
A colossal symbol of this situation is a
series of commercials done for Landsbanki
Íslands, where a large group of people are
playing football—variously inside the bank
or outside in a field. The ads read like a
veritable “who’s who” of Icelandic arts, lit-
erature, culture and music. Everybody was
involved in this scene. Even self-proclaimed
revolutionary organisations, such as Nýhil
(which I had a large part in founding and
running), were for sale—on the premises that
a) everybody else was doing it b) it’s good
to get money to run this proverbially bank-
rupt industry and c) it’s not as if they control
what we say, just ‘cause they give us money.
These premises were illusions, it turned out.
Some people did in fact refuse to participate
(although not many), the little money we got
did not help (we got overly zealous and al-
most literally went bankrupt; and it deprived
us of much credibility) and whether or not
they “controlled” what we said … at least
they were never openly criticised. They may
not have bought our silence, but they did buy
our friendship—or at least a sort of kindness.
Before the collapse only a constantly
fading grey line separated what painter Tolli
Morthens once called “two of humanity’s
greatest interests”: The arts and the financial
market.
After the collapse this situation has
hardly been mentioned, let alone discussed
to any serious degree—the artists in ques-
tion variously denying involvement (even do-
ing so overtly to foreign media), pointing to
others as “having been worse” or trying to
kill any mention of it by saying it only aimed
at provoking bitterness and “blame-games”.
As for the Icelandic literary scene, routinely
when anything controversial is about to be
discussed collectively, memories are in-
voked of “the great rift” of the early eight-
ies, when the local Writer’s Union split over
some argument which nobody really remem-
bers anymore—and thus everyone becomes
convinced that, as the song goes, silence is
golden (and everything else is not).
NOT THERE ANYMORE: THE
GROUND BENEATH OUR FEET
Immediately after the “hrun” (collapse)—
followed by the “kreppa” (crisis) and the
“kitchen utensil revolution” (named for the
banging of pots and pans during the pro-
tests)—questions of an aesthetic nature
started forcing themselves on unsuspecting
artist circles. What does this mean for litera-
ture? For music? For the visual arts? What
will be the response? For a few years before
the collapse artists had been becoming in-
creasingly political, although it was mostly in
the realm of the environmental issues rather
than economics or social justice—and it had
less to do with their art and more to do with
parallel activities (like playing concerts for
nature, as opposed to writing songs against
aluminium plants).
Critic Valur Gunnarsson probably
echoed a common sentiment when he said
that people would start paying more atten-
tion to “serious” art and (at least partially)
turn their gaze away from inconsequential
popular culture. Though not necessarily im-
plicit in Valur’s words, I often found that this
sentiment included a disdain for the experi-
mental, avant-garde or plain “weirdo” arts—
that which at times in history has been de-
scribed as “degenerated” art, devoid of the
socially improving agendas of either “beau-
ty” or “message”. Before the collapse there
might have been a sort of pointlessness, or
self-obsession, habitual to the art scene,
where artists ritually explored the possibili-
ties and limits of art itself—repeatedly ask-
ing the same (important?) question: “Is this
art?” And after the collapse you could feel an
increase in the disdain for artist happenings
such as cleaning an apartment or standing
on a street corner for a week—a hatred for
the pointlessness in art, which for some is
the whole point with doing arts, the true
Zen-like magic of art; that which separates it
from the goal-orientation of everything else
in the world. Why were these people getting
paid, people asked, to fool around like idiots,
often from the empty pockets of taxpayers—
while the government was closing hospital
wards and firing “actual” workers? And, like
in any society of (relative) less-than-plenty,
the artists themselves had to ask themselves
these same questions: why were they getting
paid, when people needed hospital beds?
Valur also predicted that the “outvasion”
of Icelandic artists would come to a halt, like
the “outvasion” of Icelandic businessmen;
and that consequent generations would be
more angry than their “cute” predecessors—
“cute” being a derogatory term for musicians
Björk, Sigur Rós, Amiina, múm and the like.
This has not necessarily proven to be the
case, although it’s hard to notice in the short
run, but it seems young Icelandic musicians
are still touring the world—and while there
might not be a new Björk on the scene, that
has hardly anything to do with the crisis. As
for literature, Iceland is going to be the guest
Steinar Bragi
Writer-slash-poet Steinar Bragi (b. 1975). He has been active in the field since his first book of poetry, 'Svarthol'
("Black Hole") was published in 1998, and is slowly attaining a revered status in the Icelandic literature world. His
2008 novel 'Konur' ("Women") was a critical and commercial breakthrough for him and is often read as a critique on
Iceland's pre-crash mentalities. He actively protested during the 'pots and pans revolution'.
Jón Örn Loðmfjörð
Poet, programmer, prankster and jack-of-all-trades Jón Örn Loðmfjörð (b.
1983) was a very active protester in the aftermath of the collapse, helping orga-
nise the militant student group Öskra amongst other things. He has published
various books of poetry and could also be called a multimedia/web artist. His
2010 book of poetry, ‘Gengismunur’ (“Arbitrage”) was an ambitious project that
re-worked the recently published Special Investigative Committee’s report on
the economic collapse.
Óttar Martin Norðfjörð
Another protester, the prolific Óttar Martin Norðfjörð (b. 1980)
has published books of poetry, satire, highbrow literature and
highly successful Dan Brown-style mysteries that have been
published in various languages. His 2009 novel ‘Paradísarbor-
gin’ (“Paradise City”) is often read as a poignant allegory about
the economic collapse and the environment that brought it on.