Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.10.2012, Síða 20

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20 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 16 — 2012LITERATURE
ENTERPRISING POET
Your writing career began when
you were still studying at uni-
versity in the early ‘90s. How did
you make your name as such a
young writer?
I published my own poetry, and I
sold that to support myself through uni-
versity rather than taking out student
loans. I was like a drug dealer. My first
book of poetry was well-received, so that
helped spread word of mouth. My family
was also helpful; they worked at hospi-
tals with big groups of friends and they
all bought copies. I would go to the ca-
fes, walk up to each table and ask, ‘Do
you want to buy a poetry book for 1,000
krónur?’ That was only about one per
cent of the monthly wages of a high-
school teacher, so lots of people bought
it.
That must have been good
practice for selling your Bónus
poetry collection?
That came out in 1996—it was actu-
ally published by the supermarket chain
Bónus. I made a deal with the notorious
boss Jón Ásgeir himself when he had
about three people in his office running
a handful of stores in Reykjavík. Ten
years later he had 40,000 employees, the
most expensive apartment in New York,
a private jet and a super-yacht. So I sup-
pose I ought to take some of the respon-
sibility for what happened in Iceland
leading up to the crash! Mr Bónus really
liked the cover, but I’m not sure if he
read the whole book. It was on sale in the
supermarkets—and you got a free copy
if you bought something like 50 kilos of
pork.
Does that make you a sort of
capitalist poet?
For me it was an ironic statement—
a literary prank. Every ideology comes
with poetry: communism has social-
ist realism; the church has psalms and
songs. Why doesn’t capitalism have
poetry? Why are there no poets writ-
ing about economic growth and buying
products? I saw it as perhaps the first in
the genre of capitalist realism, giving
confidence to the consumer, praising
the products and enhancing loyalty to
the store.
PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTIONS
Didn’t you feel like you were
selling out?
Every idol that I had, all the big
names like Britney Spears and David
Beckham, they were selling themselves
to Pepsi and Coke and the big brands.
My childhood role models were on my
wall as advertisements, trying to sell me
something. I thought this was the most
vulgar thing you could do to poetry. But
even then I wanted there to be social
awareness in my writing: I’d always ap-
proached my big themes as allegories
until I finally addressed the issues Ice-
land was facing in ‘Dreamland.’
Yes, ‘Dreamland: A Self-Help
Manual For A Frightened Na-
tion.’ You released that in 2006
at the height of the boom years.
Did the country listen to what
you said?
‘Dreamland’ was primarily about
the great destruction of the Icelandic
environment and natural landscape.
I was only part of a big grassroots
movement—there were many
people putting all their spare
time and more into stopping
this. We raised awareness
and prevented exploitation
in parts of the country, which
energy companies thought
they had the right to plunder
with heavy machinery. I think
there is less arrogance in the en-
ergy industry these days, but still it
takes a very courageous politician to
stop someone who’s out to make money.
‘LoveStar’ is coming out in
English this November, but it
was published in Icelandic ten
years ago, four years before
‘Dreamland.’ Do they have much
in common?
I think it asks similar questions
about what philosophical ground you
stand on. LoveStar is the boss of a com-
pany—and it’s the name of his company.
He is a serial entrepreneur. He has an
ego that I can see in myself and other
writers, as he becomes consumed by his
own ideas. He has a very weak immune
system, so he’s almost body-snatched by
them. He wants more and more, like an
engineer who wants to dam every single
river or tap oil everywhere just because
he can. This is a world where everything
is taken to the full extreme.
LoveStar is always infected by an
idea, and without one he’s an empty
shell—like a writer with writer’s block,
without any use for his existence. Char-
acters like these mess up everything
around them, every relationship, their
family, their life. When I read Steve Jobs’
biography, I thought he was like this
character I was creating—even on his
death-bed he was talking about the next
iPhone! Steve Jobs though only revo-
lutionised music, communication and
film; LoveStar revolutionises love, death
and god.
DYSTOPIA NOW
So the destructive power of
technology is a key theme. But
surely technology also brings us
together—not to mention helping
you sell your books?
I was exploring the possibility of
technology becoming a regime. Every
ideology, whether through a church or a
political rally, can bring people together.
LoveStar develops a regime where al-
most every single interaction has some
kind of incentive or reward. People be-
long in different classes, so the poorest
are ‘howlers’ and only have commercials
attached to their speech drives to say ba-
sic things like ‘Good Coke, Good Coke,
Good Coke.’ The wealthier have more
sophisticated drives which help them
work out what will appeal to you which
in turn helps build their rating.
Is this becoming reality?
This was written before the days of
Facebook and Twitter. Now we live in a
world of likes. There’s now even some-
thing called Klout, which gives you a
score based on your social networking
influence. In the book, individuals have
ratings like that, so I suppose I could be
bold and say I invented Klout.
I’ve started using Twitter because I
had to promote my book. I’ve found my-
self tweeting self-congratulatory things
about the book, seeking out retweets
and Facebook likes. I started following
Neil Gaiman, and wondered how he
can write anymore—he’s tweeting every
thirty seconds! I wondered where the po-
tential to map and track all our interac-
tions was going. The ability to map our
movements and check in to locations is
growing fast. If I can check in and tag
you to say I’ve just recommended you
buy this Philips phone and you then
go off and do that, the store could give
me a cut rather than having someone in
the store to sell their phones. That’s the
world of LoveStar.
How do people’s reactions now
compare to those when it was
first released?
When it came out in 2002 it was
called a dystopian novel; now it’s being
called a parody. We seem to have already
reached that dystopia. It got a lot of great
reviews back then, but I’ve always had
interesting responses. I’ve had teenage
boys calling me, telling me they’ve never
read a book before this but were blown
away—and then they ask, “What drugs
were you taking?”
- MARK O'BRIEN
Andri Snær Magnason: The First
Capitalist-Realist Poet? Dystopian novel by
Iceland’s prophet to be published in English
For a wily writer who has always known his market, Andri Snær Ma-
gnason is late again. Three weeks have passed since his publisher's
deadline for the manuscript of his next novel—a story about a king who
has conquered the world but now wants to control time too—and Andri has decided to
overhaul the structure and write a new ending. Next month, his epic dystopian allegory
‘LoveStar’ is at long last to be published in English—a full ten years after it was first re-
leased to rave reviews from Icelandic readers.
Years too late, his many followers might say. From the pen of a man whose early poetry
was once published by Bónus supermarket founder Jón Ásgeir Jóhannesson, ‘LoveStar’
is the story of an enigmatic and obsessive corporate plutocrat who now has a dream to
control how human beings think and communicate, all for the profit of his business.
INTER
VIEW
“
I suppose I ought to take some
of the responsibility for what
happened in Iceland leading up
to the crash. „
Alísa Kalyanova
LoveStar will be published in the United States by Seven Stories
Press on November 13.