Reykjavík Grapevine - 06.12.2013, Side 8

8
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 1 — 2011 8Issue 18 — 2013
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And don't forget "Icelanders are
inbred!" That one's my favourite.
Yes, that joke never gets old. As op-
posed to the rest of the Top Five,
the Christmas book f lood is a real
thing. It is driven by the tradition of
giving books as Christmas presents.
During World War II, one of the few
imported goods that were not strict-
ly controlled was paper. It was there-
fore relatively cheap to print books
and therefore they were a reasonably
affordable gift item. World War II
was also the high point of Icelandic
nationalism, during which 97% of
all those eligible voted for indepen-
dence from Denmark.
And buying books was a big insult
to Danes because… they don't like
books? I don't get it.
It had little to do with Denmark
directly. In some ways literally, as
Denmark was occupied by Germa-
ny during almost all of World War
II. But Icelandic cultural pride was
built on the idea that Icelanders
had a unique heritage because of
the literature written on the island
during the medieval period. Which
as guidebook factoids go is pretty
accurate, though literate Europeans
did not sit with their ink-stained
thumbs up their asses for the en-
tirety of the Middle Ages and tons
of great works were put to calfskin
from Constantinople to Clonmac-
noise in Ireland.
Clonmacnoise? Isn't that the name
of the sound file that plays when an
Apple computer is turned on?
It is a monastery in Ireland where the
oldest manuscript of Irish medieval
epic, The Táin, was written. But for
more on that you need to read The
Dublin Grapevine (Motto: "Fighting
Irish stereotypes is a thirsty busi-
ness"). But as a part of the self-image
boosted by nationalists, Icelanders
started to think of themselves as a
uniquely literary nation. The idea of
giving books for Christmas fit that
idea snugly, and so this economically
created tradition survived the end of
import controls.
So this Christmas Book Flood is pretty
unique?
Not really. For instance the French,
who admittedly also have the self-im-
age of a uniquely literary nation, have
a pre-Christmas publishing season
as well, known as the La rentrée lit-
téraire, and if you wish to learn more
about that I direct you to Le Paris
Grapevine (Motto: "Shrug"). But
nonetheless, hundreds of titles are
published in Iceland in the months
preceding Christmas, including doz-
ens of novels, which is a lot for a na-
tion of 320,000.
Only hundreds? The BBC told me that
one in ten Icelanders will publish a
book in their lifetime.
Employees of the BBC fact-checking
department, if they have one, I am
not going to bother to check, were
sitting around with their ink-stained
thumbs up their asses on that one. It
would be a more reasonable statistic
to pull out of your ass that one in ten
Icelanders will see something they
have written in print, be it an obitu-
ary about their grandma or a poem
sent to their school magazine. You
would need at least four thousand
titles a year by first time authors to
reach that percentage. This year,
about 700 new titles were published,
most by established writers.
If I were I guidebook writer, I would
probably put that one-in-ten Iceland-
ers publish a book factoid in there
anyway.
Maybe it will replace "Icelanders are
inbred" in the top five. Though to be
fair to travel writers, that inbreeding
factoid rarely appears in respect-
able guidebooks. While the Christ-
mas Book Flood is still massively
important to Icelandic publishers,
other markets have taken off in re-
cent years, most notably the tourist
book market, making the business
less focused on this short period of
the year.
Still, readers must be thrilled about
all these books being published
before Christmas.
The lucky few who can read them,
yes. You have to be fairly quick to re-
serve a copy of the most popular and
talked about titles from the library.
Or you can arrive early enough at
one of the bookstore cafés to get one
of the copies which are not wrapped
in plastic. Most people will not read
any of the books until after receiving
them as gifts. Being an Icelandic lit-
erature buff during the Christmas
Book Flood has been likened to the
experience of readers in the Soviet
Union when otherwise censored so-
called samizdat literature circulated
in handfuls of copies among dissi-
dents, and many more people talked
about them than actually read them.
For more on samizdat, I direct you
to The Moscow Grapevine (Motto:
"Mostly not censored").
If you have read any guidebooks about Iceland, you
will have read about the Christmas book flood, or
jólabókaflóðið, which refers to the fact that a majority
of Icelandic books are published in the run-up to the
holiday season. It is in the 'top five' on any travel writ-
er's list of Factoids about Iceland, along with "Iceland-
ers believe in Elves," "regular people can read medi-
eval manuscripts," "the prime minister's home phone
number is in the phonebook…"
— by Kári Tulinius Illustration by Megan Herbert
So What's This Christmas Book
Flood I Keep Hearing About?
The Reykjavík Grapevine
by Masters' students in journalism
and reporting at the University of
Iceland found that nearly 15% of
respondents admit to having sex
on campus. “School isn’t just a place
to study,” one anonymous interviewee
remarked, which is probably a senti-
ment shared by some students in the
Faculty of Business Administration. It
recently came to light that for years,
a student entertainment commit-
tee has been organising official
student events to strip clubs.
Such outings would probably be
more difficult if Reykjavík’s notorious
“champagne clubs” were given the
permanent kibosh, but even as police
shut down the VIP Club for sus-
pected prostitution, just around the
corner, Strawberries, which was
raided in October, still has a valid
liquor license and has reopened.
Perhaps it was with these latest strip
club scandals in mind that ‘geirvarta,’
or ‘nipple,’ was declared the ugli-
est word in Icelandic. This finding
followed the results of the University
of Iceland’s Most Beautiful Word
contest, which declared the word
‘ljósmóðir,’ or ‘midwife,’ to be the
language’s most lovely.
Pretty words aren’t enough to bolster
the spirits of the many whose hearts
broke as Iceland’s national team
failed to qualify for the World Cup
during their away match against
Croatia. Or perhaps Icelanders experi-
encing winter doldrums should blame
Daylight Savings Time instead, or
rather, the lack of it. The chairperson
of an Icelandic health organisation
issued a statement declaring that the
lack of Daylight Saving Time in
Iceland contributes to depression
in Icelanders.
But even as the days are growing
shorter and darker, Christmas is on
the horizon, with all its attendant
delights. Reykjavík’s mayor did his bit
to herald the arrival of the holidays: in
early November, Jón Gnarr travelled
to Norway to chop down the city’s
2013 tree himself. At the time of its
chopping the tree, which had been
carefully cultivated for Reykjavík for
ten years, was 42 years old.
NEWS IN BRIEF
NOVEMBER
Continued...
Iceland | For Dummies