Reykjavík Grapevine - 12.08.2011, Síða 28

28
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 12 — 2011
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Before the authorities plugged them
up in 2006, there used to be under-
ground, public toilets on the corner
of Bankastræti and Lækjargata. In
his most recent book, Einar Már
Guðmundsson recounts how the
toilets were once the hub of Reyk-
javík’s seedy area, where boozers
and drug users mingled and where
teenagers procured condoms.
The area was commonly known as
Bankastræti Núll (“Bankastræti
Nil”) or simply Núllið (“The Nil”)
as it marks the spot where Austur-
stræti turns into Bankastræti and a
new house number count begins.
‘Bankastræti Núll’ is also the title au-
thor Einar Már Guðmundsson uses for
his most recent book, a collection of
interconnected essays, stories, poems,
quotations and memoirs that attempts
to piece together some of the scattered
remains of reality after Iceland’s bubble
burst in 2008. It is written in a simi-
lar vein to his preceding book, ‘Hvíta
Bókin’ (“The White Book,” 2009), which
first appeared as a series of political es-
says in newspaper Morgunblaðið in the
wake of the collapse. Although Einar
Már is better known for his prose fic-
tion, most notably the Nordic Council
Prize winning novel ‘Angels of the Uni-
verse’ (1993), his last two publications
reflect his re-engagement in politics as
an outspoken critic of the neo-liberal
policies that precipitated the financial
crisis.
‘Bankastræti Núll’ opens with the
narrator’s lament: the current politi-
cal situation has stifled his ability to
write poems to his lover. Although he
foresees a future where “reality wakes
up” and poets can once again sing the
praises of love and nature, the resound-
ing sound of social injustice presently
overwhelms him and beckons him to
first engage in the struggle against the
free reign of the stock exchange, priva-
tisation and greed.
Just as natural resources have been
privatised, so the arts have been ap-
propriated by big business and made
to serve its interests. The comedian
John Cleese became the main com-
mercial spokesperson for Kaupthing
bank, and hundreds of Icelandic artists
came together to act in a Landsbanki
advertisement under the direction and
patronage of Björgólfur Guðmunds-
son, former billionaire and banking
mogul. Einar Már further interprets one
of Kaupthing’s mottos, “kaupthinking,”
as cleverly constructed doublethink,
‘to think so as to buy’ or ‘to buy so as
to think,’ which could have been sent
to the Venice Biennale had it been la-
belled art.
Einar Már is no less critical of cer-
tain forms of popular contemporary
literature, most notably crime fiction.
He shows how crime novels have come
to reinforce neo-liberal values by em-
phasising the singularity of criminal
actions, evildoers, and lone detectives
while avoiding systemic analysis. It be-
comes apparent that the poet cannot
write poetry and the novelist cannot
write novels, not because they must
leave their armchairs and desktops
to join the revolution but because the
forms have been corrupted. Reality has
been turned on its head and churns out
its own fictions: “In fact, it is no longer
necessary to write novels in Iceland
these days, because they happen in
real life. Iceland is like a reality show,
with live broadcasts of erupting volca-
noes and a financial crisis that trans-
forms bank directors into wanted men.”
Thus Einar Már leaves off the tra-
ditional novel in search of new literary
forms, which he hopes will more thor-
oughly encompass and make sense
of a fragmented social reality rife with
contradictions. He questions how his
own generation, which welcomed the
student revolution of 1968, the Beatles
and radical left politics could later en-
dorse Iceland’s transition toward reck-
less capitalism. He delves into the past
and weaves together fragments of
various, mostly non-fictional, accounts
of seemingly random events in his life
which nonetheless coalesce into a nar-
rative about the elliptic yet steady rise
of neo-liberal ideology in Iceland.
Although digressive and playful,
‘Bankastræti Núll’ remains an earnest
effort to retrieve lost connections be-
tween past and present, politics and
poetry, prosperity and poverty. Ice-
land’s economic collapse was not an
isolated event but part of a global sys-
tem that now binds Iceland and Haiti
closer together as captives of the IMF.
Moreover, the persistent division be-
tween the sciences and the arts and an
ever-increasing specialisation of labour
only heightens our sense of fragmenta-
tion and alienation.
Einar Már’s medium reflects his
message: just as a more integrated and
long-term approach is needed in poli-
tics so ‘Bankastræti Núll’ combines var-
ious literary genres to create a multifac-
eted narrative. It does not read simply
as a political manifesto but as an exper-
iment in narrative building that strings
together various stories, legends, ideas,
personal memoirs, poems and quota-
tions. It is a convergence of form that
finds its social counterpart at the inter-
section of Lækjargata and Bankastræti,
where the Prime Minister’s office still
stands next to the remains of the old
public toilets and across from where
Útvegsbankinn (“The Fisheries Bank”)
once stood before its scandalous col-
lapse in 1985, reminding us of the fine
line between the most respectable and
least respectable members of society.
Literature | Society
High Streets And Piss Pots
An introduction to Einar Már Guðmundsson’s new book ‘Bankastræti Núll’
“The persistent division between the sciences and the
arts and an ever-increasing specialisation of labour only
heightens our sense of fragmentation and alienation”
ALDA KRAVEC
ALÍSA KALYANOVA