Reykjavík Grapevine - 01.08.2014, Qupperneq 34

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 1 — 2011 34
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 11 — 2014LITERATURE
For almost half a decade, however,
there has been another secondhand
book shop in town and chances are
you've walked by without noticing.
Bókakjallarinn (“The Book Cellar”) oc-
cupies a small basement space just off
of Laugavegur. If you're not looking for
it, you might not find it—the entrance is
off a small driveway on the western side
of the hardware store Brynja. There's a
white building with the word "DEAD"
spray painted on it and a fake mount-
ed cow's head. You may think, "That's
a grim metaphor for print media," but
that's Dead Gallery, not a bookstore.
Turn right, walk down the wooden
stairs, open the door.
Sleeping Machines
You may feel like you're intruding at
first: there seem to only ever be one
or two customers at a time. The radio
plays very softly, not without a bit of
static interference. The space is tidy
and small, but certainly well-stocked.
There are two distinct areas of the
store: the first is mostly dedicated to
old, attractive hardcovers, organised in
sections (some of which are labelled,
some of which are not): general foreign
books, science, Icelandic classics, folk-
lore, sagas, religion, poetry, art, books
translated into Icelandic. The books are
packed tight and double-stacked on
some shelves. The second half of the
store is filled with comic books, chil-
dren's books, crossword puzzles, and
vintage Icelandic porn.
Tucked away behind stacks of Ice-
landic Tarzan and Donald Duck comic
books, Svavar Brynjúlfsson, bookseller
and store owner, stands at the register.
Svavar is soft-spoken, unpretentious
and warm. He will let you browse in si-
lence for quite some time before asking
if you're looking for anything in particu-
lar; ask him a question and he's eager
to assist. Probe him deeper, and he'll
be happy to talk about the history of
Bókakjallarinn and the space it inhab-
its.
Although the bookstore only opened
in the summer of 2010, the basement
has housed Bókamiðstöðin, the printing
press and publishing company of Sva-
var's grandfather, Heimir Jóhannsson,
since 1964. The press specialised in
children's books, magazines and cross-
word puzzle books—many of which
are for sale at the bookstore, shrink-
wrapped and displayed like artefacts
of the twentieth century. Spanish-born,
Iceland-based painter Baltasar Sam-
per collaborated with Heimir, provid-
ing original covers to Bókamiðstöðin's
earliest children's books. Although, as
Svavar tells me, you can still find his
grandfather's crossword puzzle books
throughout the country, the presses
themselves have ground to a halt. Now
they sit, the byzan-
tine machines, hand-
powered, hundred-
year-old behemoths,
behind the book-
shelves in the other
half of the cellar. "I
don't think they even
work anymore," Sva-
var says, but without
a note of melancholy
in his voice—these
ancient contraptions are actually the
reason Bókakjallarinn opened in the
first place.
Nostalgic Smut
Heimir and Svavar have dreamed of
founding a museum of Icelandic print-
ing one day, with artefacts like Heimir's
presses. "Here?" I ask Svavar. "Oh, no.
Much bigger." In the meantime, with
nowhere to move the machines, they
remain here. Svavar opened up the
bookshop to help pay
the rent on the space
so as not to get rid of
them. Bókakjallarinn
began with Heimir's
extensive book col-
lection, but the stock
has increased since
then. It's a "work in
progress," Svavar
says twice during our
conversation. Brows-
ing the shelves, I get the sense that it's
well thought out, but not too meticu-
lous, not forced. "Every book is as im-
portant as the next book; every section
as important as the next," Svavar says.
If a customer wants a particular book,
Svavar will find a way to get it, whether
it takes a day, a month, or two years.
Most regulars, however, are contented
browsing the collection as it is.
For members of Svavar's generation,
raised on classic comic books in Icelan-
dic translation, browsing in Bókakjal-
larinn is something of a nostalgia rush.
I wonder out loud if it's the same with
the collection of vin-
tage smut in the cor-
ner, gesturing to the
shelves stacked with
paperbacks and mag-
azines, their covers
adorned with prints
and pictures of naked
women—"the crème
de la crème," Svavar
jokes. With these, it's
much the same as
the comic books. The veneer of 1970s
nostalgia and tackiness render them
sexless. "If people really want that,
there's the internet today," Svavar says.
Customers buy these as light-hearted
gifts, jokes. One book, of which there
are several copies, catches my eyes:
Bósa Saga. On the cover, a centaur
gropes a naked woman who seems to
be riding on his massive phallus. I ask
if this is a smutty reinterpretation of a
saga but, as it turns out, it's simply an
edition of a 13th century text—"Ancient
Icelandic porno,"
Svavar laughs. The
book was banned for
its provocative cover
and illustrations, and
was rereleased with
a red line covering
(some of) the offend-
ing parts, but Heimir
made sure to collect
the uncensored edi-
tions, which could be
found at gas stations throughout Ice-
land.
For Svavar, in his dedication to the
history of Icelandic print culture, these
books are important artefacts. Bókak-
jallarinn already is a sort of prototype
for Heimir and Svavar's dreamed-of
museum. From the crossword puzzle
books to the leather-bound sagas to
the plastic-wrapped "Tígulgosinn"
(“Diamond Jack”) porn magazines, the
collection demonstrates the breadth of
the Icelandic publishing industry with-
out trying to hide anything. The collec-
tion is frank and unassuming, much like
the bookseller himself.
When I ask Svavar why Reykjavík's
used bookstores have disappeared, his
answer echoes the laments of biblio-
philes throughout the world: books are
no longer the primary locus of acces-
sible information. Shopping for used
books used to be a practical way of tap-
ping unexpected wisdom and informa-
tion. Now there's Wikipedia. To Svavar,
however, books are not simply stores of
information—they are intrinsically inter-
esting objects with their own physical
histories. Maybe used book shopping is
becoming more of a hobby, a niche ac-
tivity. If that's the case, Svavar doesn't
seem to mind. But just in case the
market really is drying up, Svavar has
his own incentive to encourage book-
buying: any purchase at Bókakjallar-
inn comes with a free piece of candy.
Perhaps this is the secret that will save
used book culture forever? It just might
be.
Narratives of Reykjavík's used book culture often take the form of jeremiads—languorous
laments for a bygone heyday, a paradise lost through, by and with the fall of print media.
By some estimations, there used to be as many as forty secondhand book shops in town,
peddling old, worn and loved books to an eager customer base. But by the end of the
aughts, there was only one brick-and-mortar store: Bókin on the corner of Klapparstígur
and Hverfisgata. Founded in 1964, Bókin remains an institution, a hallowed hall incensed
with must and dust, where the 1993 collaboration between early music group the Hilliard
Ensemble and saxophonist Jan Garbarek plays on infinite loop from small speakers in the
music section—a poignant meeting of old and new.
Words by
Eli Petzold
Photo by
Magnús Andersen
INFO
Bókakjallarainn opened in 2010.
It lives at Laugavegur 29, and
is open every day from 13:00 to
18:00.
The Book
Cellar's
Book Seller
Children's Books and
Ancient Icelandic Porno
at Bókakjallarinn
“I ask if this is a
smutty reinterpreta-
tion of a saga but, as
it turns out, it's simply
an edition of a 13th
century text—"Ancient
Icelandic porno.”