Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.12.2016, Blaðsíða 42

21:00 Sakana Stofan
21:00 Krbear & Juice Tivoli
20:00 DJ Margeir Vínyl
Friday December 30
Concerts:
Bexband
22:00 Dillon
Spiritual “Light & Peace“ Concert
21:00 Gaukurinn
Reykjavík Classics New Year
Celebration
12:30/15:30 Harpa
Pearls of Icelandic Song: New
Year's Concert
17:00 Harpa
The Phantoms of the Opera: New
Year's Concert
20:00 Harpa
Sexý Fötu
22:30 Hressó
Skúli Sverrisson
21:00 Mengi
Don Lockwood Band
21:00 Slippbarinn
DJs:
22:00 DJ Hið Myrka Man Bravó
21:00 DJ Styrmir Dansson Hverfisgata 12
22:00 Skeng Kaffibarinn
21:00 Dream Wife Stofan
20:00 Árni Skeng Vínyl
Saturday December 31
Concerts:
New Year’s Dance
0:00 Hressó
Vínyl All Stars New Years Party!
17:00 Vínyl
Sunday January 1
Concerts:
Reykjavík Classics New Year
Celebration
12:30/15:30 Harpa
Pearls of Icelandic Song: New
Year's Concert
17:00 Harpa
The Phantoms of the Opera: New
Year's Concert
17:00 Harpa
Monday January 2
Concerts:
Open Mic Standup Comedy (English)
22:00 Gaukurinn
Reykjavík Classics New Year
Celebration
12:30/15:30 Harpa
Pearls of Icelandic Song:New Year's
Concert
17:00 Harpa
Tuesday January 3
Concerts:
Karaoke Night
22:00 Gaukurinn
Pearls of Icelandic Song - New
Year's Concerts
17:00 Harpa
Listen To Iceland
20:00/21:15 Iðnó
Wednesday January 4
Concerts:
Blues Jam Session
21:00 Dillon
Pearls of Icelandic Song:New Year's
Concerts
17:00 Harpa
The Golden Age of Swing
20:00 Harpa
Thursday January 5
Concerts:
Kingkiller
21:00 Gaukurinn
Iceland Symphony: Viannese
Favorites
19:30 Harpa
Pearls of Icelandic Song - New
Year's Concerts
17:00 Harpa
Books 42The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 18 — 2016Get Your Read On
Halldór Laxness
Independent People
This relatively unknown work of
Icelandic literature is a classic
that earned its author the 1955 No-
bel Prize for literature. How can
a Nobel Prize-winning book be
unknown? We mean it’s relative-
ly unknown to English-language
readers, and especially in Amer-
ica. Apparently, the conservative
government of Iceland pressured
J. Edgar Hoover to have the book
banned in the United States due to
Laxness’s socialist leanings, leav-
ing Laxness basically unknown in
the US until his works were repub-
lished in 1996. The novel follows
Bjartur, a fiercely independent
farmer whose staunch individual-
ism and stubbornness harms both
himself and his family. HÞJ
Halldór Laxness
Under The Glacier
The title ‘Kristnihald undir Jökli’,
translated directly from the Ice-
landic, would be ‘Christianity
Under the Glacier’. It’s the story a
young emissary sent to Snæfell-
snes to investigate a pastor named
Jón, who has apparently quit
preaching, boarded up the church
and started doing odd jobs around
town. There’s talk that people
are being resurrected by drag-
ging bodies onto the glacier and
leaving them overnight. Laxness
makes the Snæfellsjökull glacier
not just the opening to the centre
of the earth, as Jules Verne did, but
more profoundly, the centre of the
universe—lampooning Ameri-
can new-age travellers looking
for spiritual enlightenment, the
strange role of the church within
society and, with great prescience,
the unreliability of bus travel in
Iceland. It’s funny, smart and still
relevant today. YOU
Hallgrímur Helgason
Stormland
If ‘101 Reykjavík’ was the ultimate
fictionalisation of the "Cool Reyk-
javík" of the 90s, then ‘Stormland’
equally captured the boom years—
or rather, those who got left behind
in those strange days. It’s a story of
two brothers, one of whom profits
from the greed permeating every-
thing while the other tries to stand
outside it all, but is forced to take a
stand in the end. Both books were
turned into films—the former
became an international hit and
launched the career of Baltasar Ko-
rmákur, and the latter was largely
overlooked. But the movie, made
just after the economic collapse,
forms an interesting counterpoint
to the novel, being inspired by the
very events the novel foresaw. VSG
Jón Kalman Stefánsson
Fish Have No Feet
The book is set in the town of Ke-
flavík, which you will breeze past
on your way to and from the air-
port but probably never visit. A
fishing town that later became
largely dependent on the US mili-
tary base outside of town, Keflavík
is a perfect allegory for Iceland’s
self-conscious nature: a proud,
independent nation that is some-
what unwilling to admit to its
huge reliance on imported goods
and people. The prose fluidly tran-
sitions between past and present,
lovingly addressing the private
terrors, tragedies and loves of a
family that has always lived by the
sea, and shifting our focus between
perspectives to show us the des-
peration and impossibility of true
human communication. BH
Jón Kalman Stefánsson
Heaven and Hell
The Westfjords in the early 20th
century: a time and place where
the harsh realities of life provided
little more for people to concern
themselves with than work, food
and sleep, leaving almost no space
for love and art and other such
trifles that got in the way of fish-
ing. ‘Heaven and Hell’ will initially
seem to be solely concerned with
the beauty and fluidity of its prose
(delivered through an all-seeing
first person plural that seems to
speak on behalf of the nation) and
its depiction of strong characters,
male and female, within the heroic/
romantic tradition. It is only later
that the attentive reader will start
to notice the underlying moral
themes of how we choose to co-
exist in the brief period that life
provides. BH
Oddný Eir
The Blue Blood
An autobiographical short story
available on Kindle, ‘The Blue
Blood’ charts the author’s journey
as she attempts to become preg-
nant, via various means. Oddny’s
search takes her from the corri-
dors of a sperm bank, to a market
in South America, to a cave under
Eyjafjallajökull; along the way she
muses on subjects like masculinity,
Nazism, bohemianism, mythology
and history. ‘The Blue Blood’ is full
of vivid moments, and captures the
turbulent joy, seriousness, sadness
and absurdity of personhood. JR
Laxdæla
Saga
If you’re looking for a good intro-
duction to Old Norse literature,
Laxdæla Saga is the one. A sort of
Icelandic Romeo and Juliet, it tells
the story of one woman caught
between two foster-brothers. She
marries the one she doesn’t love
and the story unravels with the ap-
propriate amount of tragedy for
everyone involved. It won’t leave
you with only that unsettled feeling
of a sad ending—it’ll also give you
a good sense of what defines Ice-
land’s original literary genre. GDF
Sjón
The Blue Fox
‘The Blue Fox’ is a short piece of
magical-realist fiction, based on
some mysterious goings-on in
rural 19th century Iceland. An in-
triguing tangle of relationships is
shaken loose throughout its pages,
contrasted all the time with the
metaphysical relationship between
a hunter and his prey—the elusive
blue fox. The third Icelandic winner
of the Nordic Literature Prize, this
is a short but gripping gem. JR
Sjón
Moonstone
Another historically based title,
Sjón’s latest work in English trans-
lation is ‘Moonstone – The Boy Who
Never Was’. Set in 1918, it explores
a dramatic moment in Iceland’s
history, when the country was
approaching independence from
Denmark, concurrent with the me-
dium of cinema arriving in Reyk-
javík, an eruption of Katla, and a
deadly epidemic of the Spanish flu.
It’s a masterfully researched fic-
tionalisation of those times, and a
miniature epic in its own right. JR
Sölvi Björn Sigurðsson
The Last Days of My Mother
With a diagnosis of terminal cancer
delivered to his mother, Hermann,
a 37-year-old failure who’s pining
for his ex-lover, sets out to make
her happy in her final days. Under
the guise of seeking a mysterious
wonder drug, he and his mother—
a larger-than-life character prone
to tongue-lashings and sherry
binges—set out for adventure in
Amsterdam. This darkly comic tale,
which some have referred to as
‘Fear and Loathing in the Lowlands’,
is an ode to the overindulgence of
sex and alcohol, as well as motherly
love. Still, at its core, it’s an emo-
tional story that speaks to the love
and admiration of a parent, despite
the hell that follows them. BH
Steinunn Sigurðardóttir
Yo-Yo
‘Yo-Yo’ doesn’t actually take place in
Iceland—it’s set in Berlin, and has
no Icelandic characters. Including
recognisable local characters and
histories within works of fiction
has been somewhat common in the
Icelandic literary scene of recent
years, but when asked about the
decision to set this work abroad,
Steinunn has said that it was a
means of tackling delicate subject
matter without it being dogged
by small-town rumours. The book
deals with an unlikely friendship
between a cancer specialist and
one of his patients, a quick-witted
homeless alcoholic. The men ex-
perience an immediate and unex-
pected camaraderie. They’re drawn
to one another, to the dismay of
others, and soon discover that
despite their outward differences
they share an early experience that
shaped both of their lives. BH
Svava Jakobsdóttir
Gunnlöth’s Tale
‘Gunnlöth’s Tale’ is probably the
best-known work of one of Iceland’s
foremost 20th century authors and
feminist politicians, Svava Jakobs-
dóttir. This mysterious novel en-
tangles readers in the story of a
teenage girl who gets arrested for
allegedly committing the strange
and inexplicable crime of stealing
an ancient beaker from a museum,
claiming to have been summoned
into the mythological world of the
Norse gods by the giantess Gunn-
löth. The narrative shifts and merg-
es throughout the novel, blurring
the line between reality and myth,
and offering a different perspective
on familiar tales. SL
Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
I Remember You
‘I Remember You’ blends elements
of the modern ghost story with
the usual Yrsa thriller. A doctor in
Ísafjörður, still grieving after the
disappearance of his son, attends
to the suicide of an elderly patient
only to be thrown into an investiga-
tion of another disappearance that
echoes his son’s case. Meanwhile, a
young married couple, financially
reefed by the economic crash, set
out with their widowed friend to
fix up an old house in a desolate
coastal village in the Westfjords,
hoping to turn it into a successful
tourist attraction. In the complete
isolation of the abandoned village,
tension mounts among the trio as
secrets are revealed and they are
confronted with an eerie sense that
they are not alone. BH
Þórbergur Þórðarsson
In Search of My Beloved
Everyone loves Laxness, but the
Stones to Laxness's Beatles was
Þórbergur Þórðarson—any Ice-
lander above a certain age will have
several volumes by both in their liv-
ing room. While Laxness perfected
mainstream historical fiction for
the 20th century, Þórbergur cre-
ated a form of auto-fiction that
seems more apt for the 21st. A com-
munist, esperantist and sometime
mystic, Þórbergur remains crimi-
nally neglected by foreign publish-
ers. His masterpiece, ‘Ofvitinn’, re-
mains unavailable in English, but
this abbreviated version of ‘Íslen-
skur aðall’ serves as a good primer
for his oeuvre, going deep into his
own psyche as well as the Iceland of
the 1930. VSG
BH: Björn Halldórs, GDF: Grayson Del Faro,
HÞJ: Helga Þórey Jónsdóttir, JR: John
Rogers, MA: Mark Asch, SL: Susanna Lam,
VSG: Valur Gunnarsson, YOU: York Un-
derwood
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