Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.12.2016, Blaðsíða 42

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 SHARE: gpv.is/boo18
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