The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1995, Page 14

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
SPRING/SUMMER 1995
Alfrun: Because the Middle Ages allow
me to generalize more and I don’t have to
point to any particular person. It broadens
the world to look at the past and one can
talk in general terms about what is human.
And also because in re-envisioning the past
I discover a certain
darkness of the mind,
a psychological dark-
ness. All the persons
in my book reflect
one another. The
man in the Late Mid-
dle Ages, approxi-
mately in the 14th or
15th century, has his
thoughts reflected in
the story that follows
his, that takes place
later on, an inde-
pendent story to be
sure, showing the
darkness of the
present and the past.
The next part of my
novel I placed in the
18th or beginning 19th
century. I wanted to
tell a story that was
not fixed exactly in
any particular time in the past or in the
present. In the last part of course you real-
ize that it must be taking place sometime
in the present because there are cars and
other tell-tale signs.
Evelyn: You did not fix the novel in time,
but you pinpointed it geographically.
Frontin presumably is a French knight, but
Stefan and later on Bergur are clearly Ice-
landers.
Alfrun: Iceland is definitely the starting
point — followed by action taking place on
the continent of Europe.
Evelyn: Were you inspired by the sagas
in the scene which ends with Nana trying
to burn herself ?
Alfrun: Probably yes, you try to destroy
something in a symbolic way while destroy-
ing yourself with it. As a way out, Nana tries
to commit suicide. There are many aspects
to this character which I did not put into
the novel. She tries to set the house on fire,
but later on she does something more dras-
tic. The fire is an elemental force and at
the same time it sym-
bolizes passion and
destruction, perhaps
even the solution to a
terrible situation. In
any case, Nana is play-
ing with danger, is
trying to attract atten-
tion.
Evelyn: flave you
read other contem-
porary authors that
have used the Middle
Ages in their writing
? Did you do a lot of
research when you
wrote this book?
Alfrun: No, I
don’t remember
reading any particu-
lar authors or doing
any research for my
novel. But I probably
used the Middle Ages
because of my own medieval studies. When
I was young I was mostly interested in the
present. I actually don’t think consciously
about my characters. They sort of come to
me; sometimes I see them in my mind or
in my dream. And I work starting with their
faces and what 1 can ‘read’ in them. Al-
though I’m not aware of it directly, they are
linked, interconnected, because — odd as
it may seem — writing for me is a form of
travel. I don’t structure my books before-
hand and I don’t want to know much about
the end of the story, because it takes me a
long time to write. If a book takes four, five
years or more to finish, by the end you have
changed very much yourself as a person
and as a writer. That’s not to say I don’t try
to be accurate. Along the way I read lots of