The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.2008, Síða 18

16
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 62 #1
they sat up late at night over their stories. Yet they succeeded in creating not only a lit-
erary language which is among the most beautiful and subtlest there is, but a separate
literary genre. While their hearts remained warm, they held on to their pens.
As I was sitting in my hotel room in Skane, I asked myself: what can fame and suc-
cess give to an author? A measure of material well-being brought about by money?
Certainly. But if an Icelandic poet should forget his origin as a man of the people, if he
should ever lose his sense of belonging with the humble of the earth, whom my old
grandmother taught me to revere, and his duty toward them, then what is the good of
fame and prosperity to him?
Your Majesties, ladies and gentlemen - It is a great event in my life that the Swedish
Academy should have chosen to link my name with the nameless masters of sagas. The
reasons the Academy has given for singling me out in so spectacular a manner will serve
as an encouragement to me for the rest of my days, but they will also bring joy to those
whose support has been responsible for all that my work may have of value. The dis-
tinction you have conferred on me fills me with pride and joy. I thank the Swedish
Academy for all this with gratitude and respect. Though it was I who today received
the Prize from Your Majesty's hands, nevertheless I feel that it has also been bestowed
on my many mentors, the fathers of Iceland's literary tradition.
Prior to the speech, H. Bergstrand, former Rector of the Caroline Institute,
addressed Mr. Laxness: «We know that Alfred Nobel regarded life with the eyes of a
poet, and that his gaze was fixed on a far-off dreamland. Accordingly, literature should
have an idealistic tendency. This is something else than the admission of the lad who
later called himself Halldor Kiljan Laxness when he listened to the sayings of the pipe-
player. He said that the player's talk hid no deeper meaning than an ordinary landscape
or a finely painted picture, and they therefore had the same self-evident charm. <From
the day I learned to read>, he continued, <1 have been irritated by stories with a moral,
a hidden pointer, in the guise of adventure. I immediately stopped reading or listening
as soon as I thought I understood that the purpose of the story was to force on me
some kind of wisdom which someone else considered noteworthy, a virtue that some-
one else found admirable, instead of telling me a story. For a story is still the best thing
that one can tell>.
I am convinced that the Swedish Academy was of the same opinion when it award-
ed the Nobel Prize in Literature to a modern incarnation of an Icelandic teller of sagas.
And no one can deny that his tales move the mind, a prerequisite that Horace demand-
ed for the works of a poet, in the words: <et quocunque volent animum auditoris agun-
to>».
Pjodraeknisfelag Islendinga f Vesturheimi
PRESIDENT: Gerri McDonald
Support Icelandic culture and heritage
by joining your local chapter, or contact:
The Icelandic National League
#103-94 First Ave. Gimli, MB ROC 1B1
Tel: (204) 642-5897 • Fax: (204) 642-7151
inl@mts.net