The Icelandic connection - 01.09.2010, Blaðsíða 24

74
ICELANDIC CONNECTION
Vol. 63 #2
The Oil King
by Elm Pordardottir
John D. Rockefeller has just shuffled
off his mortal coil, and though the lamps
had not been lit to guide his way, his
embodied spirit somehow finds itself at
the gates of heaven. The snuff taking
apostle Saint Petur, after a long peruse,
can’t find Rockefeller’s name of his list of
those granted access to the kingdom of
eternal bliss and pleasure. So what is a
monopolist to do? How does one
almighty get into the kingdom of The One
Almighty? Bribe the Saint, naturally.
‘“You might have eight or maybe
nine barrels filled with oil of
mine, just for permitting me
inside’ Peter was shocked: -
‘Johnnie. Oh my!”’1
(trans. George Pattern).
And on learning that the moral right-
eousness of heaven’s gatekeeper is indeed
unshakeable, Rockefeller is directed
towards Hell whose energy supply is ever
dwindling, unlike the ever-sustaining
lights of heaven. A shrewd merchant in
death, as in life, Rockefeller prepares to
drive the price of oil up, and take the devil
for all he is worth!
This is a paraphrased account of
Icelandic-Canadian poet Guttormur J.
Guttormsson’s satiric poem
“Rockefeller, ” also entitled
“Olmkongurinn” (The Oil King). At the
time it was written, John Davison
Rockefeller was indeed still alive, and
had been retired from his position as the
chairman of the Standard Oil Company
for some time. The piece is a vindictive-
ly humourous attack on greed, specifical-
ly the greed of the richest man the early
twentieth century had ever seen. But
there is a lot more going on in this piece
than a simple moral tale with a facetious
spin. As a piece of satire written in
Icelandic in Canada, there is sort of a dou-
ble translation occurring. Of course, the
translation of Icelandic into English is
one mode of this duality, the other is the
translation that occurs, that in fact even
defines, satire. The translated piece
“Rockefeller, ” in this respect, is a sort of
chimera; an entity composed of the parts
of two different species whose true nature
is yet unclear. It is the intention of this
paper to explore the underlying, hidden
nature of “Rockefeller,” in its English
translation of a satire, in an attempt to
understand what this unique piece can tell
us about language and truth.
I believe the chimera analogy is an
apt one in dealing with “Rockefeller.” So
in order to discover its hidden essence we
need to, pardon the term, vivisect the
thing and examine its parts individually.
In order to start we need to have on hand
a couple of specialists in the fields of
translation and of satire: the German
Walter Benjamin and the Canadian
Northrop Frye, respectively; beginning, I
think, with the views of this piece’s resi-
dent expert on translation and language,
Walter Benjamin.
1 ‘Tib megib eiga atta eba mu/ amur fullar meb steinolfu/ fyrir ab leyfa mer abeins inn”/ Pa undrabist
Petur: - “Nonni minn!” (Guttormur J. Guttormsson: 1920).