The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.2000, Side 48

Vol. 55 #4
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
346
and Gissurarson mostly accept the accounts of
the spiritualists at face value. Had they ven-
tured to risk their own critical evaluation of
the Icelandic spiritualist movement, rather
than worry about refuting the Durkheimian
model, a superior work would have been the
inevitable result.
Given the scarcity of works on Icelandic
religion available in the English language,
Icelandic Spiritualism is a welcome contribu-
tion to understanding the distinct (even idio-
syncratic) nature of religious life in modern
Iceland. Swatos and Gissurarson have assem-
bled an interesting collection of essays, the
value of which is found as much in its digres-
sions and footnotes as it is in its account of
Icelandic spiritualism itself. While parts of
their analysis and some of their conclusions
are a matter for debate, they undertook an
impressive research project and have present-
ed a considerable amount of information that
was not widely available before now. For this
alone, Icelandic Spiritualism is an important
addition to both Icelandic studies and reli-
gious scholarship - as long as it is read with a
skeptical eye and a critical mind.
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By W.D. Valgardson
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FRANCES
As fragments of an old journal are
painstakingly translated, Frances
finds herself uncomfortably unrav-
eling the secrets of her past - a
tale of love, hardship, scandal,
ghosts and magic. In the end she
uncovers more than one family
secret, and learns how to use the
past to navigate a future that will
take her full circle, back to the
land of her ancestors.
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