[The above video is mostly a
reading of the text below, with an occasional aside thrown in for good measure
as they strike me as relevant. I welcome questions, comments, or concerns about the material contained in
this video.]
The other day, I was looking for something out of the ordinary to read and, on opening Susan Sontag’s collection “Reborn,” saw an essay on Haldor Laxness’ “Under the Glacier.” Not wanting to give away too much to myself, I read only the first couple of paragraphs, was intrigued enough to pick it up, and set the rest of the essay aside for later.
The novel tells the story of a nameless bishop’s emissary (he is referred to only as “Embi,” short for “emissary of the bishop”). Embi is sent to a distant part of Iceland to investigate the odd behavior of the people there. Among other things, the local pastor has given up burying the dead, the local church has been boarded up, and the views of the community have become decided less orthodox in nature. Much of the novel is simply a detailed record of Embi’s continuous confused frustrations at the behavior of the people. When Embi asks Pastor Jon about the importance of delivering sermons, he says, “Oh, no, better to be silent. That is what the glacier does. That is what the lilies of the field do.” Instead, Pastor Jon spends most of his time travelling around the village, shoeing horses and repairing old electric stoves.
During his face-finding mission, Embi happens across the truck-driving poet Jodinus Alfberg and his boss, the New Agey and oddly con man-like Godman Syngmann (note his name). Syngmann is leading a group of Hatha Yoga practitioners and acolytes from Ojai, California through Iceland on some sort of a mission to “find themselves” (that grating exhortation of the New Age). Syngmann, in his attempts to harness the hieratic powers of the universe, wishes to reanimate the dead. At one point, Embi meets the resurrected Ua (“ooh-a,” the sound that men make upon seeing her), who was once married to Pastor Jon before she died, or was possibly turned into a fish.
Despite its subject, “Under the Glacier” has the occasional humorous moment – but I didn’t find it the hilarious, profound novel that Susan Sontag claims that it is in her essay, or that several other reviews found it to be. This may speak to the time when it was published - 1968 – a momentous year for Europe, politically and culturally. It was also a chaotic time that you probably needed to live through in order to understand the immediacy of its importance. But my parents were in still learning algebra in 1968. I’m a child of the nineties – a world of mix tape cassettes, Carmen Sandiego, and giant cellphones. Revolution was the furthest thing from our minds.
Is this novel a rollicking attempt to poke fun at the American, and largely clueless, embrace of the Eastern religious traditions? Or maybe it’s just discontent with institutionalized Christianity? Or maybe my problem is that I’m looking for something it should be “about.” I ought to give “Against Interpretation” another look, since I seem to be retrogressing in regards to the advice it gives.
The novel tells the story of a nameless bishop’s emissary (he is referred to only as “Embi,” short for “emissary of the bishop”). Embi is sent to a distant part of Iceland to investigate the odd behavior of the people there. Among other things, the local pastor has given up burying the dead, the local church has been boarded up, and the views of the community have become decided less orthodox in nature. Much of the novel is simply a detailed record of Embi’s continuous confused frustrations at the behavior of the people. When Embi asks Pastor Jon about the importance of delivering sermons, he says, “Oh, no, better to be silent. That is what the glacier does. That is what the lilies of the field do.” Instead, Pastor Jon spends most of his time travelling around the village, shoeing horses and repairing old electric stoves.
During his face-finding mission, Embi happens across the truck-driving poet Jodinus Alfberg and his boss, the New Agey and oddly con man-like Godman Syngmann (note his name). Syngmann is leading a group of Hatha Yoga practitioners and acolytes from Ojai, California through Iceland on some sort of a mission to “find themselves” (that grating exhortation of the New Age). Syngmann, in his attempts to harness the hieratic powers of the universe, wishes to reanimate the dead. At one point, Embi meets the resurrected Ua (“ooh-a,” the sound that men make upon seeing her), who was once married to Pastor Jon before she died, or was possibly turned into a fish.
Despite its subject, “Under the Glacier” has the occasional humorous moment – but I didn’t find it the hilarious, profound novel that Susan Sontag claims that it is in her essay, or that several other reviews found it to be. This may speak to the time when it was published - 1968 – a momentous year for Europe, politically and culturally. It was also a chaotic time that you probably needed to live through in order to understand the immediacy of its importance. But my parents were in still learning algebra in 1968. I’m a child of the nineties – a world of mix tape cassettes, Carmen Sandiego, and giant cellphones. Revolution was the furthest thing from our minds.
Is this novel a rollicking attempt to poke fun at the American, and largely clueless, embrace of the Eastern religious traditions? Or maybe it’s just discontent with institutionalized Christianity? Or maybe my problem is that I’m looking for something it should be “about.” I ought to give “Against Interpretation” another look, since I seem to be retrogressing in regards to the advice it gives.
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