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Gska: Skldsaga
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Wikipedia article
'Gska: Skldsaga' (lit. 'kindness: a novel') is the third novel by the Icelandic author Eirkur rn Nordahl, written in Helsinki and safjrur between 2007 and 2009.Eirkir rn Nordahl, 'Gska: Skldsaga' (Reykjavk: Ml og Menning, 2009).
Form
The novel is often surreal or magical-realist, with many more-or-less impossible events taking place, often without explicit comment on their oddness. For example, the novel adverts to a spate of women jumping from tall buildings, but the fatal consequences of these leaps never seem to eventuate; Mount Esja is undergoing a volcanic eruption for almost the whole of the novel, ceasing at the end in a moment of pathetic fallacy; and ninety-three million refugees arrive, without explanation, in Iceland. Direct speech is sometimes in literary prose rather than realistic.
The novel is divided into two halves, one set before and one after a revolution caused by an economic meltdown, which brings an all-woman, left-wing government to power. Particularly in the first half, material is narrated in all three persons, each person being associated with narration from a different character's point of view:
* First person: Halldr Garar, a right-wing MP, married to Mill, a left-wing MP. The story-arc of the novel is demarcated by Halldr's realisation, at the beginning, that his life and work is essentially meaningless; and his discovery, by the end, of a purpose, fundamentally through recognising the central importance of kindness as a source for life's meaning.
* Second person: Freyleif, personal assistant to Mill.
* Third person: used for a wider range of purposes, but in the first half particularly for the perspective of li Dri, Freyleif's husband; and in the second for narrating the experiences of Mill, Freyleif, and a Moroccan refugee, Fatma.
The novel also includes a number of quoted verses, and, particularly in the first half, biblical allusions.Listed in Eirkir rn Nordahl, 'Gska: Skldsaga' (Reykjavk: Ml og Menning, 2009), p. 272.
Content
In the first half of the novel, which takes place over seven days, Halldr Garar and Freyleif both suddenly find themselves facing dramatic mid-life crises: Halldr after falling into a career as a callous right-wing politician, Freyleif after devoting all her energy to the well-being of the people around her, particularly her family. Halldr flees his job as an MP (and his wife), taking up residence at the Htel Borg, on Austurvllur, the square where the Icelandic parliament building stands. Freyleif begins threatening her husband to commit suicide by jumping from the block of flats where she lives, before going out on the town and having sex with a stranger.
Meanwhile, Austurvllur fills with people from all walks of life: protesters, entrepreneurs, and the poor trying to cope with Iceland's crumbling economic situation. Here Halldr meets Amela, the daughter of Moroccan refugees Kadr and Fatma, whom the Icelandic state has arrested in order to eradicate their traditions to replace them with stereotyped nationalist Icelandic culture. With the help of Freyleif and to a lesser extent the hapless Halldr, Amela rescues her parents. Thereafter, Halldr and Kadr absent themselves from the action, locking themselves in a room in Halldr and Mill's flat. Fatma and Amela stay with Freyleif, however. They assist Freyleif with her soup kitchen on Austurvllur.
The second half, which takes place over four days, picks up the story after a revolution has happened bringing Mill to power at the head of an all-woman government, with Freyleif at her side. Mill reluctantly tries to convince the lecherous head of the International Monetary Fund, Aim De Mesmaeker, to give Iceland a loan by having sex with him. She later, however, refuses a loan on the grounds that the IMF tends not to act in people's best interests anyway. Meanwhile, Fatma also takes a central role in completing the first purpose-build Reykjavk Mosque, partly with the help of a surprised li Dri, bringing her feminism to the centre of its activities. The denouement of the novel sees ninety-three million refugees arrive in Iceland, with Mill's purposeful, humanitarian and humanist embracing of their arrival as an opportunity for Iceland rather than a threat; Fatma leading the first service in the new mosque; and the reuniting of Halldr and Kadr with their families. The end of the novel does not resolve Iceland's immigration crisis, but a positive tone is struck.
Relations to real events
The novel has a great deal in common with events of the 200811 Icelandic financial crisis, but the first half was written before those events unfolded. Eirkur rn has written that it
leaves off moments after the economic collapse (which, having been written before the actual collapse, looks quite a bit different from real life) and resumes a while later this same endless summer meaning that it too contains a gap where the actual action took place, and does not deal directly (unsymbolically) with the events of Austurvllur or the crisis itself.Eirkur rn Nordahl, 'Literature in the Land of the Inherently Cute: The Search for Literary Crisis', in '[http://www.poesia.fi/booby-be-quiet/ Booby, be Quiet!]' (Helsinki: Poesia, 2011), pp. 103--24 (p. 113 n. 31) (first publ. in Polish translation in 'Kulturalne oblicza Islandii' (Krytyka Polityczna, 2010) and in 'The Reykjav Grapevine' (2011/4), 12--13, 24 http://www.grapevine.is/Features/ReadArticle/Literature-In-The-Land-Of-The-Inherently-Cute ); cf. http://norddahl.org/islenska/2009/12/22/gat-ekki-haldi%C3%B0-i-ser-lengur-vi%C3%B0tal-i-dv/ .
In the estimation of Gurn Baldvinsdttir,
the Utopian ending of the book is improbable and becomes ironic when looked at in comparison with Icelandic society in reality. Its typical dualism, good and evil, male and female, wealth and poverty, and others, can save the utopian world but unlikely to do so in reality. Things are more complicated than that, and the author of the book points to the alienation which dwells in our mentality. It also makes fun of a mentality that can often be found in the discourse of Icelandic society, that Iceland is somehow important for the international community. Although the national self-image may crash, it is built up again on the illusion that in the end it will come about that it is us who will save the world.Gurn Baldvinsdttir, 'Hver sr fegra furland? jarsjlfsmynd slenskum hrunbkmenntum', unpublished BA thesis, University of Iceland, 2014; http://hdl.handle.net/1946/17953. 'Hinn tpski endir bkarinnar er sennilegur og verur rnskur egar liti er til hlistunnar, slensks samflags raunveruleikanum. Hin dmigera tvhyggja, hi ga og hi illa, konur og karlar, rkidmi og ftkt, vi og hinir, getur bjarga tpskum heimi en lklegt a hn geri a raun og veru. Mlin eru flknari en svo og hfundur bkarinnar bendir firringu sem br hugsunarhtti okkar. Einnig er gert grn a hugsunarhtti sem oft m finna orru slensks samflags, a sland skipti einhvern htt mli fyrir aljasamflagi. a jerniskenndin hrynji er hn bygg upp aftur eirri blekkingu a vi endalokin veri a vi sem munum bjarga heiminum' (21).
Reviews and studies
* Anna Emelie Heuman, 'Allt sem g geri skorti innihald. ing Gsku eftir Eirk rn Nordahl og inngangur a henni', unpublished BA thesis, University of Iceland, 2014; http://hdl.handle.net/1946/18171.
* Bjrn r Vilhjlmsson, jarbrot, 'Tmarit Mls og menningar', 71.1 (February 2010), 13643.
* Gurn Baldvinsdttir, 'Hver sr fegra furland? jarsjlfsmynd slenskum hrunbkmenntum', unpublished BA thesis, University of Iceland, 2014; http://hdl.handle.net/1946/17953.
* Hrund lafsdttir, 'Esjan logar', 'Sunnudags Moggin' (15 November 2009), [timarit.is/view_page_init.jsp?issId=335244&pageId=5285268&lang=is&q=kreppub%F3k 52]
* Jn Yngvi Jhannsson, 'Lesi skugga hrunsins: Um skldsgur rsins 2009', 'Tmarit Mls og Menningar', 71.4 (November 2010), 8198 (pp. 9697).
* Ragnheiur Eirksdttir, 'Forfallinn jlabkaflslesari', 'Sunnudags Moggin' (14 March 2010), [http://timarit.is/view_page_init.jsp?issId=336330&pageId=5297784&lang=is&q=kreppub%F3k 53].
References
Category:2009 novels
Category:Icelandic novels
Category:Novels set in Iceland
Category:Icelandic books
Category:Icelandic-language novels
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