Bonus Poetry at Taste of Iceland

The Icelanders say everyone has a book in their belly, and they are better than the people of most nations at getting that book out. (Don’t think about the metaphor too much, though.) It makes sense that the annual Taste of Iceland would include a literary event. This year, author Andri Snær Magnason spoke at the Elliott Bay Book Company.

Literary Events

Reading and writing have always been solitary activities for me. But ever since the Iceland Writers Retreat, I’ve made more of an effort to attend readings and “Evenings With…” Mostly that has meant showing up for the literary portion of Taste of Iceland. It has never followed the same format twice: there was the Reykjavik Writing Jam, now-first lady Eliza Reid’s talk about Iceland’s literary culture, and a panel discussion of the medieval sagas. This year Andri Snær Magnason presented his work in what was not quite a reading at Elliott Bay Book Company.

Andri Snær Magnason

I’ve read a lot of Icelandic novels, and despite a tendency toward slim, spare fiction, the majority of them were challenging reads. Often I turn the last page and think, “What the fuck?” But a few books have really clicked with me. The Hitman’s Guide to House Cleaning and Heaven and Hell are two books that were satisfying in a good-to-the-last-drop way.

But no matter how much I loved an individual book, the only Icelandic author (besides Snorri Sturluson) that I can claim to have read most of their work is Andri. Maybe because we are almost the exact same age, or maybe we just have similar interests, but his books tackle the stories I crave and present a world view beautifully aligned with my own. Reading is supposed to open your mind to new worlds, but it can also bring peace in the form of your own ideas presented to you in a way you couldn’t have expressed yourself.

My Evening with Andri

Too bad they didn’t serve dinner. I really wanted to use the whole pun for my subheading. But the evening was set up like a typical reading in the Elliott Bay basement. I wasted precious minutes circling the neighborhood in search of parking, so by the time I arrived, Andri was already an unemployed college grad hanging out in the grocery store parking lot.

Somewhere between a regular reading and a TED talk, Andri spent about an hour telling the story of how he got from there to here. The audience cracked up at his self-deprecating, ironic anecdotes about his early career. But as the story progressed and Andri developed from disaffected poet to successful novelist and environmental activist, the mood grew more somber. Alongside reading humorous passages from his own books, he inserted a lot of political backstory and environmental education into the talk.

The crowd of Seattleites who show up on a Friday night to hear an author of translated books is going to agree with his environmental ethics. But even this crowd might not have signed up for a talk about environmentalism. In that sense he was sort of sneaking the vegetables into the dessert. As he said himself, no art he could create would be as valuable as the nature he could work to protect.

Aside: I love that people from other countries refer to “the nature” without any irony or embarrassment. Only Americans seem embarrassed by valuing the natural world and have to couch it in scientific phrases like “valuable habitat” or “natural resources.”

The Creative Work

He didn’t skip over the books, though. Instead he talked about the interaction between issues he was dealing with in life and the themes in his books. I’ve already read LoveStar and Story of the Blue Planet. Before I left, I purchased his nonfiction book, Dreamland: A Self-Help Manual for a Frightened Nation (he signed it with a cute little pink-footed goose, too). I never bought it before, because I figured it would be too specific to Icelandic conditions at a certain point in time. But if ever a frightened nation needed to help itself…

I also grabbed his first book, Bónus Poetry. I actually looked for that one when I was in Iceland. But it wasn’t available in English then. I’ll try to put together a book report on that one soon. But for now, I’ll just say it’s a collection of poems about and inspired by Iceland’s largest grocery store, Bónus. Publication of the book was paid for by the grocery store itself. Initially the book was only available at that store. It became a bestseller. Bónus Poetry is an ironic statement on commercialism and art. It is also a sincere attempt to find beauty in the mundane.

 The Real Work

So yes, there was a lot of talk about environmental activism. It was refreshing. Lately it seems like we are all about “voting with our wallets” and these sort of performative, consumerist eco-solutions. I’ve suspected for years that consumer choices are a red herring. It was really satisfying to hear how Andri’s public document research and direct political action had concrete, measurable effects on public policy. As in, planned dams were not built and there is a national park where there was none before. The Icelandic political forces he fought sounded just as wrongheaded as those at work in the U.S. today. Naturally, the final question at the end of the night was: What does Andri recommend for American activists, considering our current administration?

He took a deep breath before he answered, “Stay strong.”