This is my first read for Annabookbel’s NordicFINDS challenge, which loosely involves reading as many books from the Nordic countries as possible. She has particular weeks for particular countries, but you’re also handily allowed to just freestyle.
Being the Icelandophile that I am, I knew I could cover this challenge nicely from my TBR, and I’m also pleased to be able to pick off the very oldest, lingering books on the TBR for it – that great big sagas book, which I bought in 2014 between our wedding and our honeymoon in Iceland (I have so far read the great big introduction), and Jon Kalman Stefansson’s “Heaven and Hell” trilogy (which needs a space in the upstairs reading schedule as it’s going to be a not over dinner one, I’m fairly sure) which dates from 2015-2016! I started Christine Ritter’s “A Woman in the Polar Night” first but finished this before that, so off we go around Iceland …
I bought this book with my 2021 birthday book tokens and it arrived in July that year – there’s a picture of that set of books here, along with a frankly upsetting picture of my TBR at that stage, just one and a half shelves of vertically arranged books and a pile! I’ve actually read 4.5 of the 9 books bought then, which gives the lie to my claim to reading my TBR in acquisition date order! Oh well!
A. Kendra Greene – “The Museum of Whales you Will Never See: Travels Among the Collectors of Iceland”
(01 July 2021 – book tokens from my birthday)
I have come for the perimeter of territory staked out under the name ‘museum.’ Because for all the museums I have worked for or volunteered at or interned with, for all the continents where I have been the museum visitor, I have never known a place where the boundaries between private collection and public museum are so profoundly permeable, so permissive, so easily transgressed and so transparent as if almost not to exist. (pp. 2-3)
This is a lyrical, whimsical chase around some interesting museums and collections, musing as it goes on what is a museum and what is a collection and really collecting the interesting people that started them. Long chapters on individual museums (Galleries) are interspersed with Cabinets, short pieces on other museums and collectors which are more vague and wispy but equally interesting. The big museums include a rather touching piece on the Phallological Museum in Reykjavik (I haven’t been) and the Herring Era Museum, and it’s nice that the book covers the whole country, from the Westfjords to the eastern shores, as well as Reykjavik and its surroundings.
Although the list of museums visited on the author’s long trip include several I’ve visited myself, I was a bit personally disappointed that she doesn’t talk about any of those. I have, however, also failed to go to (both) the museums of whales – the ones she doesn’t see in the title (it’s the museums, not the whales, I think). So there’s that. The author is a museum specialist and an artist and there are charming line-drawings throughout the text, although I couldn’t work out if they were by her or another artist.
There are “Points of Reference” at the front of the book, including notes on seasons, weights and spellings, and a list of museums and their addresses at the back. I liked most the author’s love of Iceland, the way when she goes to a new town, she likes to find the first street the town had (named for the harbour or sea) and the second (Main Street or some such). She accepts the Icelanders she meets as they are, without making them silly or exotic or naive. There is a lot to like about this rather strange little book.
This was my first NordicFINDS read and covered Iceland.
This was TBR Challenge 2021-22 Quarter 2 (I had to re-count and start again!) Book 1/53 – 52 to go.
Jan 07, 2022 @ 10:12:59
I think I’d find a whale museum upsetting if it displayed whale killing as a feature. At least in Moby-Dick the whale has the last laugh
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jan 07, 2022 @ 10:16:27
As I’ve failed to go there myself and she doesn’t say in the book, I don’t know what’s included in the museum, whether it’s straight natural history or history, too. I was upset to see whaling ships (only one or two now) in the harbour at Reykjavik (with an H for Hvala on their funnels) but there’s also a (permanent?) stall on the quay where you can sign a petition on banning whaling. Tourists are offered whale meat in some restaurants but it’s very possible to avoid it, as of course we have always done. I didn’t actually know the ending of Moby-Dick, but I don’t reckon I’m ever going to read it!
Edited to add: I’ve checked the museum out and it’s literally a museum about whales, not whaling as such.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Jan 07, 2022 @ 10:44:39
This sounds fascinating, Liz. On the subject of Nordic books, I’ve finished Tarjei Vesaas’s ‘The Ice Palace’ and would definitely recommend it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Jan 07, 2022 @ 11:12:39
The Ice Palace is in my Norway stack for next week on #NordicFINDS – do add your comments.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jan 07, 2022 @ 14:40:32
Have you got a review of it on your blog? I’m a bit behind. I think you would like this one.
LikeLike
Jan 07, 2022 @ 11:14:13
I must admit, it would seem a bit odd not to include the Whaling museum, however distasteful it may be – maybe she had her reasons. Interesting though, and nice that she travelled round.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jan 07, 2022 @ 12:18:40
It’s really not a museum of whaling, just of whales! And I’ve been to Iceland four times without going to it, and the book is very random, she also didn’t go to the art museum, the saga museum or the settlement museum. https://www.whalesoficeland.is/
LikeLike
Jan 07, 2022 @ 16:42:42
Glad to see from your comments above that the museum is about whales rather than whaling. Then it’s one I’d be interested in visiting.
What an interesting idea for a book–museum hopping of sorts but seems done in an interesting way. Glad to see the author’s attitude towards locals as well.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jan 07, 2022 @ 17:00:44
Yes, they know not to make a big deal of the whaling these days, I think. It is a good one, and it’s nice to see lesser-known museums in different towns being showcased (apart from the first one which everyone knows and goes to!).
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jan 07, 2022 @ 18:40:03
I also have that huge Sagas of the Icelanders book on my (fairly tiny) fairy tale/folk lore shelf. I couldn’t resist it, but I also haven’t read it. Maybe I can at least read one or two of the sagas, even if the likelihood of reading the whole thing in a sitting is unlikely.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jan 08, 2022 @ 12:27:56
Oh, that’s funny! Yes, Egil’s saga, the first one in this book, is book-length in its own right. I’m really enjoying it and probably will do the whole thing through the month.
LikeLike
Jan 08, 2022 @ 05:10:27
I liked the idea that there might be whales we never see, hiding in the deeps, out of sight of hunters and tourists both (I know, they have to come up to breathe sometime). Give them some privacy. And dignity – it’s only a few years since museums displayed the bodies of Indigenous people.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jan 08, 2022 @ 12:28:40
Two good points! I think the ones in the museum under discussion might be models, though. I know my friend Tone has definitely made model whales as well as other creatures, so they’re not all sad stuffed things.
LikeLike
Jan 08, 2022 @ 13:09:52
What an intriguing sounding book, and I too am glad the museum is about whales and not huntng them. Sounds like a fascinating read!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jan 08, 2022 @ 16:52:45
It was very intriguing and quirky! And yes, it’s a good thing that museum is like that.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jan 08, 2022 @ 19:56:35
I love the nordic countries and I remember beautiful trips before the pandemic.
The book sounds interesting and I am also glad the museum is about whales and not about the hunting. I am an animal lover and I am against every kind of hunting.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jan 09, 2022 @ 07:33:13
I really miss Iceland, I wish we’d nipped there when we had the chance but I’ve got worried about getting trapped in a country by the Covid situation. Or trapped in a quarantine hotel upon return. Anyway, I will get back there one day, and hope to run the marathon again next year. It is a good book and yes, the museum she doesn’t visit isn’t about hunting whales!
LikeLike
Book review – Christiane Ritter – “A Woman in the Polar Night” | Adventures in reading, running and working from home
Jan 09, 2022 @ 08:10:43
Jan 09, 2022 @ 15:14:15
My now husband and I went to Iceland on a romantic mini break in 2001, shortly after getting together. I tried to get him to go to the Phallological Museum with me and he refused … I guess it is a slightly weird place to take a new boyfriend!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jan 09, 2022 @ 17:17:47
Ha, that is funny! And we failed to go there on our honeymoon!
LikeLike
Jan 09, 2022 @ 15:39:45
Jan 10, 2022 @ 11:37:06
I have an embarrassing story to tell. On our last trip to Japan, we wanted to spend time in Wakayama, staying a couple of nights in Wakayama city, and then a few nights in a small town to explore some of its famous mountain and shrine areas. I looked around and found a decent sounding hotel, but didn’t really research that town because I chose it for its proximity to other places. When we got there we were horrified to discover that the town, Taiji, is a controversial place for its whaling and dolphin hunting, and that our room overlooked a whale museum complete with whale show, we could hear from our hallway. We went all around the region but not near the whale show, and were uncomfortable knowing that most people around us in the hotel area probably supported the local “industry”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jan 10, 2022 @ 12:11:49
Oh, no, that is a tricky situation, and totally by accident! I’m sorry that happened to you, and hope you got to see the nice and decent stuff you really wanted to see.
LikeLike
Jan 10, 2022 @ 12:14:51
We did … and it was really great, but I have to say I felt really stupid having made that mistake. It was a lesson learnt.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jan 21, 2022 @ 21:54:57
I don’t think I properly understood, when you’d mentioned this assortment before, that it’s a lengthy challenge (with themes even!). That should be fun!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jan 22, 2022 @ 12:57:53
Do you mean NordicFINDS or my TBR challenge? The latter is ongoing and I’m just trying to get the older books read in good time, so any challenges that can use it are being taken up!
LikeLike
Jan 24, 2022 @ 21:21:37
I meant the Nordic one. Probably just as well, I might have been even more tempted by it.
LikeLiked by 1 person