Notes on National Childhood and A Place Apart...

National Childhood: Expressions of Icelandic National Identity in Icelandic Life-Writing

David Koester's essay, National Childhood: Expressions of Icelandic National Identity in Icelandic Life-Writing, focuses on the importance of memoirs and life-writings as a representation and reminder of Iceland's true and essential identity. It seems as if the majority of the population will at some point desire and most likely write autobiographical writings of their youth, whether they are published or not, they will be an important part of their own memory and the telling of their own interpretation of the true Icelandic childhood.

Koester also mentions the history and tradition of evening house readings in family homes. This tradition held strong as children in other countries became accustomed to radio and television entertainment as a way to bring their families together. I am curious to find if the tradition of house reading is still practiced in some families, even if only on special occasion.

According to Koester, the memory of learning to read and write is one of importance to many Icelanders. Similarly it is of importance to children around the world who have that opportunity, but in Iceland, it is often remembered who taught you to read and what you read at the house readings. These facts are often included in Icelander's memoirs and biographies of their childhood. These memoirs have created a national identity of the Icelandic people. They view themselves as both, "the people of books" and "the people of history," creating a nation of readers and writers. (Koester, 141)

An interesting term comes up in this essay, bernskuslodir; this term translates to "places of childhood." The idea of this word is that a person is "naturally" linked to where they grew up. "This concept of bernskuslodir transforms individual memories into memories of group experiences." (Koester, 149) Koester states that in these memoirs, writers focus on what is enduring about their childhood, such as mountains, oceans, and bird songs. The significance of including these aspects in autobiographies is great. The concept of National Identity in the United States has been one of constant change. Perhaps families did not migrate, transfer jobs, pursue this idea of freedom as we do in the states, therefore making the landscape and bird songs enduring and long lasting. Of my childhood memories, the landscape was not a part of what felt enduring and significant, family, friends, school, and trips away from home seemed to be long lasting and permanent, more permanent than the landscape and bird songs outside my window.

This universal sense of childhood is what has created a concept of self among Icelanders. Whether or not this sense of self is diminishing or holds strong, I am unsure. I hope to gather a better understanding as to modernity in Iceland, whether or not tradition and language is disappearing and whether or not new traditions are being created.

• The past that was childhood represents the essential and true Iceland
• Changes occurring are threatening to Icelandic culture?
• Childhood writing represents the nation
• Children taught to read early in life
• Theme of childbirth in writings
• Nation represented as a woman
• Does the older generation embrace technology, feel they are forced into incorporating it into their lives, or do they regret the changes that are taking place?
• Is there a characteristic Icelandic youth today?
• What traditions are practiced today? In contrast, what traditions are practiced in the states?
• "People of books" "People of history" Are we, in the states, the "People of Freedom?" What is our National Identity and is it as closely related to our childhoods?
• Am I able to come up with a similar word in the English language that is similar to bernskuslodir?

A Place Apart: An Anthropological Study of the Icelandic World

I am currently reading the above mentioned book by Kirsten Hastrup. Below I have listed notes of significance from essays throughout the reading:

• History of National Identity (44)
  
• Icelanders: countryside - only 10-11% are farmers (46)
• How to learn the language, very pragmatic. There are often lengthy silences - is there a significance to the silence? (63)
• "Photographs and prefaces are not archives to anything but what someone wants to say about them. Realism occurs between the lines." (67)
• "Laxness' books are not meant to read, but meant for the bookshelf." (68)
• On the first generation to grow up with television instead of evening readings and songs (69)
• Draugar - ghost encounters (70-1)
• Icelanders who have a fear of speaking due to poor Icelandic (87)
• Women as bad luck on fishing boats (89)
• Food - the more exotic, the more Icelandic, allotment of food to farm hands (100-102)
• Icelanders as a more spiritual people, honour and literature, rather than material goods (106)
• Landscape and Memory - spell placed on the land goes back to land's history (111)
• Negative attitude towards seals, they destroy potential catch (120)
• Stereotypes and corporeal field (142-3)
• Notion of "home" equates to a woman's success as a homemaker, representation of home-made items, handicrafts, domesticity, etc. This is equal to the man's apparent economic success (144)
  
• In many countryside homes, each member of the family, including young children, owns at least one sheep of their own, which they take great pride in (151)
• Fate involved in earmarking of lambs - good luck vs. bad luck, trying to trick fate (151)
• "Nobody sits like that during the lambing." The value of hard work (152)
• Berry picking - grandmother teaching children the value of nature's gifts (152)
• "Unemployment is created" because Icelanders are too snobbish to work in fishing - the basis of Iceland's economy (153)
• Fishing as immediate relationship between people and prey - farming and social system - domestication of nature (153)
• Men's emotional attachment to sheep (157)
• Women equated with housework and men with farm, wilderness, nature, and sea. Some do not see this as gender superiority, but rather that the inexperienced should stay at home due to the circumstance (and most often, if not always, the inexperienced are women (158)
• Women are not expected to take part in "men's work" (158)
• Muted Characters - The Social (women) vs. The Wild (men)