The Snorri Programs. 1999-2019

I will explain all (as soon as I understand it myself)….

First, my mistake. Here I am, a board member of the Icelandic Canadian Club of Toronto (ICCT), a board member of the INLNA (Icelandic National League of North America) and its newsletter editor, and author of a book, Letters to Icelanders, about Western Icelanders (the name given to people living outside of Iceland who have Icelandic roots - about 250,000 now). So I should know who Snorri is, was, shouldn’t I? I do, did, but it was the wrong one.

Snorri, as any educated aficionado of Icelandic lore knows, was Snorri Sturluson, (born 1179, Hvammur, Iceland—died Sept. 22, 1241, Reykjaholt), Icelandic poet, historian, and chieftain, author of the Prose Edda and the Heimskringla( a history of Norse kings). The Prose Edda, ”also known as the Younger Edda, Snorri's Edda or, historically, simply as Edda, is an Old Norse work of literature written in Iceland during the early 13th century. The work is often assumed to have been written, or at least compiled, by the Icelandic scholar, law-speaker, and historian Snorri Sturluson c. 1220. “ (Wikipedia) There is also the Younger or Prose Edda (a handbook to Icelandic poetry by Snorri Sturluson). “The Eddas are the chief source of knowledge of Scandinavian mythology.” (Online Dictionary)

Got that? I did, too, and I have read a lot of both Eddas, but that didn’t help me to understand The Snorri Programs.

THE SNORRI PROJECT: CONNECTING ICELANDERS AND NORTH AMERICANS SINCE 1999

Yes, It began in 1999 when 19 young people of Icelandic descent from North America (Manitoba, actually) spent a few weeks in Iceland meeting, staying with relatives in Iceland and learning about the country of their ancestors. Since then more than 300 have followed suit—not so- none so similar as a suit. For each it was a unique experience, for all it was life-changing. For many it has defined their careers; a few have even settled in Iceland. Also, since then, as the Snorri Program expanded to include other than Manitobans, North Americans of Icelandic descent—all of us called Vestur-Islendingur by Iceland—followed by Snorri Plus, people past the age of the young’uns but who wanted to re-establish their roots and equal their discoveries. Even before that, Snorri West began bringing Icelandic young people to meet the New World that their emigrant families had adopted. Al this was not without tremendous by volunteers and generous grants from countless donors.

Now you know what “20 Years of Snorri " is, but you still don’t know who Snorri was. The program was named after the fisrt European born in North America, Snorri Þorfinsson.

I read the wonderful 94-page account of the Snorri Years, of these people “separated by an ocean in space and a century in time” but who are joined at the heart. I’ll give you the link so you can follow it up

Tomorrow.

I’ve had this clipping since 2004.I t’s a review of a book called Faking It, by William Ian Miller. It’s about “the distance that exists between the self that is engaged in a performance of some sort, and the self that acts as a commentator, an often cynical and disparaging commentator on that performance.” The keyword for me is performance, because I so often come at ideas from the POV of a playwright. There must be some of this in Miller’s approach because one of his reference points is Erving Goffman who is one of my favourite go-to touchstones. Goffman was a sociologist whose thinking I discovered and claimed long before i learned that his work was on the required reading lists of the National Theatre (of Canada) for the directing and playwriting courses. I wonder if it still is.

“Erving Goffman (11 June 1922 – 19 November 1982) was a Canadian-born sociologist, social psychologist, and writer, considered by some "the most influential American sociologist of the twentieth century". In 2007 he was listed by The Times Higher Education Guide as the sixth most-cited author in the humanities and social sciences, behind Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, and Anthony Giddens, and ahead of Jürgen Habermas.” Wikipedia

What fascinated me was his dramaturgical analysis of common social interactions. Four of his books are in my seed-beds bookcase, where I keep books whose ideas stimulate my thinking and trigger more ideas. Now I’m all fired up, and running a long way past Faking It.

However, there was something else I wanted to check. The name Walter Ian Miller seemed familiar…sure enough, I own a later book of his called Losing it, with an interesting description: “in which an aging professor LAMENTS his shrinking BRAIN, which he flatters himself formerly did him Noble Service***A Plaint, tragi-comical, historical, vengeful, sometimes satirical and thankful in six parts, if this Memory does yet serve.”

I read it when I was reading for my aging book (ENDINGS: A BOOK FOR ALMOST EVERYONE). What really lingered was Miller’s Icelandic connection, not mentioned in the Wikipedia information. in Chapter 10 (Giving up Smoting for Good), he writes, ”I make a living reading the Icelandic sagas, the smartest of writing on the politics and strategies of revenge.” A lot of the sagas are in his bibliography, as well as the Havamal, and the Codex Regius (Gragas: Laws of Early Iceland) and, of course, Beowulf.

Well, as if that wasn’t enough forgotten treasure to discover but when I looked up Walter Ian Miller, I was offered Walter M.Miller - lo and behold!- who wrote one of my favourite books, and he died without my noticing. “Walter Michael Miller Jr. (1923 –1996) was an American science fiction writer. He is known primarily for A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959).” Wikipedia Yes, indeed, that’s what I knew him for, gratefully. ( I never thought of him as a sci-fi writer.)

This has been a splendid day. I have to browse in some of these riches. I hope you do, too.