| William Morris: Icelandic Journals |
[Jul. 1st, 2009|10:11 pm] |
Gail, who knows what I like, and also where I am going for my holidays, gave me a copy of William Morris's Icelandic Journals (on-line edition here), and I have been reading them in preparation for our trip. (Meanwhile, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) durham_rambler has been reading Arnaldur Indridason's crime novels, so between us we should manage a balanced view).
A small grumble: my book is the 1969 'Travellers' Classics' edition, with an introduction by James Morris (as then was) but with no commentary of any kind about the text itself. It's an attractive hardback, easy on the eye (comparing it to the on-line edition, I suspect it's a facsimile of the original publication, in Morris's Collected Works of 1911). It contains a full, day by day account of Morris's first trip to Iceland in 1871, and a scantier and incomplete account of his return in 1873. Throughout the first visit, Morris refers to writing his journal each day, but only at the very end of it does it emerge that although he made notes at the time, the finished version was not written up until 1873, when he had decided to return. The 1873 Journal is from the start less detailed, but at first it seems simply a reluctance to repeat, for example, the details of the outward journey. Next the entries themselves become less detailed, and place-names are abbreviated to their initials; I thought 'Ah, these are Morris's contemporaneous notes that he has not written up.' Then entries become more cryptic still, and I thought 'No, these are Morris's contemporaneous notes...' Finally, on August 19th, the entries stop, in mid-entry, with the words "Looking back we can see the last of Oxnadalr." What happened? No indication.
Then there's the question of the notes. The text is followed by notes by Eiríkr Magnússon, with whom Morris studied Icelandic, and who accompanied him on his first trip. These are mostly additional information, filling in the history of the places visited, and occasionally the names of the people they met there (most of the people they encounter are described by Morris as 'an acquaintance of Magnússon's' - he does seem to have been acquainted with half the population). But there are also footnotes throughout the text, some of them Morris's own additional details, some of them signed 'EM', and some signed 'Ed.' Who is Ed.? I wonder if this too is Magnússon, partly because the voice is similar, partly because of one particular note. On Sunday, August 27th, at Thingvellir, Morris describes himself wandering off alone, lying a long time on the hillside watching a rainbow. "So at last," he says, "I turned to go home, remembering that I had to cook the dinner..." This is footnoted: "He sat about the rocks and ate blueberries till he could find no more, and then remembered about the dinner. Ed."
This is a persona which Morris assumes comfortably: he is the nervous traveller, berating himself for 'milksoppishness' (and in the 1873 Journal surprised and delighted that he is no longer afraid of fording rivers, takes it in his stride), deciding that he has penetrated far enough in the exploration of a particularly tricky cave and will just sit where he is and smoke a pipe until the others return - he is, in short, the hobbit in a party of dwarves (I had spotted his hobbitishness for myself - it would be difficult to miss it - but the precise analogy I owe to Anne Amison). The likeness is emphasised by the glee with which he appoints himself expedition cook, and prides himself on producing edible meals from three plovers and a tin of carrots, armed only with a frying pan. On another occasion, a joint of mutton is cooked in a geysir...
Morris connives willingly at this depiction of himself as the spoiled pet of the party, the buffoon who keeps everyone entertained by constantly losing possessions (a single slipper, for example) which are then brought back to him over great distances by friendly Icelanders - for this is also a party of Victorian gentlemen, and they communicate in a schoolboyish form of banter. Yet in the notes Magnússon makes a point of recounting how one night, in the tent, Morris offered to tell the Saga of Biorn, which he did, says his tutor, "with remarkably few slips", adding "And the audience was still awake when he finished!" Morris is not some hapless bystander caught up in someone else's expedition; the purpose of the trip is to allow him to see for himself the settings of the sagas of which he had already published translations. At least once he is introduced as a 'skald'.
Reading his descriptions of the journey, it is easy to see the truth of this. The scenery, the weather, his mood; these elements combine to bring the landscape to life. Here's an almost random sample (July 29th 1871): and there we are in the wilderness: a great plain of black and grey sand, grey rocks sticking up out of it; tufts of sea-pink, and bladder campion scattered about here and there, and a strange plant, a dwarf willow, that grows in these wastes only, a few sprays of long green leaves wreathing about as it
were a tangle of bare roots, white and blanched like bones: that is the near detail of the waste, but further on, on all sides rise cliffs and mountains, whose local colour is dark grey or black (except now and then a red place burnt by old volcanic fires) and which show through the atmosphere of this cloudy and showery day various shades of inky purple. It's like reading a fantasy novel - without the plot, admittedly, but with a sense of the journey, of strangeness and exploration, that would enrich many quest narratives. Despite the rain and the bad roads, the apprehensions about difficult or dangerous passes (worse in anticipation than reality), despite the frequent descriptions of the landscape as grim, terrible or awful, Morris's happiness shines through: he is clearly having a wonderful time, and his enjoyment is infectious.
Finally, a thought to give me courage tomorrow as I start packing in earnest: at least we don't have to take supplies for a two-month expedition, nor pack them into boxes which can withstand being carried over the mountains by packhorses (and here's what happens if you try!). |
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