Monday, April 14, 2008

Questions about "Icelander"

The biggest question about Icelander for me was, does Dustin Long even know who the villain of his own story is? I've read the whole thing and he kind of leaves the whole situation a mystery. I guess he probably has his own idea in his mind, but I think it was open for interpretation. The most obvious choice (if we trust Our Heroine) is that Surt was the villain. He could have been disguised as any of the characters. I noticed that the narrator from Wible & Pacheco's sections was neither Wible nor Pacheco. He/she talks about "we," yet also refers to both Wible and Pacheco by their names so I got the feeling that the narrator for these sections was another person tagging along with W&P, whose presence we weren't necessarily aware of. This could have been any of the other characters, or it could have been Surt.
Surt would be considered the villain from the point of view of the Bean family. However, to the people of Vanatru, the Beans and Shirley MacGuffin could have been considered the true villains. They put Vanatru on the map, exposing it to outside influence, tourism, unwanted attention, etc. I can see why the people of Vanatru (ie. Gerd) would think of the Beans and Shirley as the villains. This idea also coincides with the opposing viewpoints the text offers us. We have the text (which is mainly Our Heroine's narration), and we have the footnotes which were written by the "editor." This editor could be from Vanatru and therefore his point of view on the whole issue would naturally be much different than Our Heroine's.
I think Long meant for his readers to doubt the truthfulness of all these different accounts (from Our Heroine to W&P, to the editor, to Dustin Long himself). All could be liars trying to persuade the readers to see their point of view. In answer to my question, I don't think there is one true villain; it depends on whose point of view you are looking at the situation from, just like any situation in life.

2 comments:

Jamie said...

I agree that the part of the villian is left to interpretation. I noticed the various points of view in Wible and Pacheco's narration too and it annoyed me. I like when Wible and Pacheco address themselves as "we" because it shows their unity and how they want others to see them as the same even though they're not. When the narration refers to just Wible or Pacheco, it gets confusing because I'm not exactly sure who is narrating or talking about them.

Troy Warzocha Fan Club Leader said...

I think Dustin Long is Surt's pen name.