Icelandic Series
by Christopher Taylor

As with Jules Verne"s fictional "Journey to the centre of the Earth", this series started at the end of Snaefellsnes - a narrow peninsular in Iceland jutting into the North Atlantic, long held by Icelanders to be a place of mystic power - where an extinct volcano is topped by a glacier. Years previously, I had received a book as a gift from my mother-in-law. Knowing her to have little taste for literature, the book, with it"s strange title "Christianity at Glacier" was placed on a shelf and forgotten about. I have made regular visits to Iceland since the early 80"s in the company of my wife who is Icelandic. The book is by the Icelandic Nobel laureate for literature Haldor Laxness, who at the time was unknown to me. Years later, I rediscovered this novel and was very pleasantly surprised. Set at Snaefellsnes, it is a highly original account of an errant priest who based his faith in the force of nature (powerful and omnipresent in Iceland) rather than the Church. On a subsequent visit to Iceland, I went to Snaefellsnes where a nephew was working at a fish processing factory. This was the start of a series of photographs at various locations around the country, partly inspired by Laxness, but also more specifically relating to my wife"s complex familiy history to which they all refer in one way or another.


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