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narrative and Jacobson's summarizing, are so richly textured that the reader isalso reminded of the variegated cultural frames of reference within which eachstory is rendered, problematizing again any simple notion of a //better// story. InJacobson's pages we meet Maurits Hirsch, who crafted a persona as a non-Jew(life-as-story) in order to survive the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, and inhis role as German-appointed mayor aided the resistance. We hear the story ofPavel Balazs, as a young child the only member of his family unaware of hisJewish origins, and as an adult the only member willing to embrace the family'sJewish identity. And we encounter Ernst Franz, son of a non-Jewish, Germanfather and a Jewish mother, who as an 11-year-old joins the Jungvolk, the HitlerYouth.

The predicament of seeking redemption from those who may fail to under-stand underlies all of the stories told in Embattled Selves. Each teller struggles fora grammar of forgiveness, a narrative of reconciliation. These Holocaust survi-vors live in what Jacobson characterizes as "a lonely double bind": "If peopledon't know that I was in Auschwitz/' one woman explained, "they can't knowme. But once I tell them, they are no longer able to see me for who I am" (p. 13).

For Jacobson, stories are not only a vehicle for identity formation, but also aforum in which individuals can reconcile—and seek redemption for—identitychoices made under conditions of extraordinary political and emotional duress.For the tellers of the stories recorded by Jacobson, choices concerning identitywere "a matter of life and death" (p. 7). Under these circumstances, the predica-ment of identity, the dilemma of seeking forgiveness for that which may well beincomprehensible to the listener, becomes particularly highlighted. Jacobsonalso suggests that it is not only for their tellers that stories have a liberatingpotential:

It is my hope, therefore, that those who read these lives will recognize themselves inthe narrators, and will in so doing develop a more vivid feeling for—and a morevehement aversion to—the violence that persecution must do to the human soul. It ismy further hope that they will recognize the narrators in themselves, and thereby gainsomething that may be of personal use as they struggle to find, and to remain true to,their own embattled selves, [p. 20]

Together, Storied Lives and Embattled Selves offer a productive framework fordeveloping a critical—and liberating—theory of narrative.

Introducing Iceland

E. Paul Durrenberger. Icelandic Essays: Explorations in the Anthropology of ModernLife. Iowa City: Rudi Publishing, 1995. x + 157 pp .

JONATHAN WYLIE

Anthropology/Archaeology ProgramMassachusetts Institute of Technology20-B 131Cambridge, MA 02139

Icelandic Essays offers an engaging introduction to Icelandic culture together withsome refreshingly commonsensical ruminations on the ethnographic enterprisegenerally. It is neatly hung on a series of vignettes recounting the author'sexperiences. These have included working in the fields as well as doing field-work—two activities that nearly coincide, for "in Iceland one gains sufficientrespect to begin asking questions only by working with people" (p. 119). The

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observation holds true elsewhere in Scandinavia and is an instructive reminderof the importance of the "participant" side of participant-observation (pp. 107-108).

The book's main points emerge through the author's reflections on his expe-riences. Thus the reader follows his dawning understanding that both the"skipper effect" (why do Icelanders insist that successful fishermen have anuncanny ability to find fish?) and the "romantic-independence ideology" are folkmodels whose significance lies in their precarious fit with often inadmissiblerealities. Icelandic nationalism, for example, which was originally articulated byan agricultural elite intellectually dependent on Danish romantic nationalism,now helps maintain an egalitarian ethos in an increasingly urban, industrial, and(oh, horror!) stratified society—a point worth making not only about Icelanditself, where it still smacks of heresy, but also about other modern and modern-izing peoples.

Neatly folding together anecdote and generalization, Icelandic Essays inspiresthe reader to formulate questions it does not specifically address. For mat reasonit should prove an excellent text for classroom discussion. By the same token,however, the reader may wish the author had made more of some of his material.If Icelandic nationalism denies the importance of social stratification, could notthe same be said of both the skipper effect, which ranks skippers on a supernatu-ral basis, and the ethos of hard work, which ranks people on an individualisticone? If "to think of the [medieval] General Assembly as akin to a parliament isto distort its major functions, to make and test alliances" (pp. 99-100), how weremedieval politics really very different from modern, parliamentary coalitionbuilding (p. 67)? Can we really believe that kinship is "unimportant" (p. 115)among people who take such an interest in genealogy? The reader interested infollowing through on such questions might also wish for greater guidance thanthis book^s rather spare bibliography affords into the rapidly growing literatureabout Scandinavia in general and Iceland in particular.

Finally, and perhaps most consequentially, the author succeeds admirably inintroducing individual Icelanders and Icelandic culture as a whole; but when heremarks in passing that a farmer friend built a new house with his neighbors'help (p. 16), chaired the "county board" when "the county purchased an addi-tional farm for its common land" (p. 109), and worked out a compromise betweenfactions in "the fox and mink food cooperative" (p. 120), we can only wonderabout neighborly norms, county government, common land, cooperatives, andfactionalism. Icelandic Essays does not pretend to be a community study, but nowthat the introductions have been performed, we may perhaps look forward toan equally engaging account of an Icelandic community.