“It is generally held that few nations have endured oppression and tyranny with greater politeness than the Icelanders. For centuries … they lived in understanding accommodation with oppression, without ever making an attempt at rebellion. To no nation was the very concept of revolution more alien. Icelanders were always ready to kiss the rod that struck them hardest, and to believe that the most cold-blooded executioner was their truest source of help and their safest refuge.”
So wrote Halldór Laxness in 1933, more than two decades before becoming Iceland’s only Nobel laureate in literature. Ninety-three years later, Icelanders appear to have misplaced some of their famous politeness.
