Faces in windows. What is blog?

By Hermann Stefansson

Where do they come from, all these faces in windows to a multitude of existences [eða og kannski frekar: all these myriad of faces, of diverse existences,], and what do they want? Should one look in, or should one resist? What is this blog and why is it so relentless? Is blog a form of literature?
Texts on the Internet have until recently rarely been accorded the status of fertile literature. Scholars have incessantly pointed out that the bulk of the literary texts on the Internet are taken from already published books. On top of that, the Internet seemed until very recently, still to be stuck in a stage of aping the form of the book. Thus, websites mainly published texts and were thus mainly reproducing the printed media. There could be no doubt, the scholars claimed, that the Internet would in the not too distant future learn to exploit its possibilities to a much greater degree, getting away from under the shadow of print and become an independent form. They foresaw the consolidation of poststructuralist ideas about the vivid text that constantly changes and metamorphoses before the eyes of the reader and submits to his creative powers – the possibilities were infinite: moving pictures, music, photography, films, interactvity, the direct participation and influence on the work, by the reader, the symphony of countless genres in a text that creates a totally new take the literary work.

This is not blog, however; indeed it would be more accurate to say, that in its clearest form, it is is a reversion, a turning back, to text in its most primitive form, in which design is minimal and multimedia features and technique nearly absent. Visually blog (short for weblog) is closer to 19th century journals than the hi-tech web-novels of the early days of the World Wide Web or Internet. Does this exclude blog from being literature? Yes, and no. In spite of not, as such, being ficitional texts, many classical (and modern) journals have in the end become recognized as literature. The journals of Franz Kafka and André Gide are examples, being highly personal journals of writers. And indeed countless contemporary authors enter the arena, publishing their journals. In Iceland, though, there have, as of yet, not been authors who have specialized in journals. Quite the opposite is true in many other countries as in Spain for example. On the other hand there is a rich tradition of all sorts of writings about the self: journals, autobiography, correspondances ... In Iceland there is fertile soil for blog.
Blog drifted in to Icelandic shores from the United States a few years ago and, has, in an incredibly short space of time, become a widespread phenomenon. The short history of blog began with the collecting of „link“ – the first blogsites or blogspots in the States were little more than a list of links to other sites, containing interesting or exotic reading material. Then bloggers started to note comments about the links they were introducing. Blog then came into its own when free blog-software became available on the Internet, or „on line“ (cf. www.blogspot.com). Electronic journals on the Internet had been possible and indeed were maintained from the dawn of the World Wide Web but now no specialized knowledge was required to start a weblog – this is something that a mere beginner can do in a matter of minutes. Suddenly, it may seem, countless number of writing selves have been liberated from the confines of the page, and the drawer, flooding the Internet, to the chagrin of many. Total anarchy and incomplete rules force bloggers constantly to challenge social and ethical boundaries, expanding the public sphere is expanded and shouting out secrets in the market place.
Icelandic bloggers were able to skip over the phase, in their blogspots, that their American forerunners started with; i.e. a wunderkammer, of sorts, presenting little more than a list of links.The long tradition of writings of the self in Iceland immediately steered bloggers in that direction. Even so, the pages/spots – impossible to keep up with – are quite varied. They can be roughly sorted in the following manner:
A) Journals, self-expression, personal writings
B) Commentaries on politics, daily debates, media matters ...
C) A forum for poetry, texts, writings...
D) A blend of the above.

Most often the blogspots are a blend of these categories, including photography and games, puzzles, tests, questionaries, fantasies, jokes, personal acrimony, scholarly work, everything imaginable – not forgetting remarks/comments by the readership, for the format is in most cases interactive.

The sharp upsurge in blog in Iceland was met with mainly two types of reaction: neophilia and neophobia – love and hate of the new. Yet another .com balloon, soon to burst, people said. This however still remains to be seen. Others talked about a new text sensibility and a new kind of freedom. Blog is neither edited nor likely to be censored, as is text in most other media. Even so, bloggers soon had to confront the dark side of blogging and its many defects; auto-censure is quite common in blogworld, for good or for bad – few hold that this is only for the bad. In Iceland there are cases of bloggers having been dragged to court for libel and many instances that have not gone quite so far. There are cases of children who have been subject to veritable persecution on the Internet. The interactivity factor, allowing for unedited comments, is prone to fill up with nameless acrimonious slander. In spite of this, blog flourishes. Many bloggers claim that this newfound freedom, absent in big media companies, is worth something; blog is independent and unfettered and it presents the possibility of presenting facets of existence that otherwise would never come to the surface.
Is blog something really new? Yes and no. One facet of blog consists of journals, in essence not unlike traditional journals, written in Iceland for centuries. On the other hand, the reader can often add his own comments to the journal entries. Pseudonyms (avatars) and anonymity plays a big part in this game. The public space and the private one, come together in quite an interesting way – that which is secret and that which is not is put to the test. It is therefore hardly surprising that in the Icelandic blogworld, knots of sorts, are prone to form; something is said in blogworld, that does not belong to the conventional public space, a blogger whispers a secret, true or false, and another blogger is caught in a trap – for blog forms a myriad of small societies in which people only know each other on line and not in reality: the Internet is such a fast medium and so vast. Like out at sea, eddies may form and, just as fast, dissolve, disappearing, leaving no trace whatsoever on the calm waters.

In 2002, the first novel, made up, almost exclusively out of blog, was published: Vaknað í Brussel (Down and Out in Brussels) by Elisabet Ólafsdóttir. Shortly before the book was published, the writer Ágúst Borgthór Sverrisson published a harsh critique of the book in a webzine on culture. In his critique he denounced to book, deeming the book typical for the state of culture in Iceland, where trash such as blog-literature earned high praise and automatically canonized by the literary institution, while „true literature“ was blandly received. The publisher, Kristján B. Jónasson, responded and the resulting debate was quite an interesting dialogue on literature and culture. Jónassson went further in denying the borders between high literature and low or popular culture, than had ever been done in Iceland before. Neither did Sverrisson mince his words in his condemnation of the book, even though he had not read the finished product and having only browsed its raw material on Ólafsdóttir’s blogspot. Here it should be noted that the raw material of novels is seldom available to critics before the publication of a novel. The debate eventually peetered out, without yielding any brilliant conclusions, and Ólafsdóttir’s book came out, full of spunk. She has yet to follow it up with another book. The debate on esthetics and cultural conditions did not turn out to be as fruitful, as its promising start had led many to hope. As a fitting footnote to this, Sverrisson, shortly afterwards, started his own blogspot, one that is still quite popular, as is Ólafsdóttir’s blogspot, in the name of Beta Rock, her Net avatar.
Reading such blogsites sometimes feels like poking one’s nose in other peoples’ business, in the manner of a Peeping Tom. That however is seldom quite the case; in most cases the „confessions“ or „secrets“ have an element of stageing and fiction: In fact, not many bloggers divulge everything, even though a lot is said. Some blogs are indeed closed, requiring a password to access the blog. In such cases the blogger may only give access to a selection of friends. In such cases the blog seems totally contained in the private sphere and it would indeed be a questionable act to read such blog, without permission.
What is blog and what does it demand of us? Is it literature? In the last century, it is interesting to note how much of literature sought its power and subversion to the fact of its being non-literature, counter-literature. This was for example part and parcel of the European avant-garde. The history of literature was proclaimed dead, fancy and pretentious. It was thought neccessary to start from scratch. This could be seen in cinema as well. In the first years of moving pictures, many creative a director fetched their fertile ideas from the fact that film was not at all seen as art at all but rather as cheap trash. Those times are long gone – the authors of film soon appeared on the scene. The heroes of blog have indeed also started showing up. Still the concept of literature, as an honorary medal, may turn out to be an albatross to hang around the blogger’s neck, not because blog is unworthy, but because such a venerable title may prove to hampering for a writing practice that is more remindful of a myriad of faces in a window.

Hermann Stefansson is a critic
Oversat fra islandsk af Halldóra Jónsdóttir