

The Coffee of Civilization in Iceland - romefort
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-coffee-of-civilization-in-iceland

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thruflo
If anyone's interested in modern Icelandic literature that echoes Laxness, I'd
heartily recommend the recent novels of Jon Kalman Stefansson, translated by
Phil Roughton [0].

You'll certainly get a feel for why they drink coffee.

[0] e.g. [http://www.amazon.com/Heaven-Hell-Jon-Kalman-
Stefansson/dp/1...](http://www.amazon.com/Heaven-Hell-Jon-Kalman-
Stefansson/dp/1849164061)

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igni
Strange that the article doesn't cover anything I'd call the essence of
coffee, smell/taste/flavour.

I visited Iceland a few years ago, and while I was there for only 10days or so
(and drove the length of the ring-road that encircles it), have an
overwhelming memory of terrible American drip-style coffee. I wonder if that
was coffee made for tourism or a reaction to ordering in English not
Icelandic. Makes me hope so, so I can return and try again.

~~~
_delirium
Coffee in the Nordic region is about many things, but taste is not high up on
the list.

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AngrySkillzz
Wow, this article is absolutely unreadable. As an example,

> In this case, though, I’ll indulge just a little because, although a
> newcomer to the country, I am an old-comer to the culture: my mother-in-law,
> still with us at ninety-five, is as Icelandic as could be and, although
> Canadian Icelanders are not exactly the same as the homespun kind, they are
> still almost indistinguishable from the natives.

So many non-essential dependent clauses. Every other sentence is like this:
fifty sentences and over one hundred commas. Who thinks this is good style?

~~~
verisimilitude
Prose of this style is common at The New Yorker. And since Gopnik has been
writing it there since I was in diapers, I have to think he knows some things
about writing that neither you nor I do. Furthermore, given the publication's
legendary reputation for fact-checking and extremely high standards in
journalistic integrity, I would reconsider your stance of rejecting the
article before seeing if there is anything to be learned from it. After all,
complicated sentence mechanics can be (1) intentional and considered or (2)
accidental, revealing unclear, half-formed thoughts. In this case, I believe
it is the former.

Taking into account the proclivities and interests of the Hacker News
audience, perhaps you would be interested in reading an excellent, recent
profile of Apple's Jony Ive at The New Yorker:
[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/shape-things-
co...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/shape-things-come)

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Graham24
I've been to Iceland and I have to say that if all you can write about is the
coffee, then you rather missed the point.

~~~
mafro
Did you read the article? It's actually not really about coffee. In fact, very
little of the content is about coffee.

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ZanyProgrammer
Strangely, Iceland has become a sort of bizarre Mecca over the past several
years for several strains of leftism.

~~~
necrodawg
Iceland is pretty right wing compared to the other nordics.

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thisjepisje
Diane...

