Is this project reckless or merely satiric? It must be one or the other. I'm in no intellectual position to compile this list, let alone write meaningfully (or even, perhaps, compellingly) about any, let alone all, of my chosen subjects. Should this disuade me?
Maybe I should take the less egotistical approach, in the communal spirit that drives Wiki software...
I can't. I won't. Not yet, at least. I need to see this project well off the ground, moving at sonic speed, before I cede its ownership to the collective....
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Trygve Lie was suggested to me. He was the first president of the United Nations, and a Norwegian. However, I had already considered, and decided against, Trygve Lie. I do intend to sketch his career in my chapter on his still-more important successor, Dag Hammarskjold.
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I admire Norway's practice of honoring cultural figures on its currency. I would like to see Edgar Allen Poe on the U.S. dollar and Emily Dickinson on the $100 bill!
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Deep into Heimskringla now, enjoying almost every gloriously gory, repetitive page of it. I may also have to reconsider Harald Fairhair, Haakon the Good and St. Olaf, all of whom had been previously struck from the 81.
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How could you possibly ignore Harald and St. Olaf?! They're critical figures. Harald was a fascinating figure and I think his contribution to Norway's history (as well as to our concept of what constitutes a viking spirit) is absolutely un-leave-out-able. What motivated you to not talk about these two? Their prevalence?
ReplyDeleteThanks for leaving the first ever comment on my blog, Shark. I appreciate your input. The list is still far from definite. I take names off, and occasionally, after due consideration, put them back on, all the time. I struck Harald Harfargr only recently, and most reluctantly; he (allegely) united Norway; his tyranny spurred the Viking colonization of Iceland and elsewhere (and thus, indirectly, the Viking discovery of North America); obviously I want to keep him. But I only have so much room. St. Olaf seems only to have completed a process well underway thanks to Haakon the (so called) Good and, especially, Olaf Trygvasson; St. Olaf seems, to my current knowledge at least, to have been far more important to Norway than to the world. But I will, in fact, be talking about all of these people, whether or not they make the final cut.
ReplyDeleteI think making a Wiki would take enormous guts, and I'm going to salute you when you do. Somehow, when you've told me your ideas for it, I've never thought about the fact that other people would be able to edit it.
ReplyDeleteThey won't be, at least unless/until I permit them. This is going to be my wiki, although available for public view, and I will more than welcome any and all suggestions as it evolves.
ReplyDeleteRobert, you are completely in an intellectual position to compile this list. And what you're doing is already meaningful.
ReplyDeleteYou only have to put your all into it, it doesn't have to be perfect.
And I cannot wait to read it!