incidentally, i'm intrigued by the mention of smoked puffin in the article. the only other puffins in print i've encountered were in enid blyton's island of adventure. there were two of them, they were called huffin and puffin, named such by kiki the parrot because of the three little pigs.
iceland, so recently introduced by three eliot weinberger essays (all of which, thanks to jacket magazine, have been fully reproduced online here) once again comes my way in this article on a cartoonist's travels in iceland. i really returned to iceland by way of louis macneice, while looking for a copy of his unfinished autobiography ‘the strings are false’. instead, i stumble onto ‘letters from iceland’ which its book seller advertises as "one of the most curious books of all time: a travel book written by two poets, but also a meditation on the history of europe, the 1930s political crisis, englishness and the nature of literature. in 1936 faber and faber commissioned auden and macneice to travel to iceland and write an account of their journey. the result is a synthesis of poetry, diary entries, satire and dramatic eclogue, a landmark of world literature that is as innovative and insightful as it is by turns touching, funny, absurd and deeply disorientating." the thought was enchanting. i searched further for macneice and iceland on google, thereupon thrust face to face with the murphy essay. it is nothing like weinberger's. rather, a straightforward travel narrative, but in some ways this is an advantage. iceland becomes accessible through murphy; through weinberger, fascinatingly alien.