Photo: Alex R Elms
As part of our Vaccines' takeover, bassist Arni Arnason talks us through his reading habits and favourite books he's been enjoying recently around the making of their huge new album, English Graffiti.
I read a lot. But I also re-read a lot. Whilst it might sound like a fairly stupid thing to do, you're not exactly taking in new information or widening your perspective, there's something amazing about reading a book for the second, third or the whateverth time. You never really read anything the same way twice. Having said that, making this little list of my favourite books I read around the recording of the album tells me I should probably pick up something new whe I finish this. Off we go.
Love Star – Andri Snær Magnason
At the end of 2013. the band took a little break from the road and I used the opportunity to lock myself in a cabin in Iceland - my motherland - and enjoy a little bit of long awaited silence. One of the books I read during this self-imposed exile was an English translation of a book called Love Star by Icelandic author Andri Snær. It was a hyper-stylised dystopian adventure when I first read it some 10ish years ago, but due to the enormous technological advances over the last decade, it reads like a parody today. More importantly though, this was the first time I'd re-read something in a different language and it had a massive effect on me. The idea of something being lost in translation all of a sudden made sense to me.
The Arctic Tern might not be known to most English speakers, but this bird's Icelandic name (Kría) conjures up millions of memories, unequivocal respect, and fear in the hearts of all Icelanders. It's a migrating bird that signals spring, longer days and the end of the oppressing darkness of winter, but also coming months of countless airstrikes by this feisty little creature. Kría and our experience of it is a defining element of our relationship with our country, and yet, in English it meant nothing to me. Its temper had been hampered by the translation.
The book's central theme still prevails. It's a love story for the ages. Worth a read at any point in anyone's life. I guess it's a perfect example that despite the inevitable price paid for making text universally available through translation, a good story will translate.
Eating Animals – Jonathan Safran Foer
During the first few months of 2014 we rented cottages and barns around the country and set up camp in them for a few weeks at a time. It was an interesting time as I had such great access to farm shops and the like as I was contemplating a slight dietary shift. My decision to go vegetarian was most certainly not caused by reading Eating Animals, but most certainly amplified by this gruesome read. At times overly preachy, sometimes sensationalist and even arguably questionably researched, it is nonetheless an incredibly powerful book. If you have no intentions on cutting down meat consumption I hardly recommend reading this book, but equally, I can't see any harm in anyone taking a brief glimpse at the modern food industry.
New York Trilogy – Paul Auster
I've been an outrageous Paul Auster fanboy for years now, and that has undeniably shaped my view of New York quite heavily. There are not many people that romanticise and mystify New York through their art as much as Paul Auster has done through the years. His pop-noire existentialism has made me a fairly standard residential street in Brooklyn feel magical and dreamlike.
We spent quite a bit of time in New York City in 2014. One of the great aspects of half the band living over there means you get to go over quite a bit. I'm very rarely without a book of Auster's on my person, so I've got no recollection of which one I was actually reading at the time, but for whoever hasn't indulged in Paul Auster before I'd highly recommend New York Trilogy as a starting point.
Independent People – Halldór Laxness
After having re-read Love Star I felt I had to re-visit some other Icelandic books in English, and those don't get bigger than Independent People. A timeless classic of Icelandic literature and arguably the country's only Nobel laureate's best work. A bleak epic of social realism where themes of independence and resistance to change reflects Iceland's stubborn hold onto tradition and history, (partially responsible for the nation living in turf huts well into the 20th century). It resonated strangely with the area we were holed up in for the recording of the album. Rural upstate New York was oddly an appropriate place to read a book full of such solitude. Its protagonist, Bjartur's, disposition is certainly bizarre, but it might be more human than uniquely Icelandic.
- The Vaccines release English Graffiti on 25 May.
Check out The Vaccines' full English Graffiti takeover below
INTERVIEW: 'No one ever says The Vaccines are important, I think we've achieved that now' - watch
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