Children in Reindeer Woods

A few years ago my wife visited Iceland and returned with a stack of books. One of them, Bloodhoof, a collection of poems in both Icelandic and English, she took a stab at translating herself with the help of a dictionary.

This is the first one I've dipped into it, and it's quite unlike anything I've ever read, It's a modern fairytale that takes place at a summer camp called Children in Reindeer Woods, and is linked by road to the Ceaseless Heath, the Endless Pass, and the Forever Valley.

The heroine is an 11-year-old girl named Billie. Her father believes he is a puppet. Whenever his arm is torn off, Billie's mother sews it back on. 

Billie has several dolls. One is named Guggalugga, another is bald, and a third is pregnant.

The man in charge of the camp is a former ballet dancer with splayed feet.

Somewhere in the Distance a War is Going on.

The story begins with the arrival of a soldier named Rafael. He wants to be a farmer and gets rid of his uniform but not his weapons.

Another soldier arrives. He parachutes in with a guitar. 

A pair of tax collectors show up with a briefcase full of money in the trunk of their car.

A nun comes to the back door and asks for food, then a cigarette. Rafael offers her a drink. She takes off her clothes, plays the guitar, and kisses Raphael.

The last visitor is a shepherd who has been tending a flock of sheep all summer. He plans on returning to university.

Except for Rafael, none of them stay around for any longer than a night. When he and Billie have an argument, they call each other idiot-head and pretzel-face.

Eyes of a Child

There are brief moments of violence but they are not gruesome, and some are absurd. Two dolls commit suicide. Raphael hangs a chicken for crapping in the house, and blows up two cars.

Many of the scenes are described with a childlike innocence.

The cow lowed from out back as though it was missing the fun. Mooooo.

[Billie] dried her mouth as if it were a stamp and the napkin an important document.

The automobile set off from the place.  Fart Fart.

When Rafael and Billie decide to get married, the dolls are witnesses. "We'll let the hens sign the contract," says Billie.

The final chapter caps the surreal nature of the book. It takes place on the planet of the puppeteers who control Billie's father. 

Author

Kristen Omarsdottir is an Icelandic author, poet, playwright, and visual artist. She has written other novels but this is the only one that has been translated into English. The translation is by Lytton Smith.

Operation Mincemeat

Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory

Operation Mincemeat was a part of a plan to convince Hitler that the Allies, following the success of their North Africa campaign, intended to mount a double-pronged invasion of Europe at Sardinia and Greece, and not Sicily, the most logical target.

Mincemeat was implemented by British Naval Intelligence.  The cadaver of a derelict was fitted out with a uniform, identity papers, and a sealed envelope containing information about the bogus invasion. The body was placed in a sealed cannister filled with dry ice, and carried by submarine to Spain and deposited close enough to shore where it could be found, with the hope that the envelope would make its way into Nazi hands.

A Novel Approach

The plan took an immense amount of planning and had many possible points of failure.  For example, it was not enough to plant fake ID papers on the cadaver.  An entire personality had to be created.  It was as if they were "constructing a character in a novel."

The author points out that "the greatest writers of spy fiction have, almost in every case, worked in intelligence before turning to writing."  He mentions Somerset Maugham, John Buchan, Graham Greene, John le Carre, and of course Ian Fleming, who happened to be the personal assistant of Admiral John Godfrey, head of Naval Intelligence and a man with a "sandpaper personality."  He served as the model for M in his James Bond novels.

Twin Frailties 

Admiral Godrey described wishfulness and yesmanship as the "twin frailties of German intelligence" 

"The Nazi high command ... when presented with contradictory intelligence reports, was 'inclined to believe the one that fits in best with their own previously formed conceptions.'"  Hitler's "favourite intelligence analyst," Alexis von Roenne, told Hitler what he wanted to hear, that the information was genuine.

Yet the whole story does not end there.  Unknown to anyone, von Roenne had turned against the Nazi regime.  In 1944  he deliberately misled Hitler about Allied plans for the invasion of Normandy.  He was executed after the failed plot to assassination Hitler.  Although he played no part in it he was a close friend of several conspirators 

Illustrations

There are 14 pages of b&w photos. The person on the cover is Ewen Montagu, one of the masterminds of Mincemeat.  His brother, Ivor, was a communist spy.

The following map shows the route taken by the bogus information:

.