föstudagur, mars 04, 2005

havtroll

I am still thinking about trolls and offshore nomenclature. There is an overlap here: the Norwegian oil and gas platforms named Troll A-C are out there sucking oil and gas up from the dark fields below the North Sea.

They are not alone. The pantheon is out there too: Brage, Heimdal, Njord, Balder, Byggve, Frigg, Sigyn, Skirne, Hod, Loke ... the list goes on and includes places (Åsgård, Valhall), objects (Draupnir, Gungne), and trusted steeds (Grane, Gullfaks, Sleipnir). The orthographical variation is an interesting distraction, but the overall implicit message is clear: having backed out of the sagadebatt, Norway has shifted the mythological signifiers of national selfhood to the deep wells of black liquid wealth and flickering blue flame that fuel contemporary society.

Even among all these other platforms, Troll stands out in memory. I recall when the handover went through in 1996 and the televisions were full of the massive Troll A and the booming voiceover: verdens åttende underverk ... gass til Europa og olje til Norge ... vær så god, Norge --and a blonde and be-bunad-ed lass bouncing in slow motion towards the camera waving a norsk flag. This every fifteen minutes, it seemed. TROLL. There was no ignoring it.

Just as, if one is a forward-thinking type, there is no ignoring the finite nature of the resources being tapped. What will happen when these so evocatively-named and powerful items of engineering are not longer linked to the actual source of Otherworld wealth?

This fellow Morten has a genialt notion of what to do when Troll A runs out of oil and is left derelict. He suggests that the whole 656,000 tons of it be moved to Bessvatn in the highland district of Norway called Jotunheim. There it would stand next to the fabled ridge Besseggen, the one along which Peer Gynt rode the reindeer buck headlong. Morten writes:

Troll A vil da på samme tid stå i sitt rette element (vannet), men likevel fullstendig malplassert (midt i fjellheimen). Samtidig vil det være en grusom betongbauta over den forakt for naturen og dobbeltmoralisme som mer enn noe annet har preget Norge siste tredjedel av 1900-tallet og fram til i dag. Det at Besseggen er blant Norges mest besøkte naturområder, og at den spiller en rolle i nasjonalhelligdommen Peer Gynt bidrar bare til å øke symbolikken.

Troll A would stand in its correct element (water), but also it would be totally mis-placed (in the middle of the mountains). At the same time it would be a gruesome concrete monument to the criminal disrespect for nature and hypocrisy that more than ever before has characterized Norway [from] the last third of the 1900s up to day. That Besseggen is among most-visited natural areas and that it plays a role in the national treasure Peer Gynt only serves to increase the symbolism.

It is good to see Norway has not yet drained its reserves of irony dry. One does worry sometimes.

I think this is a great idea, in its lunatic way. I can see the slogan already: Troll heim! Jotunheim! Where else should Norwegian trolls be sent than up in Peer Gynt country, up in the land of giants? It's repatriation.

Or viewed from another angle, the end of oil and gas is nothing if not Ragnarök, and wouldn't then the whole system of non-reciprocity between gods and giants then reverse itself, the gods losing the monopoly on acquiring items of value from neighboring realms? Don't the jötnar then march on the homes of the gods and carry off engines of wealth production to their mountain fastnesses? Either way, it all makes perfect, perverse sense.

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