The Museum of Whales You Will Never See

Starred review from March 2, 2020
Artist and Southwest Review associate editor Greene (Vagrants and Uncommon Visitors) delivers a delightful one-of-a-kind journey through some of Iceland’s, if not the world’s, most unusual museums. Greene takes the reader all over the small island nation, from remote Bíldudalur, home of the Icelandic Sea Monster Museum, to tiny Skógar, home to 21 people and to Iceland’s largest museum outside of Reykjavík. The institutions visited range from collections of mundane artifacts from Iceland’s once-thriving herring industry to the most unlikely of museums, the Icelandic Phallological Museum, a “kind of mammal-phallus Noah’s Ark.” Greene turns what easily could have become a mere cabinet of curiosities into a thoughtful and complex work. Insightful meditations on the nature of collecting and writers’ role as organizers and curators of their own work complement passages on Icelandic history, and all add color and context to the museums described. Almost as hard to classify as it would be not to enjoy, Greene’s expertly assembled blend of travel writing, history, museum studies, and memoir proves as memorable as any museum exhibition.

March 15, 2020
A quirky, personal travel guide to some of the offbeat sites that Iceland has to offer. Greene, who has worked at several museums, joyfully recounts her experiences in Iceland, a country of 330,000 people, visiting 28 of their 265 museums, most "established in the last twenty years." In this debut memoir, the author writes that she's never "known a place where the boundaries between private collection and public museum are so profoundly permeable, so permissive, so easily transgressed and so transparent as if almost not to exist." Some, in fact, don't exist--e.g., the title museum. There's an air of Italo Calvino's fantastical Invisible Cities wafting its way throughout, as Greene guides us with childlike wonder through such museums as "Sverrir Hermannsson's Sundry Collection," the "Herring Era Museum," "The Museum of Prophecies," and the "Icelandic Sea Monster Museum." First up is the Icelandic Phallological Museum, a "kind of mammal-phallus Noah's Ark," where visitors can gaze upon penises of duck, ocean perch, polar bears, and other domestic and foreign animals. On one wall there's a "lovely installation," Our Silver Boys, which the author describes as "fifteen silver casts representing the Icelandic national handball team, stood upright like thriving mushrooms." Petra's Stone Collection, picked by herself and family members near their home, is outside, for all to see. Greene's story is not just about the museums, but also about the people who create their individualistic collections and their families, who often keep them and a small cafe or gift shop going. Greene tantalizes us with a visit to the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft, formerly a hardware store, curated by Siggi, or the Sorcerer, which displays whips, life-size facsimiles of outlandish Icelandic necropants (pants made from a dead man's skin) and 11 installations. "Ten," Greene writes, "if you fail to count the invisible boy." A beguiling and witty assessment of a country's obsessive urge to curate.

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May 1, 2020

Not so much a guidebook as a meditation on how museums develop, this book from writer/artist Greene explores the social and cultural history of the people and country of Iceland. It is a tribute to museums of an island nation with only 333,000 people but more than 265 museums. How does a seemingly random assortment of objects map a people's past and future? From the Icelandic Phallological Museum to the Museum of Sorcery and Witchcraft, most museums in Iceland were established in the past 20 years, coinciding with the increased interest in tourism. The author considers how collections by themselves are just groups of things, and how a collection becomes a museum when it is arranged into a story. VERDICT For travelers and those interested in museums, collecting, Icelandic history and culture, and a poetic look at the country's museums.--Susan Belsky, Oshkosh P.L., WI

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 15, 2020
Greene, an American writer, artist, and Fulbright recipient, presents a thoroughly surprising book on a completely unexpected topic that will fill readers with joyful literary appreciation. In this tremendously engaging and idiosyncratic guidebook, Greene celebrates Icelandic curiosity and creativity, while also deeply exploring the country's history and people. As she recounts her visits to a selection of Iceland's 265 intriguing museums and public collections and her conversations with curators, she shares her own observations while considering objects found in the Icelandic Phallological Museum, the Icelandic Sea Monster Museum, the Herring Era Museum, and more. With an ear for stories and an eye for delight, Greene has crafted a chronicle that shines with wit and warms with compassion. Why do the 330,000 people of Iceland embrace offbeat collecting so passionately? What draws them to the secrets of stones or makes them want to see folklore-inspired displays? There are no definitive answers to these questions, but Greene, a creative and eloquent twenty-first-century cultural explorer, asks them anyway, and her investigations have resulted in a gleaming gem of intelligent writing and an exuberant travelogue.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)