{"id":103223,"date":"2016-09-29T18:42:59","date_gmt":"2016-09-29T22:42:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=103223"},"modified":"2016-09-30T15:25:28","modified_gmt":"2016-09-30T19:25:28","slug":"snorri-the-seal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/29\/snorri-the-seal\/","title":{"rendered":"Snorri the Seal"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>

What a vain little seal!<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s Banned Books Week, and everyone is rallying around the classics: your Gatsby<\/em>s, your Catcher in the Ryes<\/em>, your Mockingbird<\/em>s and Lady Chatterley<\/em>s. No one is giving any love to Snorri the Seal<\/em>\u2014to my eye one of the handsomest books ever to face censorship.<\/p>\n

Snorri <\/em>is a Norwegian children\u2019s book written and illustrated by Frithjof S\u00e6len. Published in 1941, during the Nazi occupation of Norway, it tells the story of \u201cthe vainest little seal in the Arctic Ocean\u201d\u2014that\u2019s our Snorri!\u2014who whiles away his seal-days delighting in his own good looks. And who wouldn\u2019t, with a luxurious coat like his? He\u2019s so self-absorbed that he fails to see trouble on the horizon in the form of Brummelab, a distinctly Soviet polar bear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"seal4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Clearly there\u2019s a metaphor afoot, and S\u00e6len knows how to run with it: he stocks the book with obvious stand-ins for various nation-states. (Even the ice floe Snorri plays on is shaped like Norway.) Snorri evades Brummelab only to encounter Glefs, a Teutonic killer whale who butters him up by admiring his (Aryan?) features and making a lot of false promises; then he crosses paths with Sving and Svang, a pair of S.S.\u2013ish seagulls who have the troublesome habit of broadcasting Snorri\u2019s coordinates to Brummelab and co. Oh, and Snorri routinely ignores his Uncle Bart, a well-intentioned walrus with an avuncular, deeply Anglo mustache.<\/p>\n

Suffice to say that Snorri <\/em>served as an acerbic little allegory for the geopolitical jam Norway had found itself in. As heavy-handed as it was\u2014bear in mind that it was even marketed as \u201ca fable in color for children and adults\u201d\u2014what\u2019s more remarkable is that it eluded the Nazi censors. Actually, the Nazis were kind of into it, at first. Kathleen Stokker describes its publication in her book Folklore Fights the Nazis<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\n

[Snorri<\/em>] actually received high praise in the Nazi-controlled press. The German-language Deutszche Zeitung in Norvegen reviewed it favorably, while the Norwegian Nazi organ Fritt folk <\/em>extrolled S\u00e6len as \u201cthe Norwegian Walt Disney,\u201d and assured readers that \u201cboth adults and children will enjoy making this book\u2019s acquaintance.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"snorri_1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That was in November. By December, they\u2019d wised up and tried to confiscate all the Snorri<\/em>s swimming around, but upward of twelve thousand copies were out there. In January, when they dragged S\u00e6len in for a grueling three hours of questioning, he leaned on that strategy most beloved by allegorists: plausible deniability. The Nazis let him go. He went on to take prominent positions in the Norwegian resistance movement and ultimately escaped to England.<\/p>\n

As for Snorri, I\u2019m sure I don\u2019t need to remind you that his story\u2014of the dangers of complacency in a time of grave political danger\u2014is timeless. At the risk of putting too fine a point on it, let me add that Donald Trump bears a striking resemblance to the evil polar bear.<\/p>\n

\"snorri-growler-001\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Banned Books Week, and everyone is rallying around the classics: your Gatsbys, your Catcher in the Ryes, your Mockingbirds and Lady Chatterleys. No one is giving any love to Snorri the Seal\u2014to my eye one of the handsomest books ever to face censorship. Snorri is a Norwegian children\u2019s book written and illustrated by Frithjof […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[489],"tags":[24855,20126,8809,2968,12555,24856,247,2783,24858,15213,24854,10588,6122,7479,24857,24853,2021],"class_list":["post-103223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-2","tag-24855","tag-allegories","tag-banned-books-week","tag-censorship","tag-childrens-literature","tag-frithjof-saelen","tag-germany","tag-illustrations","tag-kathleen-stokker","tag-metaphors","tag-nazi-occupation","tag-nazis","tag-norway","tag-satire","tag-seals","tag-snorri-the-seal","tag-world-war-ii"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBanned Books Week: Snorri the Seal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Looking at one of the most remarkable children's books ever to slip past the censors.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/29\/snorri-the-seal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Snorri the Seal by Dan Piepenbring\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"September 29, 2016 \u2013 It\u2019s Banned Books Week, and everyone is rallying around the classics: your Gatsbys, your Catcher in the Ryes, your Mockingbirds and Lady Chatterleys. 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