Arrestingly beautiful metaphorical exploration of grief and loss. But also haunted by things just off-screen: the unsaid, the unseen, and unknown. The book ends but its mysteries still remain.

It has invaded me.

Wat beschrijft Tarjei Vesaaas het Noorse landschap en de seizoenen toch mooi. En de innerlijke wereld van zijn personages. Eerder las ik De Vogels van dezelfde schrijver. Een boek dat me betoverde. Nog net een beetje meer dan Het Ijspaleis dat deed. Misschien ook omdat het eerste boek was wat ik van hem las. Maar ook hier weer even verdwenen in een verstilde wereld vol gevoel. Ik las het vrijwel achter elkaar in een avond en een stukje ochtend uit.

In such a short amount of time and in so few, yet potent, words, Vesaas delivers a chilling, metaphor-driven tale of loss set in the dense winters of Norway. You really should read this book. It is a very quick read, but it will remain with you long after you finish the last page.

Vesaas, who was a decorated poet as well as a novelist, delivers a fresh, poetic and concise prose that damn near flows off the page. The real majesty however, is in the way he crafts an environment that reads like a living, breathing character. The snowy landscapes that blanket this novel, and the Ice Palace itself, are just as important characters as the two female leads themselves as Vesaas illustrates them in layers of metaphoric beauty. Also, his ethereal imagery will make you feel like there is a savage winter storm just beyond your window regardless of the actual weather outside.

This novel reads like a long form poem as there is so much below the surface and the actual words. It is filled with symbols and metaphors that are very direct to the plot and characters and open up a much broader understanding of Siss and her tribulations. While the prose is swift and the novel is short, you would do well to slow down and really examine what Vesaas has written much as you would do with any poem. Without giving anything away, the ice palace found in the novel can be viewed on many different levels; from a symbol of several of the characters, as death, or even as the novel itself. I don’t want to go into it as not to provide spoilers but after reading this I felt cheated that I didn’t read this for a class and didn’t have an essay to formulate as I had so much to say about all of Vesaas’ hidden messages.

This is a near perfect, and very teach-able, novel. It calls up the nostalgic feeling of adolescence, dazzles you with it’s simple and direct poetry, provides food for thought, constantly keeps things fresh as the style shifts around (one chapter is just a short poem), plus it practically has its own soundtrack with the vivid cracking of ice and as it’s hard not to image a woodwind composition playing after all the talk of woodwind players in the last third of the novel. Oh, and there is some terrifying bits about walking down the road in opaque darkness. This novel is powerful and chilling (sorry, after all the descriptions of icy cold I had to include at least one 'cold' pun).
5/5