Scan barcode
A review by fields
The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas
4.0
This book is told so delicately and simply, yet it is saturated with the poetics of winter. It does not surprise me to learn that Vesaas was also a gifted poet.
The friendship between two girls, Sinn and Unn, is only just beginning to bud, when they meet up alone for the first time, but it feels tremendously special and exciting to both of them. The following morning, in her excitement, Unn decides to wander away instead of going to school, and enters the Ice Palace, the name given to a structure created by a frozen waterfall. The Ice Palace is occupied with a chiaroscuro of ice and light and with mirrors created by the ice and light. Glittering, cold, full of unwordly shapes and openings.
What follows is a story that is haunting, melancholic, and, at times, hypnotic. The story of Sinn alone with a promise made to Unn. Her promise, which she holds onto, and guards, creates a space, an isolation, in which she gradually begins to lessen. She is not freed, and until she is freed, she will continue to lessen. It is also the story of the village, and how each inhabitant is haunted by the mysterious and saddening presence of an absence that is Unn. It is, furthermore, a story about the elements, the cold, the ice, the dark, and the mysteries they contain. It is about searching, hoping, and yearning.
I read this piece in May, throughout days full of greenery and blue skies and warmth, but I would like to return to it during darker, colder days. It is a beautifully crafted story and the lingering effect for me is a cold luminosity, a particle of light trapped in ice.
The friendship between two girls, Sinn and Unn, is only just beginning to bud, when they meet up alone for the first time, but it feels tremendously special and exciting to both of them. The following morning, in her excitement, Unn decides to wander away instead of going to school, and enters the Ice Palace, the name given to a structure created by a frozen waterfall. The Ice Palace is occupied with a chiaroscuro of ice and light and with mirrors created by the ice and light. Glittering, cold, full of unwordly shapes and openings.
What follows is a story that is haunting, melancholic, and, at times, hypnotic. The story of Sinn alone with a promise made to Unn. Her promise, which she holds onto, and guards, creates a space, an isolation, in which she gradually begins to lessen. She is not freed, and until she is freed, she will continue to lessen. It is also the story of the village, and how each inhabitant is haunted by the mysterious and saddening presence of an absence that is Unn. It is, furthermore, a story about the elements, the cold, the ice, the dark, and the mysteries they contain. It is about searching, hoping, and yearning.
I read this piece in May, throughout days full of greenery and blue skies and warmth, but I would like to return to it during darker, colder days. It is a beautifully crafted story and the lingering effect for me is a cold luminosity, a particle of light trapped in ice.