There is something a little weird about this book. I'm not really one for books written in very poetic language, where the language is almost the point of the writing. I like a good plot and characters I can identify with. This book, though short, only spoke to me sporadically; the rest of the time I felt I was being held at arms length.

I wonder, too, with books in translation, if too much is lost. Certainly in this case I struggle to believe the translator got the spirit of the work. When I read lines like "The weather was thick and blind again that day, and seemed to be saying boo!" I can't help but wonder if Elizabeth Rokkan was really trying, or if maybe she was trying to express something untranslatable.