Review: 'The Ice Palace' by Tarjei Vesaas

Title: The ice palace

Author: Tarjei Vesaas

Publisher: Penguin Modern Classics

Year: 2018

Pages: 139

IBSN-13: 978-0241321218

Price: 9.4€ (Paperback Amazon)

Mark: 10/10

SYNOPSIS

'She was close to the edge now: the ice laid its hand upon her'

The schoolchildren call it the Ice Palace: a frozen waterfall in the Norwegian fjords transformed into a fantastic structure of translucent walls, sparkling towers and secret chambers. It fascinates two young girls, lonely Unn and lively Siss, who strike up an intense friendship. When Unn decides to explore the Ice Palace alone and doesn't return, Siss must try to cope with the loss of her friend without succumbing to a frozen world of her own making.

PERSONAL ASSESSMENT

JUSTIFICATION

I didn’t have any specific reason why I have decided to read the book, I simply saw the book discounted in Amazon and I fell in love with its cover (and the synopsis seemed very interesting to me) and considering my love for Ibsen -that it seemed that it was going to be extended to all Norwegian writers of the 20th century- made the book rather attractive.

PLOT

In a distant Norwegian village, there’s a newcomer called Unn, daughter of a single woman that when she dies, her daughter must go to that village to live with her auntie. Siss and Unn are classmates but they have never talked. After some months they keep a conversation through notes and they decided to meet that afternoon on Unn’s house. After the classes, Siss passes by at home to tell her parents that she is going to Unn’s house, where they forge a beautiful friendship. The following day Unn decides to play truant and to go to the Ice Palace, a kind of ice cave formed by the partial freezing of the water of a waterfall. Unn goes inside and… disappears. Siss and all the people from the village goes into a frantic search and… to know what happens you must read the book!

CHARACTERS

• Siss: she is the popular girl, she has lots of friends but so few of them are true. Siss is so outgoing and friendly, but everything changes when Unn disappears. She turns into a withdrawn person, angry with the whole world. In the end, Siss is just a girl that must cope with the vanishing of her ‘best’ friend and we take part in that suffering and its evolving as character as well as person.
• Unn: she is more shy, quiet and introverted. We don’t know so much about her, just that her single mother died and that she doesn’t like to talk about that. She forges a special friendship with Siss and she shows that she is a quite insecure person, that’s why she decides to go to the Ice Palace. She is a rather mysterious character.

ATMOSPHERE AND WRITING STYLE

Tarjei has the magic of the Norwegian writing, I don’t know what it is, but its way of writing enchants and catches you. He gets you to imagine the Ice Palace, to see yourself surrounded by snow. His words, captivating, make you empathize with Siss, you suffer her anguish. It is a book that teaches you how to overcome something and continue your life. While you read this book, you feel inside that Ice Palace, you are again that helpless child facing the life’s tough moments and, with the coming of spring, everything changes.

GENERAL COMMENT

It seems to be another simple book about the friendship between two girls, but the beauty lies beneath its main metaphor, the Ice Palace as child innocence, a rather beautiful metaphor. But it is not just that, the friendship between Siss and Unn is gorgeous, real, pure. What struck me was the end of the book, it wasn’t exactly as I have expected, even though that I considered lots of hypothetical endings (if you have read it please, comment below, I need somebody to talk about that ending). It is one of those books that, even they are short, they fill you, making you think about it some days. I love this book. And I declare myself a great fan of Vesaas and of the Norwegian literature of the 20th century.

-Saru