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Light up those deep Northern villages
This is a story with a moral for people who live by their instagram feeds – living a life defined and paid for, by social media exposure, can be more of a ‘drudge’ and be more limiting, than working in an office. you may think you are living a free life, but in fact you are not – you are bought and paid for by your advertisers. And in this story, this proves to be only to true for the couple that thought that they were giving into their wander lusting and living free of the consumer/money driven world.
We read the disturbing story of the couple who whilst scuba diving off Samoa, mountain climbing in Norway and all their many other adventures, yet they were always ‘on’, on an adventure, that was being photographed and videoed for the their followers. Being a digital influencer was not a job with many hours off. and where they went and where they stayed was always with an eye to how they could improve their ratings and followers.
To counter this, with a story set on the same mountains but in 1936. This part of Norway is rather remote especially in 1936. roads hadn’t yet reached across and through the mountains and the modern conveniences of skidoos and helicopters were not yet available.
So the village still abided by pagan customs mixed with Christian and old ways of farming. And i was a little concerned that, if the village was that remote, wasn’t there a good chance of too much in-breeding?
I found myself getting more and more engrossed by both storylines as the book progressed. Initially, it was difficult to see where the two interlinked and some elements remained unresolved as the book ended – but we can always hope for the happiest of endings of course.
I was concerned about a couple of things – okay they improved the story but even here in England no-one goes up a mountain, especially in winter, without a winter pack – including hot drinks, silver blankets for accidents and extra layers surely? At least that”s what our rescue guys always tell us. Yet in Chapter 9 we have an experienced guide doing just that.
Having been to Gereinger myself, I enjoyed re-visiting, in my memory the fjord and its waterfalls and the little orchards down by the water’s edge. And having spoken to natives, know just how easy it is to get cut-off there by snow in the winter – and funnily enough – to match the story – I arrived there on the cusp of pneumonia but with the antibiotics having just kicked in by 24 hours…!
For me it’s a 4.5 – rounded up.
