To Siberia [Paperback]

Firmly rooted in the harsh Scandinavian landscape which informs every aspect of his writing, Per Petterson creates novels that appear to spring fully grown from the rocky soil of his Norwegian background. His characters are hardy people who rein in their passions, except when under the influence of alcohol, subduing their private griefs in the cold and brittle emotional climate which surrounds them. His plots, like life, consist mainly of fragile moments--moments of great significance for the individuals living them, but often lacking in drama on a grander scale, and when traumas occur, they are simply accepted as part of life.

To Siberia, the latest of Petterson's novels to be translated into English (though it was written in 1996), continues these themes. Set in Skagen, at the tip of Jutland, it features an unnamed speaker, who is age five when the novel opens. Her father is a carpenter/joiner, one of the best; her extremely religious mother creates and sings hymns. Neither pays much attention to her. Almost anonymous, the little girl comes closest to having a name when her devoted brother Jesper refers to her as "Sistermine." Though Jesper is three years older, the two spend much time together, sharing their dreams--Jesper planning to become a Socialist and going to Morocco, while Sistermine intends to travel from Moscow to Vladivostok on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Though she knows that Siberia is cold, she also believes that the Siberians have furs to keep them warm, and that's all that is important to her at this stage of her life.

Time moves back and forth here, and we know from the beginning that the novel consists of reminiscences by a sixty-year-old speaker whose brother died thirty years before. We meet her childhood friends, watch Sistermine and Jesper grow through their teen years, begin to have feelings for the opposite sex, and, more importantly, learn about why their parents have remained in a place which enslaves them. When the Germans overrun Denmark, in 1940, life does not change very much for the child, but two years later, she is told that she will have to leave school because of lack of money and the war. "What War?" she cries. "No one dares to fight in this country." Only Jesper has become involved, helping to ferry Jews out of Denmark to other countries.

Dark and often bleak, To Siberia uses its title as a symbol of the yearnings of the main character, and the reader recognizes almost from the outset that she is already in Siberia, emotionally. The overwhelming feeling for the reader is a kind of claustrophobia---a feeling of characters being hemmed in, frozen alive, with no escape from the serious business of living, despite the fact that the gray oceans they see all around them appear endless, and the snow-covered fields go on forever. Though the characters remain too distant and private to evoke much empathy, the author's elegant, spare writing is magnificent, a foretaste of the style and themes of Out Stealing Horses, which followed this novel seven years later. n Mary Whipple

Out Stealing Horses (Wheeler Softcover)
In the Wake

The books seemed to me to be written in two parts. The first was a wonderful story of brother and sister growing up, harsh at times, but written written so well it seems like an autobiography. The second is the reality of leaving your childhood behind and realising your life isn't going to follow the path you thought it would. Bleak at times but leaves you with a small glimmer of hope for the future. Recommended.

While Norwegian music is not totally unfamiliar to me (a-ha from the 80s and more recently, Secret Garden), I confess to not having read many Norwegian authors other than Henrick Ibsen, so its good to find a contemporary and reasonably-acclaimed Norwegian writer.

To Siberia was written in 1996 and won the Nordic Council's Literature Prize. It was translated into English by Anne Born and has recently been republished by Vintage Books, making a nice set of three together with In The Wake, and Peterson's most recent book, Out Stealing Horses (which has an incredibly gloomy synopsis provided by the publishers on their website).

To Siberia certainly lives up to its reputation of being, er, er . . . Scandinavian. Set in the cold land of Danish Jutland, where the sea freezes over and even the next town of Skagen is "nothing but sand".

The story is narrated by an un-named young girl. The nearest we get to a name is when her brother addresses her as Sistermine. I think there should be a rule that writers should name their characters, for how can we poor reviewers refer to them other than by annoying descriptive titles such as the one I use, "the narrator". The family are incredibly poor. The father works as a carpenter but is an inept businessman who charges minimal amounts for his work, while the mother is a deeply religious writer of hymns but refuses to publish them or even to sing them in public.

The atmosphere throughout the book is dour but relieved by the accounts of the narrator who has a quirky outlook on life and shares some childhood escapades with her brother Jesper, such as climbing out of the bedroom window at night and wandering through the quiet town and making forays across the frozen waters.

Both brother and sister dream of escape from this cold land, Jesper to Morocco, and the narrator, more surprisingly to Siberia, where after a journey on the Trans-Siberian railway, she would find, "open skies that were cold and clear, where it was easy to breathe and easy to see for long distances" (I thought Denmark was already like that).

The narrator has a bitter existence in the cold of the town, with a father subject to drinking binges and a religious but rather withdrawn mother. She finds a friend in the more wealthy Lone (the headmaster's daughter) and borrows books from her father's extensive library, but alas, Lone later dies of an unknown disease leaving the narrator almost friendless again.

The Germans invade Denmark when the narrator is 14. The government of Denmark capitulated quickly to the German advance and soldiers are billeted in the village. There are efforts at resistance and Jesper is drawn to secret adventures, even to the extent of transporting a limpet mine on his bicycle.

The narrator goes swimming with a friend neary young German soldiers who are also bathing and when one of the young men nearly drowns after diving into shallow waters, she dives in and rescues him, pumping air out of her lungs with her knee. When he comes round and she realises that she has been closer to this German soldier than to her own brother, she slaps him hard on the face.

After the war, Jesper makes it to Morocco, but the narrator only seems to get as far as Oslo and Stockholm, eventually returning home, to find great sadness. The book ends with no relief from the almost stereotypically Scandinavian gloom, and the last sentence offering a final sigh of despair,

I am 23 years old, there is nothing left in life. Only the rest.

I suppose the sort of thing one usually says about a book like this is that "it is beautifully written" or some such. Well, it is an evocative picture of a time of deprivation and soul-sapping poverty. While the narrator has a unique outlook on life which gives the book a touch of humour, overall, the grey skies and bleak aspect of the landscape infect the narrative a little more than makes for an enjoyable read. I cannot help but compare To Siberia with Repartriated by Adriaan Van Dis which treats a not dissimilar theme and setting with far more humour and interest.

It has been interesting to read something Norwegian for a change, and the book is undoubtedly worthwhile, but not one of the best I have read in recent months.