The Ice Palace (Green Integer, #120) (Peter Owen modern classics) (Peter Owen Cased Classics)

by Tarjei Vesaas

Elizabeth Rokkan (Translator)

'I'm surprised it isn't the most famous book in the world' Max Porter

'How simple this novel is. How subtle. How strong. How unlike any other. It is unique. It is unforgettable. It is extraordinary' Doris Lessing


'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.

• ISBN10: 0241321212
• ISBN13: 9780241321218
• Publish Date: 25 January 2018 (first published January 1966)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Imprint: Penguin Classics
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 144
• Language: English

Reviews

[jamiereadthis]

I have this tucked away corner of a shelf with a small stack of books, a treasure trove of only the most specific kind of simple, magical, eerie, uncannily wise books. Saved up, tucked aside, bottled away, just in case there’s one day, off chance, wild notion, life gets inadvertently full of little tangled limbs and skint knees who clamor for bedtime stories with sleepy eyes. “Break glass in case of kids,” it could say.

They are not children’s books. But, somehow, they are the books that belong to the world children inhabit already, the ones that give us, all grown up, merely a taste and a too-brief pass into the way we used to have the world ourselves.

This is one such book, striking and surreal and under glass. Perfect for now, and saved up for one day, maybe.

“It had been a time of snow and a time of death and of closed bedrooms— and she had arrived bang on the other side of it, her eyes dimming for joy because a boy had said, ‘You with the dimples.’

“Woodwind players are walking at the sides of the road. You walk as fast as you can, and wish at the same time that the road would never end.”