Two 11-year old girls, Unn and Siss, meet. Unn is about to reveal a secret, one that leads to her death in a formation of ice caused by a large waterfall. Siss's struggle with her fidelity to the memory of a friend, the strange frozen world of the waterfall, and the description of Unn's fatal exploration of the ice palace are described in prose of a lyrical economy that ranks among the memorable achievements of modern literature.
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.”
Reading updates
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Started reading
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1 May, 2009:
Finished reading
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1 May, 2009:
Reviewed