I was expecting more. 

The highlight of this novel is the landscape. As with the first, you can picture the vast desolation —that claustrophobic sensation of being trapped in too much space, though not quite mid-Saskatchewan, cos this contains all the majestic fjords and mountains and icebergs. An inspiring setting, no question. 

Unfortunately, the setting is the best part. The characters sort of drop in without much development, and the plot isn’t overly complex, though the progression of the storytelling is… interesting… different… a break from the norm.

The writing is a bit clunky—though I might also call it strictly functional—so I’m not sure that’s a translation thing or an intentional style… but we don’t really get sucked into caring for many of these characters as a result. I was hoping to feel more for Hulda, but she doesn’t seem to feel much for herself even when she’s addressing her feelings; she’s coldly resigned to her fate, and only in the smallest devious manner willing to fight for her own status in the workplace—which I suppose is an accurate picture of what Icelandic women in the nineties had to face and overcome. It should be a more rage-inducing insight, and definitely interesting, but comes across as flat fact and reality to fester over delivering no hope for change—and I’d say maybe that’s an Icelandic approach except it was Icelandic women, stoic and determined, who walked off the job to protest inequality in the workplace. Of course, that wasn’t until years after the setting in this novel, and you can feel the rippling vibes of it beginning here in this text. But I want Hulda to care more, and it’s like she comes to the line but is terrified to step a toe over—and possibly too exhausted and worn out to do so. Can you blame her in that environment? You see her trying, though, with a bit of effort, to stand up to the chauvinism and injustice all around—and pouring herself into her work with excessive dedication. We do get the feeling of her detachment and the sense that she’s so very lonely…