It wasn’t a book I’d heard of, but when I saw that title I just had to pick it up. When I saw the cover I had to open it. And the concept – one woman’s journey to the northern lights in search of her roots – ensured that the book came home.
It turned out to be book with a certain pedigree – a Radio 4 Book at Bedtime on my side of the Atlantic, and a New York Times Notable Book on the other. And definitely a book worth reading.
Clarissa is twenty-eight and living in New York with her fiance, who she has known since childhood, when her father dies. She has already lost her mother, who disappeared when she was fourteen. And then there is a another loss. Going through her father’s desk Clarissa finds her birth certificate, and discovers a different man is named as her father.
How do you deal with something like that? Clarissa abandons her fiance and travels to Helsinki and then further north into Lapland, in search of her family history and long-held secrets.
Vendela Vida tells her story in sparse, elegant prose, and creates lovely pictures of the places Clarissa travels through with just a few lines. But the real journey is an emotional one, as Clarissa breaks away from her roots to stare into the future alone.
A few things that happened didn’t quite ring true, but I was able to let them go, because they served the story well. And because Clarissa was such a vivid character. Though not always sympathetic. Her grief and sense of loss hit hard, she was clearly driven, but she was also selfish and thoughtless. A believable, fallible human being.
How could she put aside the memory of a man who raised her as his own so easily? How could she abandon without one word a fiance who had done all he could support her, simply because he hadn’t shared a secret that he felt wasn’t hers to tell?
‘And when I would hear people say that you can’t start over, that you cannot escape the past, I would think. You can. You must.’
I’m not sure if that’s a happy or a sad ending. I’m expected to be happy that Clarissa is looking forward into the future, but I have to feel sad that she feels she has to shed her past to do that. What do you think?
I think that maybe the greatest strength of this book is that it leaves enough space have that kind of thought …
Fleur in her World 
I felt as you did about this book. I read it awhile ago, but it has stuck with me, and I wrote at the end of my review that it would be a great book club read because of the questions it raises. What a great review you wrote! If you want to read mine, you can find it here.
That does sound like it would give you a lot to think about.
I think this is one that I must get my hands on. The cover is very powerful, especially after reading your review of it. I just checked and my library has it!!! thanks for another wonderful review and another book that I feel the need to read! 😀
Sounds interesting. And it does sound like it leaves you with a lot to think about. It sounds worth reading just to be able to form my own opinion on that.
I think I would pick up the book based on the cover as well. Your review is wonderful and I am sure that this is a book that I would enjoy reading.
I, too, read the book very quickly. The ending was sad, I thought, but it also seemed like the only way the story could have ended and still have been true to the character’s experience. ::sigh::
Sounds very thought provoking…one of those books that makes you stare into space and your mind wander after closing it. I like books like that. I’ll look out for this. Excellent review!
I haven’t read this yet, but after reading your review it sounds exactly like my cup of tea! Thank you for thoughts on it!