To Siberia: A Novel
by Per Petterson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Per PettersonTranslator: Anne Born
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-09-30
ISBN: 1555975062
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Book Reviews of To Siberia: A Novel
Book Review: "We had been Hitler's little pet, but now it was WAR, and things would no longer be as they were."
Summary: 4 Stars
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: A Novel
In the Wake: A Novel
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