I wasn’t quite sure what I thought about this book after reading it. It is written well, full of beautiful descriptions of the Alaskan wilds, and the challenges that awaited settlers there back in the early 1900’s. Maybe it is the story that I had trouble with.
The two main characters are trying to make a go of it in Alaska, and discover someone very special outside their house in the cold of winter. This book dances on the border between reality and fantasy, and never really lets the reader know what we are dealing with. I feel like in another book I might like that kind of dangling feeling between the real and unreal, but in this I just felt like it was drawn out too long and in the end maybe didn’t have a lot to do with the resolution of the characters. What changed here? What is the same?
I do like books that try to tell a story in an experimental style – and like all experiments there is both a risk of failure and a potential for greatness. For me, this book wasn’t an inspiration. However with the writer’s ability I am sure they will have more interesting stories to tell in the future.
Now I’m reading a book on contemporary physics, Fundamentals: 10 Keys to Reality by Frank Wilczek.
