The Ice Palace (Peter Owen Modern Classics)

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The tone of the story becomes uncomfortable with the train journey through the night. Sally Carrol is immediately at odds with her new environment. The contrast between the Bellamy’s library and Sally Carrol’s recollection of the Harper’s library serves to illustrate further the differences between the Southern and Northern culture. The Bellamy library is “simply a room with a lot of fairly expensive things in it that all looked about fifteen years old.” Sally Carrol is used to medical-books, “oil paintings of her three great-uncles” and an “old couch that had been mended up for forty-five years and was still luxurious.” It is clearly a sensitive point for Harry, as he crudely advises her against making “unfortunate” comments about family histories, as he lives in “a three generation town.”

The Ice Palace, an American variety television series with an ice skating theme, which aired on CBS for ten weeks in 1971 But whereas Sally Carrol’s headstones mark where the dead lie peacefully at rest (another nod to the ‘sleepiness’ of the South), the underground caverns of the ice palace have the potential to disturb the dead, as the ghostly appearance of Margery Lee suggests. Peter Owen sadly died in May 2016, but his legacy lives on in the publishing house that carries his name and his commitment to publishing talented and exciting writers.And the book that Peter Owen regarded as the crown jewel of that highly distinguished roster? The Ice Palace: the English translation, in 1993, by Elizabeth Rokkan of the Norwegian writer Tarjei Vesaas 1963 novel Is-slottet.She never knew her father and recently lost her mother, and now she has moved here to live with her Auntie.

Parts of the novel are difficult to read, as Vesaas leads his young character down a road of no return, but it is a remarkably powerful evocation of the human condition. Despite the artificiality of it there's not a false note to it, as Vesaas uses the natural -- the crisp, clear cold, the glassy ice, the play of light, the powerful sounds -- and never needs spell out what unnaturalness happened to Unn. It is precisely in this sombre setting, full of darkness lurking in recondite corners, reinforced with this sharp writing style, where the main character of the novel is presented: The eerie giant structure formed by a frozen waterfall up in the lake, called The Ice Palace. Either sanctuary or mausoleum, it arises as the eternally snow covered bridge that defies death, guilt and angst, linking Siss and Unn forever. There’s only one thing to ask in exchange for this everlasting token of friendship: A promise. Siss must never forget.Many years ago (decades even) I watched this movie on television about the life of American poet Maya Angelou. The details of the story have long ebbed away but there’s this one scene that I recall vividly. In it a sort of teacher figure is telling the young Maya about how beautiful words can be, how wonderful it is to love them. I guess this conversation remained with me because at the time I didn’t understand it. I loved reading books already, I loved the stories they told and the adventures I could vicariously experience but words in themselves? That didn’t make sense to me yet. Over the years I have come to know differently. I’ve learned to read and love poetry, to read it aloud and enjoy the resonance of words painstakingly chosen. I now know that words can be used to evoke happiness or heartbreak, fear or foreboding, they can create sounds and even music for those that can hear it. And they can be used to build otherworldly palaces made of ice of a beauty that is both extraordinary and deadly:

A story told through the eyes of an eleven year old girl and the guilt and trauma seemingly small events bring with them. Rich in metaphors and suggestions, this book left me rather cold Siss and Unn are eleven years old and as different from each other as fire and water. Siss is lively and outspoken and even a little bossy with her friends. Unn is introverted and reticent, sitting alone at the edge of the playground. Siss comes from a content and comfortable family, with parents who give her a lot of leeway to express herself. Unn is an orphan with an unknown runaway father and has recently lost her mother to illness, now living with an elderly aunt. Yet from the first time their eyes meet across a schoolyard they feel connected. Too young and inexperienced to know how to express their feelings, shy and yet filled with yearning. Naked flames of innocence and enthusiasm, they shed their clothes and danced around each other, coming very close then jumping away in fright at the intensity of the feeling. Vesaas the poet knows how to go beyond mere words to capture the moment, in the first of a couple of lyrical passages that mark the high points of the story for me: see further in Reidar Kjær’s article “Look to Norway? Gay Issues and Mental Health Across the Atlantic Ocean” included in The Mental Health Professions and Homosexuality: International Perspectives, CRC Press, 2003 p. 59).Unn does not want to feel embarrassed when meeting Siss the next day, so she decides to skip school and instead goes to see the ice castle that has been created by a nearby waterfall. Ice castles are normal in cold winters, when the water freezes into huge structures around waterfalls. Unn climbs into this ice castle, exploring the rooms baffled by its beauty. In the 7th room she gets disoriented and cannot find her way out. She dies of hypothermia. Her last word is "Siss". Even in its conclusion there are obvious comparisons to the sexual act: when last we see her: "She wanted to sleep; she was languid and limp and ready". Meet death and then the birth of the phoenix. What is the wild bird doing and what is the significance? The woodwind players too... No doubt this is a beautiful little story, told in a nice simple prose, but it didn't resonate as strongly with me as it clearly did with a lot of other readers. I found The Birds to be the better of the two novels I've read.