Moving from a spy thriller to a war-time romance might make it sound as if I’m moving into genre fiction, but it’s actually just the latest leg of my quest to find potential Man Booker International Prize longlisters. Today sees us heading to Norway, to a small island we’ve visited before, a spot of tranquility in a troubled world. However, just as no man is an island, no island is really immune to world events, and this time around, the outside world won’t be content to stay outside. Get your oars ready – it’s time to head over to Barrøy once more…
*****
Roy Jacobsen’s White Shadow (translated by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw, review copy courtesy of MacLehose Press) picks up the story a number of years after the events of his earlier novel, The Unseen. Ingrid returns to her island after a stint processing fish on the mainland, and what awaits her on Barrøy is an empty landscape, with the family having scattered around the country, leaving her as the last occupant. It’s almost too much for her, but her strong will (and the promise of a cat) helps her to start again on the island she owns.
However, where the last war passed the islanders by, this time it’s unavoidable. The Germans have occupied Norway, with soldiers based in the small mainland town Ingrid visits for supplies, and bombers can be seen in the Norwegian skies. It’s the sinking of a ship, though, that is to drag Ingrid into the war. A number of bodies wash up on her small island, including one who has made it there alive. This unexpected visitor brings joy into Ingrid’s bleak life, but it’s a ray of happiness that also brings danger in its wake.
The Unseen was one of the highlights of our 2017 MBIP Shadow reading, missing out on our top prize by the thinnest of margins, so there’ll be many readers looking forward to Jacobsen’s sequel. While the first book was a story of a family and an island, following them through the years and examining how they hold up against time and the elements, White Shadow takes a slightly different approach. Here, the action is confined to a year or two, and the focus is very much on Ingrid, with the story following her on her adventures both on and off Barrøy.
The first part of the novel focuses on the discovery of a man on the island, a Russian POW who somehow escaped from a sinking ship. She nurses him back to health, and (inevitably) falls in love with the handsome stranger, despite a lack of a common language. Of course, with the Germans just across the sea, she is forced to report the bodies washed up on the island, and when they get suspicious, it’s time for Alexander to be on his way before he’s discovered.
Yet this affair, while providing long-lasting consequences, is just the start of the story. What follows is a slightly confusing chain of events starting with Ingrid waking up in a hospital far from the mainland. Neither she nor the reader know how she got there, but in the middle of a conversation with a doctor, the story takes a sudden twist:
She was about to protest – but woke up on the floor by the kitchen bench on Barrøy and saw his hand dangling down towards her face in order to touch it – as if in supplication.
She took it and stood up, feeling a taut, distant sensation in every cell, and they went upstairs together and lay beside each other in the North chamber listening to each other’s breathing.
p.97 (MacLehosePress, 2019)
What initially appears to be a printer’s error in my review copy actually turns to be the first of many flashbacks, with Ingrid gradually remembering what happened on her island, and who it was that took her away.
Much of White Shadow involves Ingrid’s journey home and her slowly returning memories. With events on Barrøy before her hospitalisation lost inside her mind, we must wait patiently to find out what exactly happened to her. Yet in the midst of a punishing war, hers is just one story among many, and as she travels south with a group of refugees, she learns of the devastation in the north:
Ingrid noticed that the oldest, a lad of maybe sixteen, was staring out to sea with his left eye, which was red. She realised he was blind in this eye and asked how it had happened. He lowered his right eye and said that they were from Hammerfest, Skarsvåg to be precise, as if that were explanation enough; the other two, Sverre and Helmer, were his brothers. Ingrid repeated the question, and he said something about a red ember when the town went up in flames, his parents were dead. (pp.131/2)
It’s a sobering realisation that everyone is suffering in a time of uncertainty, and with Ingrid being a hardy soul, it isn’t long before she starts thinking more about helping others than herself.
White Shadow, like The Unseen, is another moving story showing a world long gone (at least for privileged westerners like myself), an age where electricity wasn’t everywhere, and elbow grease still ruled:
Ingrid went in, cooked some food and ate it, scrubbed the kitchen floor, the porch and the hallway, wiped down the stairs up to the loft, got out some wool and yarn, darned the hole in her jumper, realising that it hadn’t been made by a nail at the trading post but by the splitting knife. In the morning she would do some baking, bread and lefser and potato lefser, a baking day, fill the house with the smells of a true home – and with bone-grindingly hard work. (pp.31/2)
However, it’s also very much about people, and even if Ingrid starts off alone, she gradually comes to be surrounded by others. In order for her to stay on her island, she’ll need to relax her control and reach out, whether that’s to her family members or the new friends she’s made. No woman is an island, even if you own one…
White Shadow is never less than enjoyable, with the two Dons repeating their excellent work on The Unseen, even if the overall effect of the novel is slightly less lyrical and more descriptive this time around. Where The Unseen focused on the island and its inhabitants, including more dialect and the imagery of the island and the sea, the sequel is a slightly more conventional tale – which is not to say it’s poorer for it, just different. For me, it’s at its best when the scope widens and Ingrid interacts with the people around. As she puts her own troubles to one side and attempts to form new bonds, the reader is reminded of some of the best parts of the first book.
Having said all that, I’m not convinced that White Shadow will bring Jacobsen another MBIP nomination. It’s very much a sequel, a novel relying on the reader caring about Ingrid and her island, and if the judges haven’t read The Unseen (which I’d say is probably more likely than not), that might affect its chances. However, regardless of whether it’s longlisted or not, this will be another enjoyable read for anyone who tried the earlier book – and if you haven’t, well, why not? I recommend you give it a go – and the sequel, too, while you’re at it 🙂
Tony's Reading List 