Novella set in Norway (…this is very Nordic)

29th June 2016

The Looking Glass Sisters by Gøhril Gabrielsen, novella set in Norway. Translated by John Irons.

If you put the Norwegian title of The Looking Glass Sisters (Svimlende muligheter, ingen frykt) into Google translate it comes out as Dizzying Possibilities, No Fear, which is sufficiently cryptic to explain why the publisher decided to change it in the English version. Literary translation is a tricky business and sometimes even the professionals have to admit defeat, recognizing that there are occasions when rather than simply replacing one word with the equivalent in another language, they have to create their own expressions to reflect the truth of what the author is saying.

Having said that, it struck me that the Dizzying Possibilities of the original title has similarities to the title of a much more familiar English novel, Wuthering Heights, and the similarities do not end there. For this is a novel grounded in a specific location. Just as you can’t imagine Cathy living anywhere else than the lonely Yorkshire moors, it’s impossible to imagine the two middle-aged sisters of this novel living anywhere except in the expanses of northern Norway – one of the most isolated, sparsely populated areas of modern-day Europe. Even if most of the action, such as it is, takes place indoors the elemental world outside makes itself felt in the lives of the characters.

For most British and American readers there will be a lot in this book that is unfamiliar – even exotic. Most of us live in urban communities and unlike the two sisters of the book title haven’t experienced what it’s like to live apart from the rest of humanity, with only a fragile man-made shell between us and the forces of nature. But there’s lots that’s familiar too for the majority of us know at first-hand all about the complicated balance of dependence and independence, and the intense mix of emotions, which characterize relationships with our nearest and dearest. This novel combines the two elements – isolation and complicated familial relationships – and the result for the characters, as you would expect, is catastrophic. Indeed, The Looking Glass Sisters has the unsettling quality of one of the more disturbing fairy stories, Hansel and Gretel say, or Babes in the Woods.

Mind you, this novel is not without an element of dark humour. The way the sisters needle each other and the petty, intimate acts of attrition and retribution are behaviours that most siblings, and even some husbands and wives, will recognize. And speaking of husbands and wives, the catalyst that brings down the whole fragile familial edifice is, of course, a man. He offers one of the sisters another role in life, and their whole world shifts.

This is a very Nordic novel in its creation of a world where indifferent physical and emotional forces – whether it’s the cold or the stars, sex or dreams, love or hate – drive people to their fates. The book has been beautifully translated by John Irons but the strange alien quality remains.

If you’re on holiday and sick of hot, crowded, Mediterranean beaches and Dan Brown novels you may find this book calls to you, providing you with a blast of cold clear air and the sound of icy streams. If, on the other hand, you’re on your way to one of the Nordic countries to hike or ski in the wilderness, The Looking Glass Sisters will provide you with a way of interpreting what you will see and experience there. However, once you’ve read it I doubt you will want to linger too long near any deserted farmhouses.

Gwyneth for the TripFiction Team

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