September 19th, 2011

Margaret Elphinstone, The Sea Road

  • Sep. 19th, 2011 at 4:49 PM
Stories have a life of their own. They grow, just as children grow, and perhaps we forget the small thing they once were. But we nurture them just because we respected what was there in the beginning. -- Gudrid Thorbjornardottir


The Sea Road is a version of a saga of an Icelander, a visitor to the New World that the Norse called Vinland, centuries ago. It's beautifully told in the voice of a wise, honest and keen-sighted woman. She evokes both suffering under harsh conditions and the exceptional pleasure to be derived from moments of comfort and ease with equal facility. She makes the reader understand how "[t]he greatest blessing any human being could know is to be assured they will always have food and drink," reframing the renowned peripateticism of Scandinavian people with this practical aim in focus.

Review continues here.

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