Ice Palace (Young Puffin)

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I guess I will be in the minority in giving this novel a ‘3’ when it is highly rated on GR. In addition, this novel from 1963 is considered a classic of Norwegian literature. It won the Nordic Council's Literature Prize for the best novel that year. In my edition Doris Lessing wrote a blurb praising the lyrical writing. Doris Lessing was quite right when she said "How simple this novel is. How subtle. How strong. How unlike any other. It is unique. It is unforgettable. It is extraordinary."

The Ice Palace - Tarjei Vesaas - Complete Review The Ice Palace - Tarjei Vesaas - Complete Review

Despite all that cold and ice, there is burning brightly the glow of a friendship, if only a brief one, that cascades a warm lyrical emotion over Vasaas's eerie and frozen landscape. Along with the vivid descriptions of the land, the observations look mostly at Siss, who not only has to deal with the vanishing and loss of Unn, but also coming to terms with the realisation that the fun and magical elements of childhood are slowly turning from liquid to vapour. Basically, she is a tween. Nė nepastebėjome, kaip atsidūrėme tarp baltų beržų kamienų. Dar tik leidomės į kelią, o jau esame čia. Mūsų laukia. Čia praleisime trumpą mums likusį laiką. The simple, repetitive language of the novel underscores this -- as it does the sense of the unsayable. Tarjei Versaas was a runner up for the 1964 Nobel Prize for his work on this hauntingly beautiful novel. When I think of an ice palace, the first thing that comes to mind is Elsa’s creation in the Disney version of Hans Christen Andersen’s Elsa the Snow Queen. Elsa’s construction designed as a boundary between herself and the world, and Versaas’ ice palace is similar both physically and emotionally. His prose in describing the ice is chilling yet full of beauty, which is the image I see with the untarnished snow on the ground before me. I had never read one of Versaas’ novels before, and The Ice Palace is a poignant introduction to his work, which also includes the 1952 award winning The Winds. An ode to Norwegian nature and adolescent friendship, Versaas’ work is one that will stay with me for a long while. About the Author

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However, it is absolutely brilliant for families with young children. Not only are children thought of in ways big and small with a petting zoo, outdoor climbing frame, kids club and kid-size bathrobes. But parents are too. Only when school is out do they realise that Unn is missing, and the whole town begins an exhaustive search. In diesem schmalen Roman folgen wir dem jungen Mädchen Siss, das in einer ländlichen Gemeinde in Norwegen aufwächst. Ihr Leben ändert sich, als Unn nach dem Tod ihrer Mutter zu ihrer Tante ins Dorf zieht. Nach anfänglicher Distanz können die Mädchen der Anziehungskraft, die zwischen ihnen herrscht, nicht mehr widerstehen und treffen sich in Unns Haus. Sie unterhalten sich, Unn zeigt Siss ein Bild ihres Vaters, und überredet sie schließlich, dass sich die beiden aus Spaß ausziehen sollen. Sie tun es, beobachten sich gegenseitig, und Siss fühlt, dass etwas zwischen ihnen unausgesprochen und unerfüllt geblieben ist. Unn erzählt Siss, dass sie ein Geheimnis hat und Angst, nicht in den Himmel zu kommen. Die Stimmung zwischen den beiden ist jedoch so aufgeladen, dass Siss es nicht aushält, sich schnell wieder anzieht und nach Hause rennt.

Ice Palace (1987) - IMDb Ice Palace (1987) - IMDb

So under a mental stress Siss gives a vow: “I promise to think about no one but you. To think about everything I know about you. To think about you at home and at school and on the way to school. To think about you all day long, and if I wake up at night.”As part of a wonderful road trip to highlight the benefits of wellbeing and summer in Austria, we spent a few days in the region of Zillertal. It takes courage and experience to take the limb, or aortic chamber, and snap it off, knowing the shards of ice will splinter and wound. Knowing, each time you try to wiggle that finger or listen to the incomplete thud of your heartbeat, you will painfully remember what is missing.

Ice Palace | jungfrau.ch

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".Sheila Toomey of the Anchorage Daily News, writing in 1996 about the Northward Building in downtown Fairbanks and its lore relative to the film, wrote "But in 1958 the Northward, a hulking steel-sided apartment complex, was immortalized in a bad novel, followed by an even worse movie, both called The Ice Palace". [17] See also [ edit ] And she didn't say a word about hiding." The Ice Palace is full of what wasn't said, and especially of Siss reacting to and dealing with what remains unspoken. Sometimes, when you lose someone, the loss is so bewildering and heavy, you have to decide whether to break off a part of yourself in letting them go, or be pulled under with them. Tarjei Vesaas is sometimes described as a modernist, but at moments in this novel – which is as stark and bare as a tree in midwinter – he seems more like a symbolist. Small elements of the natural world are freighted with enormous coded significance, and much is left unsaid: we never find out what Unn's great secret was, nor is the girls' mutual attraction ever really explained. Yet the prose itself is appealingly clear and straightforward, an effect that must have been heightened in the original by the fact that Vesaas wrote, unusually, in Nynorsk, instead of the traditional literary dialect of Bokmål. The contemporary English translation from Elizabeth Rokkan reads entirely naturally, I thought, and gives you a very clear idea of why Vesaas is considered such a giant of Norwegian letters. 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:

Ice Palace - Jungfraujoch - All You Need to Know BEFORE You

You will be standing on and surrounded by ice. So, it will be cold! While the ice cave protects you from the wind, I’d highly recommend wearing ski gear to stay warm and enjoy the natural show. Siss and Unn, two eleven-year old girls living in an isolated, rural community somewhere in Scandinavia, need only a single evening together to forge an uncommon friendship that will change their lives irreparably.

Another activity which is good to do all year round! Stop off at for a hot chocolate at any one of Zillertal’s mountain huts or canteens. This giant in the Nature Ice Palace represents local legends about its origins… Children six and over can visit the Nature Ice Palace as long as they are accompanied by both an official guide and their parents or caregivers. That said, the guides told us that they assess kids on the short but steep walk through the snow to the entrance. Spas and sunshine in the morning and a snowball fight in the afternoon? Who can resist the duality of that?