The year is 1903, and twenty-two years have passed since Astrid Hekne died in childbirth. Her son Jehans lives on a modest smallholding up in the hills near Butangen, having withdrawn from his community. He is drawn to freedom, to fishing and reindeer hunting, and one day meets a stranger over the body of a huge reindeer buck.
Outside the new church in Butangen, Pastor Kai Schweigaard still cares for Astrid Hekne’s grave. The village’s overworked priest is tormented by his old betrayal, which led to death and to the separation of two powerful church bells cast in memory of two sisters in Astrid’s family. Kai is set on finding an ancient tapestry made by the sisters – the Hekne weave – in the hope that it will reveal how he can remedy his iniquities.
Conceived on an epic scale by Norway’s bestselling author, The Reindeer Hunters is a novel about love and bitter rivalries, sorrow and courage, about history and myth, and the country as it enters a new era, about the first electric light and the Great War in Europe, my brother stands against brother.’
I found the Bell in the Lake to be an immersive read, a novel of depth and substance. I remember feeling a frisson of anticipation for it being part of a trilogy. So I was extremely happy to get my avaricious little hands on The Reindeer Hunters, the second book in the Sister Bells trilogy. Do you need to have read the first to enjoy this new book? No, you don’t, it passes muster as a standalone. But I do believe the experience will be enhanced if you have. However I’m pretty sure you’ll be clamouring to read the Bell in the Lake after this book if you haven’t.
I was riveted from start to finish. There’s something about a saga, a trilogy, always an ambitious endeavour, to create and sustain a fascinating tale across the generations. Mytting strikes the perfect balance between what has gone before and what is happening currently in the lives of the Hekne family. Jehans is the family member to take up Astrid’s baton and you can see aspects of her character developing in him. The pastor is another key character and I love the way that Mytting has not just sustained, but shown how he has developed in his thinking in the course of the two books. Gone is the impetuous, callow young man. By the end of this book I was far more sympathetic to Kai than I had been in the previous book. I enjoyed all of the characterisations but if you feel you will mourn the absence of a strong female character with Astrid’s demise, fear not, for Kristine steps up to the plate ably. The character of Victor is an interesting one and I don’t want to go down any kind of spoiler route here.
The landscape and beauty of the natural world is also a dominant feature of this novel. As an animal lover I found the concept of reindeer hunting distressing so I probably better not comment on those sequences of the novel but the landscape and the sense of space and distance and the relationship between man and land plays a big part.
The main action takes place on the cusp of the 20th century in Butangen in Norway. We see a community, remote and independent, dealing with the challenges of life and pulling together as communities should. As in an historical novel it is believable and the attention to detail is impressive. As well as being a novel with a great story there’s also observations regarding progress, industrialisation and how innovations and people with ideas can change the very fabric of a community. Yet, in a sense at the heart of the novel is a simplicity, an ordinariness, of a people simply trying to live their lives and survive. To keep themselves housed, fed and warm in sometimes challenging conditions. But it’s done in such a way as to fulfil all the requirements of an epic saga.
In a work like this, with its breadth and scope, a great big shout out must go to the incredible work of the translator, Deborah Dawkin. When you’re reading you can sometimes forget that someone has gone through the entire Norwegian text and rendered it into the English language and created a flowing narrative that showcases Mytting’s extraordinary talent.
I can’t wait for the third and final instalment! My thanks to Corinna Zifko at MacLehose Press for an advance copy.
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