A catastrophic storm off the coast of northeastern Norway has taken the lives of nearly all the men in the small island community of Vardø. In the aftermath, as the women remaining cope with the tragic loss and are focused on their future survival, some members of the community become convinced that nefarious forces (i.e., witchcraft) were the cause of the storm.

I enjoyed Hargrave's writing, and in particular the research done into 16th-century Norwegian culture and language. I did find the climax to be oddly anticlimactic, and there were a few weird story beats. Overall, it was all right. Had the story not been based on actual historical events I'm not sure there would have been enough there for me to recommend it. ( )

This is very depressing book, from which comes maybe good but depressing advice. When you're being burned at the stake, breathe deep. It's better to die of smoke inhalation than by burning. So, a word to the wise witches among us. When I finished the book, my first thought was, why do we need to read this stuff? It's about The Witchcraft Trials of Vardø in the early 17th century. What we learn from the book is that proud supporters of the patriarchy who enjoy dominating and damaging women get great joy from dominating and damaging women. What a shock. Trump supporters only wish they had the same freedom of their compatriots in the 17th century. ( )

4.25 stars. this is excellent. hargrave really manages to put the reader in this bleak and cold and barren landscape, and to feel the tension and pull of the sea and the community and the disparate belief systems, to smell the salt on the air and really be in this place. she conjures a fiction for the place and the people that began the witch trials of the 1600s in the furthest north of norway. and she does it in such a compelling and beautiful way, even while just about every aspect of this story is hard to read about.

i thought the sexual relationship between maren and ursa felt pretty extraneous until the very end, and i'm not sure the book is stronger for it. but i also liked this so much that i don't think i care. but the very very end - what happened? did maren step off into the sea or into her future? I thought she was going to escape but the writing made it sound like she walked into the water at the end. i don't think she'd do that. i liked learning a bit about the sami and this place and time period. what a hard living they had there, and what a shock it must have been to arrive there from cities of the day.

"Grief cannot feed you, though it fills you."

"She does not send her mind flying away. She is only her body, and Maren's hand upon her, and in her, and she could weep with the kindness of it, the ache of it. She did not know, she thinks; she did not know it could be like this." ( )

I really liked this book. It's historical fiction, read for the lesbian book group. (the Lesbian contact is there, but light.) It is set in a fishing village in Finnmark, Norway in 1617, where two young women, Maren and Ursa meet. A freak storm drowns almost all of the villages men, including Maren's father, brother and fiancee. Hargrave really sets the stage, a bleak landscape and a hard life. We also learn about Maren's sister-in-law, Diinna, who is Sami; and a little about the relationships between the Sami and the Norwegian.

Unfortunately this is just before the Norwegian witch trials. The king sends a commisioner, Absalom Cornet; who has a record of "successful" witch-hunting. Cornet brings with him his new, young and pretty, Norwegian wife, Ursa, who befriends Maren.

Most of the book is pretty traumatic, actually, because the witch hunts were awful. But I couldn't put the book down.

Here's a passage:

“The day is impossibly bright: the sort of crystalline clarity that comes when winter still sits in the air. They have already entered at the narrow mouth of the fjord, and the cliffs rise sheerly either side, a clean hundred feet, the black rock raked with lines of lighter grey. The sea is green and glitters with chips of ice, and as soon as the wind bites at her face and brings up its blood, chilling her lungs, she feels better than she has since she left home." ( )

Vardø è quel posto che vai a cercare su Wikipedia perché è così a nord che devi sapere se esiste davvero o fa parte di qualche posto mitico tipo l’Iperborea. Ebbene esiste e vanta di essere il comune natale di John Norum, il chitarrista degli Europe. Pensa un po’.

Purtroppo nel XVII secolo è stato anche teatro di una terribile caccia alle streghe, che portò alla morte di più di novanta persone, sia norvegesi sia sami, in prevalenza donne, ma anche uomini. E proprio dagli eventi che scatenarono quella caccia – una terribile tempesta in mare che uccise decine di uomini e un re desideroso di giocare al solerte emissario di dio – prende avvio il romanzo.

Nel complesso è stata una bella lettura e anche molto coinvolgente, a mano a mano che l’autrice mi faceva conoscere le abitanti di Vardø. Tuttavia ho avuto l’impressione che la storia venisse retta unicamente dalla reazione emotiva che suscita leggere di persone incolpate ingiustamente, torturate e infine bruciate sul rogo. Se poi ci aggiungiamo anche il terribile rapporto tra i generi all’interno dei matrimoni descritti, non è difficile parteggiare per le cosiddette streghe e odiare a morte i loro aguzzini, insieme alle loro accusatrici.

Alla fine, mi è sembrato un po’ pochino rispetto al potenziale della storia: mi è mancata la sostanza in un tema – quello della caccia alle streghe – ampiamente indagato e che ha bisogno di un maggior impegno letterario per arrivare davvero allǝ lettorǝ. ( )