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Tarjei Vesaas
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The Ice Palace (Peter Owen Modern Classics) Kindle Edition

by Tarjei Vesaas (Author), Elizabeth Rokkan (Translator) Format: Kindle Edition
4.0 out of 5 stars 306
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A new edition of what is commonly seen as the legendary Norwegian writer's masterpiece, this story tells the tale of Siss and Unn, two friends who have only spent one evening in each other's company. But so profound is this evening between them that when Unn inexplicably disappears, Siss's world is shattered. Siss's struggle with her fidelity to the memory of her friend and Unn's fatal exploration of the strange, terrifyingly beautiful frozen waterfall that is the "Ice Palace" are described in prose of a lyrical economy that ranks among the most memorable achievements of modern literature.
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  1. Print length
    171 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Peter Owen Publishers
  5. Publication date
    May 1, 2009
  6. File size
    1389 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The late Norwegian writer Vesaas (1897-1970) tells a simple yet profoundly stirring story of friendship, coming of age and death in a remote Norwegian village. The main narrator is Siss, a popular girl who befriends Unn, an orphan and a newcomer to the town. Drawn to each other despite their differences, they experience an almost mystical sense of unityp. 19 , but their tie is cut the next day when Unn, while playing alone, disappears into a "green ice palace" formed from a waterfall's frozen trickles of water. Siss feels haunted by the unspoken secrets they shared and struggles to come to terms with her friend's death as her own childhood vanishes. Vesaas's ( Birds ) understanding of child psychology gives his young characters emotional depth and strength. The growing, changing protagonists and the eerie, primeval surroundings are flawlessly revealed in lyrical prose and metaphors, as illustrated by Siss's observation as she takes a walk with Unn's aunt: "Across the imperfect screen of their eyes there glided tall trees that seemed to stretch out their arms in admonition; and pitch-black, stooping-shouldered rocks, moving like clenched fists towards their foreheads."
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"If I had to choose a book I'm surprised isn't the most famous book in the world it might be The Ice Palace." —Max Porter, author, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00BE65ANQ
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Peter Owen Publishers (May 1, 2009)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 1, 2009
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1389 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 171 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0720613299
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 out of 5 stars 306

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Tarjei Vesaas

Tarjei Vesaas

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Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
306 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

M. E. (Murphy) Waggoner
5.0 out of 5 stars Chilling, revealing, unforgettable
Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2013
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"After a while Siss began to feel Unn's eyes on her in class.... Siss felt it as a peculiar tingling in her body. She liked it so much she scarcely bothered to hide it. She pretended not to notice, but felt herself to be enmeshed in something strange and pleasant."

from "The Ice Palace" by Tarjai Vesaas

The story is simple: Siss is a popular 11-year-old girl. A new girl, Unn, sits by herself at the edge of the playground every day. Despite their differences, they are drawn to each other. Their first meeting is also their last. Afterward, Siss struggles to keep an impossible promise. She turns a corner in her life to find the connection between what she believes and what she feels.

The book is written with simple prose akin to poetry to describe the sensual awakening of a young girl. The presence of the ice palace kept me glued to the page. This beautiful and terrifying natural sculpture was yet another character in the book.
6 people found this helpful
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AZGyrl
4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful and mysterious
Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2016
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If I actually wrote out all of the highlights I have made in the book, I'd be listing almost the entire book herein. While I at first thought that it was going to be a quick read, after I got into it and realized that every statement really potentially meant something, or something different than I was thinking it meant, I had to slow down to take it all in, lingering over the prose and re-reading particular phrases. So may metaphors and things left unsaid, left to the reader's imagination. Beautiful, eerie, sad, and hopeful are all descriptions that come to mind.
3 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
3.0 out of 5 stars The Ice Palace
Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2013
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I would actually give it three and 1/2 stars. it was a moving story and written well. I liked the relationship of nature to the people and their moods and emotions.
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DarwenM
5.0 out of 5 stars This is an unusual novel and not for everyone. ...
Reviewed in the United States on December 24, 2014
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This is an unusual novel and not for everyone. It depicts the beginning of a friendship between two eleven year old girls in a small Norwegian village one winter, the beginning because the girls are alone together only once and that brief encounter is followed by the death of one of the girls. The male author, well-known in Norway and nominated for a Nobel prize, explores the strangely complex and intimate relationship between Siss and Unn, and the aftermath of the tragedy at the heart of the novel. It is a brief novel that raises interesting questions about these girls, about friendship, intimacy and grief. It is one that lingers in the mind of the reader.
4 people found this helpful
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Barry M. Beller
5.0 out of 5 stars A Masterpiece
Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2017
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This short novel contains some of the greatest prose-poetry I havre read. The images are real and surreal at once and the words flow so naturally that I hated to read it in two sittings rather than one.
The subjects are death ,depression, and most prominently love of several human varieties along with recovery and redemption. I think this book could and should be the basis of an opera.
5 people found this helpful
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LM
4.0 out of 5 stars This is a haunting book. The contrast between the ...
Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2015
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This is a haunting book. The contrast between the charged emotional link between the two eleven-year-old girls and the frozen environment is powerful. The focus on the girls, to the near exclusion of the adults, does not seem childish, but intimate. The tug between what happens and what might happen at several points in the book, raises the tension, but is not forced. I will look for other books by Vesaas.
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Thomas Tinsley
2.0 out of 5 stars Two Stars
Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2014
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old fashioned repetitive and predictable
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Dan Albright
5.0 out of 5 stars Evocative, emotional, amazing
Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2014
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This book will stay with me a long time. It's so short yet so profound all at once, that I can only give it my highest personal recommendation. Tarjei Vesaas is a poet, literally, and it's easy to see that in the language that he uses. If this is how it reads in English, I can only imagine how amazing the original must be in his own native tongue.
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Top reviews from other countries

Sverre Svendsen
5.0 out of 5 stars Much like verbal accupuncture
Reviewed in Canada on March 15, 2014
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This is not a novel in the normal sense. It is a painting composed of words. Despite all its references to bright white ice and snow it has a persistent brooding aura of dark mental despair and a calamitous irredeemable finality about relationships and life itself.

Two eleven year old girls, Siss, an extrovert, the other, Unn, an introvert, are irrepressibly drawn to each other. Eventually, Unn, an orphan who has recently moved in with her aunt, invites Siss to her home. Soon they lock themselves in Unn’s bedroom to share each other’s deepest thoughts. But Siss becomes overwhelmed when Unn wants to reveal some mysterious, perhaps sinister secret. Siss departs in a hurry, breaching the delicate bond that has formed between them. Nevertheless Siss feels herself committed to place her relationship with Unn above all others. The following day Unn feels embarrassed and uncertain to face Siss and instead of going to school she elects to go wandering in the woods and to explore an ice palace formed by a frozen waterfall. Unn is never heard from again. Siss withdraws from her circle of friends; she is protective of Unn and the “secret” which she could have learned had she been more trusting and stayed longer that night. It was probably not Vesaas’ intention, but reading his narrative fifty years later, the mental and emotional attraction between Siss and Unn seems homopolar (i.e. nascent homosexual). Anyway, the reader can’t help but wonder for the rest of the book what Unn was hiding. Was it some trauma she had experienced, or was it something she wanted to experience with Siss? Did the fact that Unn wanted them both to get naked as soon as they were in her locked room provide a clue? Mystery is embedded in the iciness of this tale.

Unn’s disappearance hits Siss hard. She becomes secretive and introverted, almost taking on Unn’s persona. She suffers from loneliness, depression and guilt. She distances herself from her friends. She is drawn to the ice palace, sensing its connection with Unn’s fate. The last two thirds of the book keep the reader in suspense. Much of the prose is metaphoric and enigmatic. Conversations are stutteringly brief. This is like verbal acupuncture. This short novel could easily be dismissed but can leave an impression of succinct and timeless relevance.
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cardenio
5.0 out of 5 stars A great work.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 18, 2014
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This is one of those rare works that I don't think will ever slip away too far into my recesses of my mind - I think it will always be there, just under surface of the ice, like a secret almost revealed. It ones of those books like "the Old Man and The Sea" that only truly great authors can write - short books written seemingly so simply that teach you something which, although you know you've learnt it, you cannot quite put whatever it is into words.
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Geoffrey Hall
5.0 out of 5 stars The Ice Palace is a many layered masterpiece
Reviewed in Canada on December 19, 2016
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Personal favorite book of 2016, I am reading it a second time end to end ... Spoiler alert, after you read this book, read what Doris Lessing wrote about it [...] and then read a discussion of themes beneath the surface by Anna Westerståhl Stenport "The Mind and Nature of Locked Rooms: Tarjei Vesaas's Novel The Ice Palace and Metaphysical Crime Fiction" [...]
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RM
4.0 out of 5 stars Great read for an arctic cruise
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 3, 2014
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A simple but evocative and mysterious tale of two girls who meet at school and 'click'. The newcomer disappears when exploring the caverns of an ice palace formed behind a waterfall near their village in the forest. A mystery about growing up, the warmth of family life and new friendship, and the fear of shadows from the past. A great read on a winter cruise along the Norwegian coast..
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chrisantha
5.0 out of 5 stars Set book.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 19, 2014
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I read this because it was on the reading list for the Coursera course ' The Fiction of Relationship'. It is well worth reading for its setting in Norway and an unusual portrait of a developing friendship between two young girls.
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