bluesleepy's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
2.5
pridiansky's review
DNF'd at 22%.
I have been trying to read this book for over a year. I must have started and stopped reading it 5 or 6 times and never got past page 24. I finally picked it up again after ages and tried giving it one last shot. Spoiler alert: the last half dozen times should have been enough for me to know that this wasn't the book for me. I don't even know how to describe it. It just cannot hold my interest. Part of it is that the subject matter has not been as engaging as I thought it would be, but the other half of it is something to do with the writing style. It straddles the line between good and bad, settling in mediocrity. The descriptions themselves are nicely written, but on the other hand, this author's sentences felt so choppy to me. Way too short, and consistently so. At least that's how it felt. I especially noticed it in sections where they used 'I' and 'They.' Here's one section that felt particularly jarring to me:
"The air was crisp; the sun shone dimly. I walked out onto the streets behind the hotel, away from the centre. I passed through part of town called Majorstuen and began to stumble slowly uphill. Cyclists slipped along the slope, scuffing their heels on the snow. I moved across the ice, making glacial progress, until I could see the silvery sea below, heavy and becalmed. It was a still day and the ships were hardly moving at all. I noticed as I walked that there were places where the snow was turning to water and the ice was breaking up. A slight fragrance was rising from the earth, where it had been released from a winter layer of snow: a smell of dust and grass, unfamiliar in the sterile air. Across the fjord, I could see a ferry arriving from Denmark, a huge ship with Dansebaten on its side. It sounded its horn.
It took a while to walk up the hill. In the suburbs, the white-wash had made everyone vanish into their houses. A few four-wheel drives ground slowly along the ice roads. I passed through a patch of forest, until I arrived at a main road. I padded on for a few more minutes, and then turned left, sliding across the ice until I reached a row of small brown wooden houses, like chalets. Kicking the snow from my boots, I hammered on the door of one of the houses. There was a movement from within, and then, after a long pause, a wiry, slightly hunched man opened the door. He looked astonished to see me, astonished and not yet delighted."
In those two paragraphs the word 'I' is used 12 times, which is far too many. While you could say that there isn't anything technically wrong with the writing, it just feels amateurish. The problem with that kind of repetition, particularly here, is that the word 'I' keeps needling you as you're trying to read. It's a distraction that needed to be done away with. The rest of the writing feels like the author made a definite effort to write in a way they thought would be descriptive and interesting, but to me it came off as almost robotic. It's hard for me to put my finger on, but it's as if an A.I. wrote how it thinks a human would write. Not technically wrong, but somehow off. I guess that would be called dry writing, maybe. I would suggest this book if you just want to zen out and read the same paragraph ten times, or if you have a hard time sleeping.
I have been trying to read this book for over a year. I must have started and stopped reading it 5 or 6 times and never got past page 24. I finally picked it up again after ages and tried giving it one last shot. Spoiler alert: the last half dozen times should have been enough for me to know that this wasn't the book for me. I don't even know how to describe it. It just cannot hold my interest. Part of it is that the subject matter has not been as engaging as I thought it would be, but the other half of it is something to do with the writing style. It straddles the line between good and bad, settling in mediocrity. The descriptions themselves are nicely written, but on the other hand, this author's sentences felt so choppy to me. Way too short, and consistently so. At least that's how it felt. I especially noticed it in sections where they used 'I' and 'They.' Here's one section that felt particularly jarring to me:
"The air was crisp; the sun shone dimly. I walked out onto the streets behind the hotel, away from the centre. I passed through part of town called Majorstuen and began to stumble slowly uphill. Cyclists slipped along the slope, scuffing their heels on the snow. I moved across the ice, making glacial progress, until I could see the silvery sea below, heavy and becalmed. It was a still day and the ships were hardly moving at all. I noticed as I walked that there were places where the snow was turning to water and the ice was breaking up. A slight fragrance was rising from the earth, where it had been released from a winter layer of snow: a smell of dust and grass, unfamiliar in the sterile air. Across the fjord, I could see a ferry arriving from Denmark, a huge ship with Dansebaten on its side. It sounded its horn.
It took a while to walk up the hill. In the suburbs, the white-wash had made everyone vanish into their houses. A few four-wheel drives ground slowly along the ice roads. I passed through a patch of forest, until I arrived at a main road. I padded on for a few more minutes, and then turned left, sliding across the ice until I reached a row of small brown wooden houses, like chalets. Kicking the snow from my boots, I hammered on the door of one of the houses. There was a movement from within, and then, after a long pause, a wiry, slightly hunched man opened the door. He looked astonished to see me, astonished and not yet delighted."
In those two paragraphs the word 'I' is used 12 times, which is far too many. While you could say that there isn't anything technically wrong with the writing, it just feels amateurish. The problem with that kind of repetition, particularly here, is that the word 'I' keeps needling you as you're trying to read. It's a distraction that needed to be done away with. The rest of the writing feels like the author made a definite effort to write in a way they thought would be descriptive and interesting, but to me it came off as almost robotic. It's hard for me to put my finger on, but it's as if an A.I. wrote how it thinks a human would write. Not technically wrong, but somehow off. I guess that would be called dry writing, maybe. I would suggest this book if you just want to zen out and read the same paragraph ten times, or if you have a hard time sleeping.
reallifereading's review
3.0
“Some said ‘Toolay’, some said ‘Thoolay’, a very few said ‘Thool’. Poets rhymed Thule with newly, truly and unruly, but never, it seemed with drool.”
The Ice Museum: In Search of the Lost Land of Thule was far better in theory than in execution. Former journalist Joanna Kavenna (yes the same one whose book, The Birth of Love, is on this year’s Orange Prize longlist) has a fascination with Thule, which was first described by Greek explorer Pytheas, who claimed to have reached it in 4th century BC. Thule is supposed to be a “land near a frozen ocean, draped in the mist. Thule was seen once, described in opaque prose, and never identified with any certainty again. It became a mystery land, standing by a cold sea. A land at the edge of the maps.”
And somehow, ‘Thule’ became a word used to stand in for anything. e.e.cummings writes of the ‘Ultima Thule of plumbing’. A Thule society was set up in Munich, members included Hitler and Rudolf Hess. A US airbase in Greenland still retains the name of Thule.
Kavenna gives up her cushy job in London and travels through Shetland, Iceland, Norway, Estonia, Greenland and Spitsbergen. What a journey, eh? But the book is a bit of a letdown. Perhaps not entirely her fault, for how many ways can one describe lands of ice, snow and fjords?
I wasn’t expecting to read about Nazis and the World War when I came across this book. But Kavenna is quite determined to explore more about the Thule Society, interviewing Krigsbarn (children born to Norwegian mother, Nazi father) who were thought to be mentally ill, or who were simply shunned and hidden away in children’s homes or mental institutions after the war. She travels to Greenland, desperate to step foot on the US airbase of Thule, and is finally given a few hours to wander around. But it doesn’t make for anything interesting or insightful really. In the end, I had more interest in her shipmates onboard the Aurora Borealis, travelling around Greenland in this former icebreaker, stopping at settlements along the way, like the six German scientists who shared her table:
“Soon they just wanted everyone else to vanish; they said they disliked queuing behind the for food, and passing them life-jackets and waiting while they fumbled for change at the bar. But they kept it up, toasting each other, greeting each other in the mornings like long-lost friends, treading on each other’s toes in the queues and then pretending it was all an accident.”
Or the two employees at the deserted, opulent Villa Ammende in Estonia, where Kavenna is the only guest. And as she leaves, she wonders if the guy who runs the reception and the waitress live it up during this low season:
“The bacchanalia only stopped when the bell tolled through the corridors; then they put on their uniforms and became solemn and monosyllabic. As I drove off I imagined the man on the desk whipping off his grey suit and donning a red velvet smoking jacket, slinking into the billiard room to pot a few balls, before his first whisky of the day.”
Something tells me that Kavenna’s works of fiction might be a better read.
So The Ice Museum summed up: An intriguing endeavour, but in the end, not really a journey that interested me very much, although it did inspire a little bit of wanderlust (I do have a soft spot for tales of arctic exploration).
The Ice Museum: In Search of the Lost Land of Thule was far better in theory than in execution. Former journalist Joanna Kavenna (yes the same one whose book, The Birth of Love, is on this year’s Orange Prize longlist) has a fascination with Thule, which was first described by Greek explorer Pytheas, who claimed to have reached it in 4th century BC. Thule is supposed to be a “land near a frozen ocean, draped in the mist. Thule was seen once, described in opaque prose, and never identified with any certainty again. It became a mystery land, standing by a cold sea. A land at the edge of the maps.”
And somehow, ‘Thule’ became a word used to stand in for anything. e.e.cummings writes of the ‘Ultima Thule of plumbing’. A Thule society was set up in Munich, members included Hitler and Rudolf Hess. A US airbase in Greenland still retains the name of Thule.
Kavenna gives up her cushy job in London and travels through Shetland, Iceland, Norway, Estonia, Greenland and Spitsbergen. What a journey, eh? But the book is a bit of a letdown. Perhaps not entirely her fault, for how many ways can one describe lands of ice, snow and fjords?
I wasn’t expecting to read about Nazis and the World War when I came across this book. But Kavenna is quite determined to explore more about the Thule Society, interviewing Krigsbarn (children born to Norwegian mother, Nazi father) who were thought to be mentally ill, or who were simply shunned and hidden away in children’s homes or mental institutions after the war. She travels to Greenland, desperate to step foot on the US airbase of Thule, and is finally given a few hours to wander around. But it doesn’t make for anything interesting or insightful really. In the end, I had more interest in her shipmates onboard the Aurora Borealis, travelling around Greenland in this former icebreaker, stopping at settlements along the way, like the six German scientists who shared her table:
“Soon they just wanted everyone else to vanish; they said they disliked queuing behind the for food, and passing them life-jackets and waiting while they fumbled for change at the bar. But they kept it up, toasting each other, greeting each other in the mornings like long-lost friends, treading on each other’s toes in the queues and then pretending it was all an accident.”
Or the two employees at the deserted, opulent Villa Ammende in Estonia, where Kavenna is the only guest. And as she leaves, she wonders if the guy who runs the reception and the waitress live it up during this low season:
“The bacchanalia only stopped when the bell tolled through the corridors; then they put on their uniforms and became solemn and monosyllabic. As I drove off I imagined the man on the desk whipping off his grey suit and donning a red velvet smoking jacket, slinking into the billiard room to pot a few balls, before his first whisky of the day.”
Something tells me that Kavenna’s works of fiction might be a better read.
So The Ice Museum summed up: An intriguing endeavour, but in the end, not really a journey that interested me very much, although it did inspire a little bit of wanderlust (I do have a soft spot for tales of arctic exploration).
balancinghistorybooks's review
3.0
I adore tomes about exploration, particularly with regard to Scandinavia and the Arctic. I was thus incredibly excited when a copy of The Ice Museum winged its way to me. It is, surprisingly, more of a history book than the travelogue which is advertised. Far more emphasis has been placed upon other explorations than on Kavenna's own journey to find the lost land of Thule.
I did find the facts which she relayed throughout interesting, but her writing oscillated between a little dull, and over the top; it never quite struck a good balance between the two. I really appreciated the quest which Kavenna went on, but the way in which her book is told was rather underwhelming. Whilst it is written with the framework of distinct geographical sections, it ended up - somehow - feeling disjointed. The Ice Museum did not quite live up to its premise as far as I am concerned.
I did find the facts which she relayed throughout interesting, but her writing oscillated between a little dull, and over the top; it never quite struck a good balance between the two. I really appreciated the quest which Kavenna went on, but the way in which her book is told was rather underwhelming. Whilst it is written with the framework of distinct geographical sections, it ended up - somehow - feeling disjointed. The Ice Museum did not quite live up to its premise as far as I am concerned.
bloodhoney's review
1.0
Very dry. Initially I thought this would be fiction; it was not. It was partly the memoir of a ghostly woman of whom I know nothing, partly a travelogue in which everyone the author meets is portrayed in a less than kindly light...everyone, besides the author, is just a little weird, just a little off.
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