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A review by reallifereading
The Ice Museum: In Search of the Lost Land of Thule by Joanna Kavenna
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).