To keep the air of mystery alive - for that reason she’ll never tell another soul Unn’s secret. This “gift” leads Siss to embody Unn, to become the loner at school. People have a lot to think about, you see.” Mother looked at Siss and added: “ You’re the person who can think about Unn all the time.” It’s unreasonable, but it makes it seem different. Her mother answered calmly: “How do you know, my girl?” It had gone dark, and then she had said it. “Nobody is!” said Siss, even though she had not meant to. They’re not thinking about Unn any more.” But it’s not quite so simple as that, for the snow is both physical and metaphorical, a representation of the way in which Siss becomes snowed in, emotionally isolated in her need to preserve the memory of her friend:

In fact, the snow falls all winter, each successive layer covering up the earth and any tracks Unn may have left. So awkward, in fact, that Unn skips school the following day to visit the ice palace, a structure built from the errant streams and spray of a waterfall, and is never heard from again.Īnd as the search for Unn begins amongst the villagers the snow begins to fall. But something attracts them to one another, and one winter evening Siss heads over to Unn’s and their getting to know other - secrets shared, and promised to never tell, aside - is an awkward affair. The former is popular in their rural school the latter, recently arrived in the area, is very much alone. Siss and Unn are two very different young girls. all equally evocative, and its a mercy indeed for without them The Ice Palace would not be the evocative beauty it is. Thankfully, the English language has a large enough vocabulary to describe frozen water in all manner of ways - ice, icicle, frost, slush, etc. I have no idea how many words there are in Norwegian - or Nynorsk, to be more precise - but I reckon there’s a good number of them, otherwise Tarjei Vesaas’ The Ice Palace (1963) would be a repetitive novel.Īnd how, then, without being repetitive, would it translate to English, if we only have one word for snow? That word being, well, snow. Probably because there’s various Eskimo tribes, all speaking their own languages. There’s a common misconception that Eskimos have an inflated number of words for snow.

The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas