Roy Jacobsen, The Unseen ****

My foray into Norwegian literature continues with The Unseen, the story of the Barrøy family living on their small island in Nordland. The book was a finalist for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.

The book starts with the local pastor paying a visit to Barrøy island, and the first chapter pulls off an elegant shift in point of view when "his eyelids close and his breathing becomes heavier" and the next sentence remarks on "a priest asleep in their home," making it clear that our protagonists are the family not the priest. Subsequent chapters describe the annual routines of farming and fishing. The outside world impinges on their lives in the form of flotsam from all over. They are not shut off from the world but do not approve of its ways.

The Unseen would have been a perfect book to read while cruising the Norwegian coast, passing islands very much like Barrøy. It paints a clear picture of the joys and difficulties of island life and tells its story with lovely imagery and Scandinavian reserve. But I bought my copy in Tromsø after our cruising was done, so I read it at home with nostalgia for our recently completed trip. I enjoyed it quite a bit, although it didn't seem to have anything to tell me beyond the story itself.

Jacobsen followed The Unseen with three sequels that follow Ingrid, the daughter who comes of age in The Unseen. I'm inclined to feel that The Unseen left us at an appropriate stopping point.