Update: Save your money.
This should teach me to make assumptions. I took it for granted that this Kindle book was the English translation of Johan Bojer’s Den Siste Viking. It is not. It’s a book about Vikings, identically named, by an English-language writer with a similar name, and doesn’t look to be a very good one. Sorry.
Today I discovered a book, available in the Kindle format, which I want to recommend to those of you who have that technology.
It’s called The Last of the Vikings
And no, it’s not actually about Vikings.
It’s a Norwegian novel (I’ve read it in the original, Den Siste Viking) by a writer named Johan Bojer. The English translation gives the author as John Bowling, which must have been the result of a decision by a publisher afraid that Americans wouldn’t buy a book by somebody whose name they couldn’t pronounce (it’s pronounced BOY-er).
It’s about the fishermen, around the end of the 19th Century I think, who worked the herring fishery in the Lofoten Islands. Small wooden boats, built in the tradition of Viking boats, on one of the most dangerous seas in the world. Their labor is almost insanely dangerous by our standards. The fisherman can’t feel their hands or feet for the cold, but they still manage to balance on the thwarts, drag in the nets, and survive.
Most of the time.
The main character is a young boy, out fishing with his father for the first time. His father has bought a “cursed” boat, one which has brought death to everyone who’s owned it before. The threat of drowning is with them every minute. But these are desperate people, living close to the margin. Risking their lives is the only way they have to hope to survive.
The characters are memorable. There’s the young man with an aged father and a blind sister, the sole support of his family. There’s old Han Jakob, a man who knows nothing but the fisherman’s life (he lives under an upturned boat on the beach), but knows that life better than anyone. He’s saved so many other men’s lives he’s lost count.
The book left an indelible impression on me, of the sacrifices my ancestors made to feed their families, the danger and tragedy they took for granted. The Norwegian writing is lyrical and elegant (I don’t know how it comes through in the translation).
If the translation is anything like the original, you won’t soon forget The Last of the Vikings.
When I listen to the tales told by the old folks here in my corner of the Back Of The North Woods, I often wonder why anyone would put up with the hardships inherent in pioneering a remote wilderness with a harsh climate. Even into the Great Depression years they put up with isolation, bitter cold in winter and stifling heat in summer, arduous journeys to procure the most basic supplies, and a tortuous land that yielded sustenance only to the most diligent husbandry.
Yet, stories such as this one help me see that, as miserable as life could be, it was better than what they had left behind. The biggest difference was that here they could make the world a better place for their children. Centuries of strife in the old country convinced them it wasn’t going to get any better there. Because of their deprivation and diligence, I now live in a former wilderness that has come to enjoy roads, electricity, snowplows and air conditioning, making life here rather pleasant and easy compared to the olden days.