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This title in other formats:To Siberia: A Novelby Per Petterson
Staff Pick
Petterson's Danish seascape is gorgeous, the lives of his characters are meticulously rendered, and his tracing of their lives is perfect. Guaranteed to take your breath away, To Siberia quietly tells the story of a lovely and innocent childhood opening like a flower in a storm. Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:I was fourteen and a half when the Germans came. On that 9th April we woke to the roar of aeroplanes swooping so low over the roofs of the town that we could see the black iron crosses painted on the underside of their wings when we leaned out of the windows and looked up. In this exquisite novel, readers will find the crystalline prose and depth of feeling they adored in Out Stealing Horses, a literary sensation of 2007. A brother and sister are forced ever more closely together after the suicide of their grandfather. Their parents' neglect leaves them wandering the streets of their small Danish village. The sister dreams of escaping to Siberia, but it seems increasingly distant as she helplessly watches her brother become more and more involved in resisting the Nazis. Review:"This 1996 novel predates Pettersen's acclaimed Out Stealing Horses (first published in 2003), and has all of Pettersen's haunted charms. As an unnamed young girl and her big brother, Jesper (who calls her 'Sistermine'), grow up in rural WWII-era Denmark, the two cope with distant parents, an eccentric extended family and the cold wind. Jesper longs to go south to Morocco; Sistermine yearns for the plains of Siberia, foreshadowing lives that will diverge. Their grandfather's suicide, the arrival of puberty and most tragically, the German invasion change their idyllic childhood relationship; as each sibling fights back against the occupation in his or her own way, their inevitable separation looms. The second half of the novel, in which Sistermine struggles to make sense of her life in various Scandinavian cities and towns, awaiting a hoped-for reunion with Jesper, is less breathtaking and mesmerizing than the first, but the contrast makes her numb loneliness and inability to connect all the more poignant. The book builds up slowly, casting a spell of beauty and devastation that matches the bleak but dazzling climate that enshrouds Sistermine's young life." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Review:You can infer a lot about the mental state of the narrator of this bleak novel from the fact that she fantasizes about moving to Siberia. We meet her on Christmas Eve, 1934, when she's 9, living with her family in a poor fishing village in northern Norway. She has just recently realized that "the world was far bigger than the town I lived in," and she's already looking forward to "my own great journey."... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) Review:"A spare, lyrical novel from Norwegian author Petterson that possesses historical breadth and a remarkable sense of immediacy." Kirkus Reviews Review:"The author of a story collection and an earlier novel, Norwegian writer Petterson is an outstanding talent. Highly recommended." Library Journal Review:"Like Out Stealing Horses...this work coaxes readers into a sphere of loneliness with the precise prose and keen intellect of a masterful writer." Minneapolis Star Tribune Review:"To Siberia succeeds in one of the greatest aims of fiction, to transport us to another time and place that make us see our world with clearer vision, and to recognize the similarities and differences of human nature, across time and distance." Dallas Morning News Review:"[C]hronicles the coming of age of the younger sister in a family characterized by poverty and the bleak beauty of a landscape where frost seems to seep in 'after someone has hanged themselves or taken their life in some other way.'" Philadelphia Inquirer Review:"Petterson creates humor alongside wild frozen seascapes, miraculous detail in clover and marram grass." Cleveland Plain Dealer Review:"[A] darkly beautiful story, an evocation of the grim equanimity of the Danish people, the fierce and constant weather and the childish idea that we could possibly save each other from the world." Los Angeles Times Review:"Petterson's writing is so exact and piercing that, like poetry, it distills her experiences and feelings into imagery that is powerful beyond its words." Seattle Times Synopsis:In Danish Jutland, where the sea freezes over and the Nazis have yet to invade, a young girl dreams of going on a great journey to Siberia, while her brother, Jesper, yearns for the warmer climes of Morocco. With a staunchly Christian mother, a father who is an unsuccessful carpenter, and a grandfather who hangs himself in a cowshed, the relationship between brother and sister flourishes. Jesper has an originality that stands out in the small community, and his sister follows as they wend their way around the town in moonlit and daytime endeavors. The bond between them creates a warmth that grows through the cold and the dark clouds that threaten to overtake their dreams. As the narrator looks back, she reflects on the harsh realities of her life and the directions in which they ted her.
It is out of small and negligible things that a life may be composed, and the beauty of Per Petterson's narrative lies in the resonances of a Ere outwardly barren but so sharply etched, so charged with meaning. About the AuthorPer Petterson won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for his novel Out Stealing Horses, which has been translated into more than thirty languages and was named a Best Book of 2007 by the New York Times. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!
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