How Girlhood Is Portrayed in The Book “The Ice Palace” By Tarjei Vesaas — A Book Review

Somewhere in the Norwegian, a frozen waterfall structured like an Ice Palace, a fjords and its translucent walls and secret chambers fascinated two young girls, the transfer student-quiet girl Unn, and strong personality Siss.

The story begin by focused on two 11-year olds girls, Unn and Siss. Unn is a new girl that came to the village and live with her aunt, she is the type of girl that stood by herself in lunch break, and shut out herself from other classmates. But she got this attention for the girl named Siss. Unlike Unn, Siss is a lively girl, she is the one who always take the lead part in a group and everyone likes her as the how a a popular student always did. In some other way Siss feels it too, there is like an invisible string tied between her and Unn to become more than just classmates.

Somehow, when the friendship bonding up Unn begin to told Siss the secret they feel to each other, but only Unn is brave enough to said it. The line, “I’m not sure I’ll go to heaven.” can be translated into many meanings.

This book unfold more about the beginning of a childhood friendship and how the loss of it impacted a young girl. It has beautiful prose, but packed in a simple and engaging way that will keep you going through the pages. I love how it describes the ‘journey’ of Unn exploring the Ice Palace herself, and how it gives an implicit meaning about loneliness as the cold and freeze creeps into her. Also the feeling of embarassment from a girl that just unravel more truth about herself. I’m feeling cold by just reading the book, it describes of how freezing feels like and the loneliness gets into me as Unn narrated it.

The Ice Palace is a book that you would want to read in a cozy winter with your warm blanked wrapped around you, with a cup of hot coffee in a dim light-setting room, when it’s snowing outside. A good read if you want a short girlhood-childhood story set on a cold winter season.