Book Review: THE BELL IN THE LAKE and THE REINDEER HUNTERS by Lars Mytting

 

Every now and then you stumble across a book that just takes your breath away, and THE BELL IN THE LAKE and its sequel THE REINDEER HUNTERS fell into that category for me! I loved everything about this story, even though it also broke my heart into a million pieces.

 

Set in a small remote village in Norway in the late 1800’s, we get to meet the unforgettable characters that will soon worm their way into our hearts and minds. Astrid Hekne, the beautiful and clever daughter of a local landholder, who yearns to get out of the confines of her village and a different life. Kai Schweigaard, the young pastor who has just been posted to the village and has ambitious plans for the town, hoping that his progressive ideas will elevate his status and give him a ticket to grander locations. And Gerhard Schoenauer, the young German architect who has been sent to draw up plans of the church before it gets sold, dismantled and moved all the way to Germany. Butangen’s stave church features like a character itself, with its myth about the “sister bells” and its strong connection to the community, so it’s little wonder that its fate is strongly tied to that of its parishioners.

 

With a strong sense of place and time and a setting so vivid that I thought I was in Norway, the book took me on one unforgettable journey I only came out of reluctantly, dazed and completely emotionally wrung out. Mytting tells his tale so convincingly that his characters came to life for me, and I remember them as flesh and blood people whose fate touched me in ways only few fictional characters can. A heads up: have some tissues ready because I cried floods of tears!

 

Despite being 400 pages long, the story came to an end way too soon, but the good news was that there is a sequel! THE REINDEER HUNTERS takes the story up where THE BELL IN THE LAKE ended, with a new, younger generation of Butangen residents now in the forefront of the novel. Myttings trilogy (I can’t wait for the third instalment, which hasn’t been released yet) is deeply steeped in history and folklore, making it an interesting as well as educational read. Be prepared to spend hours googling “stave churches” after reading it. I was also fascinated by the details about midwifery and the knowledge of the midwives in the late 1900’s, with so many challenges to overcome, distance and poverty amongst them. Mytting’s keen observations of human behaviour fill his novels with tales of love & hate, jealousy & forgiveness, kindness and compassion and greed and the dynamics of a small remote community steeped in tradition and folklore. Here the progressive ideas of a young pastor may not be kindly received by all, and the ideas of the church often clash against more traditional views.

 

There is so much more I could say about these wonderful novels but I will leave it at that and urge you to pick them up for yourself. You will be rewarded with a story that will stay with you for a long time, and some magnificent armchair travel to Norway (which makes me want to go out and buy a ticket right now to explore it for myself). I can’t wait for the release of the third book in the trilogy to find out more about the fate of the sister bells and the sisters’ weaving depicting Skrapanatta.