WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW
In 1627 Barbary pirates raided the coast of Iceland and abducted some 400 of its people, including 250 from a tiny island off the mainland. Among the captives sold into slavery in Algiers were the island pastor, his wife and their three children. Although the raid itself is well documented, little is known about what happened to the women and children afterwards. It was a time when women everywhere were largely silent.
In this brilliant reimagining, Sally Magnusson gives a voice to Ásta, the pastor's wife. Enslaved in an alien Arab culture Ásta meets the loss of both her freedom and her children with the one thing she has brought from home: the stories in her head. Steeped in the sagas and folk tales of her northern homeland, she finds herself experiencing not just the separations and agonies of captivity, but the reassessments that come in any age when intelligent eyes are opened to other lives, other cultures and other kinds of loving.
The Sealwoman's Gift is about the eternal power of storytelling to help us survive. The novel is full of stories - Icelandic ones told to fend off a slave-owner's advances, Arabian ones to help an old man die. And there are others, too: the stories we tell ourselves to protect our minds from what cannot otherwise be borne, the stories we need to make us happy.
In this brilliant reimagining, Sally Magnusson gives a voice to Ásta, the pastor's wife. Enslaved in an alien Arab culture Ásta meets the loss of both her freedom and her children with the one thing she has brought from home: the stories in her head. Steeped in the sagas and folk tales of her northern homeland, she finds herself experiencing not just the separations and agonies of captivity, but the reassessments that come in any age when intelligent eyes are opened to other lives, other cultures and other kinds of loving.
The Sealwoman's Gift is about the eternal power of storytelling to help us survive. The novel is full of stories - Icelandic ones told to fend off a slave-owner's advances, Arabian ones to help an old man die. And there are others, too: the stories we tell ourselves to protect our minds from what cannot otherwise be borne, the stories we need to make us happy.
This novel is about a little known time in Icelandic history, and I love little known times in history so I was excited to pick it up, and I admit, I am not disappointed by it at all.
That being said, The Sealwoman's Gift is very hard to read at times, dealing as it does with things like mothers being separated from their children, or being forced to watch them grow up with values they did not ever want their children to espouse. I read it all in one sitting, and even though I'm not a mother nor have any desire to be a mother, I still couldn't get through some parts like the fate of the eldest son. It reminded me of Hassan's son from The Kite Runner.
The writing in The Sealwoman's Gift is very good, but not unique. It's very much your typical Hannah Kent atmospheric historical mystery style that you'd expect from an atmospheric historical fiction novel. It's easy to read, almost too easy in fact.
It's a very easy book to get slipped into and leave loving, almost to a fault. Because there are flaws about the novel, and there is one trope that I really cannot stand in it, but the characters and scenes and, again, writing are all so well done. This is an expertly crafted novel, with no technical flaws to it. In fact, this is probably the technically best new release I've encountered thus far.
However, I wasn't crazy about the characters themselves. They are very well done and three dimensional, but I didn't like Asta at all, nor any of the characters really. I pitied their situation, but had a hard time emphasizing with them.
And of course, the presence of my least favorite trope did not endear Asta to me. I despise the trope of a slave master and his slave falling in love, and this has one. I'm not talking about Stockholm Syndrome, which I think can work really well in the right situation, I'm talking about actual romantic love between the two. While this type of romance clearly does it for someone given the amount of slave master romance novels I've encountered over the years and it probably did happen in real life, I still don't like it personally.
And, while I found this novel to be extremely well-researched, I found the gender inequality in the Ottoman Empire to be very downplayed, as well as the Christian oppression understated.
So thumbs up on The Sealwoman's Gift as a whole, especially if you want something that's interesting and very well done technically. I still found it an enlightening read despite my problems with it. Definitely worth checking out when it comes to America in October.
That being said, The Sealwoman's Gift is very hard to read at times, dealing as it does with things like mothers being separated from their children, or being forced to watch them grow up with values they did not ever want their children to espouse. I read it all in one sitting, and even though I'm not a mother nor have any desire to be a mother, I still couldn't get through some parts like the fate of the eldest son. It reminded me of Hassan's son from The Kite Runner.
The writing in The Sealwoman's Gift is very good, but not unique. It's very much your typical Hannah Kent atmospheric historical mystery style that you'd expect from an atmospheric historical fiction novel. It's easy to read, almost too easy in fact.
It's a very easy book to get slipped into and leave loving, almost to a fault. Because there are flaws about the novel, and there is one trope that I really cannot stand in it, but the characters and scenes and, again, writing are all so well done. This is an expertly crafted novel, with no technical flaws to it. In fact, this is probably the technically best new release I've encountered thus far.
However, I wasn't crazy about the characters themselves. They are very well done and three dimensional, but I didn't like Asta at all, nor any of the characters really. I pitied their situation, but had a hard time emphasizing with them.
And of course, the presence of my least favorite trope did not endear Asta to me. I despise the trope of a slave master and his slave falling in love, and this has one. I'm not talking about Stockholm Syndrome, which I think can work really well in the right situation, I'm talking about actual romantic love between the two. While this type of romance clearly does it for someone given the amount of slave master romance novels I've encountered over the years and it probably did happen in real life, I still don't like it personally.
And, while I found this novel to be extremely well-researched, I found the gender inequality in the Ottoman Empire to be very downplayed, as well as the Christian oppression understated.
So thumbs up on The Sealwoman's Gift as a whole, especially if you want something that's interesting and very well done technically. I still found it an enlightening read despite my problems with it. Definitely worth checking out when it comes to America in October.
8-8.5 out of 10
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