From the Bookshelf of The Roundtable…

The Ice Palace

Tarjei Vesaas

Start date: January 1, 2017

Finish date: January 31, 2017

Discussion: Around Europe 2017

Discussion leader: Lauren

Why we're reading this: Winner of the Around Europe January poll for Scandinavia
[close] Winner of the Around Europe January poll for Scandinavia

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Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 44 topics — 1,245 comments total

Around Europe 2017

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last updated Dec 12, 2017 09:19PM

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last updated Dec 23, 2017 09:09AM

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What Members Thought

Jul 23, 2022 Henk rated it it was ok · review of another edition

A story told through the eyes of an eleven year old girl and the guilt and trauma seemingly small events bring with them. Rich in metaphors and suggestions, this book left me rather cold

To read the The Ice Palace as an audiobook (which was the way I got to know the book) is I feel not the best format to enjoy the writing, which has poem-like section interspersed into it.

Throughout the book the titular ice palace, menacing and beautiful at the same time, starts to feel like a symbol of what one ...more

52 likes · Like · see review

Jan 29, 2017 Pamela rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Beautifully written story with the feel of a folk tale. 11 year old Siss has to deal with the loss of her new friend, Unn, who disappears after going to see the ice palace, a frozen waterfall.

The prose is spare and lyrical, wonderfully evocative and intense. The themes of loyalty, loss, grief and growing up all merge in a text that is full of symbolism. There is so much left unsaid, the reticence of the characters reflects the remote and icy setting, but this makes the narrative all the more pow ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

Jan 07, 2017 Julie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: europe, group-read-roundtable, read-in-2017

This was a strange little book. A few things that characters did seemed really weird and unrealistic. But there were other things about the book I really liked.

4 likes · Like · see review

Jan 06, 2017 Rosana rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2017

I read The Ice Palace in one evening and I wonder that it was mistake. Maybe it should be read slowly, as if one was reading a long poem. I read somewhere that the author was a poet an I think it shows.

It is winter right now in Canada, the past week having been specially harsh. The days are dark, and the skies have a foggy quality to them. After so many years living in this country, I should be more at ease with winters, but I am not. I am not as much scared of the cold or storms, as I am const ...more

2 likes · Like · see review