Books

On the heels of last year's award-winning Out Stealing Horses comes Norwegian writer Per Petterson's To Siberia, a kind of thematic and emotional prequel. Although the former novel was set only partially during World War II, To Siberia unfolds roughly from 1934 to 1947, taking place in Denmark, focusing on ordinary lives against an epic historic backdrop.

It's a lovely story told in the first person by a young girl known as Sistermine, who functions as a moon orbiting her charismatic brother, Jesper. It's also a classic coming-of-age novel that infuses the familiar territory of Nazi-occupied Europe with a haunting charm and quizzical loneliness.

Sistermine and Jesper are the most voluble and approachable members of their phlegmatic Danish family. Father is silent to the point of being mute and remote, mother seems to care most about her piano, and grandfather is the patriarch who dominates all.

Early in the novel the grandfather commits suicide in the barn, and his death begins a long slide in the family's fortunes. The family farm is lost and the Germans invade, pushing the entire country into economic servitude.

Sistermine's voice is naturalistic and metaphorical: "My mother is velvet, my mother is iron. My father often stays silent and sometimes over dinner he picks up the burning hot pan by its iron handle ... ."

In a touching moment, the grandfather's horse, Lucifer, mourns the death of his master: "After Grandfather was in his grave and some days had passed, Lucifer rebelled ... Now no one could get near the horse. He left his oats and hay untouched in the manger, he kicked and lashed out in his stall so the walls were smashed to splinters."

Although the novel is atmospheric, describing the windswept seacoast of Denmark with lyrical intensity, it's not without plot and event. Early in the story Sistermine saves Jesper's life, and later a Gestapo agent assaults her. Jesper becomes a key figure in the Danish resistance of 1943. He's handsome, tender and protective of his sister, displaying a romantic intelligence and courage that make for a great character.

Jesper's eventual fate casts a mournful tone at the end, overshadowing the triumph of the war and of Sistermine's escape from her frosty beginnings. The title refers to Sistermine's idealization of Siberia, of her desire to travel there and settle in a beautiful land of snow and ice, a journey she never achieves.

Yet to call this a sad novel would be inaccurate and reductive: 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.

William J. Cobb's latest novel, Goodnight, Texas, is available in paperback.

To Siberia

Per Petterson

(Graywolf, $22)

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