Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name by Vendela Vida
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
After reading Jonathan Lethem, I wanted something with equally tight prose so I grabbed Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name from the shelf.
The story of Clarrisa is moving, both emotionally and pace. The story unfolds as Clarrisa’s father passes away only to discover that he was not her biological father. This opens a story identity that is, at times, overly extreme and at others surprisingly barren. Clarrisa follows her desires to find out “who she is” fully and travels to Scandinavia to try and find her biological father. The barren open land of the area known as Lapland is a great backdrop for this sense of “erasing and redrawing” on oneself.
I found Clarrisa at times an emotional wreck and at others having more fortitude than I gave her credit for. I found myself cheering her on, but at the same time finding her unlikable. I think that contrast actually worked and is hard to articulate well. Her travels and want to find her past to find herself is redeeming but ultimately she is no better than those she scorns. I found the end of the book very fast and out of pace with the initial portion. Granted, the story is about the identity crisis and not the before or after, they are there to round things out. But at the end I both felt redeemed and defeated. The author really threw an emotional curve ball.
Vendela Vida
I think Vida’s writing was as sparse as the landscape of Lapland. Though in the P.S. segment she mentions going three times to visit the area. Seems a bit extreme on the research end of things. Regardless, I found the text tight and the pace moved like a mystery novel (at times). The emotions run high and I did find myself afterwords putting the book down with a sense of wanting to be done but glad I went on the journey.