Eyes of the Rigel

I didn't realize until I was already partway through this novel that it is the third book in a trilogy. I might have liked it better if I had read the first two books first. As it was, this book was somewhat opaque to me, and I wondered how accurately the translation reflected the style of the original Norwegian text.

We meet Ingrid on her native island of Barrøy as she packs up her infant daughter Kaja and sets out on a journey to find Alexander, a Russian POW/fugitive (and the father of her child) that she rescued after he survived the shipwreck of the Rigel. Her friends and relatives try to dissuade her from her search, but she won't be discouraged. At each stop she makes, she interviews people who have slivers of information about where Alexander went and what happened to him on the way, and can point her to the next place to search. At each of these stops, though, she encounters people who are unwilling to give her all the information they have. Some of them collaborated with the Nazis during the war and are trying to keep that a secret, but the motivations of others are unclear, at least to me. Ingrid, however, can tell that people are not telling her the whole truth.

I was engaged with the story and the characters, especially Ingrid, but I found the writing style confusing. Characters seemed to be able to infer inner truths about each other from matter of fact conversations about coffee. Reading this book felt like being an outsider overhearing conversations that have a hidden subtext. I knew there was more going on than met my eye, but I couldn't figure out how it was being conveyed all the time. Also, the fact that Ingrid had a regional accent that would have made her sound funny to people in other parts of Norway was conveyed by spelling her words differently throughout the book. I understood why it was done that way, but it also irritated me because it made her seem too much like a dumb hick stereotype, which she wasn't.

So, I had mixed feelings about this book, though I really liked the end. Perhaps other readers will be able to enlighten me about the writing style.