I find so much of contemporary literary fiction today tries to grasp you by the scruff of the neck, push your head under water, and hold you there releasing you to briefly gasp a mouthful of air before you’re plunged back under water again. You’re dragged into the character’s mind, privy to their every thought and emotion. Speech marks don’t exist because there can be no boundaries between you and them. When violence or neglect or abuse happens, you’re forced to become a part of it until you are desperate to escape.
Snow Country by Sebastian Faulks takes a different approach. It holds you at arm’s length and you want to keep reading not because your life depends on it but because the characters are intriguing, elusive. You want to understand their motivations, their desires. Events happen offscreen, or are mentioned in passing. The violence of WW1 is alluded to, not exposed.
Faulks assumes you have a certain knowledge of history so he’s not going to spell it out (yes, I did have to put the book down on occasion to do a little research or chat with my history-buff husband). Places become important because the reader observes from afar how special they are to each character, and that’s enough.
How does Snow Country compare to Faulks’ bestseller, Birdsong published in 1993? I’ll answer with a question. Are you the same person you were 18 years ago? Chances are you’ve changed, evolved. Maybe, like me, you’re a little slower, more aware of what can be left unsaid, more understanding of the complexities of human nature. Snow Country is not Birdsong, it’s the older, wiser cousin.
Snow Country doesn’t try to hold your head underwater. Instead it invites you to feel a cool breeze on your face and take deep, invigorating breaths. It asks you to think, to question, and keep reading in a search for simple truths.
This may be a story that held me gently at arm’s length, but even after the final page, it wouldn’t let me go.
— Olivia