The Sixteen Trees of the Somme by Lars Mytting

You know how it is when someone gives you a paperback as a gift; you are never sure if you are going to like it, and if it happens to be translated form Norwegian and have a title relating to The First world War, then there is every reason to have a few doubts.

But my doubts quickly faded after I started this book and it wasn't long before I was absolutely glued to it and resented every task that took me away from the next chapter. If someone had told me that this book had won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction I would have believed them, it's that good. Why is the cover not plastered with little rosettes from Prize giving organisations? Lars Mytting has won prizes for his non-fiction work but he deserves more - and Paul Russell Garrett deserves another prize for a translation that doesn't in any way feel like one.

The story follows Edvard Hirifjell through his quest to discover what really happened back in 1971 when his parents were killed in an accident and he was reported missing for several days afterwards. All this happened in France, where his parents had gone to investigate some kind of family inheritance and Edvard was only three, but his grandparents would never speak of that time so he could only begin his search after they had both died.

Edvard's discovered that the family tragedy was closely linked to his great uncle Einar, a master cabinet maker, who had gone to live somewhere on the Shetland Islands after the Second World War. Edvard knew that Einar had also died fairly recently, but he knew he had to get to the Shetland Islands to find out if there was anyone still alive that remembered Einar and could perhaps offer clues to the family mystery.

The author, Lars Mytting, has constructed such an intelligent plotline that everything evolves naturally and nothing seems contrived. So often in novels involving mystery, the author provides explanations that fit the plot but are very hard to believe and the last chapters can feel very contrived, but not here.

Now that I have read it, I can confidently say that this book is up there in my all time top ten novels along with the Gilead books written by Marilynne Robinson and a couple from Elizabeth Strout and Amor Towles.

Comments

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