My post about Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison is going to be short – because what on earth was I thinking, back in 2012, when I bought this Virago Modern Classic? Well, maybe I’ve answered my own question there. It’s a VMC, it’s slim, it has a lovely cover. Maybe I figured all of that would help me overcome the fact that a book could hardly appeal to me less?
It’s a sort of fable about a girl called Halla in some sort of faux-medieval pan-Scandinavia setting. She is the daughter of a king but thrown out of home as an infant, and raised by bears.
And then a very fortunate thing happened. Matulli and her bear husband were walking through the woods, looking for the last of the wild bees’ honey or a late fledgling from a nest, and Matulli’s husband was grumbling away to himself because he could feel that the snow was not far off and it was time to go home to the den and sleep and sleep. But Halla was running around like a crazy butterfly and clearly had no intention of sleeping. Sometimes the he-bear thought it would be both nice and sensible to eat Halla, but he did not dare because of Matulli.
Yes, I enjoyed the knowing whimsy of that phrasing. Maybe I could cope with this book. But as it goes on, and we get through dragons and the Wanderer and having to do quests and whatnot, I got more and more bored.
Mitchison’s tone is a sort of wink-wink update of mythology, with the mythology taking over increasingly as the novella continues. I simply don’t care for this sort of book. Her writing is able, but I have no interest in fantastical lands and ancient pasts (whether real or imagined). I slogged my way through 138 pages, not caring what happened to anybody, and it’s going to a charity shop – from whence it will doubtless find a much more suitable home.
No club year would be complete without a few duds. I recognise the fault is with me, for trying something so very unlikely to appeal. But at least it has that lovely cover.
