Title: De Dødes Tjern
Author: André BjerkePublished: 1942
Language: Norwegian
Pages: 224
Rating: 3/5
Summary:
A group of young people decide to travel to a cabin in the woods to investigate the suicide of one of their friends.
Review:
It was really fun to read a Norwegian mystery classic and my gosh, this one really creeped me out.
I absolutely love the setting of this book; it's set a little bit in Oslo before moving on to a cabin by a small lake surrounded by dense forest and they spend this time in this cabin where it seems they're not entirely alone. Now, I probably felt an extra sense of connection to this setting because I've grown up close to several small lakes and right by the forest, so I could so vividly picture it. I also loved the lore of this place and the history of the cabin. The atmosphere is excellent though, it's really creepy, so much so that I had to put the book down when it got dark.
I thought the characters in here were really interesting as well, and I liked seeing them interact and hearing their different perspectives on what was going on. They're all very different and they've all got different ideas of what reality is like and I really liked that.
Now, there are a few things I didn't like about this; my biggest problem with it is the outdated view on women and how they're the weaker and less intelligent sex, which comes up several times throughout the story and shows in the building of the female characters. I do realise this book is quite old now, but I still noticed it enough for it to bother me. I also think the revelation at the end was very dense; it's like a block of information that's thrown at you and it's interesting, but heavy to read.
I do think this is an interesting look into this time though and the ideas that permeated society, with a little bit of the supernatural and a whole lot of psychoanalysis. I was never bored when I read it and like I said; it was really, really creepy.
You can read more about it on Goodreads
