The Ice Palace (Peter Owen Modern Classics)

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So under a mental stress Siss gives a vow: “I promise to think about no one but you. To think about everything I know about you. To think about you at home and at school and on the way to school. To think about you all day long, and if I wake up at night.” The concise, lyrical narrative evokes the Japanese haiku style, where the misleading simplicity of the text is in fact overflowing with symbolism and metaphors worthy of close reading, making of this brief novel a gem in form of a prose poem.

Siss and Unn are eleven years old and as different from each other as fire and water. Siss is lively and outspoken and even a little bossy with her friends. Unn is introverted and reticent, sitting alone at the edge of the playground. Siss comes from a content and comfortable family, with parents who give her a lot of leeway to express herself. Unn is an orphan with an unknown runaway father and has recently lost her mother to illness, now living with an elderly aunt. Yet from the first time their eyes meet across a schoolyard they feel connected. Too young and inexperienced to know how to express their feelings, shy and yet filled with yearning. Naked flames of innocence and enthusiasm, they shed their clothes and danced around each other, coming very close then jumping away in fright at the intensity of the feeling. Vesaas the poet knows how to go beyond mere words to capture the moment, in the first of a couple of lyrical passages that mark the high points of the story for me:Turnbull, Andrew (1962) [1954]. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. LCCN 62-9315– via Internet Archive. I’m a worthless creature,’ said Auntie shortly afterwards, when they were nearing her house, nearing the end of the evening. She began again: ‘Worthless. The people here have done everything for me during this misfortune, and now I’m going like this when I ought to take my leave properly".

View of the palace is absolutely stunning. Shiny, cold and inaccessible and yet so tempting. Dainty, lace decorating, slender columns, openwork lace. Chambers sparkling with colors, white, blue, green. Somewhere in the distance a waterfall roars and in the icy walls - trapped eye of the sun. Come in, Unn. Get some rest. This is not a confession of a woman that is tormented by guilt for failing to save the life of the child that was entrusted upon her. Auntie is not comforting Siss to help her overcome the grief after losing a loved one. This is a declaration of a woman trapped in a chronic condition that forces her to act against her nature, living in an emotional, physical, mental and ontological self-exile. An ailing human. A broken human. Auntie poses as an example of what should be avoided.Sometimes, when you lose someone, the loss is so bewildering and heavy, you have to decide whether to break off a part of yourself in letting them go, or be pulled under with them. The very next day the new girl skips school and goes to see a giant ice cave formed by freezing water around a waterfall. The girl is never seen again despite days of searching. I have been engulfed in the ephemeral presence of few people who never returned; but their touch stands frozen in my heart. No infernos of absence and no flames of silence can melt away their existence. But they do melt; melt within the searching glow of my fogged eyes. And seep a little more into me; filling the reservoirs with more potency to keep the promise. Yes, the promise.

Siss, one of Unn’s classmates who is lively and popular, strikes up a friendship with her. But the very next day after their first awkward meeting, Unn disappears. No one knows what has become of her but every one suspects Siss knows more than she lets on. The author wrote a dozen novels, almost all of which have been translated into English. He wrote in Nynorsk, a dialect of Norwegian. It is precisely in this sombre setting, full of darkness lurking in recondite corners, reinforced with this sharp writing style, where the main character of the novel is presented: The eerie giant structure formed by a frozen waterfall up in the lake, called The Ice Palace. Either sanctuary or mausoleum, it arises as the eternally snow covered bridge that defies death, guilt and angst, linking Siss and Unn forever. There’s only one thing to ask in exchange for this everlasting token of friendship: A promise. Siss must never forget.Unn is translated as "the one who is loved" yet it can be read as the prefix un-loved as in abandoned. Create a plot using drama (record plot ideas with partner and act out the scenario using new character) Read it - Examine the ice palace on the cover of the book and the picture of a girl. Use your imagination and think of imagery and symbolism, snow, ice, water, new seasons, mental trauma, the mirror that reveals all, two eleven year old girls, an outsider and the other the leader of a group at school. The catalyst is the ice palace.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott (1994). Bruccoli, Matthew J. (ed.). A Life in Letters. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 0-684-19570-4– via Internet Archive. Starjik, a child taker, would always came to the village to take away the children during winter. One night, Starjik came and took away Ivan's little brother. Ivan loved his brother and so he went on a journey to find Starjik's land where he was in great danger many... Fitzgerald’s ‘The Ice Palace’ is, first and foremost, about the differences between the North and the South in the United States, and the differing temperaments of the people who inhabit each. Whereas Sally Carrol’s South is associated with sleepiness, laziness, and warmth, Harry’s North is associated with coldness: both the coldness of the weather and the detached and even hostile attitudes of the locals. In the North, we might say, the coldness is a matter of temperament as well as temperature. Sally Carrol Happer, a young woman from the fictional city of Tarleton, Georgia, United States of America, is bored with her unchanging environment. Her local friends are dismayed to learn she is engaged to Harry Bellamy, a man from an unspecified town in the northern United States of America. She brushes off their concerns, alluding to her need for something more in her life, a need to see "things happen on a big scale."

Siss is both puzzled and beguiled; she feels some kind of deep connection with Unn, but does not understand what it means. She is aware, however, that Unn steals the occasional glance in her direction, as if aware of their connection, though she continues to remain detached from Siss and her group of friends. Every day Unn stands alone. She seems to embody, it occurs to Siss, a strangely serene inner strength. rly beautiful and intense sublimated lesbian movie...the whole sequence of unn in the ice palace ;_; gestures and unspoken desires are what animate this, the dialogue really isnt important b/c its all in their faces.. Now that the station has been secured as a holding of SubLight Salvage, Lilya Hagen will be interested in an update. She can be found in SubLight Headquarters on the Groundbreaker.