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Clearing Out
Winner of the Nadia Christensen Prize for translation from the American-Scandinavian Foundation
In a masterful blend of fiction and autobiography, a Norwegian novelist sends her character to the far north to learn what she can about their Sami ancestry
Inspired by Helene Uri’s own journey into her family’s ancestry, Clearing Out, an emotionally resonant novel by one of Norway’s most celebrated authors, tells two intertwining stories. A novelist, named Helene, is living in Oslo with her husband and children and contemplating her new protagonist, Ellinor Smidt—a language researcher, divorced and in her late thirties, with a doctorate but no steady job.
An unexpected call from a distant relative reveals that Helene’s grandfather, Nicolai Nilsen, was the son of a coastal (sjø) Sami fisherman—something no one in her family ever talked about. Uncertain how to weave this new knowledge into who she believes she is, Helene continues to write her novel, in which her heroine Ellinor travels to Finnmark in the far north to study the dying languages of the Sami families there. What Ellinor finds among the Sami people she meets is a culture little known in her own world; she discovers history richer and more alluring than rumor and a connection charged with mystery and promise. Through her persistence in approaching an elderly Sami activist, and her relationship with a local Sami man, Ellinor confronts a rift that has existed between two families for generations.
Intricate and beautifully constructed, Clearing Out offers a solemn reflection on how identities, like families, are formed and fractured and recovered as stories are told. In its depiction of the forgotten and the fiercely held memories among the Sea (sjø) Sami of northern Norway, the novel is a powerful statement on what is lost, and what remains in reach, in the character and composition of contemporary life.
In a masterful blend of fiction and autobiography, a Norwegian novelist sends her character to the far north to learn what she can about their Sami ancestry
Inspired by Helene Uri’s own journey into her family’s ancestry, Clearing Out, an emotionally resonant novel by one of Norway’s most celebrated authors, tells two intertwining stories. A novelist, named Helene, is living in Oslo with her husband and children and contemplating her new protagonist, Ellinor Smidt—a language researcher, divorced and in her late thirties, with a doctorate but no steady job.
An unexpected call from a distant relative reveals that Helene’s grandfather, Nicolai Nilsen, was the son of a coastal (sjø) Sami fisherman—something no one in her family ever talked about. Uncertain how to weave this new knowledge into who she believes she is, Helene continues to write her novel, in which her heroine Ellinor travels to Finnmark in the far north to study the dying languages of the Sami families there. What Ellinor finds among the Sami people she meets is a culture little known in her own world; she discovers history richer and more alluring than rumor and a connection charged with mystery and promise. Through her persistence in approaching an elderly Sami activist, and her relationship with a local Sami man, Ellinor confronts a rift that has existed between two families for generations.
Intricate and beautifully constructed, Clearing Out offers a solemn reflection on how identities, like families, are formed and fractured and recovered as stories are told. In its depiction of the forgotten and the fiercely held memories among the Sea (sjø) Sami of northern Norway, the novel is a powerful statement on what is lost, and what remains in reach, in the character and composition of contemporary life.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2013
9 people are currently reading
984 people want to read
About the author
Helene Uri
53 books85 followersHelene Uri is a Norwegian linguist, novelist, and children's writer. She has published a number of novels, children's books and young adult novels, as well as nonfiction books.
She is a member of the Norwegian Academy for Language and Literature, board member of the Norwegian Language Council, and jury member of the Nordic Council's Literature Prize.
She is a member of the Norwegian Academy for Language and Literature, board member of the Norwegian Language Council, and jury member of the Nordic Council's Literature Prize.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
April 18, 2019
Linguicide is language extinction. "...smaller languages get crowded out by larger ones... the majority language gives more power and prestige..." "The most usual progression is that the language speakers become bilingual in one generation...the next generations gradually become worse speakers; the language is downgraded 'to the domain of traditional use, such as in poetry and song'...Finally, everyone is monolingual in the new language...in the space of only a couple of generations."
Helene, a linguist and novelist, lives in Oslo, Norway with her husband and children. She is in the development stage of fleshing out the main character for a new novel. Her protagonist, Ellinor Smidt, will have a doctorate in linguistics. Newly separated from husband Tom, Ellinor has no confidence in her abilities. However, she applies and is chosen to be a research assistant on the SAMmin Project, a project documenting people living in Finnmark who identify as conversing in Sami, an endangered language. Off to Northern Norway goes Ellinor Smidt!
Coincidentally, Helene is amazed to receive a phone call from a relative in Hammerfest who is conducting genealogical research. Helene requests to see a copy of her paternal family tree once completed. Knowing that her father's family history is incomplete, Helene embarks upon a quest to trace the Nilsen family's roots. She discovers that her great-grandfather, Ole Nilssen was Sami. Helene had planned a trip to attend Finnmark's International Literature festival. She will use her observations and experiences to help shape her novel about Ellinor's experiences in Finnmark.
Helene's search for her roots will parallel and be intertwined with Ellinor's search for data. "What was it like to be a Sami child in this district during the most intense Norwegianization period...to be prevented from speaking your own language?' "You keep that background hidden. It was nothing you acknowledged." "It was as if the tie to the ancestors was cut."
"Clearing Out" by Helene Uri weaves the autobiographical with the fictitious to create a conversation about identity, tradition, and the endangered status of the Sami language. I highly recommend this tome.
Thank you University of Minnesota Press and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "Clearing Out".
Helene, a linguist and novelist, lives in Oslo, Norway with her husband and children. She is in the development stage of fleshing out the main character for a new novel. Her protagonist, Ellinor Smidt, will have a doctorate in linguistics. Newly separated from husband Tom, Ellinor has no confidence in her abilities. However, she applies and is chosen to be a research assistant on the SAMmin Project, a project documenting people living in Finnmark who identify as conversing in Sami, an endangered language. Off to Northern Norway goes Ellinor Smidt!
Coincidentally, Helene is amazed to receive a phone call from a relative in Hammerfest who is conducting genealogical research. Helene requests to see a copy of her paternal family tree once completed. Knowing that her father's family history is incomplete, Helene embarks upon a quest to trace the Nilsen family's roots. She discovers that her great-grandfather, Ole Nilssen was Sami. Helene had planned a trip to attend Finnmark's International Literature festival. She will use her observations and experiences to help shape her novel about Ellinor's experiences in Finnmark.
Helene's search for her roots will parallel and be intertwined with Ellinor's search for data. "What was it like to be a Sami child in this district during the most intense Norwegianization period...to be prevented from speaking your own language?' "You keep that background hidden. It was nothing you acknowledged." "It was as if the tie to the ancestors was cut."
"Clearing Out" by Helene Uri weaves the autobiographical with the fictitious to create a conversation about identity, tradition, and the endangered status of the Sami language. I highly recommend this tome.
Thank you University of Minnesota Press and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "Clearing Out".
May 19, 2021
Wow, this book is so boring. Ellinor is an incredibly two-dimensional character, and everyone she meets is even flimsier and even more shallow, which is particularly disappointing, as these are the Sami characters that ought to be at the heart of the story. As for the autobiographical portions, they become incredibly repetitive. It's sad that Helene Uri takes such an interesting topic, the story of her pursuit to understand her Sami ancestry, and never delves beyond a surface-level "I wonder what my Grandpa thought about [whatever she's fixated on for this passage]." The book is disappointingly colonial in its framing, as in both stories the disillusioned Norwegian protagonists use their proximity to the Sami to have some sort of spiritual awakening that gives them a new sense of direction in their personal lives without meaningfully engaging with Sami people and attempting to give back. Even when they have their epiphanies, these awakenings are so poorly documented that readers can't pin down exactly when they happen, much less hope to experience them alongside the leading ladies. I think that, had this story been handled by a writer with much greater emotional depth and empathy, this could have been a much better novel.
[EDIT: I wrote a full review]
In her novel Clearing Out, Helene Uri explores the complexity of modern Sámi identity through the eyes of two Norwegian women, each independently working to better understand the lives of the Sámi people. Part memoir and part fictional narrative, Clearing Out follows Uri as she uncovers the truth about her grandfather, a half-Sámi man from Sørøya, along with the fictional character Ellinor as she conducts research on rare Sámi languages and their speakers. Uri holds a career similar to that of her protagonist, herself a linguist at the University of Oslo, and a native to Oslo. If this book strives to serve as a literary introduction to the culture of the modern Sámi people, Clearing Out falls short, preferring instead to explore the inner worlds of the women who research them. While Uri and Ellinor find themselves drawn to the Sámi people for different reasons, they are unified in their positionality; both women are outsiders, and both women are academics, pursuing knowledge through the methods they know best—scholarly research. However positive the intentions of Uri and her fictional counterpart, neither narrative attempts to expose its readers to nuanced portrayal of modern Sámi culture. The result is a novel that uses the Sámi people as little more than a narrative device—Sámi people may be centered, but only as the tools through which Norwegian women can better understand themselves.
The novel switches between two perspectives, that of Uri and that of Ellinor. Readers may at first find it difficult to understand which character they are following, but as they gather more information about each of the two women, this mental-gymnastics becomes increasingly manageable. In Uri’s sections, she focuses primarily on the grief of losing her mother and on her inquisition into the lives of her unknown Sámi family. Likewise, in Ellinor’s sections, the story focuses on the loss of Ellinor’s father and Ellinor’s self-growth as she grows closer to the Sámi community she researches. Through these two parallel narratives, Uri reveals her preoccupation with family as a central theme of the novel. Ellinor shares as much in one of her passages: “Relatives and family are important, repeated her father, especially in small families. The stories must be told,” (Uri, 159). By showing readers the importance of Uri’s mother and Ellinor’s father to each of the women’s identities, she establishes the importance of understanding one’s predecessors, a premise which gives weight to Uri’s journey to better understand her own background. The plot itself remains fairly simple, consisting mostly of each woman’s journeys between Sápmi and Oslo, and the relationships they develop. This fundamental dedication to the inner lives of Norwegian characters serves as the novel’s greatest downfall, as it comes at the expense of the development of Sámi characters.
While the majority of characters remain shallow and two-dimensional for the duration of the novel, Ellinor herself proving as no exception, Uri demonstrates that she can write a sympathetic character through the emotional and deliberate portrayal of her own mother. Uri dedicates herself to the representation of her mother as a woman with a passion for her family’s genealogy and she presents each of her mother’s belongings as a window into her mother’s soul. For example, as she rummages through the deceased woman’s old closet, she uses a simple description of a dress to give light to her younger days: "It doesn’t smell like Mama; she certainly never wore it in the past forty years. This one I want. I’ll put on the dress, cinch the belt around my waist, spin around on my heels, and think about when she was a young mother in Geneva, when she held my sister by the hand. She was talkative then: elle bavarde trop was written on her report card," (Uri, 220). Sadly, the mother is the only character to retrieve this treatment. In comparison, all other characters fall flat. If this were a book about family and grief, this wouldn’t be an issue. But for a novel which markets itself as an exploration of modern Sámi culture, Uri repeatedly invests far more in Norwegian characters than the Sámi people they engage with.
Throughout the novel, Uri focuses on developing two main Sámi characters, Anna Guttormsen and Kåre Os, along with speculating about her own long-lost Sámi relatives. Her understanding of her Sámi relatives never culminates in any profound conclusions, a fact for which, due to the intentional erasure and Norwegianization of Sámi culture, Uri herself holds little responsibility. However, continual speculation about relatives she has never met and conversations with equally ill-informed cousins doesn’t serve as any meaningful substitute for engagement with actual Sámi people who live in the region her grandfather hailed from. As for Ellinor’s story, the lack of nuance given to important Sámi characters is even more egregious. Kåre, a middle-aged Sámi man, is the primary love interest of Ellinor, yet Ellinor hardly cares to engage with him beyond their sexual encounters. Occasionally she tries to inquire into aspects of his family history which she knows are taboo, and expresses self-righteous frustration when he won’t tell her everything. She feels entitled to his thoughts yet dismisses his intellectual capacity to understand her, refusing to talk with him when he tries to comfort her after losing her father.
The portrayal of Anna is even worse, as Uri writes the elderly Sámi activist as a stereotypical caricature of a mystical indigenous person, one who holds hidden knowledge and forms of spirituality that, though not initially understood by the non-native protagonist, will eventually help that character to grow and better understand themselves. Ellinor repeatedly makes assumptions about Anna and her culture that Anna proves later to be incorrect, such as a repeated interest in what Ellinor assumes to be an amulet made of wolf’s tooth. When Ellinor finally asks about it, Anna replies: “It’s some expensive French thing. I bought it at Galeries Lafayette a few years ago” (Uri, 251). While Uri uses moments like these to demonstrate Ellinor’s ignorance, these instances are so shallowly dismissed that readers never understand Anna beyond the exoticized version of her that Ellinor presents. In a book that hopes to explore Sámi culture, the frequent dismissal of any opportunity to build a nuanced depiction of Sámi people makes clear Uri’s priorities: Sámi characters exist in the novel to help her Norwegian characters to grow.
While on the surface Uri embarks on a novel about the importance of familial heritage and the persevering culture of the Sámi people, she ultimately produces of a work that centers the experiences of Norwegian women and how their encounters with Sámi people shape their personal development. The book is disappointingly colonial in its framing, as throughout both stories the disillusioned Norwegian protagonists use their proximity to the Sámi to have some sort of spiritual awakening that gives them a new sense of direction in their personal lives without meaningfully engaging with the Sámi people they meet. The greatest strength of the novel, the depiction of Uri’s own mother and the grief she experiences in losing her, only serves to further draw attention to the difference between the level of care and empathy with which Uri portrays Sámi and non-Sámi characters. In a novel which promises an exploration of Sámi people in modern Norway, Clearing Out leaves readers with a book about two Norwegian women who use a taste of indigenous culture and history to enrich their own lives.
[EDIT: I wrote a full review]
In her novel Clearing Out, Helene Uri explores the complexity of modern Sámi identity through the eyes of two Norwegian women, each independently working to better understand the lives of the Sámi people. Part memoir and part fictional narrative, Clearing Out follows Uri as she uncovers the truth about her grandfather, a half-Sámi man from Sørøya, along with the fictional character Ellinor as she conducts research on rare Sámi languages and their speakers. Uri holds a career similar to that of her protagonist, herself a linguist at the University of Oslo, and a native to Oslo. If this book strives to serve as a literary introduction to the culture of the modern Sámi people, Clearing Out falls short, preferring instead to explore the inner worlds of the women who research them. While Uri and Ellinor find themselves drawn to the Sámi people for different reasons, they are unified in their positionality; both women are outsiders, and both women are academics, pursuing knowledge through the methods they know best—scholarly research. However positive the intentions of Uri and her fictional counterpart, neither narrative attempts to expose its readers to nuanced portrayal of modern Sámi culture. The result is a novel that uses the Sámi people as little more than a narrative device—Sámi people may be centered, but only as the tools through which Norwegian women can better understand themselves.
The novel switches between two perspectives, that of Uri and that of Ellinor. Readers may at first find it difficult to understand which character they are following, but as they gather more information about each of the two women, this mental-gymnastics becomes increasingly manageable. In Uri’s sections, she focuses primarily on the grief of losing her mother and on her inquisition into the lives of her unknown Sámi family. Likewise, in Ellinor’s sections, the story focuses on the loss of Ellinor’s father and Ellinor’s self-growth as she grows closer to the Sámi community she researches. Through these two parallel narratives, Uri reveals her preoccupation with family as a central theme of the novel. Ellinor shares as much in one of her passages: “Relatives and family are important, repeated her father, especially in small families. The stories must be told,” (Uri, 159). By showing readers the importance of Uri’s mother and Ellinor’s father to each of the women’s identities, she establishes the importance of understanding one’s predecessors, a premise which gives weight to Uri’s journey to better understand her own background. The plot itself remains fairly simple, consisting mostly of each woman’s journeys between Sápmi and Oslo, and the relationships they develop. This fundamental dedication to the inner lives of Norwegian characters serves as the novel’s greatest downfall, as it comes at the expense of the development of Sámi characters.
While the majority of characters remain shallow and two-dimensional for the duration of the novel, Ellinor herself proving as no exception, Uri demonstrates that she can write a sympathetic character through the emotional and deliberate portrayal of her own mother. Uri dedicates herself to the representation of her mother as a woman with a passion for her family’s genealogy and she presents each of her mother’s belongings as a window into her mother’s soul. For example, as she rummages through the deceased woman’s old closet, she uses a simple description of a dress to give light to her younger days: "It doesn’t smell like Mama; she certainly never wore it in the past forty years. This one I want. I’ll put on the dress, cinch the belt around my waist, spin around on my heels, and think about when she was a young mother in Geneva, when she held my sister by the hand. She was talkative then: elle bavarde trop was written on her report card," (Uri, 220). Sadly, the mother is the only character to retrieve this treatment. In comparison, all other characters fall flat. If this were a book about family and grief, this wouldn’t be an issue. But for a novel which markets itself as an exploration of modern Sámi culture, Uri repeatedly invests far more in Norwegian characters than the Sámi people they engage with.
Throughout the novel, Uri focuses on developing two main Sámi characters, Anna Guttormsen and Kåre Os, along with speculating about her own long-lost Sámi relatives. Her understanding of her Sámi relatives never culminates in any profound conclusions, a fact for which, due to the intentional erasure and Norwegianization of Sámi culture, Uri herself holds little responsibility. However, continual speculation about relatives she has never met and conversations with equally ill-informed cousins doesn’t serve as any meaningful substitute for engagement with actual Sámi people who live in the region her grandfather hailed from. As for Ellinor’s story, the lack of nuance given to important Sámi characters is even more egregious. Kåre, a middle-aged Sámi man, is the primary love interest of Ellinor, yet Ellinor hardly cares to engage with him beyond their sexual encounters. Occasionally she tries to inquire into aspects of his family history which she knows are taboo, and expresses self-righteous frustration when he won’t tell her everything. She feels entitled to his thoughts yet dismisses his intellectual capacity to understand her, refusing to talk with him when he tries to comfort her after losing her father.
The portrayal of Anna is even worse, as Uri writes the elderly Sámi activist as a stereotypical caricature of a mystical indigenous person, one who holds hidden knowledge and forms of spirituality that, though not initially understood by the non-native protagonist, will eventually help that character to grow and better understand themselves. Ellinor repeatedly makes assumptions about Anna and her culture that Anna proves later to be incorrect, such as a repeated interest in what Ellinor assumes to be an amulet made of wolf’s tooth. When Ellinor finally asks about it, Anna replies: “It’s some expensive French thing. I bought it at Galeries Lafayette a few years ago” (Uri, 251). While Uri uses moments like these to demonstrate Ellinor’s ignorance, these instances are so shallowly dismissed that readers never understand Anna beyond the exoticized version of her that Ellinor presents. In a book that hopes to explore Sámi culture, the frequent dismissal of any opportunity to build a nuanced depiction of Sámi people makes clear Uri’s priorities: Sámi characters exist in the novel to help her Norwegian characters to grow.
While on the surface Uri embarks on a novel about the importance of familial heritage and the persevering culture of the Sámi people, she ultimately produces of a work that centers the experiences of Norwegian women and how their encounters with Sámi people shape their personal development. The book is disappointingly colonial in its framing, as throughout both stories the disillusioned Norwegian protagonists use their proximity to the Sámi to have some sort of spiritual awakening that gives them a new sense of direction in their personal lives without meaningfully engaging with the Sámi people they meet. The greatest strength of the novel, the depiction of Uri’s own mother and the grief she experiences in losing her, only serves to further draw attention to the difference between the level of care and empathy with which Uri portrays Sámi and non-Sámi characters. In a novel which promises an exploration of Sámi people in modern Norway, Clearing Out leaves readers with a book about two Norwegian women who use a taste of indigenous culture and history to enrich their own lives.
July 1, 2025
3.5 stars
This is the latest choice for my family book club and I’m guessing probably most people haven’t heard about it…this book is by a Norwegian author, translated into English and published by the University of Minnesota press. It’s about a writer in Norway, working on a novel and dealing with the loss of her mother, learning more about her own family’s history, while plotting out a similar storyline for her book’s main character.
The mix of novel and autobiography was a little hard to keep straight at times, but I ended up enjoying it, kind of a masterful way of communicating a story. It made me think of other stories within a story, a hit and miss plot device, I think, but such a treat when it works out (like Margaret Atwood’s Blind Assassin - I loved!! - or Trust by Hernan Diaz, a miss for me but beloved by many).
This book particularly was special for my family because we have strong Norwegian roots, even with some Sami in our DNA, according to my sister’s 23 and Me results. Sami are the indigenous people of northern areas near the Arctic Circle region of Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Russia. Both storylines here are exploring family history, traveling to Northern Norway and learning about Sami relatives. Reading this made me wish I knew more about our Norwegian relatives and also made me wish for a trip to Norway! I recently read some of my mom’s journal from her trip to Norway, in the 1970s, and it was so fun to think of her there. She stayed with distant relatives and many of them have visited us here in Minnesota over the years. It’s pretty neat to have those connections still, I think! This was such a unique book and I’m glad to have read it.
This is the latest choice for my family book club and I’m guessing probably most people haven’t heard about it…this book is by a Norwegian author, translated into English and published by the University of Minnesota press. It’s about a writer in Norway, working on a novel and dealing with the loss of her mother, learning more about her own family’s history, while plotting out a similar storyline for her book’s main character.
The mix of novel and autobiography was a little hard to keep straight at times, but I ended up enjoying it, kind of a masterful way of communicating a story. It made me think of other stories within a story, a hit and miss plot device, I think, but such a treat when it works out (like Margaret Atwood’s Blind Assassin - I loved!! - or Trust by Hernan Diaz, a miss for me but beloved by many).
This book particularly was special for my family because we have strong Norwegian roots, even with some Sami in our DNA, according to my sister’s 23 and Me results. Sami are the indigenous people of northern areas near the Arctic Circle region of Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Russia. Both storylines here are exploring family history, traveling to Northern Norway and learning about Sami relatives. Reading this made me wish I knew more about our Norwegian relatives and also made me wish for a trip to Norway! I recently read some of my mom’s journal from her trip to Norway, in the 1970s, and it was so fun to think of her there. She stayed with distant relatives and many of them have visited us here in Minnesota over the years. It’s pretty neat to have those connections still, I think! This was such a unique book and I’m glad to have read it.
December 27, 2018
Jeg har lest noen bøker av Helene Uri tidligere som jeg har likt, og likte denne veldig godt. Jeg likte temaet om aldrende foreldre, slekters gang, nysgjerrigheten på hva tidligere slektninger har opplevd som vi ikke lenger vet noe om med mindre vi graver tilbake i historien. Og av og til må man ta fantasien til hjelp og fylle ut tomrommene. Dessuten syntes jeg det var veldig interessant hvordan romanen rommer to parallelle historier, en tilsynelatende "i virkeligheten" og den andre en klart fiktiv som forfatteren uttrykker sine tanker om underveis og som på flere punkter speiler og tar opp elementer fra den "virkelige" historien. Flere fascinerende grep.
June 21, 2019
Great read. The author wrote a story that was interesting and moved at a pace that kept me engaged. The characters were easy to invest in.
June 15, 2019
Clearing Out by author Helene Uri .
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read the e- book .
This ebook is of two stories which are cleverly interwoven , one is fact about the author's journey into her family ancestry , the other is fiction .
The author discovers her grandfather was the son of a Sami fisherman . She decides to send her character Ellinor to Finnmark in the far north of Norway to study the languages of the Sami famiies .
What Ellinor discovered there and of the people she met I found very interesting .
At the beginning it took me sometime to get into and to start understanding what was happening .
Recommend and give four stars .
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read the e- book .
This ebook is of two stories which are cleverly interwoven , one is fact about the author's journey into her family ancestry , the other is fiction .
The author discovers her grandfather was the son of a Sami fisherman . She decides to send her character Ellinor to Finnmark in the far north of Norway to study the languages of the Sami famiies .
What Ellinor discovered there and of the people she met I found very interesting .
At the beginning it took me sometime to get into and to start understanding what was happening .
Recommend and give four stars .
July 16, 2019
Helene is a linguist and novelist writing about a linguist, Ellinor, who gets a research post to explore the Sami language in the north of Norway, whilst Helen herself travels north to explore her own Sami heritage. Blurring the lines between autobiography and fiction, and sounding perhaps a bit too post-modern and self-referential, this is in fact a really enjoyable exploration of family, identity, the Sami and Norway’s troubled history during WWII. It’s a book rich in themes and ideas and works on many levels. The two threads are expertly woven together – most of the time, anyway. On occasion I had to stop and re-read a few lines to discover whether I was reading about Helene or Ellinor, but overall the conceit worked and the two narratives merge into a satisfying whole. I particularly enjoyed learning more about Sami culture and language, as well as relating to the personal stories of these two women.
April 2, 2019
2 stars
I was so confused by this book that I didn't know if I was coming or going. I understand the premise of the novel, but the transitions from reality to the character in the “author's” novel were so disjointed and confusing that I just had to give up on it. I don't know if it was a factor of translation, or the author's intent.
There are just too many other books out there to be read.
I want to thank NetGalley and the U of Minnesota Press for forwarding to me a copy of this book to read and review.
I was so confused by this book that I didn't know if I was coming or going. I understand the premise of the novel, but the transitions from reality to the character in the “author's” novel were so disjointed and confusing that I just had to give up on it. I don't know if it was a factor of translation, or the author's intent.
There are just too many other books out there to be read.
I want to thank NetGalley and the U of Minnesota Press for forwarding to me a copy of this book to read and review.
November 27, 2013
Velskrevet og finurlig roman om språk, identitet og familie. Veldig meta, og veldig bra.
August 4, 2024
Wow, I absolutely adored this book. I remember looking it up on Goodreads to mark it as currently reading, and reading a review (which I don’t usually do beforehand) that remarked how boring this book was—and I must say, I chuckled to myself multiple times throughout my own reading process of this novel wondering what book that person was reading? This is part memoir, part fiction, and I love how she weaved the two together! It gave it so much depth and heart. I genuinely enjoyed following both her story of discovery, and Ellinor’s. And as a doctor, reading her anecdotes on navigating parental death and grief were particularly beautiful/touching. If you linguistics (as I do), this is also a good pick for you, because she touches on the abstractions of words a couple times too.
Perhaps this book was just the perfect combination for my niche interests, but I loved it. 5 ⭐️
Perhaps this book was just the perfect combination for my niche interests, but I loved it. 5 ⭐️
June 17, 2020
It's not for me, but I still weirdly liked it. It’s an atmospheric book. I did not care for all the great grandparents/relatives, etc and would kind of glaze over when reading...and it takes up a large part of the book. I loved the relationship between Helene and her mom. I loved Ellinor and her relationship with Kare. It could have used infinitely more Anna Guttormsen. It was kind of a grey book and while I didn’t love it as I needed more story, there was a feeling about it that I liked, a sort of dreamlike quality.
It also reads well. I wouldn’t know it was translated.
'If I want I can decorate the night sky with reindeer eyes' - one of many great lines.
Also, I drank many cups of strong, black coffee because of this book.
It also reads well. I wouldn’t know it was translated.
'If I want I can decorate the night sky with reindeer eyes' - one of many great lines.
Also, I drank many cups of strong, black coffee because of this book.
July 7, 2020
Great examination of the creative process, of how the stuff of a writer's life becomes incorporated in fiction. Watching that unfold was fascinating. I didn't find either story (the writer's or her protagonist's) especially compelling, and both were thinner on character development than I normally like, but a deep dive into character wasn't necessary for this project. I learned a lot about the Sami, and that was also fascinating. I didn't buy the ending, though. Shades of deus ex machina, but maybe that was the point? I still didn't buy it. Good book, though. I'll be reading more Helene Uri if I can find English translations.
January 3, 2022
I just couldn’t get into this book. I read 25% of it and finally went to the last chapter, and didn’t feel like I missed anything. There is so much minutiae of daily living and random thoughts that it was extremely boring. The topic of a lost language and a familial rift mystery solved are interesting to me but this writing style didn’t do it for me.
April 18, 2023
Read for Nordic Book Club at Augustana College Swenson Center. A novel within a research study within a family genealogy within a novel! A search for a personal and family in Oslo, Finnmark, and places far and near, with language extinction, cleaning up the objects left behind after a death, and a touch of Sami shamanism. What more could you want?!
April 22, 2020
I really struggled to finish this book, I wanted to like it. Learning tiny snippets of Sami culture was the only saving grace. The story line is so disjointed, bouncing between characters and their genealogy. Going in my give away pile.
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September 6, 2019Fiction U761c 2019
April 26, 2020
Ah, I really liked this book. Clever and thought-provoking. Glad I finally found it after two years of searching!
June 15, 2020
Fortsatt litt usikker på om jeg likte konseptet med å følge både forfatteren og romankarakter parallelt, men syns effekten kanskje tok seg litt opp mot slutten av boken.
August 6, 2019
This book did not really work for me and simultaneously hit me too close to home, reading it as I was while helping mom move from a big house to a small apartment. It seems to hinge on a concept of family that I can barely understand, the idea of the outsize importance of those related to you biologically.
In addition to that, it's metafiction--the author is a character and her character is very clearly based on her own life, as two similar tales are told together. For me, this didn't serve to enhance either storyline, neither of which I felt could have stood alone. They leaned too heavily on each other, leaving me caring little about what either woman was going through. But I typically do NOT enjoy metafiction, so take that for what it's worth. The book had plenty of great descriptions of grief, very believable.
Finally, I had an interesting experience of this, looking at it as I was as a work translated from Norwegian to English, which was being able to at times see the Norwegian fingerprints under the English words. At times, it made me think about the function of translation, especially around cultural items that really have no translation and are, perhaps, best left original. Maybe with footnotes? I can't remember exactly what English words were used, presumably for "krumkake," but to call them something like "waffle cookies" misses the point, I feel. Some things are more than what they are, and to render them into another language is to make them ordinary. It reminded me of things I read ages ago about authors choosing to use Spanish words in English writing. Of course, Latin-American writers have a larger target audience that will understand all the words than one does when translating English into Norwegian. But it served to remind me that translation is an art that can be done in multiple ways, with multiple goals, and that translated works are never the same as their originals.
In addition to that, it's metafiction--the author is a character and her character is very clearly based on her own life, as two similar tales are told together. For me, this didn't serve to enhance either storyline, neither of which I felt could have stood alone. They leaned too heavily on each other, leaving me caring little about what either woman was going through. But I typically do NOT enjoy metafiction, so take that for what it's worth. The book had plenty of great descriptions of grief, very believable.
Finally, I had an interesting experience of this, looking at it as I was as a work translated from Norwegian to English, which was being able to at times see the Norwegian fingerprints under the English words. At times, it made me think about the function of translation, especially around cultural items that really have no translation and are, perhaps, best left original. Maybe with footnotes? I can't remember exactly what English words were used, presumably for "krumkake," but to call them something like "waffle cookies" misses the point, I feel. Some things are more than what they are, and to render them into another language is to make them ordinary. It reminded me of things I read ages ago about authors choosing to use Spanish words in English writing. Of course, Latin-American writers have a larger target audience that will understand all the words than one does when translating English into Norwegian. But it served to remind me that translation is an art that can be done in multiple ways, with multiple goals, and that translated works are never the same as their originals.
September 28, 2019
I am compelled to read fiction by Scandinavian authors (apparently.). Uri is a new one for me. I thoroughly enjoyed this book which intertwines the (autobiographically inspired) story of an author dealing with the death of her mother and the story of a fictional book she is writing. In the later, a young academic is dealing with the final illness of her father and the discovery that her great grandfather was Sami (something never discussed in her family.). A fascinating, well written book, I thought.
June 11, 2014
Hørte denne som lydbok med Ingrid Vollan som oppleser. Hoppet over enkelte deler som jeg ikke ville høre på, men stort sett er dette en god roman.
Spennende tema med det livet som leves av forfatteren nå og det å nøste opp i de samiske røttene sine, samt å blande romanen med en fiktiv person som også reiser til Finnmark. Det klinger velkjent i mitt eget liv. Skulle gjerne gitt denne boken 4 stjerner, men..
Spennende tema med det livet som leves av forfatteren nå og det å nøste opp i de samiske røttene sine, samt å blande romanen med en fiktiv person som også reiser til Finnmark. Det klinger velkjent i mitt eget liv. Skulle gjerne gitt denne boken 4 stjerner, men..
December 13, 2016
Dette er en meget spesiell roman. Den er en del fiksjon og en del biografi. Selv om romanen hopper mellom fantasi og virkelighet blir det aldri forvirrende. Flere har hevdet at dette er en av Helenes bedre romaner. Det kan jeg ikke uttale meg om, men det jeg vet er at jeg kommer til å lese mer av henne for jeg likte denne boken godt. Jeg anbefaler Rydde ut for deg som ønsker å lese en annerledes roman.
For full anmeldelse, se: https://edgeofaword.com/2016/08/12/ry...
For full anmeldelse, se: https://edgeofaword.com/2016/08/12/ry...
August 21, 2019
Interesting book set in Norway, which was fun to read since I had been there recently. I did not realize how prejudiced Norwegians were (and some still are) toward the Samis, formerly known as Laplanders. The book is a story within a story. But overall it was slow-moving. I was relieved when it was over.
May 1, 2016
Well written I guess, but the subject matter did not enagage me much.
August 1, 2019
Reminded me a bit of My Struggle. But shorter and not as good. I enjoyed the fictional story more than the autobiographical.
August 14, 2019
This book did not really work for me which means I found it unreadable. When books translated to English, and they are poorly written I tend to blame the translator more than the author.
May 19, 2019
I generally like structures, like clear timelines, in books. This one doesn't even have clear characters, and to me it's mostly a mess of everything. The points about dying languages drown in this mess. Identities and families also follow timelines, and making jumbles doesn't make things more interesting to me.
May 22, 2019
“Clearing Out” is a book within a book. It combines episodes from the author’s life with the story of Ellinor, a character she created.
The thing I liked most about this book was how it broke down the writing process. It was a look behind the curtain at how stories are created and plots are developed.
I also enjoyed the family relationships that are presented, both real and fictional. This was an enjoyable book.
Thanks to NetGalley and University of Minnesota Press for the ARC.
The thing I liked most about this book was how it broke down the writing process. It was a look behind the curtain at how stories are created and plots are developed.
I also enjoyed the family relationships that are presented, both real and fictional. This was an enjoyable book.
Thanks to NetGalley and University of Minnesota Press for the ARC.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews