Unsentimental affection for the characters
By Mikkel Bruun Zangenberg
With Den lange rejse (‘The Long Journey’) the author Jørn Riel - who in 2010 at the age of 79 was awarded Denmark’s most prestigious literary honour, The Danish Academy’s Grand Prize - has created a new ending to what was originally in 1979-1980 an epic tale in the form of a trilogy for older children: Drengen som ville være menneske (‘The Boy Who Wanted To Be Human’), Leiv, Narua og Apuluk (‘Leiv, Narua and Apuluk’) and Videre mod nord (‘Further North’). Now a fourth volume has been added, Rejsen til Vinland (‘The Journey To Vinland’), and the four books have been published as a major connected work.
Den lange rejse depicts in four separate and yet thematically linked books the meeting of the boy Leiv Steinursson with two Inuit children, Narua and Apuluk. At the start of the novel Leiv is consumed by the desire to avenge the murder of his father, Steinur, and secretly leaves his family and stows away on board Thorstein’s, the killer, Viking ship which is bound for Greenland where Thorstein has been banished for three years as punishment for the murder. The ship is lost at sea, but miraculously Leiv manages to save himself and reaches Greenland where he meets two Inuit children. Their meeting, which also tracks the origins of the awkward colonial relationship between Denmark and Greenland, results in a number of adventures and perilous events. Leiv must undergo many trials before finally being accepted as an equal by the Inuits. The final test involves him travelling to Vinland, the Viking name for North America, and then back to Greenland.
Riel has constructed a comprehensive, circular and epic arc for his protagonist and an account of his journey to adulthood, all depicted with Riel’s hallmark: Boundless warm humour and unsentimental affection for his characters combined with a remarkable talent for the fundamental, almost pre-modern, power of narrative.
Translated by Charlotte Barslund
