Sixteen Trees of the Somme – book review

There is something about Norwegian writing that reminds me of Irish literature. It’s so centred on place, it’s the being there that grounds the story. We are different here, these stories say, our culture is wrapped around our traditional ways based on a history, geography and climate that are distinctly our own. It’s like the country itself has a voice. We are beginning to understand this power in New Zealand writing and could take lessons from these countries, for sure. Lars Mytting’s voice is profoundly Norwegian. There is always the expectation of snow on his boots and trolls under the woodpile.

Sixteen Trees of the Somme has a long reach. The base of the story is a Norwegian farm – mostly in the snow but summer visits occasionally – and it’s a mystery and a history and a resistance story and has love and travel and coming of age, a history of gun making and an obsession with trees and their particular wood and so many other things. Lots of secrets to unravel. It kept me spellbound.

I’ll start with a dose of authenticity to get you in the mood: The old priest drank his coffee in the old-fashioned way. Allowed a lump of sugar to break the oily surface, waited until it turned brown, placed it between his lips and sucked it before pouring coffee on the saucer and taking a slurp. I noticed something similar happening inside him. The priest was separating things, so that only what tasted of sugar emerged.

Jump on in to Norway.

Edvard Hirifjell lives with his grandfather on a mountain farm on the outskirts of a village where he does not feel welcomed. There are historical feuds going back to the war. His parents have died in the seventies while visiting an old battlefield woodland in the Somme, blown apart by mines in a long fenced off area, and toddler Edvard mysteriously disappears from the scene to be discovered across the country a while later. There is a suggestion that he was abducted by his great-uncle Einar, a master carpenter who left Norway long ago. Mysteriously, when Edvard’s grandfather dies, a coffin is delivered to the farm, and Edvard goes in search of Einer for explanations of their complicated past. The questions grow as the story unravels and knits together. What was the feud with his grandfather? Why did Einer clamp the trees in their wood? Why were his parents visiting a French battlefield anyway? The book is called Sixteen Trees of the Somme for a reason.

If you’ve read Mytting’s Norwegian Wood (and who hasn’t?) you’ll know that our author is a bit of a tree whisperer. It seems damaged trees have a mysterious power all of their own.

Edvard’s investigations take him to Shetland and a woman called Gwendolyn Winterfinch who is looking after a closed house and who has access to an island off the coast where, apparently, Einar has lived. There are stories of an inheritance, though where it is, even what it is, remains a mystery for most of the book. The descriptions of Shetland are wonderful. I’ve always thought of it as Scottish but here it remembers its Viking past.

Edvard has left the attractive and very willing girl-next-door, Hanne, to go on his travels and she moves in and looks after the farm admirably while he is away. A good catch, you’d think, and her expectations are obvious. But for some reason the devious Gwendolyn, entitled and rich with all sorts of insecurities from a troubled family, manages to steal his heart. Love is complicated.

Everything is complicated on this Norwegian farm. But Edvard works things out like a carpenter chipping away at a difficult piece of wood until the shape within emerges. It just takes patience, time and care. Like most things worthwhile. Edvard remembers his mother as A breath of something blue. This is quite a long book, but that phrase was enough to remind me to read slowly and enjoy the detail.