Wednesday, July 28, 2010

The Tricking of Freya by Christina Sunley


Title: The Tricking of Freya
Author:
Christina Sunley
ISBN: 9780312378776

Publisher: St. Martin Press/2009

Pages: 352


Told in the voice of Freya, we take a journey from Gimli, a village in Canada, to Iceland. She is writing all her thoughts, her experiences for her unknown cousin. She doesn't even know if her cousin is a male or a female. But she knows she has to write it all down for that person, whom intends to find out in her lifetime.

She and her mother have always lived in Connecticut. She speaks about her mother, Anna and her aunt Birdie, her grandmother, Sigga and various other relatives, Icelandic as well as Canadian. After Birdie dies on her 14th birthday and also when her mother dies, a few years later, she is not keen to visit Gimli again. But she does go back for her very old grandmother, who wants to preserve the family history.

Again we see Freya travelling from Gimli to Iceland to learn more about her cousin. And finally when she does learn the untold secrets, she can't believe how much injustice was done to herself, her volatile aunt and her gentle mother.

It starts with Freya being seven years old and takes us through more that two decades. We too are affected when we learn the enormity of Freya being tricked. With beautiful scenics and interesting characters, the reader is moved beyond words.

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I liked the following words from the above reviewed book:

1) Kenning (page 3): Word-Meadow is a Kenning for tongue, "she explains. "And I suppose now you will want to know what a kenning is."

A kenning is a much-compressed form of metaphor, originally used in Anglo-Saxon and Norse poetry. In a kenning, an object is described in a two-word phrase, such as 'whale-road' for 'sea'. Some kennings can be more obscure than others, and then grow close to being a riddle.

2) Elskan (Page 6): "Come here, elskan, and kiss your rotten aunt."

Elskan is an icelandic word meaning, honey, sweetheart or darling

13 comments:

bermudaonion said...

Even though I've never been there, I'm fascinated with Iceland so this sounds really good to me.

bibliophiliac said...

This sounds intriguing, and I'm fascinated by the setting as well...

Laurel-Rain Snow said...

Iceland is a fascinating place (in my imagination!), and I'd love to visit it.

Here's my Y book:

http://laurel-rain-outonalimb.blogspot.com/2010/07/z-wednesday_27.html

Lisa notes... said...

I've never heard of either of those. Very interesting.

Margot said...

I like the word kenning. I'm going to start looking for those words. I may have to start using them.

jlshall said...

This is one I really want to read - especially after reading your review. Sounds even better than I thought.

Andi said...

I've seen SO MUCH about The Tricking of Freya around the blogosphere. Really need to hunt it down.

Sherrie said...

Hi!
It sounds interesting. I'll have to check this one out. Have a great day!

Sherrie
Just Books

Booklover said...

The review is well written indeed. Makes me feel like picking up the book

BookRack Reviews

Nikki in Niagara said...

That sounds really intriguing!! I want to know how she was tricked!

Teddy Rose said...

This sounds like a book I would really enjoy. Thanks for the review. I added it to my TBR.

Wanda said...

Sounds like a great read and when I looked up Gimli, Canada to find out if it was a real community, I found a rather interesting page. Cool word finds, thanks for the review!

Chrisbookarama said...

It does sound interesting. Iceland seems like a mysterious place to visit.