A Woman in the Polar Night Book Club

Next month’s book club pick: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer • Upgrade to or renew an annual subscription to win my gorgeous desk essentials box •

---

If you’re just catching up, here are Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of this True Stories Book Club readalong.

Hello,

I’m sad to say we’ve come to the end of our time with A Woman in the Polar Night - it’s been spectacular.

Rebecca Armstrong

and I got together with

Anna Brones

of Creative Fuel for a final discussion of the book earlier this week - scroll down for the full recording.

Just as I was about to leave Christiane Ritter behind for a while, a parcel arrived in the post that I thought might not ever come. It is a copy of the German edition of the book, published by Ullstein, which contains some extra colour illustrations that are not included in the Engish Language edition. I was so delighted to see them, although I did at first thing the fox pelts looked like carrots!

To my surprise, there was also a 1990 Afterword in the German edition, describing Christiane’s life after her journey. I’ve made a very sketchy translation of it here using software, which I think shows the true value of a human translator over a machine. But we get to witness Christiane’s nerves as she nears her home town, and her delight at seeing her daughter, Karin. We also learn that the Ritters’ house burned down while they were away (a subject dealt with in Christiane's characteristicly understated style), but that the smaller accommodation feels just right after the Spitsbergen hut. We also hear news of Karl, who became a made man and settled down with a family. But Christiane can’t help but return to her love of the Arctic, ‘the area of the world where sky touches the earth’.

‘Not everyone can endure the great light, not everyone the great darkness, not everyone the great loneliness,’ she writes. ‘I had the great grace of being thrown into the midst of the relentlessness of wild nature right at the beginning of my adventure, and this alone was my baptism of fire. Since then I have known that behind the scenes of the world is the presence of God. That gives me the strength and the peace for everything.’

At the end of the book, she includes a touching sketch of the young Karin being cared for by her grandmother.

Here’s a clip of our conversation, plus the transcript. Paid Subscribers can find the full recording further down.

Transcript A Woman In The Polar Night Book Club

579KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download