Safe Return Doubtful

Spitsbergen Phobia. Ritter had it, and she’s passed it to me.
I finished the book an hour ago and have spent the hour working out how and when I can get there..
Her transformation from the excitement of arriving on the island, which reads like an Enid Blyton style adventure of the day (1930s), to a fear of what she has let herself in for as the sun goes down in October, not to rise until February, is perfectly described. That bright Blyton style descends into a dark  cerebal tone; the mental toughness necessary for survival is evident.
The savage magnificence of the landscape carries the book for me, but the interactions between Ritter (an Austrian artist), her husband and a young Norwegian adventurer, are cheerful and sincere, and also a highlight.
Few books leave you with such memorable images. Her description of the full moon, the arctic light, says so much, “..as though we were dissolving in moonlight… one’s entire consciousness penetrated by the brightness; it is as though we were being drawn into the moon itself.” In her days alone while the men are away hunting she writes so well about “the terror of nothingness”. And her story of the encounters with an Arctic Fox, cakes made from eider duck eggs, and, on departure, the simple promise to write to each other for the rest of their lives (she lived until she was 103).

Translated by Jane Degras