Colin Dickey at Lit Hub:
On its surface, the book is deceptively simple. At first hating Svalbard and seeing only bleak desolation, she undergoes a change, learning a great deal about herself, humanity, and the wild in the process. This is a cliched appraisal of the book, but part of its charm is how clearly these beats are telegraphed, and how skillfully she delivers on what you already suspect is coming.
New wonders gradually begin to find her. A curious fox begins to hang around Ritter’s cabin—inquisitive, eager to form an attachment to these humans it’s found, it’s a hüsrev, or house fox, which Karl calls “Mikkl” (“the Norwegians call all polar foxes Mikkl,” she notes dryly). Scrawny and with an unappealing coat, the fox is unpromising to the hunters, so Ritter bargains with them to leave him be. Soon, he is a regular feature of the landscape: “On all our walks Mikkl now accompanies us like a faithful dog. Wherever we go, he suddenly turns up but acts as if he were not accompanying us, but going his own extremely individual way.”
more here.
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