Re-read: the Unseen, Roy Jacobson

     Foremost among my regrets are all the things I didn't ask, especially when I was young. John Anderson was married to my father's sister, Anna. John grew up in Norway, and lived in South Dakota and Minnesota. Early during WW II he moved to Richmond, CA., to work in the shipyards. With some regularity they'd come back to SD to visit. Their relocation to CA meant that my time with John was quite limited. On one of those visits he talked about how difficult commercial fishing was in Norway.  They'd take their small fishing boats north of the Arctic Circle to the Lofotens in the winter to fish for cod. Now, of course, I wish I'd have kept him talking and gotten stories and details.
    My father's family in Norway lived on a large island, Averoy, not far from Trondheim. They were farmer/fishermen. During the summer they farmed and in the winter they fished. My grandfather emigrated to America and homesteaded in South Dakota. His father died when he was very young but he had a very good step-father. In our possession are a trove of letters from step-father to his step-son in America. Likely my grandfather's mother couldn't write. In those letters from Norway there are many reports of the results of the winter's fishing, both what was caught by line and by net.
    In Roy Jacobson's, novel,  the Unseen, Hans, the husband/father farms the island, on which he lives and that he owns, in the summer and goes fishing in the Lofotens in the winter. The island that Hans and his family occupy is so small that it supports only his family. It's a difficult struggle but there are joys and satisfactions. The interplay of characters living so closely together is superbly told. The island is near the Arctic Circle and it can be surmised from the story that it is set in the time leading up to WW I.
    The book was as delightful in its second reading as in the first. Likely I'll read it again in a year or two. Berger, a Norwegian friend, gave it to me when I visited a couple of years ago. It is among my favorite books and I see it is available from Amazon.

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