"The Sea Road" by Margaret Elphinstone

[kittiwake]

I finished this book today, having read it in double-quick time as I found it very hard to put down. "The Sea Road" is the story of the travels of Gudrid, an 11th century Viking woman born in pagan Iceland. She went to live in Greenland before going on a voyage to Vinland, where she became the mother of the first European child to be born in America. The story is framed by her pilgrimage to Rome as an old woman, where she tells her story to an Icelandic monk called Agnar, who writes down a Latin translation for a cardinal.

It is a re-telling of happenings from several of the Icelandic Sagas as the Vikings explore the lands of the Northern Atlantic. As the sagas are rather minimalist in their story-telling style, they lend themselves well to being re-told, as the novelist has room to flesh events out, without changing the basic story. I enjoyed the way that the story was told to the monk, with Gudrid's digressions into how warm it was in Italy and her questioning of Agnar about his life and various theological issues. He never writes down his answers, so you just get her question, a row of asterisks and then her reactions to whatever he has said. This is a surprisingly effective technique.

I'd give it 10/10.