Home To Norway

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29336, 15 October 1960, Page 3

Home To Norway

My Norwegian Joorney. By Elisabeth D. Jackson. Arthur - H, Stockwell. 115 pp. This is an unpretentious account of a New Zealander’s holiday in ■Norway. Mrs Jackson’s parents were Norwegian and, brought up on tales of the Norwegian “small people,” she welcomed an opportunity to visit the country of her ancestors. She went by boat as far north ds Hammerfest and this Arctic town is described, as well as Bergen, Trondheim, Lillehamar (home of Sigrid Undsetk Oslo and other places. There is no 'attempt to load the text .with details from tourists’ handbooks; what is told is what any New Zealand traveller might observe, conversations with Norwegian people, scenery, the memory of the occupation, farm life, trams, food and hotels. The style is the average letter writer’s or diary keeper’s style, without the complexities nor, at times, the orderliness of more practised writers, but gaining perhaps in sincerity. We are never in doubt that Mrs Jackson enjoyed her holiday in her modest way, and she manages to pass on some of that enjoyment to her readers.