A Woman in the Polar Night, by Christine Ritter.
From the dust jacket.
In 1934 the painter Christiane Ritter leaves her comfortable life in Austria and travels to the remote Arctic island of Spitsbergen to spend a year there with her husband. She thinks it will be a relaxing trip, a chance to "read thick books in remote quiet and, not least, sleep to my heart's content."
At first Christiane is horrified by the freezing cold, the bleak landscape, the lack of equipment and supplies…But after encounters with bears and seals, long treks over the ice and months on end of perpetual night, she finds herself all in love with the Arctic's harsh, otherworldly beauty, gaining a great sense of inner peace and a new appreciation fo the sanctity of life.
Born in 1897…She wrote A Woman in the Polar Night on her return to Austria from Spittsbergen in 1934….Christiane died in Vienna in 2000 at the age of 103.
I'm loving this book, having chosen to ignore the cold, discomfort and lack of anything close to a gourmet meal, and instead to imagine the solitude and the simplicity of everyday living. Of course I ignore all the work they had to do just to keep warm, fed, and safe. Memories of my cottage by the sea, that's all I see.
From the dust jacket.
In 1934 the painter Christiane Ritter leaves her comfortable life in Austria and travels to the remote Arctic island of Spitsbergen to spend a year there with her husband. She thinks it will be a relaxing trip, a chance to "read thick books in remote quiet and, not least, sleep to my heart's content."
At first Christiane is horrified by the freezing cold, the bleak landscape, the lack of equipment and supplies…But after encounters with bears and seals, long treks over the ice and months on end of perpetual night, she finds herself all in love with the Arctic's harsh, otherworldly beauty, gaining a great sense of inner peace and a new appreciation fo the sanctity of life.
Born in 1897…She wrote A Woman in the Polar Night on her return to Austria from Spittsbergen in 1934….Christiane died in Vienna in 2000 at the age of 103.
I'm loving this book, having chosen to ignore the cold, discomfort and lack of anything close to a gourmet meal, and instead to imagine the solitude and the simplicity of everyday living. Of course I ignore all the work they had to do just to keep warm, fed, and safe. Memories of my cottage by the sea, that's all I see.
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