1985. Nineteen-year-old Filip spends his days playing football, listening to music on his Walkman and drawing, searching for something he cannot yet name. He lives in a large family house shared with his grandparents, where an old rift between his grandfather Arnstein and Arnstein’s brother Truls still governs the atmosphere. The cause appears trivial, an apple tree dropping fruit across a boundary fence, but the bitterness between the brothers speaks of something far older and deeper.
1912. With Europe on the brink of upheaval, Arnstein and Truls are sent into the forest for the summer by their stern father, determined that his sons should learn to endure hardship. Left to fend for themselves among travellers, log drivers and Forest Finns, the brothers live from the land, fishing, hunting and roaming the vast woodland. Cold and hungry, yet bound together by fierce loyalty and affection, they crown themselves the princes of Pauper’s Pond, rulers of a world shaped by freedom, imagination and shared struggle. Until, back home, their father makes a decision that will change everything.
Spanning generations, The Princes of Pauper’s Pond is a vibrant, magical and deeply affecting novel about brotherhood and belonging, about finding joy and love in the open landscape, and about those single moments that can seal a family’s fate … forever…
It's my pleasure to be sharing my review of The Princes of Pauper's Pond by Lars Elling today. Many thanks to Orenda Books for my advance copy of the book and to Anne Cater from Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part in the tour.
Lars Elling is a visual artist and it shows throughout his debut novel. The Princes of Pauper's Pond's flowing, richly descriptive narrative shifts between perspectives and time periods mean it will be experienced and interpreted differently by anyone who reads it.
The lyrical prose brings Norway's forests to life but this is a book of contrasts; the ethereal imagery of newly emerging, fairy-like mayflies is balanced by the precariousness of their early moments, as their dancing is watched by the brown trout lurking nearby. Meanwhile, the shared discoveries and small victories of two young brothers will eventually cause a lifelong rift between them. War clouds are gathering over Europe during the summer of 1914 while in 1985, an old man is seeing out his last days by recalling his boyhood.
In the more modern passages, Filip stands on the verge of manhood as an artist who feels trapped by home but doesn't yet understand what he is yearning for. He begins to visit his grandfather, who is dying of silicosis and despite the Old Man's mercuriality and his breathing difficulties, he begins to open up to Filip. The prose naturally flows between the past and present as Arnstein recounts his adventures with his younger brother, Truls. Lars Elling's vibrant imagery effortlessly allows us to visualise the two youngsters who are sent out into the forest to fend for themselves by their autocratic father, who believes their survival skills need sharpening before the inevitable war. However, this is no sentimental, idealised picture of a long-forgotten past. Nature – including that of the boys – can be brutal and exploitative, and they trap, slay and steal in order to feed themselves or to raise money. Their close bonds mean the narrative is naturally laced with humour but this is tempered throughout by the sense of foreboding that comes from knowing something eventually results in a cataclysmic fracturing of their relationship.
Filip is the conduit who allows us to understand why a bitter old man lies in a bed while his and his brother's wives constantly push fermenting apple mush between their shared border but he is also an engaging character in his own right. He becomes entranced by his grandfather's story and in doing so, he learns that those he has reduced almost to caricatures in his mind once had lives full of excitement, secrets and tragedies.
Lars Elling's atmospheric, poetic narrative has been translated beautifully by Don Bartlett and although a rather melancholic tale, The Princes of Pauper's Pond is a captivating, evocative exploration of belonging, love and loss spanning the generations.
The Princes of Pauper's Pond by Lars Elling (tr. by Don Bartlett) is published by Orenda Books and can be ordered from their website. Further purchasing links can be found here.
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About the Author
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Lars Elling (b. 1966) is a writer and a visual artist. He is the author of two picture books and has also illustrated several children’s books. Together with Bjørn Sortland he won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 1996 for the book Red, Blue and a Bit of Yellow, which he illustrated. Elling has had exhibitions in Berlin and New York and his works have been acquired by Norway’s National Museum and the Council of Culture. The Princes of Pauper’s Pond is his first novel.
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