Dálvi- Six years in the Arctic Tundra By Laura Galloway



A huge thank you to Midas (@midaspr) / Twitter for sending me this read!

Part memoir, part travelogue, Dálvi follows Laura’s journey to finding herself. After she did an ancestry test showing she shared DNA with Sámi people; had an affair with a Sámi reindeer herder and began to discover her history – she packed her bags and left her busy media job and life in New York for the tiny town of Kautokeino, Norway. When her affair with the reindeer herder unexpectedly ended, Laura thought her journey finding herself in the Arctic may have been over – but it had only just begun, as she stayed for six years and forged a new solitary life, in one of the most unknowable cultures on earth.

 

Laura’s astonishing story is a real page turner and throughout she explores the trials and tribulations of love, loss, ‘alonement’ and the feeling of truly belonging. Laura throughout the book details the beautiful sights and culture found in the Arctic from the northern lights to the stunning snow-covered landscape – combining, nature and culture, together providing a map to a certain mental landscape: which is sometimes cold, isolated, but also full of moments of excitement and wonder.


Dear Reader, 

From the start, this story had heart. Beating through every page, a strong story that swindles your attentions and allows you to become completely encompassed in a tale. 

From all the autobiographies I’ve read, this book held so much humanity within it, with an authors voice that kept strong and hearty throughout the entire duration. This narrative had depth. 

30 pages into this read, I already rooted for our characters, developing empathy and genuine care for the situations and tragedies we learnt of along the way. 

We see several settings in this book, so dramatically different but slid between with effortless grace and fluency by the writer.  A writing style so spectacularly well driven, I allowed myself to be led along and guided through this new territory by Galloway, grabbing at any new education or information about our surrounding hungrily, as page  numbers seemed to fly by. One setting was so rural and foreign to me, the reader, I couldn’t help but become engrossed and intrigued as we were slowly encouraged in with stories and anecdotes of a foreign world.

I have never read anything similar, in how it manages to present a setting almost lost to time, so vividly, it felt as if I was one of Galloways accompanying travel cats; watching on from a comfy spot on my sofa.  


The other settings, provided a similar experience as we learn more about the twenties and younger years of Galloway, as we caught heart-breaking tear-obscured glances through these precious alternating chapters, we were able to slowly piece together the broken pieces of a complicated and toxic childhood. 


A perspective and story that provided such clarity on life, as well as what I thought to be a true understanding and amazing representation of what it is to be overwhelmed in the world, whilst attempting to find a place or a mindset to call home.  


I truly believe this is one of those books you can't help being caught by, I came out of the experience feeling like I'd taken a piece of it with me, and every time I returned to the book it seemed like I felt more ready to face myself as our Protagonist has to do, as she narrates her own journey through her very own Tundra. 


An eulogy to growth, a joy to read. 


Until Next Time, 

Isabelle. 

Ignore The Typos 

xx




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