BOOK REVIEW: BURIAL RITES BY HANNAH KENT

"They said I must die. They said that I stole the breath from men, and now they must steal mine. I imagine, then, that we are all candle flames, greasy-bright, fluttering in the darkness and the howl of the wind, and in the stillness of the room I hear footsteps, awful coming footsteps, coming to blow me out and send my life up away from me in a grey wreath of smoke. I will vanish into the air and the night. They will blow us all out, one by one, until it is only their own light by which they see themselves. Where will I be then?"

What a ruthless, poignant story.

Burial Rites executes a lot of things with finesse: writing style, character development, pacing. However, the one thing that it does so distinctively well is ambiance. This book's atmosphere is like no other (as evidenced by the prologue above). It is somber and acerbic and unrelenting, much like its subject matter. Iceland is as much a part of this book as the characters are. It is as much a part of these characters as their identities are. With this pervasive atmosphere, Kent sweeps you up in her narrative, showing you, little by little, what it might mean to be a woman condemned to death for a crime she may or may not have committed. It is in this way that Burial Rites is, first and foremost, a character study, and a nuanced one at that.

Needless to say, this story captivated me in all its grim beauty. It gave a voice to the silenced, a voice that demanded to be heard. And with Kent's skill, that voice is undeniably haunting.