None of us had read many books from Iceland before, so we decided to choose this one for our book club.
Iceland 100 years ago. A widow with six children. That's certainly not easy even today, but a hundred years ago it was incredibly difficult everywhere. But Steinunn Olafsdóttir not only manages to raise her children during those hard times, she also provides them all with an education, even the girls, which was very unusual back then. Of course, everyone has to pitch in, otherwise it wouldn't be possible.
The youngest daughter, Karitas, even becomes a painter; she has great talent and is given the opportunity to study in Denmark. But even she can't escape the customs of the time.
A highly interesting novel about a life we know very little about.
It was nice that there was a map of Iceland in the book. It wasn't so nice that the places mentioned in the book are hardly ever shown on the map.
We had a really nice discussion about this book, even though we all basically agreed. But everyone was able to take something different away from it or noticed something different, which greatly contributed to our understanding.
Personally, the scenes with elves and ghosts bothered me a little, but one member suggested that they were partly hallucinations of the protagonist. That's quite possible, and I'm glad someone saw it from a different perspective.
We also really liked that there was a matching drawing by the "ice painter" (German title) for each chapter.
We discussed this book in our local book club in February 2026.
Book Description:
"A portrait of an artist trapped by convention and expectations but longing for the chaos that can set her free. Growing up on a farm in early twentieth-century rural Iceland, Karitas Jónsdóttir, one of six siblings, yearns for a new life. An artist, Karitas has a powerful calling and is determined to never let go of her true being, one unsuited for the conventional. But she is powerless against the fateful turns of real life and all its expectations of women. Pulled back time and again by design and by chance to the Icelandic countryside―as dutiful daughter, loving mother, and fisherman’s wife―she struggles to thrive, to be what she was meant to be. Spanning decades and set against a breathtaking historical canvas, Karitas Untitled , an award-winning classic of Icelandic literature, is a complex and immersive portrait of an artist’s conflict with love, family, nature, and a country unaccustomed to an untraditional woman―but most of all, with herself and the creative instincts she has no choice but to follow."
