My review of "The Snow Child" by Eowyn Ivey - WARNING, this entire review is rife with SPOILERS!

[scarletwoman]

First of all, I came to this book quite late, since it was apparently quite the phenomenon in 2011/2012. It showed up as a recommendation on GoodReads because I was reading a few other books that take place in Alaska. So I ordered it from my library and picked it up last week.

It's a haunting, lovely book alright, and I can understand why it inspired so much enthusiasm when it came out - GoodReads is filled with literally hundreds of 4 and 5 star reviews for it. However, in among all the gushing reviews were the occasional 2 star contrarians, and I find myself among them.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the quality of the exquisitely beautiful writing, by the end of the book what I mostly felt was annoyed. I felt cheated. I felt like I had fallen prey to a cheap trick. I felt like my emotions had been manipulated.

The titular "snow child" first shows up in a thoroughly magical way. She appears the morning after an old married couple of homesteaders had, in a moment of whimsy, build a snowgirl. She walks on top of deep snow without sinking, she glides through trees and brush like a wraith, snowflakes don't melt on her flesh, she disappears in the night and wanders off through snowstorms that would be the death of ordinary humans - not to mention small girls - and produces falling snow and whirling snow devils with a gesture of her hands. Okay, I can accept those things about a magical creature.

But, wait! She's not actually a magical creature, she's an 8-year old human child whose alcoholic father had just died. Oh, but she follows the caribou herds through the mountains in the summer and somehow survives by trapping and fishing in the wilds. And then she reappears only in the winter to the old married couple who are homesteading in 1920s Alaska.

Years pass, and she shows up every winter at the old couple's cabin, hangs out for the occasional meal, but always takes off into the night - even though we know by now that the one shelter she might possibly be returning to, the place that her dead father built, is a considerably long hike up into the mountains. In the cold, in the dark...

Meanwhile, the youngest son of the old couple's nearest neighbors has been helping out on their farm over the ensuing years. He also runs a trap line along the nearby river that runs through the valley below the mountains. Evenutally, of course, he runs into Faina (the "snow child&quot up in the mountains - and, well, stuff happens. She ends up pregnant, they get married in July(!!!) and proceed to live in a cabin built for them on a parcel of the old couple's land.

Their baby boy is born in February, she kind of hangs in there for awhile, but then gets desperately ill with a high fever. The old couple rushes down to help, and eventually they all help set her up in a bed outside to help cool her off, and during the night she simply disappears. Literally. Her clothing is left behind under the covers - nightgown inside the still-buttoned up coat , hat, mittens, moccasins - just like The Rapture. And that's that.

So, what the hell?!?

It's not as though I mind ambiguity, not at all. But don't show me a character who runs trap lines and strangles rabbits and swans and has a photo of her mother, but at the same time is so otherwordly that a single snowflake doesn't melt in the palm of her hand and expect me to go along with it.

I'm fine with metaphysics, as long as they are internally consistent. But the character of Faina had no metaphysical consistency. The author built up all this mystery about the character, and then proceeded to explain her human-ness. Well, which is it? Is she a magical creature of snow and cold and winter, who appears in response to the deep longings of the old couple for a child? Or is she simply a human orphan (albeit an extremely hardy orphan) who is skittish around other people? So, why does she somehow melt away into nothing at the end?

I had a hard time finishing this book, after the first 2 thirds of the book it just became tedious. I could totally relate to the location - I lived in Alaska for 6 years, pretty much in the area where the story was located, so I had no trouble at all in relating to the descriptions of the landscape and the weather. And I give the author kudos on her lyrical descriptions of same. The writing is gorgeous, I was totally awed by the quality of the prose. The characters, too - aside from Fiana - were exquisitely realized and seemed very much like real people.

But I was left at the end thinking, what the hell?

Faina is not Rima from Green Mansions, she's not Lettie from The Ocean at the End of the Lane - but had she been either one or the other I would have certainly liked the book much better.

[Enthusiast]

1. Thank you, scarletwoman.

I had similar, if not as strong, reservations. All in all I had to give The Snow Child a net positive. Mrs. Enthusiast felt about the same.

[scarletwoman]

2. Thanks for replying, friend.

Last edited Sun Mar 8, 2015, 06:42 PM - Edit history (1)

As I said, I could understand why lots of people loved the book. I just couldn't get over the inconsistencies.

Ironically, as I read the next book in my stack, I was struck by the contrast of what made Wolf Winter work for me, when The Snow Child didn't.

Both featured amazing descriptions of landscape and weather - especially winter snow and cold - and both featured supernatural elements. But while The Snow Child basically fudged on the supernatural, Wolf Winter did not. The supernatural elements were unapologetically so, there was no attempt to make them into something rational or give them a material world explanation. They were part of a spiritual world with its own laws and logic, and stayed consistent within those laws and logic. Much more satisfying to me.