Review: Dark Matter by Michelle Paver

5 stars for Dark Matter by Michelle Paver.

There is always a first. In this case, a first time reading a book by this same title again. My first Dark Matter (by author Blake Crouch) was a science fiction which blows me away with its concepts of quantum mechanics and multiverse. While I enjoy this second Dark Matter all the same, it cannot be more different. This is a horror story and it scares the living daylights out of me. No joke.

This book is the result of journal entries by Jack Miller, one of five participants to the 1937 Spitsbergen Expedition. It is a detailed account of events leading to the group's decision to overwinter in the abandoned mining settlement of Gruhuken in Spitsbergen. At first, Jack's entries reads like any other written record of experiences and observations, then, gradually, it becomes a clear documentation of disturbing sightings and distressing auditory imprints.

I shudder to think what it will be like living on a desolate island, let alone in solitary in one of the northernmost regions during the polar night season where night lasts more than twenty-four hours, and weeks without seeing the sun.

The author certainly does an excellent job painting a dark story, literally and figuratively. The story flows so smoothly with shocking prolonged darkness that it affects my mind in ways that I never will have anticipated. I can literally feel the stillness about the land, see the darkness closing in night after night, hear the mysterious clink of metal dragged over rocks, touch the malevolence radiating from the unknown and taste the fear brought about by perhaps an echo of the past. In short, the author has transported me to Gruhuken, an island she creates out of Thin Air (this is a post-dated link; I have no idea that I will be reviewing this book one year on, that is, when I use the term thin air here) that does not even exist on the world map. Such is the power of successful writing and storytelling.

Fabrication of Gruhuken aside, Spitsbergen and Longyearbyen as described in the book are for real. Yes, I have them checked out. Spitsbergen is the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in northern Norway. Constituting the westernmost bulk of the archipelago, it borders the Arctic Ocean, the Norwegian Sea, and the Greenland Sea. Longyearbyen is the administrative centre and also the largest settlement on the island. It features a hospital, schools, sports centre, library, cultural centre, cinema, bus transport, hotels, a bank and several museums.

Well, I am not sure if I can stand the cold enough to like the Arctic, but I am definitely curious enough after reading this book, to wander about experiencing life in the far north. Perhaps it is worth a visit some day. One day.



Publisher: Orion; First Edition edition
Publication date: 21 Oct 2010

*** Favourite quote ***

Once, I thought fear of the dark was the oldest fear of all. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it’s not the dark that people fear, but what comes in the dark. What exists in it.

~ Dark Matter
Michelle Paver

@}--->>--->>-----

January 1937.

Clouds of war are gathering over a fogbound London. Twenty-eight year old Jack is poor, lonely and desperate to change his life.

So when he’s offered the chance to be the wireless operator on an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it. Spirits are high as the ship leaves Norway: five men and eight huskies, crossing the Barents Sea by the light of the midnight sun.   At last they reach the remote, uninhabited bay where they will camp for the next year.

Gruhuken.

But the Arctic summer is brief.  As night returns to claim the land, Jack feels a creeping unease. One by one, his companions are forced to leave. He faces a stark choice. Stay or go. Soon he will see the last of the sun, as the polar night engulfs the camp in months of darkness. Soon he will reach the point of no return – when the sea will freeze, making escape impossible.  And Gruhuken is not uninhabited. Jack is not alone. Something walks there in the dark.

*Blurb from author's website*

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