Why a Booktrail?
1718: An exploration of an individual’s codes of ethics and honour in the face of political and social collapse.
Snow
What you need to know before your trail
Jakob Torn is a small-town apothecary, stumbling drunkenly through the streets, a refugee from his own home, carrying a deep stab-wound inflicted by his wife. He does not understand what brought on this sudden violence, any more than he can come to terms with the death, in battle, of his king. When the town begins to fill with the starving, frostbitten remnants of the defeated army, and Jakob is conscripted into helping to embalm the king’s body, all his certainties are called into question.
Travel Guide
The Western Coast of Sweden and Snow
Uddevalla is the home of the author and is often thought to be where the novel is really set.
Uddevalla has a port and it once had a large shipyard, the Uddevallavarvet which was the largest employer in the area during the 1960s. The 1970s recession, that affected the Swedish shipyard industry severely, led to the closing of the wharf in 1985.
Though set in 1718 in the west coast of Sweden, Snow is a profoundly modern and universal novel, interested less in the real-life historical drama that forms the backdrop than in the emotional and moral dilemma of Jakob Torn – a simple, loyal, honourable man who finds himself the damaged centre of a collapsing world.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: Snow
Destination/location: Sweden Author/guide: Ellen Mattson Departure Time: 1900s
Back to ResultsWhere Next?
