The End of Drum-Time
One day while writing I fell down this massive rabbit hole and came across something called discrete emotion theory, which posits that everyone — regardless of culture or geography — has the same set of basic emotions. There are exceptions and nuances, though…mostly having to do with language, which is how I circled into this whole thing in the first place.
What I’m *actually* interested in, though, is how landscape and climate affect people’s emotions and perspectives, both individually and collectively. And this is the inquisitive angle I sort of took when reading The End of Drum-Time, a National Book Award finalist by Hanna Pylväinen. On a high level, it’s a look at how an indigenous culture steels ahead amidst a more powerful population that wants to squelch and limit its influence. Nothing new under the sun — or Northern lights, as it may be — here. (In this case, the oppressed are the Sámi people who populate parts of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland as well as the Kola Peninsula in Russia. The English-speaking world might refer to this area as “Lapland,” although this term is shunned by the Sámi.) The novel takes place in the mid-19th century, so throw in some fervent Lutheranism and more staid Church of Sweden, and you’ve got a time-tested trifecta of religion, culture, and oppression.
A quote from The End of Drum-Time that I referenced a few posts ago: “She was familiar, the way all of the settlers were familiar by dint of being different.” So…what informs how they (and all of us) might be “different” from each other? I don’t think Pylväinen addresses this head on, but the care she takes in describing the bitter cold, the frostbite, the layers upon layers of clothing and fur that the Sámi must wear points to the fact that these things aren’t just minor details in their lives…they’re pretty much the main players. And surely that accounts for something when it comes to the emotional tenor of its populace?
{I explored this another way when I wrote about The Plains by Gerald Murnane. Also, I just started massive bestseller Stolen, by Ann-Helén Laestadius which is ALSO about Sámi reindeer herders. So, I guess I’m in my reindeer era.}
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