The bell in the lake A novel

In Butangen, Norway, Eirik Hekne commissions two bells for the village's remarkable stave church to honor his conjoined twin daughters, young tapestry weavers who died upon completing the Hekneweave, their greatest work. Centuries later, in 1880, the church's pastor has a plan for a new, modern building. To fund it, he sells the crumbling wooden church, along with its bells; it's to be reassembled as a bauble for aristocrats in Germany. Astrid Hekne, Eirik's descendant, has a tangible connection to the past; she knows the bells must not leave the isolated village. She's surprised to find that the German architecture student sent to oversee the church's removal understands "that time did not only erode, it also ennobled." Echoes of the past invade the present as the church is disassembled, and unexplained events occur. Best-selling Norwegian author Mytting has created something beautiful, a perfect evocation of a place and a culture, a melding of old Norse tradition with the encroaching modern world. The cold, the smell of the tar on the church's timbers, the dark resonance of the bells--every element of the setting and those who inhabit it is crafted with consummate skill. This first in a trilogy will have readers eagerly awaiting the next by this accomplished author.

In a small Norwegian village, an ancient church is demolished. A young pastor arrives in a remote Norwegian village. It's 1880, but the village of Butangen could be a century behind the rest of the world. The pastor, Kai Schweigaard, arrives with modernizing ambitions. "The newspapers," he observes, "published articles on inventions and changes in politics, a new era was on its way. This new era, this seismic shift in the times, required sound leadership, firmness and spiritual health." But Butangen, which is overrun with Norse legends even older than the Christian faith that Schweigaard professes, presents a major challenge. That challenge is embodied in Butangen's ancient church, built in the traditional stave method. With its intricate carvings of pagan gods, the church is a contradiction in terms. Schweigaard decides it must come down. Numerous obstacles stand in his way, chief among them a fiercely intelligent, independently minded young woman named Astrid. Initially, the two are attracted to each other, but as they find themselves, increasingly, on opposing sides, their relationship sours. Meanwhile, a young architect arrives from Dresden to oversee the demolition of the church. Mytting handles all this complicated material with a wonderful finesse. In Schweigaard, Astrid, and Gerhard, the architect, he has created distinct and memorable characters who echo each other in some ways and mute each other in others. Astrid is a particularly strong character, so it's unfortunate that Mytting seems to lose track of her as the book goes on, choosing to focus instead on Gerhard, a romantic and idealistic figure. The book's great strength, though, is its depiction of remote village life: It's a tiny world a world away from any other. Mytting hits rather heavily on some of the book's other themes--Astrid's choice between the icily rational Schweigaard and the dreamier Gerhard, for example--but, all in all, his first novel to appear in English is a major triumph. A mesmerizing if occasionally heavy-handed book about architecture, fate, legend, and faith. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.