Customer Reviews

Vinland the Good

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I was fortunate enough to find a copy of this in my library. Had I spent $50 on it, I might have cried. This is not a novel, but a screenplay that Shute wrote to flesh out the Scandinavian backstory of his novel "An Old Captivity". It's impossible to say how it may have fared had it been filmed, but on paper it comes across as one of his weaker attempts. If you've read "An Old Captivity" there really is no reason to read this. If you have yet to read "An Old Captivity", you should defintely seek it out as Shute never wrote another novel like it.

In his usual form, Shute spins another fable of love and life facing the not inconsiderable challenges human systems try to impose on us. While the young Norse couple shed the worries of a "more civilized" world to disappear into the bush, the young schoolteacher was not so lucky.

Years ago, I learned there are no dull subjects, only dull teachers. Shute's character bridles but bends to the system, one hopes only momentarily. And that's part of the magic of most Shute books -- there is often that unspoken hope, and perhaps that's enough.