As I began Hannah Kent’s memoir, Always Home, Always Homesick, I was reminded of her exceptional talent for writing about landscape.

And soon I was absorbed in the place she was describing – Iceland.

…the mountains and valleys and hills undulate as we curve around them, the shining ribbons of river capturing all available light and carrying it out to sea.  

The sky lifts. Everything is drawing breath.

It is almost a parody of summer. It is the promised land illustrated in rhapsodic technicolour in a religious pamphlet. On the clearest days, the blue of the sky hollows me out with its vastness. I feel cleansed by it and, at the same time, subsumed by its enormity. I cannot fit it in. I cannot wrap my mind around it. Continue reading →