Response to A Northern Light

Hello, my name is Jerrod…and I loved this book. They say admitting it is the first step. It is beautifully written, lots of mystery surrounding the characters and plot unfolded at the perfect time, believable scenes and circumstances, and just “sick” as the kids say these days. I actually loved this book so much that I’m having trouble figuring out what I want to write about.
Let’s start with the double plotline. This definitely could have been another instance of an author trying to be clever, but it was magnificently worked and I was instantly drawn in. When I started, I thought it was just going to be a flashback story about how they got to the Glenmore, but then they were back at the Glenmore, and then back at home but she wasn’t going to the Glenmore, and I was so confused and loving every second of it. I found myself thinking things like, “Wait, so she’s not going? Oh, I see, this is how she’s going to get to go. Wait, that didn’t work. What? How is this going to happen!? EXPLAIN IT TO ME!!!” I was enraptured in the story and just before I would get to the point of frustration the author would clue me in to something and I would love it and would want to keep reading.
Then, at one point later in the book, I thought that, and I don’t know if the author intended this or not, that the plotlines had converged into one and I was simply reading a straight narrative from that point on. Then, right near the end, I realized I had still been reading the double plotline all along, but I wasn’t aware of it. I was blown away.
The historical accuracy of the book was really outstanding, especially after seeing what lengths she went to to study the time period and how people lived and worked in that part of the country. This type of story feels truly “historical.” Even something like The Book Thief, which is obviously also historical, feels kind of modern because it seems relatively close to the world we live in today. A Northern Light is in a totally different place with how they live and work and just how the world runs.
The addition of the true story of the man and woman lost at sea is masterfully woven into the text. I had no idea it was a real event until I read the author’s note at the end, and it made the story so much more meaningful and made it seem even more well-crafted than I had thought. And so I have to wonder: Why wasn’t the author’s note positioned at the beginning of the book rather than at the end? It definitely has a “concluding” type of feel, and the author seems to be assuming that the reader has just finished the story, so it can’t be moved as is, and while both positions, I believe, have their advantages, I would just be curious to know why this particular decision was made.
I guess the simple way that I would describe this book is honest. I didn’t feel like any of the characters or situations were contrived at all. They felt very real and there was no “fluff” in the text at all, just simple, honest narrative and dialogue. The epitome comes when Minnie is giving birth. Mattie herself says, “I have read so many books, and not one of them tells the truth about babies…There’s no blood, no sweat, no pain, no fear, no heat, no stink. Writers are damned liars. Every single one of them” (93). Well, Jennifer Donnelly is not a liar. From the way Mattie feels when she looks at Royal to the way the teachers and students interact to the reaction Mattie’s dad has to just about everything, it didn’t feel created, it just felt honest.