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The environment of the novel is harsh and capricious: a physical manifestation of the unseen forces of nature to which we are all subject. Between these elemental forces there is conflict and contrast, darkness and light. But this frame creates diverse subjective experiences; it affects us all in different ways. Jón Kalman explores the inner world of his characters individually and successively, in a manner that reminded me somewhat of Woolf's The Waves. The epic tone is diminished a little in the second half of the novel, but what remains is an unflinching seriousness towards the profound challenges of life, death and change. These forces that move us are perhaps more subtle than the physical ones, but equally fickle; equally unfathomable. The human capacity toward art and love provide a counterbalance to the natural world - the heaven to its hell - and are the key to our endurance.