If novels set at holiday destinations are the best books to read beside a pool, then surely books describing terrible winters are ideal snowy weather companions...so long as you are sitting snug beside a roaring fire, wrapped in fleeces with a hot chocolate drink on the coffee table.
This is how Robert Macfarlane opens his book, The Old Ways...
Two days short of the winter solstice, the turn of the year's tide. All that cold day, the city and the countryside around felt halted, paused. Five degrees below freezing and the earth battened down. Clouds held snow that would not fall. Out in the suburbs the schools were closed, people homebound, the pavememts rinky and the roads black-iced. The sun ran a shallow arc across the sky. Then just before the dusk the snow came––dropping straight for five hours and settling at a stead inch an hour…At around eight o'clock the snow ceased. An hour later I went for a walk with a flask of whisky to keep me warm…
The Old Ways follows the ancient tracks that crisscross Britain, but maybe it's no coincidence that Macfarlane opens his wanderings in snow. It reminded me of how I love a snowy walk, and will get out as soon as the blizzard stops, bundled into scarf, gloves, hat and extra socks. Four years ago I wrote on this blog;
I whistled my dog into the field beside my garden. It is clothed in snow, and the glow from the moon coated the snowy field in an eerie yellow light. This is our morning ritual, to get out and walk around the 10 acre field together before even a cup of tea. As I crunched through the snow, a thought occurred to me. What's the connection between you, me and everyone else on the planet today?
And now, deep snow is back in West Wales, a place used to drifts, white-outs and gritting lorries, and I'm still walking around the fields and lanes with my dog. The red kites are wheeling in sky, riding the air currents as if for the sheer fun of it, and the sun is golden over the valley. I can feel my cheeks redden as I walk, and I can't help remembering three novels that made me feel as frosty as I do now.
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey is set in 1920's Alaskan homestead. Jack and Mabel are childless, and drifting apart, under the weight of farmwork and loneliness. Following the pattern of a fairystory, the couple build a
child out of snow, which strangely melts overnght. They glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees, Faina. She hunts with a red fox at her side, surviving alone in the Alaskan wilderness. Jack and Mabel come to love her as their own daughter. But what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.
Angela Carter also has a story called The Snow Child, the shortest tale in The Bloody Chamber. A Count sees snow on the ground while out for a ride with his wife, and wishes for a child ‘as white as snow', leading to an extremely bloody outcome.
Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher, has a warm theme of loss and the healing power of love, which will get you toasting your tootsies.
But if you want some that will really give you the chills, don't forget The Shining by Steven King. A classic snowy horror.
