Thorir Hund
With interest I have read Heidi Frich Andersen’s novel But Outside are the Dogs about Thorir Hund, one of the men who killed St Olav at Stiklestad on 29 July 1030. The historical novel is a demanding genre. One risks anachronism at several levels, and simplistic perspectives on the past. Frich Andersen navigates steadily and well. She bases herself securely on saga literature. When she uses her imagination it is, as it were, within these parameters. She conveys the complexity of human lives and choices a thousand years ago. In her account the story of Thorir’s conversion and pilgrimage to Jerusalem seems not inevitable, but humanly possibly, indeed credible. In addition she lets us sense how the canonisation of Olav may have impacted on contemporaries’ sensibility. The Latin that is regularly cited has been rather hashed, alas. I asked myself whether this was by way of literary strategy. The story is presented as Thorir’s own written account. He is unlikely to have had much by way of Latin culture. Still, had he consistently mixed up spelling and declensions, he is unlikely to have written such elegant riksmål. Still, this is a marginal blemish. The book is highly readable. It makes one think. And that it is good.
