Title: A Woman in the Polar Night
Author: Christiane Ritter
Rating Out of 5: 4.5 (Amazing, but not quite perfect)
My Bookshelves: Biographies, Memoirs, Nature
Pace: Slow
Format: eBook, Novel
Year: 1938
A Woman in the Polar Night is a stunning and incredibly emotive memoir. I can see how it is a popular classic. Ritter’s writing is just filled with emotive imagery that I doubt I’ll ever get out of my head. You can feel her love for the landscape and journey with every passing paragraph. You can also feel the different challenges she faces to her mental health as she undergoes a night that lasts for over 100 days.
Living at the north pole like this would be a phenomenal journey all on its own. But to do this almost 100 years ago? I can’t even imagine the intensity and difficulties of such a journey. I love how as you go on this journey with Ritter, you can slowly begin to process the difficulties of this life right alongside her. As Ritter realises that there are unforeseeable and dangerous challenges, you grow to appreciate them too. As Ritter falls in love with the landscape, so do you.
There is something incredibly soothing about the whole tale. I’m not sure if it’s the idea of the endless night and solitude, or the beauty of the landscape. But there is most definitely something about the dark Polar nights that leave you with a sense of serenity and peace. Again, I think that’s just the incredibly powerful and emotive way with which Ritter writes about her journey.
I loved this memoir and will definitely look forward to picking it up again in the future. It is a wonderful tale of triumph and hardship. But also, the majestic beauty of the far-flung corners of the earth.
Earth and Skye 
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