There are not many authors from the Faroe Islands, but they do include among their number at least one good one, Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen. He sadly died of tuberculosis before he could write more, but he left us with some journalism, a study of the islands and this novel.Barbara is a friendly, flirtatious, fascinating young woman with a preference for marrying pastors. When we meet her she is the widow of two, was betrothed to a third and she soon captivates a fourth. The locals are divided in their opinions of Barbara, is she a dangerous femme fatale or a spontaneous, sensual innocent? She is a compelling character, however indulgently or critically she is regarded. Free-spirited women rarely prosper in novels written or set in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, so it comes as no great surprise that Barbara experiences disgrace and trouble or that the reader's sympathy and that of some characters remain with her.The book includes details of Faroese life at the time. It is a community dependent on poor farmland and richer fishing grounds at the mercy of the weather, especially in the days of sailing ships. Anything out of the ordinary becomes a major event in the people's otherwise monotonous lives. Life on the Faroes is very similar to life on those other windswept North Atlantic islands, the Shetlands, Orkneys and Hebrides, and very different to life in Denmark. Jacobsen may be making a nationalist point here.
Do You like book Barbara (1993)?
Although I found the language challenging in Jacobsen's posthumous novel from 1939, the story he tells of life in the Faroe Islands was compelling enough to hold my interest. The main character, Barbara, is a free spirit who seems unable to be true to only one man at a time, and she is a continuous temptation for many of the men in this closed culture -- as well as those who come to the Faroe Islands from outside. I very much enjoyed the realistic impression of the isolated island culture that was the setting for this book, although I am not sure whether Jacobsen's female characters were as credible as the men. The novel is available in English translation, and has also been made into a movie.
—Carol
