The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven
The ice flow in southeast Iceland.
By Nathaniel Ian Miller
Going as far back as Aristotle, there has always been debate in regards to the makeup of human nature. Simple questions on the subject of the psychosocial traits that manifest in us all can lead someone down a rabbit hole of answers with little to no reprieve. Personally, The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven by Nathaniel Ian Miller shed some light on this ever-constant debate. While being a novel, a fictitious work not set in the footholds of reality, the tale of Sven One-Eyed hits home some of the fundamentals of humanity. Companionship and the will to survive are the main themes of this novel and as these are explored you will be left feeling hollow and mangled by the primordial experiences of Sven and his cherished few.
The tale of Sven begins in the early 1900s. His life takes place mostly in Svalbard, once known as Spitsbergen, an unforgiving land of hardship and crippling self-isolation. In this environment, death comes without warning while struggling to find the will to survive is a daily challenge. Sven, a kindred soul in his love of literature, finds himself living a life hardly imaginable by anyones’ standards, both in today's world and in the early 1900s.
If Sven's self-imposed introspection does not kill him the polar bears will, but for every close brush with death, there is an equivalent reward for both Sven himself and the readers. These rewards come in the form of distinct relationships between characters. These relationships not only become the saving grace of Sven but also for the reader, offering a light in the perpetual darkness that is winter beyond the confines of sophistication. Nathaniel Ian Miller masterfully creates both intrapersonal & interpersonal relationships as Sven's progression through the ebbs and flows that compose life in the Artic slowly come to a close.
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