The House with the Blind Glass Veranda

Book Review

Herbjørg Wassmo’s novel "The House with the Blind Glass Veranda" is a piercing and relentlessly honest immersion into the childhood and youth of the main character, Tora, whose life unfolds in northern Norway in the postwar years. Wassmo masterfully constructs an atmosphere of oppressive isolation, where the house with the «blind glass veranda» becomes a symbol of fragility, vulnerability, and the invisibility of pain. The author’s language is rich in metaphor and filled with anxious poetry, allowing the reader not only to empathize but to almost physically feel the cold, fear, and loneliness that permeate every corner of this world. Critics note Wassmo’s courage in depicting taboo subjects—violence, shame, silence—and admire her ability to speak of the most terrifying things with remarkable delicacy and artistic power. The novel became a milestone in Scandinavian literature, opening new depths of female experience and inner struggle, and the image of Tora is one of the most memorable and tragically beautiful in contemporary prose.