Whenever I travel overseas, I try to read novels ahead of
time, usually mysteries, which take place in the countries I am visiting.
It wasn’t always that way. I didn’t read Icelandic mysteries
until after my husband and I visited that country. We’d heard that there were a
lot of authors in Iceland who loved to write, especially during the long dark
cold winters, probably one in three of the 375,000 residents. Perhaps that
writing bug had been sparked by the Edda but it was something with which I, as a
writer myself, could identify. Yet I discovered when reading the books, one set
on an island off Iceland where a lava flow had obliterated a town not all that
long ago, that I wished I had read the book first so I could have had a sense
of place and known to ask more questions while I was there. I can’t beat myself
up too much about that though, since the book was not available in the U.S. It
was just something my husband picked up (along with a copy of the Edda he still
hasn’t read but does double duty as a doorstop) on our way home.
We both enjoyed the Icelandic books and for a while bought
as many as we could find online. Many were written by Yrsa Sigurdardottir and
Arnaldur Indridason. The descriptions of the land, weather, and amount of
daylight, which was either too much (no such thing in my opinion) or too
little, fascinated me, as did their children naming conventions.
Taking our past experience into consideration, I read a few
mystery novels written on the Emerald Isle to get a sense of what we might
expect on our trip to Ireland. I found that while the language is the same, (at
least the English, not the Gaelic) there were several words that I didn’t know.
More words unknown to me were explained by our tour guide when he mentioned “gob,”
which is mouth, “bog,” a word used in many places but in Ireland refers to where
peat comes from, and “craic” which
somehow meant good, or news or gossip or conversation, I think. I’ve been
taking a refresher course by reading a book by Patricia Gibney and watching
Derry Girls, with the helpful subtitles.
I tried to find Scottish writers’ books before our trip. I
had read Outlander many years ago, but I still wanted to see some modern-day people
and activities, so found one mystery by Pete Brassett. It put me on the lookout
for Scottish food, such as sticky toffee pudding, black pudding, haggis, and
the ever-present shortbread which was as common as fish and chips. I also read
about the extremely changeable weather which was totally integral to Scotland.
I looked forward to learning some Scottish words and I was
not disappointed. I heard terms like “hoolies” (big windy storms, not to be
confused with a hooley, a traditional dance and music party,) which tap into my
inner linguistic interests. I’d learned long ago about all the words for snow
the Inuit have, depending on the conditions, and I was fascinated that the
Scots have “dreich,” “snell,” “fret,” “drookit,” “stoating” and many more for
rain. They expect the weather to change frequently, and I found myself layering
up, but always leaving the umbrella on the bus when the sun was shining, only
to be caught in rain on the way back to it.
Shortly after returning home, I picked up a book by Jenny
Colgan about a fictional island off the northern coast of Scotland. I had
almost forgotten about the unpleasantly sweet drink called Irn-Bru, which our
tour guide offered us, when I saw it mentioned in Jenny’s book. She reminded me
of many other things we had learned about during our trip, such as Cranachan, a
delicious whipped cream raspberry dessert never prepared the same way twice.
The book also referred to the coos, which is what they call cows, especially
the adorable Highland ones wearing bangs. Reading it was almost like extending
our trip.
Don’t get me wrong. I like books written in this country
too, and many of them remind me of places I have visited. But if I go somewhere
new, there is a very good chance I’m going to try to find a book written by a
local author.
