Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
Guys, it’s so nice to be talking about BURIAL RITES for our most recent On the Same Page feature!!
Hannah Kent’s debut was atmospheric, gorgeously written, thoughtful, and complex. I loved it. What struck me as particularly outstanding, though, was the setting. Iceland just seemed so stark and isolated (umm, probably because it kind of is), and it really set the perfect tone for a story about a serving woman who is sentenced to die for a murder she may or may not have committed.
To that end, I’ve grabbed a few images of some of the places where the actual events from BURIAL RITES took place, or things that are replicas of important locations. Visualizing places when I read is always hugely important to me, and Hannah Kent was able to bring the world of Agnes Magnusdottir to life for me.
**Also, HEADS UP to people who haven’t read BURIAL RITES yet but are planning on it: There’s a possible spoiler picture down here. ALERT ALERT!!**
Illugastadir is the location of the farm of Natan Ketilsson, the healer that Agnes Magnusdottir is convicted of murdering. It’s on the Northwest tip of Iceland, right near the water. I pictured it as really wind-worn and totally exposed to the sea.
Thristapar is the name of the spot where Agnes is executed. I knew the actual outcome of Agnes’ life, so I wasn’t surprised by the ending, but it didn’t make it any less emotional for me because I’d spent the whole book learning about Agnes and about Natan and the slow unfolding of the truth. Agnes was the last person to be executed in Iceland, so commemorating the spot seems like an interesting landmark. But I get it. I’d go there.
The Vatnsnes Peninsula is where Illugstadir is, along with a few other towns that are pivotal to the story. But, like, LOOK AT IT THOUGH. SO GORGEOUS. And also empty.
This picture is one of Hannah Kent’s and she took it from the spot where Natan Ketilsson’s home once stood. This is the view from what would’ve been his house. I EFFING LOVE that this story is based on real events and places because I am positively GEEKING OUT over the fact that I can go to this place, stand there, and be in the same spot as this person I know a little bit about once lived. HOW AMAZING IS THIS.
Another one of Hannah Kent’s pictures, this time of the remains of Natan Ketilsson’s workshop. Natan was a well-known healer and doctor of sorts, and he kept all of his medicine and herbs and supplies in a little workshop outside his home. Natan wasn’t the best guy when it came down to it, and Agnes wound up surprising me with her depth and strength. Neither of them were angels, though, at least in Hannah Kent’s telling, and I liked that quite a bit.
Kornsa is where Agnes goes to live until her sentence can be carried out. At first, the family is distant, angry, and judgemental. As far as they know, Agnes is a murderess. But as the months drag on, Agnes becomes a part of their lives and she develops connections that help strengthen her in her weak moments. It’s to the wife, Magret, that Agnes eventually tells the true story of what happened the night Natan Ketilsson is killed. I’m not 100% sure that this is actually a picture of Kornsa, but these homes are like the ones Hannah Kent describes in BURIAL RITES.
Glaubaer is not mentioned at all in BURIAL RITES, but it is a preserved farm in the same style as Jon and Magret’s.
There’s a lot of action that takes place in the badstofa at a number of homes, so I grabbed a picture of one. It’s basically a huge communal bedroom.
Friends, I wish I could’ve found more pictures to share with you. If I find some more, I’ll update my post. But BURIAL RITES has completely turned Iceland into this bare, breathtaking, desolate place in my mind and those are perfect descriptors for this book and for Agnes Magnusdottir and her life. (At least the fictional one Hannah Kent created.) I don’t think this book would’ve made half the impression on me that it did if it was set anywhere else.
I know not everyone will read this book and love it like I did, but…I loved it. I still think about it, and I can’t ever imagine a better recommendation of a book.
But hey, I’m not the only one who read BURIAL RITES for this feature! Check out Brittany and Alyssa‘s posts too!
The pictures are just SO cool because they are REAL PLACES and these were REAL PEOPLE. I was kinda dumb and didn’t realize that for a while and then I was like WHOA that makes it really neat. Such a cool place too. I love that they kept some of these places as memorials. It was a very cool story for Hannah Kent to tell!
Okay Amy. I read this book and held it SO CLOSE TO MY HEART. Right away from the beginning I loved Agnes EVEN THOUGH I KNEW not to fall in love with her. But I couldn’t help it. I wanted to talk to yall while you were reading this SO BAD but I just didn’t trust myself to. I couldn’t! I could only read like 30-50 pages of this book at a time because I found myself so immersed in the story but at the same time I wanted to remember the details better than if I inhaled it. And I think that FOR ME, that was a good choice! When I got to the end, I remember closing the book and just SITTING because I was kind of quietly mourning everything: that the story was over, that it played out like it did from beginning to end, and that I WASN’T THERE IN THAT SETTING because I felt like it was atmospheric and cool and dreary and LOVELY too. I’m SO GLAD you liked this one. I want to read MORE ASAP by Hannah Kent and I want to fall in love with it as much as this one!!
I definitely mean to read Burial Rites at some point! I really love that you compiled photos of the settings, and will most likely refer back to it when I do end up reading it.
Thanks for the photos! After fnishing with a book I alwys go on line to serach for photos and facts, author inspirations and so on. Throughout the book I was wondering what the badstofa was! Thanks again.