But sometimes I’ll pause and look about, and then I’m sharply aware of all the busy creatures – men, dogs, birds – and behind them the stillness. “We’ve been so busy that at times I’ve hardly noticed our surroundings.
It is a great place to set up and build upon feelings of unease, which Michelle Paver does exceptionally throughout, along with so much open space and yet no where really to run. Not only is it an area that remains a vast area of land with no one about it is also a place that is remote and hard to get in reach of, especially in those times within which the book is set when a boat would take a good three days from the mainland, it is also a place of some mystery and wonder. The arctic is a brilliant place to set a ghost story.
To his mind this could be a great adventure and change his life forever, even if he doesn’t really like the ‘posh boys’ who he will be travelling with. He is very poor, lives in one of the unfashionable parts of London (on a personal note I will say that Tooting was much nicer when I used to live there) and though he is studying he doesn’t feel like has any prospects. This is a mission of hope for Jack who is finding his life rather lacklustre to say the least. ‘Dark Matter’ opens in January 1937 as we meet Jack Miller, the narrator of this tale through his very diary entries, as he agrees to take part on an expedition to the Arctic. Orion, paperback, 2011, fiction, 288 pages, kindly sent by the publisher
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