jmtd → log → The Silent Land

I've just finished reading Graham Joyce's haunting The Silent Land: an atmospheric and moving love story set in an Alpine ski resort.

Husband and Wife Jake and Zoe head out to the slopes early one morning and are caught in an avalanche. They survive, narrowly, but upon returning to the resort, everything has changed…

Anyone who has read any quantity of SF or fantasy will probably make an early guess at what's going on, and you'd most likely get it wrong. Even if you know where you're going, the journey is often the point, rather than the destination, and this journey is pretty gripping.

I do most of my reading on the train to and from work. I often listen to music when I'm reading and I try to choose things which aren't going to distract my attention from the book too much. Film soundtracks are good; so is classical; so is a lot of Eno's work.

For this book I mostly listened to the score from the latest film version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Clocking in at only seven minutes shy of three hours, this is a haunting score that evokes a cold, isolated Swedish winter, and thematically matched the book perfectly. The score is a little less accessible than their previous work, but is rewarding on repeat listen. You can get a free 6-track sampler at the website linked above.