If you're not familiar with O'Brien's work, read his masterpiece, "The Things They Carried", or "If I Die in a Combat Zone" first. This novel was powerful but disjointed. The first half moved painfully slow — just like, I imagine, life in a place like rural northern Minnesota. But the blizzard scenes were incredible. It's worth reading for the descriptions alone.

Disappointment!

Thought this would be more suspenseful and thrilling based on the reviews printed on the book, but most of the tension was internal to the characters and I found the book quite boring. Never fully caught my attention.

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What to say about Northern Lights? It's definitely not what I was expecting after I read The Things They Carried. I definitely prefer The Things They Carried over this book. Unless you are into reading about Northern Minnesota and cross country skiing. Survival. PTSD stricken veteran. I think the story would have been a little bit more interesting from the younger brother's perspective. Harvey probably would have had much more interesting thoughts than Paul. I also didn't like being left in the dark about some things that never get resolved. Definitely not my favorite O'Brien novel.

This book can pretty much be summed up in one word - anticlimatic. I spent the entire time I was reading Northern Lights wondering when the "spellbinding suspense" the Chicago Times Review on the front cover raved about would occur and was disheartened when I reached the end of the novel and it never had. I mean, the characters are likeable enough and the plot has potential... it just goes nowhere. The whole story pretty much consists of Perry and Harvey skiing and sleeping and being cold or hot or sick. Nothing happens to make anything exciting or suspenseful.

I've loved the other O'Brien books I've read, but I feel like he was still developing his skills here. There's just a little too much repetition and a feeling of nothing happening.

I get that a lot is unsaid in his books, and I usually enjoy it, but not so much here. It is kind of monotonous.

I'll still read more of his, since I've enjoyed them before.

An old book of dads. I got it when mum was leaving Kyogle. I loved it, the style of the prose, the story, the deepness that we are into the brothers Paul & Harvey. A wonderful book of brothers haunted by their father.

Very convincing characterization and the effects of war. Gripping during the brothers lost in the blizzard.

Very enjoyable. Interesting look at a Northern midwest family dynamic. Descriptions of nature are also enjoyable.

I'm a Tim O'Brien fan and this is the first book of his that I didn't like. It's also an early book and clearly, he improved. Not a lot happens and even what does actually happen sort of just occurs and doesn't really change anything. There are a handful of main characters and we only really ever get to know one of them and he's so internally confused that we don't really know much about him. There are some great scenes of the north woods of Minnesota, but Northern Lights feels like a rough sketch of an actual book.

Do people talk like that? Do they restate and re-phrase and repeat with that consistency? Do they communicate the same basic ideas over and over? Do people duplicate their prose the way almost every character in Northern Lights does? What I'm asking is, do people repeat themselves the way these characters do, in their speech, their writing, even their internal monologues?
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Maybe. Maybe we repeat ourselves all the time and don't realize. And maybe we hide our most important thoughts to the point that even an omniscient, third-person narration of our lives would omit seemingly critical details.
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Northern Lights isn't awful, but it is annoying in an interesting way. It's the sort of story that tries to show us something about ourselves that might not appeal. So what can we learn from a boring husband who routinely dismisses his boring wife and the boring wife who just keeps coming back earnest as ever? What can we learn from a clever-but-tedious veteran who chases after a clever-but-tedious girl? What can we learn from the mysterious war-wound that is never explained or the climactic ski-trip disaster that ultimately changes nothing?

Do we learn that we are too quick to dismiss mundane people and mundane events? Or maybe that we aren't as clever as we think we are? Or that real life defies climax and resolution? Maybe. But maybe it's enough to think about the sentence you just spoke (or wrote, or thought) and wonder 'am I repeating myself?' Am I repeating myself?

Edited 3/2/2019