The Greenlanders masterfully mirrors the intricate tapestry of the Scandinavian epic chronicle novel, as skillfully woven by luminaries like Knut Hamsun and Sigrid Undset. Spanning a dynamic fifty years, The Greenlanders intricately interlaces vivid portrayals of life’s rhythm—such as the vital seal and reindeer hunts, pivotal religious festivities, deliberations at the annual Thing, feuds, romantic pursuits, the specter of starvation, outbreaks of disease, and the rich tradition of storytelling—with more cursory narratives that encapsulate several years in just a few phrases. As the saga unfolds, Smiley skillfully reduces the level of detail for recurring events, as the reader's understanding and perspective gradually expand.

The narrative perspective fluidly shifts among various characters before inevitably returning to the central figure of Gunnar Asgeirsson. This technique grants the reader a panoramic view, revealing insights unavailable to the characters themselves. Thus, readers not only perceive how characters individually experience events but also gain a deeper understanding of how these characters interpret each other's experiences.

Language serves as a critical foundation in evoking the authentic atmosphere of the fourteenth century. Smiley’s rich tapestry of words, steeped in Germanic roots while deliberately eschewing modern Latin and Greek derivatives, engenders a sense of linguistic confinement. This insular vocabulary reflects a community increasingly introspective, their vision confined to their rugged mountains, ice-laden fjords, snow-drenched winters, and unrelenting hunger. The erosion of the once-familiar vocabulary of law and religion, coupled with the failure to forge a new lexicon to navigate their lives, renders them vulnerable to religious hallucinations and self-administered justice, often grounded in hazy memories. Ironically, few words from the Skraelings’ lexicon permeate the Greenlanders' own speech.

In The Greenlanders, Smiley vividly narrates the gradual unraveling of a Norse society, precariously perched on the fringes of medieval Europe since Eric the Red's pioneering days five centuries earlier. A confluence of destabilizing factors—drastic climate changes that choked the land of its agricultural bounty, the Scandinavian countries' lapse, particularly Norway's, in maintaining vital connections and supplying essential resources and manpower, a dearth of native resources, especially the timber vital for shipbuilding and maintenance, coupled with a stubborn refusal to incorporate the skills and lifestyle of the Skraelings, the indigenous Arctic inhabitants—all coalesce to erode the material, political, and spiritual fiber of the colony in its final half-century.

Through the lens of Gunnar Asgeirsson's life, Smiley unfolds the series of calamities besieging both Gunnar's family and the broader community, steadily sapping the Greenlanders' ability to endure, let alone reclaim their bygone prosperity and unity. As the population dwindles, families forsake their long-labored-for homesteads; ecclesiastical and agricultural edifices crumble from neglect and a shortage of building materials and drive; governing bodies lose their grip on order and justice; and survivors sink into isolation and despair, their future painted with an ever-darker brush.

For today's readers, Smiley's portrayal of this miniature epic of decline stirs fears about humanity's long-term prospects amidst overpopulation, pollution, global warming, and the specter of genocidal conflicts. In many respects, the plight of the Greenlanders mirrors that of minority cultures striving to preserve their endangered ways of life against the tides of modernization, environmental devastation, and imperialistic forces.

The Greenlanders ushers readers into an expansive Scandinavian narrative, rich in epic tales. Smiley, drawing deeply from her scholarly pursuits in Iceland, brings this tradition to life. Her novel intricately weaves through the fabric of fourteenth-and fifteenth-century chronicles. Much like Knut Hamsun's Growth of the Soil (1917), Smiley crafts a narrative of tenacious souls grappling to carve out an existence amidst unforgiving conditions.

However, unlike their Scandinavian kin, who could venture westward to Vinland or...