Product Description
Determined to fit into life on the Norwegian island ofKarmøy, Texas freelance writer, Patti Jones Morgan, struggles to learnthe language and cope with a different culture while her husband workslong hours helping to build a North Sea oil platform. The area's greatnatural beauty and the joys of a simpler, safe and slow-pacedcommunity beg comparison with her former Houston suburban life andprovoke questions about where she, and her soul, truly belong. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

Been there, done that. Get over it.
Geez Louise. I, too, lived in Norway in the Stavanger area, and moved there from Texas to work in the oil patch. Unlike most American expats working in Norway, I was a single woman working in Norwegian companies. I learned Norwegian the hard way - on the job. The book makes it sound like she was isolated on an island with no contact with Americans. Bull! Karmøy has a bridge - a very large, well traveled bridge - to the mainland. You can hardly tell that it's an island. Americans and other expats are all over the place. Americans had their own school for heavens sake! All she had to do was hook up with the local church and the Petroleum Wives Club and she would have more than enough to do, and plenty of friends - none of which spoke Norwegian.

Just FYI, Norwegians do not make superficial friends. They make friends for life. Americans comparatively speaking have shallow relationships. Norwegians do not "do" that, and are not about to invest themselves in a friendship that surely will not last. American women also suffer from the fact that many, many other American women before them - mostly from Texas - gripe and moan that everything else was better in the U.S., which frankly isn't true. Perhaps that should've been explained to the author by anyone who had lived there more than 6 months.

True, there is an adjustment period because you don't have all of the convenience foods, everlasting cable TV (only two government-run channels when I was there), and eating out several times a week. You are also not allowed to have your usual Houston margaritas at lunch and drive - not without mandatory three weeks in jail if you get caught, and no exceptions just because you are an American. There are, however, many many women's organizations that help you acclimate and find your way around, and the oil companies also have employees strictly hired to provide this service. You do get at least a couple of months back in the States every year paid for by the oil company, so I don't see what she has to complain about. In fact, I'm sorry I left.

Nice idea to make money out of it though. Should've done that myself, LOL!

Review of Island Soul
This was an extremely well written book.I felt as though I were on the island with the author.I would thoroughly recommend it--great reading.

Charming and delightful
Reading Island Soul put me into a quandary: did I want to race to the finish to see what happened to the author in her struggles as a foreigner trying to belong on Karmøy Island? Or did I want to slow down and linger, the better to savor every word? Patti Jones Morgan has written a charming and delightful account of being transplanted to a little-known island in Norway and has shared her soul with us in the pages. The book feels cozy and warm, like sharing good talks with a close friend, yet often her observations strike one as richly nuanced and resonant, revealing a poet's soul. She is also in possession of a rare tweaking sense of humor about people and society which will give the reader a good laugh without bile. This book should appeal strongly to a good cross-section of reader interests, since it concerns travel, cultures, human interest stories, language, Scandinavia, and creativity (the author is a writer and an artist), just to name a few. I recommend it unreservedly as a charming book to warm the soul and let's hope we hear more from this fine author!

Shangri-La, Norwegian style
I have a feeling that many people who read "Island Soul" would like to move to Karmoy, the peaceful little island off the coast of Norway which, with its people, is the star of this story.

Maybe that's a post-9/11 reaction. But in the midst of all that's going on around us, Karmoy seems like the Shangri-La of the 21st century.

Patti Jones Morgan has a nice eye in spotting the idiosyncracies, the lifestyles, the joys and the trials whichmake up the culture of the people of Karmoy, and she has a nice style in relating them. And she does it with a quiet but funny sense of humor, which befits both the island and her book.

And friend, if you've ever traveled overseas for any length of time, as I have, you'll appreciate her struggles as she works ever so hard to master the Norwegian language. Uff-da, as the Norwegians say.

The book is worth a read, maybe on a rainy day over a cup of coffee. After all, Patti writes accurately enough, "Sometimes a mere hot cup of coffee indoors out of the rain tastes like nectar." And the book will add flavor to the coffee.

One more thought: Patti wrote the book in 2000. She would have no way of knowing the eerie feeling she generates when she tells of a seemingly innocuous incident in the Oslo airport when she was patted down during a routine search for drugs. "My heart skipped a beat," she writes, "as I visualized the agent's reaction if she found my little plastic bag of white powder."

In view of the news today, again I say, "Uff-da."

But I also say hooray to Patti for coming up with an interesting and insightful book about the people of and the peaceful place called Karmoy.

A book for women, feeling lonely in another country
"Island Soul" is about an America woman, Mrs. Patti Jones Morgan, dealing with her feeling of `isolation'.How she went from being a "helpless, isolated woman in a completely foreign land" to a place of semi-belonging.She dutifully followed her husband to Norway.He was a specialist on the Heidrun oil project.This book is the story of Mrs. Morgan's --"survival".

Up-front, I read this book while in Norway and found myself an outsider looking in on a struggle I couldn't comprehend.For the life of me, hard as I tried, I could not grasp the horrific dark foreboding that Mrs. Morgan said she had to faced in Norway.God knows I've tried to understand how she struggled to "survive" another year, but I was definitely an outsider looking in. Hell, I was more than an outsider, I wasmore like an alien visiting another planet.

I have traveled the world, and spent time in some mighty dark and depressing places.That being said I have great difficulty seeing Norway as a "completely foreign land".Communist Vietnam - sure.War torn Congo - yes.Oppressive Afghanistan - Right. But Norway, where English is their second language; where the infrastructures and national income are the best in the world; where the only hardship was the excessive taxes and thatthey only served real beer, not 'lite beer', and I gained a few pound while staying there.No, I just can't see Norway as a "completely foreign country", any more than I could identify with her helpless, "isolated" whine.

I'll admit, I must be an insensitive male (ask my girlfriend, she'll tell you), and by popular definition, I am definitely from Mars.This book is not a book I would recommend to men. I would recommend this book to any wife following her husband to a foreign country.

Mrs. Morgan wrote this book for women, feeling both lonely and disposed while living in another culture.On that level the book is commendable.Her writing style is like listening to chatter at a coffee clutch. Her description of Norway's beauty and people is spot on'.

One hundred and thirty five pages into the book Mrs. Morgan finishes her language class, and God knows, I was as happy about her matriculation as she was."Attempting to learn Norwegian, talk with local people and develop friendships - had been my mission." Mrs. Morgan states.This is her story, this is her song.She did it and moved back to Texas, where she now lives. ... Read more

Product Description
The Nordic countries share a special cultural and political experience. This book presents an interdisciplinary perspective, covering the following areas: women's political strategies from different historical, national and text-orientated perspectives; questions of identity, rationality and subjectivity; and the organized production of social and cultural values. It attempts to understand and present internationally some of the complex changes in culture and society that concern women and feminists in the Nordic countries today. ... Read more

Product Description
Quirky, insightful essays on Norwegian culture. Illustrated with examples from Norwegian folklore and song, interviews, ethnographic research, and news clippings. 10% of royalties will be donated to the T.I.D. Scholarship Fund, supporting Norwegian language education for children aged 7-18. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from New Criterion, published by Thomson Gale on April 1, 2006. The length of the article is 1035 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: "Frost: Life and Culture of the Sami Reindeer People of Norway".(exhibitions )
Author: Diana Muir
Publication: New Criterion (Magazine/Journal)
Date: April 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 24Issue: 8Page: 46(2)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
'The Fuglerud study is a prototype for any anthropologist or political scientist working on a politicised-radicalised Diaspora.' Ethnic Conflict Research Digest 'This book about a recent immigrant group (Sri Lankan Tamils) in a European liberal democracy (Norway) is paradigmatic for how the anthropology of a displaced population ought to be done anywhere in the western world...Based on extensive field research in Norway and brief but insightful research in Sri Lanka, Life on the Outside is an elegant and effective blend of theory and ethnography. One of the very best in refugee studies to date.' E. Valentine Daniel, Columbia University This study of the Tamil diaspora is one of the first full ethnographic studies of a post-colonial migrant community, and a major contribution to the study of migration, globalisation, identity politics and 'long distance' nationalism from an anthropological perspective. Fuglerud's study traces the history of Tamil migration, from the arrival of the economic migrants of the 1960s to the 'asylum seekers' of the mid 1980s onwards.He draws unnerving parallels between the status of the Tamil community in Sri Lanka,as a beleaguered and persecuted minority waging a war of liberation, and as a displaced, marginalised and excluded refugee community. Fuglerud argues that, in the process of displacement,particular aspects of Tamil culture -- marriage, dowry, chastity and ritual -- acquire a heightened significance. He examines the contradictions and inconsistencies which characterise the Tamil refugee communities, and the success of revolutionary Tamil nationalism in exile, highlighting the transnational nature of identity politics. ... Read more