As they travel there, the stories about the place start to become ominous. What Gruhuken will eventually offer him, however, is not a pleasant sight. I think that up here, I’ll be able to ‘breathe with both lungs’, as Mr Eriksson says: to see clearly for the first time in years Right through to the heart of things.” It’s no wonder that Jack first writes that the Arctic feels like “ a land of dreams” wherein class “ doesn’t matter so much.” He believes he will finally feel truly free there: “ I think that’s what the Arctic means to me. Separated from everyone in the freezing cold wind of Gruhuken, money and social status appear to have less value. This also reflects on the language they use: as Jack remarks, while he says things are “okay”, his colleagues say things are “grand”.īecause he had a harsher life than his companions, the Arctic feels more enticing a place for him. While his colleagues went to Oxford, he barely has the money to buy everyone a drink when they meet for the first time to discuss the expedition. The main point of contention between Jack and his companions lies in the discrepancy of their social class. The expedition, then, sounds like a gift from the heavens to him, despite its dangers: he must remain for months in an isolated and perilous place with just four guys he doesn’t even like very much. And always I’ve got this panicky feeling inside, because I know I’m getting nowhere, just keeping myself alive.” On Sundays I trail round a museum to keep warm, or lose myself in a library book, or fiddle with the wireless. I never have the time or the energy to work out how to change it. “ I’m twenty-eight years old and I hate my life. Early on, he writes about how he feels to be drifting through life, without a goal or purpose: The novel is written in first-person, using Jack’s journal as the basis of the narrative. So, when the opportunity of becoming a wireless operator in an expedition to the Arctic presents itself, he immediately jumps on board and travels with four other men to Gruhuken, a desolate place on the coast of a Norwegian Archipelago. The protagonist is Jack Miller, a middle-class young man who hates his job as a clerk and is in desperate need of purpose. Dark Matter is a by-the-books horror novel by Michelle Paver that could have used many more pages to develop its characters and themes.
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