David Howarth (1912–1991)

A Most Wanted Man

Read by: Stuart Langton
Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins

This is a true story of a Norwegian, Jan Baalsrud‘s attempt to escape the Nazi occupiers of his country as he travels alone from the Arctic to southern Norway and from there hopefully to neutral Sweden. He's been injured in a failed attack against the Nazi occupiers. The rest of his group was killed and he survived though injured.

Told in present tense in the third person, we follow Jan on his journey. The background is white, there are no markers to get bearings. He can’t see mountains till he is almost upon them, and then only knows only when he discovers that he climbing.

Are there Nazis following his trail? He’s a wanted man. His injuries increase and the frostbite is working from his toes up his legs. He manages to survive from his own perseverance and with the occasional help from sympathizers who he is able to contact but who cannot accompany him.

As well as the elements and the fear of being discovered by the Nazis, he fears the people he finds in the early part of his trek. Will they betray him to the Nazis? Is it fair to put them in a difficult position. Even if they are unafraid to help, what will happen to their families if they are captured? Jan is an honorable man.

As the book progresses we cannot imagine how Jan can possibly survive. His snow-blindness, his weeks alone unable to move because of his injuries, his hallucinations, his pain, his descent into madness.

I can’t even comment on the prose. I was so bound up in Jan’s struggle I could think of nothing else. And after completing the book I could not take to any other. It’s a compelling and gripping read, expertly executed. David Howarth manages to put us into 1940s Norway, into a landscape the likes of which is far from my own experience. I could imagine the fjords, avalanches and glaciers - words I’ve never really known the meaning of. I was there with Jan, in the bleak landscape of a Nazi Norway.

I highly recommend this book.… (mais)

A biography of Jan Baalsrud. Jan was a Norwegian who was a British trained commando in WWII. A group of 10 left the Shetlands and landed in Norway to disrupt the Nazi's who had entrenched themselves. Jan's group was betrayed and he was the only survivor. Through amputating his own toes and suffering the interminable cold, he finally was taken by charitable Sami (Northern Scandinavians), who were fired at, across Finland into Sweden. He found the Norwegians very gracious and they helped him even though to do so put themselves and their families in peril. A great survival against all odds story. 257 pages… (mais)