The Dark Light

by Mette Newth

Book Overview

When it was discovered that thirteen-year-old Tora has leprosy, she is sent from her family's remote mountain farm to the leprosy hospital in the bustling port of Bergen. In early-nineteenth-century... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374317011
• ISBN13: 9780374317010
• Release Date: April 1998
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Length: 245 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.6"
• Age Range: 12 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grades 7 to 12

Customer Reviews

dark light

i found out about this book from a singer who read it(ville valo from h.i.m)and he was inspired by this book to right a whole new album(dark light)he even wrote a song called dark light. i wanted to see what was so great about this book to make a whole album from it so i read it. i was truely amazed at what i read. i even cried in some parts. i had no idea what would happen if you had leporsey. tora the girl in the book who is only 13 was inspiring to me. the whole time through the book she knew she was going to die, but she wanted to live life and make it special. she made other people's lives a bit brighter even though they knew the next day they might not make it. through out the whole book tora would question about god and what would happen after death. the things she would think are some things i have thought about myself. neither of us would get a answer though, but i loved to read something that had the same questions as mine and to see how a girl back in the 1800s would react to that.i loved this book and i recomed this book very much.

Great

I thought this book was awesome. You never wanted to put it down. Although it was a bit depressing, it turns out okay. Here is my summary of it:She saw nothing but death. Death: a thick black fog over all her other thoughts. When 13 year old Tora found out she had leprosy, her life shattered before her. She was forced to leave her freinds, family, and home, to travel to St. Jorgen's hospital in Bergen, Norway. The leprosy hostpital: place of the livng dead. To outsiders, lepers were horrible, unclean people, so the lepers got little from the public. As Tora's body begins to fail her, however, she finds a new life within books.This girl is just my age and i couldnt imagine being in her position. This book made me appreciate life and every day i get to live with great health. I hope more people will read this and feel the same.

A heartbreaker of a book.

As an individual who has worked in the field , I can say without equivocation that this book captures not only the disease but the stigma that still accompanies it, despite the fact that Hansen's Disease can be treated and cured . In America we had places like Molaki and Carville where we once banished our sick suffers of Hansen's Disease. This story could have been one of our own forced into a pitiless exile in the 1800s and early 1900s. This story ,however, captures fully the resiliance of the human spirit and the humanity of some of their caretakers. I am recommending this book to everyone I know for the graceful prose and beautiful depth of knowledge of the human heart.

A touching insight to the life of a young girl with leprosy.

Mette Newth's words are rich and powerful. He readily indulges the senses. His rich words will make you smile and then cry and then both at the same time! The aura about this book is dark and secretive, but there is also something so light and wieghtless about it. The characters are well developed. Some caring, some devious, some in pain. When this book is read, the pain and suffering in the story is so real, it feels as though you are inside the story along with the characters. There is nothing so satisfying as feeling as though you are able to touch the characters in the story. Just reach out and feel their pain and their sorrows and know what they're thinking. Newth makes you step inside the story and walk among the characters. If you can't comprehend what the life of a leper is like, after you read this book, you might feel like you've been through it all!

A beautifully written, gripping and powerful book

The Dark Light is a beautifully written book. I believe that readers will learn a lot from this book, as I did. Mette Newth has written a masterpiece, a powerful book which I will never forget.