The Glomma is a major river and a recurring point of orientation in the novel, linking rural work, travel, and memory. Its southward flow contrasts with the northbound train that carries Trond Sander and his mother along its course, while its presence awakens in him an attachment to running water and to the summer by the river.

Setting and the valley

The Glomma runs through a valley of small farms and working countryside. Near the Swedish border, many residents rely on their farms and the milk they deliver to the dairy; during logging season, they also work in the forests. The river belongs to a landscape shaped by livelihoods and movement, not simply by scenery.

The novel places this rural economy alongside sharp differences in land and wealth. Barkald is the district’s largest landowner, with fields of oats and barley and extensive forest, while many local households have little money. The river valley is therefore a lived and worked place, its fields and forests divided among people with unequal means.

Travel along the river

The Glomma becomes a route in the account of a train journey from Oslo toward Karlstad. The train travels north beside the river to Kongsvinger, then turns south across the border into Sweden. Its course makes the river and the border part of the same geography, though the train’s direction and the river’s current run against each other: the journey heads north while the Glomma flows south toward the coastal towns.

From the window, Trond hears the train’s rhythm and falls asleep. He dreams of going to the cabin by the river, imagining that the train is a bus. On waking, he recognizes the Glomma as something that remains inwardly present. The river’s movement seems to call to him even as the train carries him away from it.

The river in memory

Looking from the river to his mother, Trond feels the strain of being left with her after his father’s disappearance from his life. The view of the Glomma does not resolve that loss; instead, it sharpens the contrast between the river’s enduring course and the unsettled family future he sees before him. His attachment to running water is at once sensory and emotional, connecting the present journey to the cabin and to his remembered summer with his father.

The Glomma thus recurs as more than a geographical feature. It orders routes through the landscape, but it also draws the narrative backward: a passing river becomes a path into memory, carrying the narrator’s attention from the train toward a place and period he cannot simply return to.