The Bell in the Lake by Lars Mytting, translated by Deborah Dawkin (MacLehose Press, £16.99; Tablet price £15.29), reminded me of Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda in both romantic scope and poetic tone. Set in the wilds of northern Norway in 1880, this is the story of straight-talking, aspirational Astrid Hekne, who battles to save the ancestral church bells of the title and must eventually choose between the pastor in her village, from which folk are reluctant to travel because “there was no prospect of anything but drudgery and drudgery could be found just as well at home”, and a talented, cosmopolitan architecture student from Dresden.