It depicts the romantic but inevitably sad life of Breton fishermen who sail each summer season to the stormy Iceland cod grounds.
There breathed forth from Loti's writings an all-penetrating fragrance of poesy [literature using poetic devices], which liberated French literary ideals from the heavy and oppressive yoke of the Naturalistic school.
[2] Loti's greatest strength is in the depictions of nature, placing it center stage, as Cambon says: He writes with extreme simplicity, and is not averse to the use of vague and indefinite expressions.
And yet the wealth and precision of Gautier's and Hugo's language fail to endow their landscapes with the striking charm and intense life which are to be found in those of Loti.
Another work based on the same novel was the 30-minute symphonic poem Nordland-Rhapsodie (Nordic Rhapsody) for large orchestra written by Austrian composer Joseph Marx in 1929.