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In The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, Thor tries to fly from England to Norway and is stopped by a fighter jet.

He then tries to do the same by taking a commercial flight to Oslo and is prevented by bureaucracy.

Ultimately, his goal is to get to Asgard/Valhalla, which means travelling through the "world divide" into another dimension. He does this later in the book.

What prevents him from doing this at the start of the book? Given the difficulties he faces in "our" world in travelling to Norway, why does he not go through the divide and travel there in the other dimension instead?

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  • I don't remember the details very well, but because the "world divide" is in Norway?
    – OrangeDog
    Commented Nov 6, 2019 at 14:15
  • No, the world divide is "everywhere". Dirk and several other people go through the divide in St Pancras station. Thor states "there are as many ways as there are 'tiny things'" (by which he means atoms).
    – jfowkes
    Commented Nov 6, 2019 at 14:36
  • Thor isn't the brightest of fellows. It could be that he didn't think of it.
    – Valorum
    Commented Nov 6, 2019 at 15:27

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The sea was impassable in the Valhalla dimension.

The whole sea was glowing like an infection. It was rearing itself up in the night, lunging and thrashing in a turmoil of itself and then smashing itself to pieces in a frenzy of pain against the rocks of the coast. Sea and sky seethed at each other in a poisonous fury.
Kate watched it speechlessly, and then became aware of Thor standing at her shoulder. “I met you at an airport,” he said, his voice breaking up in the wind. “I was trying to get home to Norway by plane.” He pointed out to sea. “I wanted you to see why I couldn’t come this way.”
“Where are we? What is this?” asked Kate fearfully.
“In your world, this is the North Sea,” said Thor and turned away inland again, walking heavily and dragging his hammer behind him.
Kate pulled her wet coat close around her and hurried after him.

Later in the book his power is returned to him and he is once again able to things simply by thinking about them. This seems to include traveling with impunity.

“And I’m going to put right all the things you made happen so I’d be afraid of getting angry. The poor girl at the airline check-in desk that got turned into a drink machine. Woof! Wham! She’s back! The jet fighter that tried to shoot me down when I was flying to Norway! Woof! Wham! It’s back! See, I’m back in control of myself!”

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  • Ahhhh, I didn't realise quite what that line meant at the time but now you explain it it's obvious!
    – jfowkes
    Commented Nov 6, 2019 at 18:55

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