Book Three in the adventures of Ayla-of-the-Ice Age, the Cro-Magnon Phi Beta who is raised (and cast out by) Neanderthal "flatheads." Having left The Clan of the Cave Bear (1980), and after a sojourn in The Valley of Horses (1982)—where she met Jondalar (he of the golden hair), and domesticated horses and a lion—Ayla is about to meet Jondalar's distant kin, the Lion Camp of the Mamutoi—mammoth hunters in what is now part of the Ukraine. Ayla's cerebrations and trial-and-error experiments encapsulate most of the bright ideas which once, apparently, popped from the Cro-Magnon brainpan. Into the Lion Camp she'll bring, of course, some finished products: tame horses that astound the horse-eating hunters (Baby the Lion, who finished off Jondalar's brother, makes one cameo appearance later); herbal knowledge (she'll use digitalis foxglove on a weak-hearted youngster); spark-making with flint and iron pyrite; and the "spear thrower." In the Lion Camp she'll not only use a variant of the Heimlich maneuver and a mouth-to-mouth technique on a choking child, and invent the needle for sewing leather, but teach tolerance of physical differences (flatheads are human too!). Two difficult problems confront Ayla. Overcoming her fear of "Others"—anathema to the flathead Clan—she finds a home with people who are physically and mentally similar to herself. But should she join them forever? And then there's Jondalar, who taught her that sex is a real Pleasure. Does he not want her anymore? Jondalar, jealous when Ayla, following the old subservient-woman habit of the Clan, obligingly sleeps with charming Ranec, misunderstands. But at the close, after the great Summer Meeting of Mamutoi, the two will be off to Jondalar's native people, the Zelandonii—a prelude to Book Four. There's the usual irresistibly dingbat dialogue (one mammoth bone-tapping musician to another: "The piece needs balance as well as harmony . . .I think we could introduce a wind reed. . . "). Once again, Auel's second-source anthropological research is drummed home willy-nilly, in a jolly Wonder Woman tale thundering with the hoofbeats of shaggy animals, cave confabs, whistling spears, and whoopie sex. A biggie.
Pub Date: Dec. 6, 1985
ISBN: 0553381644
Page Count: -
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1985
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.
Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77196-319-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.
Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.
Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “You’ll get only one shot at this,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “Don’t botch it.” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “That form is a deal breaker,” he tells himself. “It’s life and death.” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
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