I just discovered this novel, and it kept me
up half the night!
Of course, I have a little more interest in life in the Ice Age
than the average person!
I have to warn you though, this book, set in Siberia,
is not for the faint-hearted.
This young woman and her people live life in the raw,
on the very edge of survival.
You may be amazed at some of the things
they are willing to do to survive!
And survive they do, for a while...
but when their often brief lives on this earth were over,
the story was just beginning...
for their descendents carried on
with the help of the spirits they became.
The author, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, a renowned anthropologist,
learned much about what hunter-gatherers' life is like,
while living for several years with the 'Bushmen' of Africa.
REINDEER MOON
Of course, I have a little more interest in life in the Ice Age
than the average person!
I have to warn you though, this book, set in Siberia,
is not for the faint-hearted.
This young woman and her people live life in the raw,
on the very edge of survival.
You may be amazed at some of the things
they are willing to do to survive!
And survive they do, for a while...
but when their often brief lives on this earth were over,
the story was just beginning...
for their descendents carried on
with the help of the spirits they became.
The author, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, a renowned anthropologist,
learned much about what hunter-gatherers' life is like,
while living for several years with the 'Bushmen' of Africa.
" What will astonish, engross and move readers in her narrative of a group of hunter-gatherers who lived 20,000 years ago is the dramatic immediacy of the story and the depth and range of character development. A whole culture is imaginatively and authoritatively illuminated, people who live in lodges observing a complex series of societal rules and taboos built around the interrelationships between families that constitute a lineage. It is a life of privation, in which hunger, danger and violence are pervasive. Survival depends on close observation of and intimacy with the animals they use both as role models and as food, and an understanding of the seasonal rhythms governing the annual migrations . . .There aren't many of us who won't learn something from
Yanen relates the memories of her youth: the death of her mother after childbirth and of her father from hunting wounds, leaving Yanen and her baby sister alone in desolate country; their fearsome trek to rejoin other members of their lineage; Yanen's marriage; the rash deeds that cut her off from the people she loves . . .
Yanen is an enchanting young woman: intelligent and courageous, an excellent hunter, but also headstrong and hot-tempered . . . Suspenseful, insightful, poignant, this novel . . . is a remarkable achievement."
-- Publishers Weekly
REINDEER MOON