Next book

THE CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR

If you hopped along with Watership Down or whooped it up with Hanta Yo, you might just go for this startling novelty item which, like a statuette of Venus de Milo with a clock in her stomach, unites the informative with a livelier art: anthropological speculations about the Ice Age illustrated by the odyssey of a remarkably sophisticated Clan of Neanderthals and their Cro-Magnon foundling, Ayla. Adopted as a child by the beetle-browed Clan of the Cave Bear after her people perish in an earthquake, Ayla looks different and is different: the frontal lobes of her brain are more developed than those of the back-brained Clan. (The Clansfolk do, however, have extraordinary memories which reach back to their own evolution.) Still, odd little Ayla is mothered by medicine woman Iza; she reveres her father-figure and mentor, Magician (Mog-ur) Creb, whose brain is the best of the Clan, mystical-memory-wise; and it is Creb who shockingly proclaims that Ayla (who has been clawed by a lion) belongs to the most powerful male totem, the Cave Lion, and is not meant to be docile and subservient. Indeed, with her "forward-thinking frontal lobes," Ayla teaches herself to hunt (forbidden to women), revealing her secret when she saves a child from a beast. And at last she is accepted as the Woman Who Hunts after surviving a "Death-Curse" (a month alone). But when abusive, angry Broud impregnates Ayla, she bears a mixed-breed child and later must leave child and Clan when Broud becomes leader. . . though the Clan is doomed and the emergence of a new human being is on its way. True, Auel's Neanderthals often have some awfully peculiar notions cooking on those back brains of theirs. And anachronisms run wild through the wilderness ("You call yourself a hunter," says the Clan leader, "You expect to control a clan when you can't even control yourself?"). But it's all written with nerveless esprite admirable scenery, swell sex, convincing artifacts and survival modese and, when clubbed on by heavy publisher advertising, this first novel (first of six in a projected early-man series) may well prove curiously primitive enough to catch on in a big way.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1980

ISBN: 0553381679

Page Count: -

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1980

Categories:
Next book

THE UNSEEN

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

Awards & Accolades

Likes

  • Readers Vote
  • 26


Our Verdict

  • Our Verdict
  • GET IT


  • Kirkus Reviews'
    Best Books Of 2016


  • Kirkus Prize
  • Kirkus Prize
    finalist


  • New York Times Bestseller

Next book

A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW

A masterly encapsulation of modern Russian history, this book more than fulfills the promise of Towles' stylish debut, Rules...

Awards & Accolades

Likes

  • Readers Vote
  • 26


Our Verdict

  • Our Verdict
  • GET IT


  • Kirkus Reviews'
    Best Books Of 2016


  • Kirkus Prize
  • Kirkus Prize
    finalist


  • New York Times Bestseller

Sentenced to house arrest in Moscow's Metropol Hotel by a Bolshevik tribunal for writing a poem deemed to encourage revolt, Count Alexander Rostov nonetheless lives the fullest of lives, discovering the depths of his humanity.

Inside the elegant Metropol, located near the Kremlin and the Bolshoi, the Count slowly adjusts to circumstances as a "Former Person." He makes do with the attic room, to which he is banished after residing for years in a posh third-floor suite. A man of refined taste in wine, food, and literature, he strives to maintain a daily routine, exploring the nooks and crannies of the hotel, bonding with staff, accepting the advances of attractive women, and forming what proves to be a deeply meaningful relationship with a spirited young girl, Nina. "We are bound to find comfort from the notion that it takes generations for a way of life to fade," says the companionable narrator. For the Count, that way of life ultimately becomes less about aristocratic airs and privilege than generosity and devotion. Spread across four decades, this is in all ways a great novel, a nonstop pleasure brimming with charm, personal wisdom, and philosophic insight. Though Stalin and Khrushchev make their presences felt, Towles largely treats politics as a dark, distant shadow. The chill of the political events occurring outside the Metropol is certainly felt, but for the Count and his friends, the passage of time is "like the turn of a kaleidoscope." Not for nothing is Casablanca his favorite film. This is a book in which the cruelties of the age can't begin to erase the glories of real human connection and the memories it leaves behind.

A masterly encapsulation of modern Russian history, this book more than fulfills the promise of Towles' stylish debut, Rules of Civility (2011).

Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-670-02619-7

Page Count: 480

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: June 20, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016

Close Quickview