a favorite, a great one to pass along to friends

books:


	• Ordinary Wolves: A Novel Seth Kantner Milkweed Editions, 2005 - 344 pages average customer review:based on 37 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Give yourself a treat

One of the best books I have read. The different perspectives Kantner shares are well written and humananly believable. If you like people, travel, animals, and a good story - you will love this.

a favorite, a great one to pass along to friends

I'm here to order a second copy to give to family members, as my own much-lent copy is out in the world somewhere.... I stumbled on this book by accident in a store and it was the best book I read that year. Everyone I've lent it to has been captivated. The writing is gorgeous, however used: observations of the natural world, interior reflections of the main character, conversations, plot movement.... What's so wonderful is that Kantner's storytelling gifts and writerly gifts are rather a bonus to a sort of travelogue that's the heart of the book-- the physical landscape and cultural setting are foreign enough to us East Coasters. The main character is on a journey, too. He is open, appealing, sympathetic in his struggles. You're in his particular Alaska; you won't want to leave.

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Best book on Alaska

As far as I can tell this is the best book yet written on Alaska -- better than London, Service, or Krakauer -- the first truly literary product by a native-born Alaskan.

The author's descriptions of characters, whether they be native-born, born-native, Outside arriver, or simple tourist; wild landscapes, villages and cities; weather and wildlife are so authentic and deep, it's hard not to race through a first reading, like you might hurry across a stunning mtn range to catch yet another incredible view, even better than the last.

But it's the second reading of "Ordinary Wolves" that I found more satisfying than the first, a reading prompted after Kantner's refreshing non-fiction, "Shopping for Porcupine". The second reading of "Wolves" I savored, like you might floating down a wild river with subtle, bank-side as well as long-range scenes of sublime colors and textures.

While it's an authentic story of Alaska, it's also an emotional one about the value and contradictions of family, friends, and self, a complex personal story that tracks a universal, human vein.

We Alaskans are lucky to have Seth among us and I look forward to whatever he writes next.

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A Tale of Truth

So, I notice that Alaskans are all giving this a 5 star rating (including the ones from "Crotch Spit"). And, Nick Jans himself has taken the time to write a review. I too was moved by the shear truth of it all. Anyone who wants to know the true bush Alaska life should read this book. In Pulitzer Prize winner quality writing Kantner tells a tale of heartache and hope. This isn't the polished up Alaska for tourists. This is Alaska for those of us who live here. Finally! Thank you Seth.

Ordinary Wolves -- not ordinary at all!

Seth Kantner's first "eco-novel" has such an authentic feel to it that you will come to consider Cutuk as a shadow friend--or at the least--an acquaintance whom you know well.

Caught between two cultures, Cutuk is "Ordinary Wolves" everyman, the principal character with whom you will identify, experience triumph and suffer, feel anger, shame and joy. Coming from a white home in Inupiaq Alaska, through Cutuk you will learn what it is like to feel like an outsider. To white Americans in the lower 48 and in the non-native parts of Alaska, this is a strange and unsettling feeling. For the first time, you are a stranger in a strange land. Such a feeling for cultural authenticity--the good, the bad and the ugly. It is all there, non-romanticized. Ironically, when Cutuk leaves the north country, he feels more out-of-place walking the streets of Anchorage than "back home."

"Ordinary Wolves" is a great first book. The reason for four stars only is that the pacing is a little uneven; and I believe, it runs about twenty pages too long. Some keen-eyed editing to eliminate redundant passages and non-essential narrative would have made it even better.

A great first work, however, one not to be missed.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

In the tradition of Jack London, Seth Kantner presents an Alaska far removed from majestic clichés of exotic travelogues and picture postcards. Kantner?s vivid and poetic prose lets readers experience Cutuk Hawcly?s life on the Alaskan plains through the character?s own words ? feeling the pliers pinch of cold and hunkering in an igloo in blinding blizzards. Always in Cutuk?s mind are his father Ab,; the legendary hunter Enuk Wolfglove, and the wolves ? all living out lives on the unforgiving tundra. Jeered and pummeled by native children because he is white, Cutuk becomes a marginal participant in village life, caught between cultures. After an accident for which he is responsible, he faces a decision that could radically change his life. Like his young hero, Seth Kantner grew up in a sod igloo in the Alaska, and his experiences of wearing mukluks before they were fashionable, eating boiled caribou pelvis, and communing with the native tribes add depth and power to this acclaimed narrative.

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