Shaman

I picked this book up before The Jaguar Princess and kept trying a chapter here and there during the next read, too. It’s a hefty book that looked enticing but then wasn’t drawing me in, so I decided best to put aside and maybe come back to it someday in the future. Though I soon realized it’s written by the same author as Years of Rice and Salt, which I attempted before and gave up on as well, who knows how many years ago now. So probably this author is not really for me. Very dense historical fiction. This one set during the ice age. It opens with a young man away from his tribal group on a “wander”- an initiation into manhood where he has to live alone for a month proving he can use his skills to survive. It’s brutal. He almost freezes, almost gets caught by the Others (I’m guessing Neanderthals), has to flee predators. Doesn’t starve, but isn’t exactly eating well either. I thought a survival story of living close to the land and among the wild animals, would be exactly my thing, but while the details are intriguing, something about the way they were told simply wasn’t. I read a little over fifty pages, and found myself more and more disinclined to pick it up again. Pushed through to the point where he returns to the tribe and is interacting with people, thinking that would spark more interest, but nope. Only got a glimpse of the story: protagonist is reluctant apprentice to the group’s elderly shaman, he’s not at all sure he wants to follow in those footsteps. I have to say, his incessant interest in sex got old very quickly, and the magical realism wasn’t really working for me (it usually doesn’t, no matter the writing style). Though I might just not be in the right mindset for it,  I really suspect this book isn’t my type.

Borrowed from the public library.