Ordinary Wolves

by Seth Kantner

Book Overview

Eskimo and white culture collide in this national bestselling novel of life in the contemporary Alaskan wilderness: "A magnificently realized story" (New York Times Book Review).Ordinary Wolves... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1571310479
• ISBN13: 9781571310477
• Release Date: May 2005
• Publisher: Milkweed Editions
• Length: 344 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.5" x 8.5"
• Age Range: 12 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 7 and higher

Customer Reviews

Absolutely loved it

I bought it because of the word Wolve in the title and was really surprised at it. You grow to love the characters so fast and see the Artic World through their eyes. I really suggest the Julie of the Wolves trilogy if you like this

An original story with literary surprises; awe-inspiring

I've been in search for good, so-called "environmental" novels for a while. This was a superb choice. It did the job of telling a story about humans who live in deep connection to the earth and its creatures and who therefore exhibit a supreme value for the planet, but without preaching about their own moral righteousness. Cutuk occasionally starts to vent about "Everything-wanters", but he cuts himself off just in time. I've got a Ph.D. in English Lit, and let me say just one thing Kantner does that is unique. Throughout the story a few real suspenseful, life-and-death moments happen leaving the reader with a true cliffhanger at the end of a chapter or section. But in the chapter/section (they're not numbered) that follows the cliffhanger, the reader does not find out about how the situation was resolved for quite some time. It's as if the writer is saying, "You know, life went on, and that big exciting moment just proved to be another moment in life, one that we remember but not one that contains all the meaning to life." It was a refreshingly new way to read a plot. I hope to read more from Kantner; I hope he hasn't spilled out all his life's best in this first work.

Kantner Gets It

As a longtime resident of arctic Alaska and a professional writer, I have to say that Seth Kantner has captured both the landscape and the people of modern bush Alaska as no other writer of fiction has. Bold words, perhaps, but not hyperbole. The details are gritty, authentic, and unflinching, and the prose from which the narrative is woven is inventive, lyrical, witty, and often flat-out gorgeous. The characters are compelling and feel drawn from life. This is enough to allow the reader to forgive some loose ends in the story line. Few first novels are so accomplished or deserving of recognition--especially coming from an unheralded writer from a small press. Whether you love Alaska, have a taste for literary fiction, or are just a fan of superb prose, you should read this book. Better yet, buy it.

No Ordinary Book

Two days now, he's made me late for my government job, this Cutuk Kanter. I should be parked in front of the blue Dell glow. Instead I'm lying on my couch under the south window of my suburban Crotch City house, warming in the Arctic Sun, and reading a True story - a shrew story - about life in the North.Publisher's Weekly says Cutuk's the best since Jack London, which says a mouthful about the sorry state of Northern fiction. This is not Jack London. Not John McPhee. Not, God fobid, James Michener or Peter Jenkins. This is where Jack Kerouac and Nanook lock eyes and walk away together. Don't expect the whole story. This is the cracks between the logs, the vole holes in the floor, the leaks in the sod, the spiders in the corner, the all encompassing entropy so few escape. The tourism people down in Juneau are not going to like it. It's not the prettied-up Alaska they sell to the Princess herds on the freshly washed buses. This is the other Alaska, the Alaska we live in every day after the tourists have disappeared into the sky, after the Eskimo girls have taken off their fancy quspuqs and dancy mukluks and lit up a joint. If you live in Crotch City and this book makes you mad, good. Only don't be mad at Cutuk. He just wrote it all down. What I don't get about this book, though, is why the Wolf on the cover is upside down. It's either the Wolf or the title, one of um's upside down. `Splain that, Cutuk. Nah, let `em try make it pretty. Whadda they know? Alaska has never had a book like this before. How come it took you so long, Cutuk?

Read this book because

it's a well-written, unromanticized, fascinating window on life in Alaska, written by someone who knows what it's like first-hand. As an Alaska resident for more than 20 years myself, I can tell you that the details in this novel ring true. The book addresses lots of "issues": the disconnect between rural and urban life, the effect of modernization on traditional lifestyles, the moral questions posed by the "footprint" we humans leave on the wilderness. But this isn't a book about issues. The author has a good ear for dialogue, and his characters are people the reader comes to care about. The protagonist, Cutuk, an outsider in rural Alaska because of his race, and a misfit in the city because of his upbringing, is easy to identify with, if you've ever felt yourself on the outside looking in. His experiences are sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes comic, but always absorbing. As a counterpoint to his account of Cutuk's struggle to feel at home in the world, the author gives us short chapters every once in a while that recount the lives of the animals on the land. In contrast to the sometimes-agonized interiority of modern human life, the animals simply are. Kantner, a talented wildlife photographer, has an eye that has learned to see the reality, bloody and beautiful, of the Alaskan wilderness. His words give us a chance to experience that world too, and to remember that human life, loves and conflicts are not the only game in town. There's more going on in the universe than just our own life stories, and this book reminds us to step back and take a broader view.Read this book for a window on a world most people probably won't get to experience. Read it because it will make you ask yourself questions. Read it because, once you pick it up, you won't want to put it down!

'Ordinary Wolves:' Not an ordinary book

It's ironic that this book of fiction is probably the truest glimpse into aspects of life in Alaska that I've ever read. It has a dark undercurrent that is both powerful and beautiful, yet Kantner has a deft way with humor and irony as well. It would be easy to focus on the wonderful dialogue and descriptions of place. Don't. This books' deeper treatment of how people interact with each other, the land and its wildlife reveal issues readers would do well to absorb and contemplate. I'll read this book again.