Lesley's review

The Tenderness of Wolves: A Novel
by Stef Penney

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/315340.The_Tenderness_of_Wolves_A_Novel?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="The Tenderness of Wolves: A Novel" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173695675m/315340.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/315340.The_Tenderness_of_Wolves_A_Novel?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">The Tenderness of Wolves: A Novel</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/181357.Stef_Penney">Stef Penney</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8241009?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 4 of 5 stars Penney is a wordsmith and good historian. So what is the matter with her book that I won't give it five stars? It did not seem to have flesh and blood northerners or come from the Arctic. 
 
 I just read this by the Guardian: "The (Costa) judges said it made them feel 'enveloped in the snowy wastes' of Canada in 1867. Penney, agoraphobic at the time, did all her research in the British Library." 
 That must be the problem. I did not feel 'enveloped' by the wastes created in Penney's imagination; in fact, I had not read the Guardian review before I read the novel, and I was puzzled why I found it so UNgripping and inauthentic, so UNarctic/subarctic. But perhaps these award-givers and reviewers are city folk. I actually come from the Arctic, from a family that is a mixture of Native and white; we hunted and lived in cabins amongst wolves, blizzards. I have also spent days in the British Museum and can vouch that no exhibit is going to give you a real feel for the Great Land or its people. You end up with artifacts. Karl Marx did his bookish research in the British Museum, it is true, but he also was out living with flesh and blood lumpenproletarians. 
 
 That being said, this is historical fiction, and Penney could hardly visit 1857. Historical writers must rely on imagination. Other novelists have won Pulitzer prizes for novels set in cultures they never visited. And look at Lars Von Trier making satires of American society without ever setting foot in the USA, due to his fear of flying - and I like those films. Dancer in the Dark (New Line Platinum Series) 
 
 Another aspect that left me disappointed was a dearth of indigenous culture, in spite of promises in blurbs that I'd go on an unforgettable journey into the "forgotten" Native American culture of the North. But aside from an odd staleness and lack of northern mood or feeling or evocation in "The Tenderness", Cree culture is barely delved into in this book. And neither are wolves. 
 A wise choice on the author's part, considering that she never went to Canada; there are already many white authors in trouble for writing about aboriginal culture that they know nothing of - well, probably it was the marketing department and not her that misled us. If you want an historical novel with real snow, real Native culture, white settlers and real wolves (but no murder mystery)see Ordinary Wolves: A Novel, anything by Louise Erdrich, (Love Medicine: A Novel), or Linda Hogan's Solar Storms, among others. 
 
 I also agree with some readers who found the murder mystery hardly compelling, but rather staid and meandering, and that is fine, really; stories can make up for lack of formulas and contrived suspense with characterization and literary quality, social commentary, fascinating takes on history, etc, as Martin Cruz Smith does for Russia in Wolves Eat Dogs I know that historical novelists are often forced by the marketplace, their editors, to include a murder mystery, or no go. I have been ordered to do this myself, as a writer. If that was what happened to Penney, her lack of command in the thriller genre is understandable. 
 
 Alas, I didn't find the characters all that interesting in Penney's tale, either. At the core of the story I didn't find much in relationships either, to keep me going. The protagonist lacks richness of psyche. There was no great love. I got bored with her and the others, found myself skimming, searching for some quality, some tension or moral struggle that would make me care about their fates. 
 Nowadays most literary novels, especially the big award winners with the most lavish critical acclaim, disappoint me in the same way; I am an old fashioned reader bred on the classics. Give me Jack London The Call of the Wild instead. 
 Lesley Thomas, author of arctic novel Flight of the Goose 
 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/272844?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Lesley's review
rating:

status: Read in June, 2007

Penney is a wordsmith and good historian. So what is the matter with her book that I won't give it five stars? It did not seem to have flesh and blood northerners or come from the Arctic.

I just read this by the Guardian: "The (Costa) judges said it made them feel 'enveloped in the snowy wastes' of Canada in 1867. Penney, agoraphobic at the time, did all her research in the British Library."
That must be the problem. I did not feel 'enveloped' by the wastes created in Penney's imagination; in fact, I had not read the Guardian review before I read the novel, and I was puzzled why I found it so UNgripping and inauthentic, so UNarctic/subarctic. But perhaps these award-givers and reviewers are city folk. I actually come from the Arctic, from a family that is a mixture of Native and white; we hunted and lived in cabins amongst wolves, blizzards. I have also spent days in the British Museum and can vouch that no exhibit is going to give you a real feel for the Great Land or ...more Penney is a wordsmith and good historian. So what is the matter with her book that I won't give it five stars? It did not seem to have flesh and blood northerners or come from the Arctic.

I just read this by the Guardian: "The (Costa) judges said it made them feel 'enveloped in the snowy wastes' of Canada in 1867. Penney, agoraphobic at the time, did all her research in the British Library."
That must be the problem. I did not feel 'enveloped' by the wastes created in Penney's imagination; in fact, I had not read the Guardian review before I read the novel, and I was puzzled why I found it so UNgripping and inauthentic, so UNarctic/subarctic. But perhaps these award-givers and reviewers are city folk. I actually come from the Arctic, from a family that is a mixture of Native and white; we hunted and lived in cabins amongst wolves, blizzards. I have also spent days in the British Museum and can vouch that no exhibit is going to give you a real feel for the Great Land or its people. You end up with artifacts. Karl Marx did his bookish research in the British Museum, it is true, but he also was out living with flesh and blood lumpenproletarians.

That being said, this is historical fiction, and Penney could hardly visit 1857. Historical writers must rely on imagination. Other novelists have won Pulitzer prizes for novels set in cultures they never visited. And look at Lars Von Trier making satires of American society without ever setting foot in the USA, due to his fear of flying - and I like those films. Dancer in the Dark (New Line Platinum Series)

Another aspect that left me disappointed was a dearth of indigenous culture, in spite of promises in blurbs that I'd go on an unforgettable journey into the "forgotten" Native American culture of the North. But aside from an odd staleness and lack of northern mood or feeling or evocation in "The Tenderness", Cree culture is barely delved into in this book. And neither are wolves.
A wise choice on the author's part, considering that she never went to Canada; there are already many white authors in trouble for writing about aboriginal culture that they know nothing of - well, probably it was the marketing department and not her that misled us. If you want an historical novel with real snow, real Native culture, white settlers and real wolves (but no murder mystery)see Ordinary Wolves: A Novel, anything by Louise Erdrich, (Love Medicine: A Novel), or Linda Hogan's Solar Storms, among others.

I also agree with some readers who found the murder mystery hardly compelling, but rather staid and meandering, and that is fine, really; stories can make up for lack of formulas and contrived suspense with characterization and literary quality, social commentary, fascinating takes on history, etc, as Martin Cruz Smith does for Russia in Wolves Eat Dogs I know that historical novelists are often forced by the marketplace, their editors, to include a murder mystery, or no go. I have been ordered to do this myself, as a writer. If that was what happened to Penney, her lack of command in the thriller genre is understandable.

Alas, I didn't find the characters all that interesting in Penney's tale, either. At the core of the story I didn't find much in relationships either, to keep me going. The protagonist lacks richness of psyche. There was no great love. I got bored with her and the others, found myself skimming, searching for some quality, some tension or moral struggle that would make me care about their fates.
Nowadays most literary novels, especially the big award winners with the most lavish critical acclaim, disappoint me in the same way; I am an old fashioned reader bred on the classics. Give me Jack London The Call of the Wild instead.
Lesley Thomas, author of arctic novel Flight of the Goose
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message 1: by Lorraine

07/05/2008 02:08PM

Can you really criticize the book for not being "arctic" enough, if it's set in central Ontario?