Ordinary Wolves : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Kantner Gets It
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: It's hard to describe this book. It is rich in so many ways. Not the typical book I normally read but I couldn't put it down. I loved it.

Rating:
Summary: Coming of age near the Arctic Circle
Review: ORDINARY WOLVES opens with an Inupiaq hunter named Enuk stopping in at the igloo home of a six-year-old boy named Cutuk (real name Clayton), who lives with his artist father, Abe, brother Jerry and sister Iris near the Arctic Circle. Their mother had left the family shortly after Cutuk's birth. Cutuk idolizes the Eskimo hunter and tries to look like him by pushing down his nose. Cutuk wants to kill a wolf so he can be more like the Eskimo hunters but doesn't want to invoke the wrath of his nature-loving father.
There isn't much plot. We see Cutuk, sometimes called Yellowhair, age to twenty-three. He lives in Anchorage for a time but feels as much an outsider there as he does in Takunak, the Eskimo village a day and half dogsled ride from the igloo. Enuk gets lost and Cutuk goes looking for him; Cutuk tries to win the hand of Dawna, the Eskimo girl he thinks he loves.
Perhaps the main thrust of the book is Kantner's portrayal of the Eskimos Cutuk encounters when he visits their village. They're not exactly "noble savages." They hunt wolves with AK-47s; they get drunk on Aqua Net, they bully yellow-haired white boys almost incessantly, imitating kung fu movies, and they commit suicide. Modernization and welfare checks have decimated the aboriginal culture.
This can be a hard book to read. It is liberally sprinkled with Eskimo words. Kantner provides a glossary at the front of the book. Kantner overdoes it a bit, making sure there's Eskimo terminology on practically every page. Words like "quaq," which means frozen fish and "arii," and expression of hurt or disappointment. They are sometimes unnecessary and destroy the flow of the book, especially during dramatic scenes.
Would I recommend this book? Absolutely; the exotic setting alone makes it worthwhile and the Eskimo dialect is hilarious.