Details Appertaining To Books The Greenlanders
| Title | : | The Greenlanders |
| Author | : | Jane Smiley |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 608 pages |
| Published | : | September 13th 2005 by Anchor (first published March 12th 1988) |
| Categories | : | Historical. Historical Fiction. Fiction. Novels |
Jane Smiley
Paperback | Pages: 608 pages Rating: 3.9 | 2293 Users | 348 Reviews
Rendition Supposing Books The Greenlanders
Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author Jane Smiley’s The Greenlanders is an enthralling novel in the epic tradition of the old Norse sagas. Set in the fourteenth century in Europe’s most far-flung outpost, a land of glittering fjords, blasting winds, sun-warmed meadows, and high, dark mountains, The Greenlanders is the story of one family–proud landowner Asgeir Gunnarsson; his daughter Margret, whose willful independence leads her into passionate adultery and exile; and his son Gunnar, whose quest for knowledge is at the compelling center of this unforgettable book. Jane Smiley takes us into this world of farmers, priests, and lawspeakers, of hunts and feasts and long-standing feuds, and by an act of literary magic, makes a remote time, place, and people not only real but dear to us.
Identify Books Concering The Greenlanders
| Original Title: | The Greenlanders |
| ISBN: | 1400095468 (ISBN13: 9781400095469) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Setting: | Greenland |
Rating Appertaining To Books The Greenlanders
Ratings: 3.9 From 2293 Users | 348 ReviewsComment On Appertaining To Books The Greenlanders
What a truly amazing book. Written in a style reminiscent of the Norse sagas, beautifully detailed and epic in scale, this is the only book I've ever found that captures what it must have been like to live in one of the farflung Viking colonies of the Middle Ages. Greenland is a terribly inhospitable place, but I had no idea how inhospitable before I read this. They were completely unable to cultivate any fruits or vegetables or wheat. Their diet consisted of meat, from both wild andI really really wanted to read this book - I generally like Jane Smiley's work, and its historical fiction! About Northern Europe no less! But in the end it was just...ponderous and dull. And frankly, I couldn't care less about any of the characters - not the unfaithful wife, the family she left behind, the crazy priest...not anyone. They were just all so dull. Even as Smiley so painstakingly - in so much detail - talked about the harshness of their life and their winters I still didn't care.
I recommend this book to those of you seeking immersion into the world of medieval Greenland. The characters are the Nordic immigrants who settled in Greenland, the events taking place in the 1300s, centuries after Viking exploration. These people must cope with cold and a native population that is so strange that these creatures are seen as demons. These people, the indigenous Inuits, are called skraelings. It is a world of hunger and hard times, adultery and murder, illness and death and
You don't just read this book. You LIVE it. Who would have thought that the lives of Scandinavian settlers in medieval Greenland could be so fascinating. Life was so hard and brutal. Both the culture and the climate were totally unforgiving. But it's fascinating to see how our forebearers lived, and how much of stoic Scandinavian culture remains in families of that heritage today.The author, Jane Smiley, is an author of stunning brilliance. She carries you to another time and place, such that
This was written in a Norse Saga style. Perhaps you may not like the style but I dare anyone to be able to pull it off as well as Smiley does. We are
The sad decline of Greenland's eastern settlement features death by starvation, the vomiting ill, being swept into the sea and drowning, falling through the ice and freezing and drowning, murder both justified and not, wasting away due to emotional trauma, and being burned to death for adultery. But the tone and pace are not as intense as you might expect from this account - instead, the tale is told in measured tones with very little reference to feelings, presumably much like the sagas
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