"White people--everything talked to pieces until all the pieces had numbers. 'I get wolves,' Enuk would have said, 'back by mountains.' It would have been someone else's duty to fill in the story and any heroism.""...Takunak, a speck in the wilderness, modern as microwaves, yet hissing with voices from a brand-new ten-thousand-year-old past: Kill every animal possible, every fur. Share. Avoid taboos. Don't get ahead. Never stand out. Live now. Takunak: generous and jealous, petty and cruel and somehow owning us; owning our decisions; calling us home to assassinate our ambitions. How strange my past, even farther back into the earth--the caribou skin entrance, flickering lamplight, dreams and the conviction to hunt the land for them..."Such is the gritty and complicated reality of Alaska narrated by a white boy named Cutuk Hawckly from the rural NW Arctic in this novel. The book paints unsparing portraits of colonized and quickly-modernized Native village life--including, importantly, the kinds of half-glimpses that a young person might realistically get of the boarding school history and other reasons behind the problems so prevalent today. It also paints incredibly insightful and incisive portraits of modern consumeristic culture and of white Alaskan culture and anti-Native racism (as well as Native-worshipping white people). Some of the most devastating scenes that made me squirm were of white sport hunters from Anchorage and Fairbanks. But so uncomfortable too were the scenes of boys in the village drinking hairspray and Lysol, young girls getting pregnant. And observing it all, participating in parts of it from fear and insecurity, this white boy who constantly pushes down his nose to look Eskimo, to will himself into becoming Iñupiaq, who loves his family and loves the land, who desperately wants friends and acceptance and a purpose in life.Perhaps most startling about this book was how it made me experience my own city. Cutuk, having never left the very rural Northwest Arctic, Cutuk who had to travel 2 days on dog sled to get to the village from the sod igloo he shared with his family, Cutuk arrives first in Kotzebue and then Anchorage. Running down the slushy snow in his winter muluks and soaking them through, trying to trap a lynx to eat where he is camped by the railroad tracks, wandering around Anchorage confused by cars and where all these white people are in such a hurry to go to, later navigating the social dynamic of car mechanics and astounded by how rude and stupid these white men are, confused as to why anyone would buy a dog in a mall...it's a fascinating view of my city, urban culture, etc. It is an important view for anyone working with youth or families from the villages who arrive in Anchorage disoriented and culture-shocked. This is a novel of a boy who is stuck "crawling the crevasses in between" the Native Northwest Arctic and the culture he identifies with and yet is excluded from, and the white culture that is supposed to be his but bears no resemblance to his values or way of life. He ultimately finds peace and growth back in his connection to the land, but the troubling social dynamic never disappears. One of the best scenes was of a meeting at the tribal council in the village where outside presenters come to talk about online cultural preservation and grants. They, like so many other well-intentioned but removed people, talk in big words and without connection to the people, and therefore achieve nothing:"The man glanced around quizzically, shuffled papers, and retreated into a forest of overgrown words and Accountant English. The meeting trailed into whispers and tittering. Back on the metal chairs, we chuckled at the man's pronunciation of Joe Smith's Eskimo name. We heard "my dick." We laughed, not because we were mean, but because laughing was traditional, it was something we were good at, and tonight we still remembered how."I only wish that the character of Cutuk, and the author, Seth Kantner, could have met and included in the novel Native characters who managed multiple worlds skillfully, who reached back into tradition and worked modern jobs, or non-elder Native folks who were heroes like Enuk. Enuk, the old hunter who Cutuk idolizes, and Janet, the very good and loving mothering character, are not the only such Native men or women. I wished for the sake of showing Alaska's social dynamic that the character could have come across some more healthy and self-actualized Alaska Native individuals, such as the many I know, to show not only a white Hawckly family hybrid, but show that there are many Alaska Native people who have found ways to balance tradition and modernity.
I've thought about what differentiates an ordinary wolf from an extraordinary one and believe that the answer lies in Mr. Kantner's book. There are two ways of viewing pack animals - 1) as a group, acting and reacting in predictable group dynamics and 2) observing the actions and behaviors of one particular animal in a group setting or perhaps a wolf that has wandered away from his pack. This metaphor is used throughout the book to frame cultural beliefs and behaviors as opposed to the individual who leaves his culture and finds himself lost and straddling two worlds.I loved this book for so many reasons. For one, it is a grand capturing of a family living far removed from 'civilization' in a cabin without running water or electricity. An outhouse serves as a bathroom. The cabin is miles away from the nearest Native village. Most of the protein comes from hunting and trapping. Other food arrives rarely as the closest town is so far away and the family is living in dire economic conditions. As soon as the family (mother, father, two sons and a daughter) settle in to this less than subsistence lifestyle, the mother runs off, leaving the children in the care of their father who is an artist who still has not reached adult maturity. The children parent their father, providing him with emotional support and taking care of their day to day needs. Their father loves them but his capacity to parent is limited.The youngest son is the protagonist of this novel. He vacillates between hating his isolated and isolating existence to appreciating the solitude, the vastness of the land, and his ability to hone his hunting and survival skills. He views the nearest rural village, populated primarily with Inupiat people in an idealized fashion. He is mentored by two adult Inupiat Eskimos who preserve the traditional ways and pass them on. On the other hand, he feels despair over what he sees as the demise of traditional ways. Inupiat people struggle with how to integrate modern technology, contemporary lifestyles and westernized education and into their indigenous heritage and belief system. He also grieves the loss of so many youth to alcoholism and drug addiction, violence, a welfare state and their leaving their homes as early as they can to make a life in the big city. Traditional ways and the values of the elders are no longer respected.Kantner uses a writing technique that I really appreciate. One chapter is about the protagonist's family or the people in the village that he is close with. The next chapter is about a pack of wolves, anthropomorphized to some extent while the protagonist interprets their pack actions as a vehicle for understanding his own life. The alternation of these two types of chapters continues throughout the book.Besides being beautifully written, the book is REAL. Having lived in Alaska for 40 years, I empathize with Kantner's portrayal of the protagonist's conflicts - his despair at seeing the Inupiat woman he loves living her life in a way that can only harm her and those around her. While she tries to emulate western ways, she will always be an outsider and she will feel a self-loathing and prejudice throughout her life that prevent her from fully integrating two such distinctly different cultures as the Inupiat traditions and contemporary western ways of the U.S.It is very poignant to listen to Kantner's protagonist describe himself as the outsider, the blond one with light skin in a sea of darker skinned and darker haired people - people he reveres. This reverence is like a kick to the heart because we know that the traditional way of life will not last for long and that the protagonist, for all his respect and cherishing of Inupiat culture, will always be an outsider. Throughout this novel we see people trying to straddle two worlds, not being fully integrated or accepted in either.
Do You like book Ordinary Wolves (2005)?
If you read this book, prepare for some language. It is an amazing book, partly because I lived in Alaska, and I felt and remembered things while reading this book that I haven't known howto describe to others. Even though I grew up in Fairbanks and not in a rural village, there is an Alaskan spirit that you feel no matter where you are in that huge, amazing place. I love it because I can smell the sealskin, I can feel freezing air in my lungs, the smell of Alaskan wilderness, and can remember the amazing beauty of the sky and the trees, even the way the snow sparkles at 65 degrees below zero. I think anyone would enjoy reading this. I love reading books about other countries and cultures, even when I have absolutely no experience in them, and I would hope that any reader would feel the same about this book.
—Mandy
There's some beautiful writing in this book, and the story it tells--about a young man who grows up with his father and two older siblings off the grid in NW Alaska--is compelling, unique, and at times quite moving. I would say Kantner excels when he's describing the natural world and his characters' immersion in it, as well as some of the social dynamics of a mostly native village that Cutuk, the main character, also spends some time living in. Cutuk's first encounters with city life in Anchorage is also poignant. There were moments, though, that I found the writing challenging to follow, from sentence to sentence, and sometimes got lost in some of the richness of description, which interfered with clearly understanding what exactly was happening in some of the scenes. Not sure if this was an intentional narrative choice, my own deficiency as a reader, or flaws in Kantner's style. Regardless, it didn't take away from what was a tender, but at times bittersweet coming of age encounter with the mysteries of Alaska.
—Geoffrey Bateman
OK, hang on... stop reading this review. Go to your "to read" shelf. Add this book. To the top of the list. Do it now. Got it on there? OK..... now I can tell you about it. This book is going to stay with me for a long time. This kind of writing is really like a gift. When you come across a book like this you just never want to be done reading it because it's just such a sheer pleasure to read such fine writing. Seth Katner creates dialogues and descriptions that instantly place you in the landscape. After having read a couple of books that made me wince at every other sentence as I noticed authors blatantly trying to trick me into sinking into their story, Ordinary Wolves was quite simply a relief and a delight to read because I sunk into the story as soon as I started reading, and I loved escaping completely into this world as I read along each night. This is a coming of age story that follows Cutuk, a white boy growing up with his sister and his single dad in an igloo on the Alaskan tundra. Not quite native, but not quite white, Cutuk struggles to fit in in various social settings while lingering on the sidelines, subconsciously trying to flatten his nose at every moment. In tandem with the human storylines, we also follow developments in the natural landscape throughout the narrative. You'll clearly picture the purple sky, the black icy water at spring breakup and the endless snow, and you'll wince as you hear the sound of "snowgos" (greatest nickname ever for a snowmobile) tearing across the landscape and leaving permanent marks of change. To me the mark of any great book is the feeling of wanting to turn back to page 1 and start all over again upon finishing. Ordinary Wolves is on my re-read list already. Read it.
—Jen K.
