The Gathering Night
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'Gripping, its mix of reality and myth reminiscent of Louis de Bernieres.' Scotland on Sunday (on Hy Brasil)
Product Description
Between Grandmother Mountain and the cold sea, Alaia and her family live off the land. But when one of her brothers goes hunting and never returns, the fragile balance of life is upset. Half-starved and maddened with grief, Alaia's mother follows her visions and goes in search of her lost son. Then a stranger from a rival tribe appears on their hearth seeking shelter. Are his stories of a great wave and a people perished really to be believed? What else could drive a man to travel alone between tribes in the depths of winter? Hopes of resolution come when Alaia's mother returns home as a Go-Between, one able to commune with the spirits. But as all the Auk people come together for their annual Gathering Night, who there will listen to the voice of a woman? "The Gathering Night" is a story of conflict, loss, love, adventure and devastating natural disasters. This utterly enchanting pre-historical novel is set deep in our stone-age past, but resonates as a parable of our troubled planet 8000 years on.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This has been a pretty good holiday read. The book has a decent plot and an unusual setting (the mesolithic era). I do have to admit to being a little disappointed that it is more about people and less about their surroundings than I had hoped for. Margaret Elphinstone has a real but in this book under-used talent for descriptive writing, which is a pity when she has been clever enough to pick such a potentially fascinating setting for her story. But perhaps that's because I'm a bloke?The Gathering Night
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
"I saw it then, far off under the Sunless Sky. A grey cliff, white-tipped. A cliff made of water."
18 Mar 2011
Format:Paperback
A geologically-documented tsunami, a scattering of archaeological evidence, the shamanistic beliefs of hunter-gatherer societies: Elphinstone has used these ingredients to recreate a prehistoric world. Her research is admirable, but even more so is her talent for conjuring up the distant past.
This is a story told around a campfire by people whose relationship to nature is elemental. They have rituals for communicating with the spirits of animals, on whom they depend for survival. They joke with each other. They are capable of tenderness one moment and brutality the next. They seem very different from us and yet, in the end, not so different after all.
This is a story told around a campfire by people whose relationship to nature is elemental. They have rituals for communicating with the spirits of animals, on whom they depend for survival. They joke with each other. They are capable of tenderness one moment and brutality the next. They seem very different from us and yet, in the end, not so different after all.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I loved this book, it caught me up into the world of the past and at times I could hardly put it down. It is a different world, but there is plenty of detail to bring it to life and the people are, after all, just people. Good fun to try and recognise the locations. Highly recommended if you want to find out more about a little known part of our history.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Mesolithic Scotland
This novel is set in Mesolithic Scotland in the years following the geologically documented tsunami on the east coast of Scotland in 6150 BC following an underwater landslip off... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Pag Clack
The Gathering Night
Margaret Elphinstone writes about what she knows. Her research is impeccable for every one of her novels. All of which I recommend for a "different" kind of read. Read more
Published on 5 Oct 2009 by C. A. Russell
Really makes you think
Really makes you think. How do you research a book set so far in the past? Yet everything in this novel is believable. Read more
Published on 6 Sep 2009 by F. A. Begbie
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