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The Wolf [Hardcover]

Joseph Smith
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)

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Book Description

28 Aug 2008

In a bleak winter landscape a wolf is starved and weakening. He is the predator, and entering his mind, seeing the natural world through fierce new eyes, you feel the snow through the pads of your paws, what it feels like to stare at your prey and offer death, the texture of flesh between your teeth and the taste of blood in your mouth. But the harshness of nature, the death that stalks all of the wild forest, begins to challenge his supremacy, and his understanding of himself.

The Wolf is a novella of singular quality, taking the reader on an unforgettable journey – both with the wolf through a vividly drawn landscape, and inwards, deep into the mind of a killer. And when the wolf discovers a predator like himself on the brink of starvation – a competitor he should kill – he hesitates, and at that moment sets out on a path that will lead him against his will through strange ordeals, to find that before he can confront his own mortality he must face his greatest challenge – his own cherished nature.

A stunning combination of nature writing and fantasy, The Wolf forces us to see the world afresh through the eyes of a hunter in all its savagery, terror and magic.



Product details

  • Hardcover: 160 pages
  • Publisher: Jonathan Cape; First Edition edition (28 Aug 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0224085190
  • ISBN-13: 978-0224085199
  • Product Dimensions: 13.7 x 1.8 x 20.3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 530,923 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Review

Beautiful and fatalistic this is a haunting glimpse into the mind of a predator... Beautifully realised with not a word wasted. -- The Book Bag, 21st July 2008

"A sort of prose poem, extremely well executed...A highly polished gem of a tale"
-- The Tablet

'It is a daring novel that achieves that most elusive of challenges - changing the world a little for the reader.'
-- Observer, Francesca Segal

'Nothing this year approaches the sheer magic of Joseph Smith's daringly sophisticated first novel'
-- Irish Times

`drips with a visceral quality that captures ... what it means to be a creature at the mercy of the elements'
-- Big Issue

Review

'It is a daring novel that achieves that most elusive of challenges - changing the world a little for the reader.'

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Customer Reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5 stars
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars What a first novel! 22 Sep 2008
Format:Hardcover
This is a remarkable book, existing on many layers. On the surface it tells the story, from the animal's point of view, of a wolf's struggle to survive in a harsh environment, but like all the best fiction it allows one to suspend disbelief, and goes on to explore so many aspects of personality that it leaves one with the feeling that one should read it again because one must have missed something.

Tautly written with some wonderfully evocative descriptions it easily avoids the mawkish sentimentality of Jonathan Livingstone Seagull or Watership Down, though just occasionally the language becomes a little convoluted. Highly recommended. It's the authors first book, and is going to be a tough act to follow with his second.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars A little wonder 18 Mar 2009
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Very little approaches the sheer magic of Joseph Smith's daringly sophisticated first novel, which enters the mind of a starving wolf patrolling the harsh winter landscape. A strange encounter with a fox results in an uneasy odyssey. Disney it's not. An austere beauty dictates the lyric, measured prose, which avoids all taint of period pastiche in achieving the dignified glory of an Anglo-Saxon epic.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Captivating - but something missing? 10 Mar 2011
Format:Hardcover
I came to this book thinking it was an author's depiction of what life might realistically be like from a wolf's perspective - and really intrigued because of that. What the novel is, however, is a dreamlike fable with a wolf at its centre, moving from that sort of realism to something with a more human type of intelligence.

It's vivid and captivating, but I did end it feeling a little disappointed - the story centres around a moment of deep understanding and compassion which felt, to me, to distract from what could have been a great authorial trick. That said, I would still recommend people to take a look at the book - it's intriguing, I'm just not certain what the point is.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A powerful tale, skilfully told 2 Mar 2011
Format:Hardcover
This is a very convincing story about a wolf, a fox and a swan in a particularly hard winter: it is also an exploration of individuals in circumstances which call into question everything they hold true about their own nature, and which cause them to act in ways that ordinarily would be unthinkable to them. I rebelled against the wolf's actions towards the swan almost as much as he himself did, even though that was the outcome my human nature wanted.
Throughout the second half of the book I kept thinking of Sibelius' 'Swan of Tuonela'. Joseph Smith's work shares that haunting and desolate beauty, likewise the ever-present under-current of menace. This is a brief book (150 pages or so) and quick to read, but it is not quickly forgotten. Smith is a skilful writer who vividly evokes the harshness of winter and nature as an all-powerful force that is totally dispassionate towards individuals. In contrast with the austere setting, Smith's writing has a compelling sensuousness; his gift for metaphor, in particular, is a delight. This is a stunning first novel; I hope it will be the first of many.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Crash Course in Zen 31 Dec 2010
Format:Hardcover
Wonderful read. I read it on the last day of the year. Best book I've read in quite some time. I felt like I was getting a crash course in Zen, totally in touch with sensation, feeling and the environment. Communication between animals is beautifully realised and totally credible. I really wanted the wolf to survive but I knew it was not possible. I also wanted the wolf to go against his nature and save the swan. I was enormously surprised and gratified when he did. Like so many symbolic stories, The Wolf works at a myriad levels, with the survival instinct dominant in everything the wolf does. The language is poetic and graceful like the movements of the wolf. The occasional convoluted passage where the reader gets lost does not take from the pleasure of looking into the mirror of the deeper self.
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
By A Common Reader TOP 50 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover
This is an impressive first book from Joseph Smith. Although I read it in a day, this was not just due to its short length but also the narrative pace which kept drawing me back to the book whenever I put it down.

The book is an imaginative journey inside the mind of a wolf as he travels through wintry forests and mountain ranges. I usually dislike anthropomorphic books but this one seemed to fit my mood as winter draws in and from the first page I felt, OK, we'll never know how a wolf thinks but this is about as close as another species (human in this case!) will get to experiencing it.

I remember hearing someone ask a scientist in a radio interview, "how intelligent are cats?". The reply was, "well, they're very clever at being cats". Joseph Smith's wolf is very good at being a wolf, and the writer has thought himself into what it might be like to be driven by hunger to hunt and kill another wild beast despite the constant dangers of a hostile territory. A vast palette of smells is described in all its fullness and the wolf has an interesting take on the visual world which we share from a different perspective. Smith describes the wolf's pride in its own powers and also the fear of other predators particularly those which carry guns. This makes for opportunities for suspenseful reading.

I think this book would make an imaginative gift and I would think almost anyone could soon be drawn into this fast moving and beautifully-written tale.

The book is beautifully illustrated by John Spencer, an illustrator I have been unable to find with Google, but worthy of a mention.
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