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Reindeer Moon #1
De maan van het rendier
A fictional account of the life of a Siberian tribe 20,000 years ago, from the author of "Harmless People" and "Warrior Herdsmen". It is both the story of a daily struggle for survival against starvation, cold and violence, and an evocation of spiritual journeys and primitive magic.
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First published January 1, 1987
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About the author
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
46 books254 followersElizabeth Marshall Thomas is the author of The Harmless People, a non fiction work about the Kung Bushmen of southwestern Africa, and of Reindeer Moon, a novel about the paleolithic hunter gatherers of Siberia, both of which were tremendous international successes. She lives in New Hampshire.
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July 11, 2025
Anthropology Novel?
Preamble:
i) Why anthropology?
…Anthropologist David Graeber has been a major influence, as the first author to spark my social imagination for constructive possibilities (rather than just deconstructive critiques).
…Graeber’s radiance was so bright, it created a blind spot which I only truly examined in depth after going through the critiques (by other anthropologists!) of his posthumous best-seller collaboration with archaeologist Wengrow: The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity.
ii) Why this novel?
…The book I would normally start with is the author Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’ famous 1959 nonfiction ethnography of the Bushmen of the Kalahari desert, The Harmless People. However, I’m perpetually buried in nonfiction, so I took a major detour, starting with…uh…Dune. I didn’t get much from applying an anthropology lens to a right-libertarian writer’s sci-fi novel, so next I turned to novels by authors with actual anthropology/ethnography experience.
Highlights:
1) Anthropology Setting:
--Given my nonfiction approach, I should have read the “Sources and Acknowledgements” section (buried after the story) first, as it provides the anthropological context.
--With the time frame of 20,000 years ago (Upper Paleolithic), the social formation featured is:
i) nomadic: in contrast to settled
ii) immediate return: in contrast to “delayed return” (long-term food storage), although large game meat storage does complicate this
iii) hunter-gatherers: in contrast to domestication of plants (agriculture)/animals (pastoralism, etc.)
…thus, the setting fits nicely within the egalitarian politics detailed in Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior (which we can treat as Materialist Anthropology 101), and (of course) Affluence Without Abundance: The Disappearing World of the Bushmen!
2) Social Relations:
--We can immediately tell the author took this seriously, as there’s a “Characters” section listing relations as well as a “Kinship Chart” to visualize this.
--With the materialist anthropology lens, analyzing various arrangements of social relations is foundational to understanding bargaining power, esp. between genders (and eventually: class divisions).
i) Residence:
--Customs where couples live with/near the female’s family (“matrilocal residence”) offers more bargaining power for women (female kinship support); this also has benefits for child-rearing, and a cultural value system favouring egalitarianism/cooperation. See: Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding (which we can treat as Materialist Anthropology 102).
--This is in contrast to “patrilocal residence”, which offers advantages for male-dominated violent defense of delayed-return surplus (with relations to property rights, class divisions, warfare, slavery, etc.) and hunting.
ii) Lineage:
--Similarly, we can contrast customs tracing kinship through the female line (“matrilineality”…my spellcheck actually marks this as misspelled and suggests “patrilineality” as correct) vs. male line (“patrilineality”).
--For more materialist anthropology analysis, see Chris Knight’s Blood Relations: Menstruation and the Origins of Culture, as well as the online lectures by Knight/Camilla Power/Morna Finnegan etc.
--Much of the story revolves around the female protagonist’s relations, between couples/families (“we tied our people together very carefully”), coalitions, initiations, controlling tempers, leaving the group, etc. I cannot pretend these were easy themes for a modernist like myself to follow (reminds me of the early difficulties finding the rhythm of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants).
…see comments below for rest of the review (“3. Socio-ecological Relations”)…
Preamble:
i) Why anthropology?
…Anthropologist David Graeber has been a major influence, as the first author to spark my social imagination for constructive possibilities (rather than just deconstructive critiques).
…Graeber’s radiance was so bright, it created a blind spot which I only truly examined in depth after going through the critiques (by other anthropologists!) of his posthumous best-seller collaboration with archaeologist Wengrow: The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity.
ii) Why this novel?
…The book I would normally start with is the author Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’ famous 1959 nonfiction ethnography of the Bushmen of the Kalahari desert, The Harmless People. However, I’m perpetually buried in nonfiction, so I took a major detour, starting with…uh…Dune. I didn’t get much from applying an anthropology lens to a right-libertarian writer’s sci-fi novel, so next I turned to novels by authors with actual anthropology/ethnography experience.
Highlights:
1) Anthropology Setting:
--Given my nonfiction approach, I should have read the “Sources and Acknowledgements” section (buried after the story) first, as it provides the anthropological context.
--With the time frame of 20,000 years ago (Upper Paleolithic), the social formation featured is:
i) nomadic: in contrast to settled
ii) immediate return: in contrast to “delayed return” (long-term food storage), although large game meat storage does complicate this
iii) hunter-gatherers: in contrast to domestication of plants (agriculture)/animals (pastoralism, etc.)
…thus, the setting fits nicely within the egalitarian politics detailed in Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior (which we can treat as Materialist Anthropology 101), and (of course) Affluence Without Abundance: The Disappearing World of the Bushmen!
2) Social Relations:
--We can immediately tell the author took this seriously, as there’s a “Characters” section listing relations as well as a “Kinship Chart” to visualize this.
--With the materialist anthropology lens, analyzing various arrangements of social relations is foundational to understanding bargaining power, esp. between genders (and eventually: class divisions).
i) Residence:
--Customs where couples live with/near the female’s family (“matrilocal residence”) offers more bargaining power for women (female kinship support); this also has benefits for child-rearing, and a cultural value system favouring egalitarianism/cooperation. See: Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding (which we can treat as Materialist Anthropology 102).
--This is in contrast to “patrilocal residence”, which offers advantages for male-dominated violent defense of delayed-return surplus (with relations to property rights, class divisions, warfare, slavery, etc.) and hunting.
ii) Lineage:
--Similarly, we can contrast customs tracing kinship through the female line (“matrilineality”…my spellcheck actually marks this as misspelled and suggests “patrilineality” as correct) vs. male line (“patrilineality”).
--For more materialist anthropology analysis, see Chris Knight’s Blood Relations: Menstruation and the Origins of Culture, as well as the online lectures by Knight/Camilla Power/Morna Finnegan etc.
--Much of the story revolves around the female protagonist’s relations, between couples/families (“we tied our people together very carefully”), coalitions, initiations, controlling tempers, leaving the group, etc. I cannot pretend these were easy themes for a modernist like myself to follow (reminds me of the early difficulties finding the rhythm of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants).
…see comments below for rest of the review (“3. Socio-ecological Relations”)…
March 20, 2013
This review applies to both, Reindeer Moon and The Animal Wife by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas. First, I have to say that as much as I love Jean Auel's "Earth's Children" series, these two novels are simply the very best fictional accounts of prehistoric life on the steppe-tundra of the Altai region of Siberia during the late-Upper Paleolithic, i.e., about 20,000 years ago. The characters in Thomas's books are anatomically modern humans, i.e., Homo sapiens, and based upon the lifestyles of the characters in the two novels, these people were probably best represented by the Gravettian Culture.
By way of background, Thomas spent several years, as a young woman, studying and living with the !Kung people of the Kalahari Desert in southwestern Africa in the early-1950s. Living with, and observing, these hunter-gathers has given her unique insight in what life may well have been like in the incredibly unforgiving and harsh Ice-Age environment in Eurasia some twenty millenia ago. The !Kung people are an ancient culture and have continued to live a similar lifestyle for something probably approaching 20,000 years in the Kalahari Desert, much like that of their ancestors over the past 200,000 years since the first appearance of Homo sapiens as a species.
In both novels, Thomas has carefully researched the environmental and ecological conditions of the Ice-Age steppe-tundra ecozone, and then matched this up with her extensive knowledge and experience with the !Kung hunter-gather lifestyle. Both of these novels make for compelling reading. While these novels are at times grim and heart-wrenching, at the same time I think that both tales speak to the profoundly deep connection that these Ice-Age peoples had with their environment, and their families and clan. While the characters in both novels are complex and well-developed and the plots engaging, the core essence of both books revolves around the day-to-day need to acquire food, stay warm, and simply stay alive--none of which are particularly easy tasks. This is incredibly thought-provoking stuff that can't help but make the reader stop and reflect upon just how difficult it must have been for own ancestors as they left Africa some 80,000 years ago and began colonizing these remote and forbidding habitats around the globe, and it wasn't until the end of the Ice-Age, about 10,000 years ago, that life began to measurably improve for the human species.
Finally, if you read these books and have enjoyed them, I highly recommend Ms. Thomas's nonfiction account of her experiences with the !Kung peoples in, The Old Way: A Story of the First People (2006). It is an endlessly fascinating account of a small group of peoples who up until very recently truly lived a lifestyle that has long since passed around much of the rest of the Earth. Reading about the !Kung is quite like entering a time machine and returning to the Upper Paleolithic era of our distant ancestors.
By way of background, Thomas spent several years, as a young woman, studying and living with the !Kung people of the Kalahari Desert in southwestern Africa in the early-1950s. Living with, and observing, these hunter-gathers has given her unique insight in what life may well have been like in the incredibly unforgiving and harsh Ice-Age environment in Eurasia some twenty millenia ago. The !Kung people are an ancient culture and have continued to live a similar lifestyle for something probably approaching 20,000 years in the Kalahari Desert, much like that of their ancestors over the past 200,000 years since the first appearance of Homo sapiens as a species.
In both novels, Thomas has carefully researched the environmental and ecological conditions of the Ice-Age steppe-tundra ecozone, and then matched this up with her extensive knowledge and experience with the !Kung hunter-gather lifestyle. Both of these novels make for compelling reading. While these novels are at times grim and heart-wrenching, at the same time I think that both tales speak to the profoundly deep connection that these Ice-Age peoples had with their environment, and their families and clan. While the characters in both novels are complex and well-developed and the plots engaging, the core essence of both books revolves around the day-to-day need to acquire food, stay warm, and simply stay alive--none of which are particularly easy tasks. This is incredibly thought-provoking stuff that can't help but make the reader stop and reflect upon just how difficult it must have been for own ancestors as they left Africa some 80,000 years ago and began colonizing these remote and forbidding habitats around the globe, and it wasn't until the end of the Ice-Age, about 10,000 years ago, that life began to measurably improve for the human species.
Finally, if you read these books and have enjoyed them, I highly recommend Ms. Thomas's nonfiction account of her experiences with the !Kung peoples in, The Old Way: A Story of the First People (2006). It is an endlessly fascinating account of a small group of peoples who up until very recently truly lived a lifestyle that has long since passed around much of the rest of the Earth. Reading about the !Kung is quite like entering a time machine and returning to the Upper Paleolithic era of our distant ancestors.
February 16, 2018
3.5 – 4 stars
For a while now I’ve been wanting to read a book that takes place in human pre-history, an era that has become more and more fascinating to me of late, and yet I had a hard time finding something that fit the bill for me. The obvious choice, I suppose, would have been Jean Auel’s notorious bestseller The Clan of the Cave Bear, but I’ve read enough about the shall we say lack in historical and scientific accuracy of the book and the sheer Mary Sue-ishness of the main heroine to (rightly or wrongly) keep me away. Luckily I stumbled upon a reference to Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’ _Reindeer Moon_ and I have to say that I was hooked from the get-go! The book is part historical fiction and part fantasy, though both elements merge into a seamless whole, each adding something to the other.
The story centres on Yanan, a young woman coming of age amongst a Paleolithic tribe of hunter-gatherers living on the Siberian Steppes some 20,000 years ago. The story is actually an intertwined narrative told by Yanan from the afterlife wherein one segment of the tale occurs in the past as Yanan recalls the experiences of her life from her time as a 15 year-old girl becoming a woman until her death in the not too distant future (this death actually occurs in chapter 2 so I don’t think it’s an egregious spoiler to mention here), while the other occurs in her ‘present’ after her entry into the spirit world where she is trapped by her tribe’s shamans so she can aid them in their struggle for survival. This latter element is obviously what gives the book its fantasy elements, as Yanan’s spirit communes with others of her kind and also assumes the shapes of various animals at the behest of the shamans (the ones who “own the air”) as her former people set her the task of aiding them in their hunts and struggle for survival. Despite these fantastic elements I found the entire story to be believable not only in the way the harsh realities of the lives of Paleolithic peoples were presented in the ‘real’ world, but in the way in which the magical elements rang true to the beliefs and lifestyle of these people as envisioned by Thomas.
Yanan herself is a compelling character, headstrong and proud, whose words and actions often lead her into trouble. She is also resourceful and devoted to her family, especially her younger sister Meri, and the story of her struggles as she comes of age in a harsh world of survival where existence is often little more than hand-to-mouth kept me reading compulsively. We follow Yanan and her tribe as they follow their yearly migration from their winter lodge to the summergrounds of a tribe of Mammoth hunters to whom their leader Graylag and the other elders have joined them by marriage. Family connections, we find, are of central importance in this world as marriage alliances and one’s lineage define one’s identity and rights.
The lives of these early humans are obviously very different from our own as the basic search for food and shelter in a world that seems to be designed to thwart them at nearly every turn are the key concerns of Yanan and her people. It is not surprising, then, to find that they have an intimate connection with the natural world around them, especially with the animals that provide both sustenance and shelter, or that can conversely be their greatest competition and danger. We come to see very quickly the ways in which these early humans lived subject to the seasons and followed the life cycles of the animals on which they depended. As the herds migrated so did the people and they often had to uniquely fashion their lives to follow the example that these creatures set, as Yanan herself learned when she and her sister were separated from their tribe:
Survival and family are thus the two pillars upon which these people lived and the story shows us how conflicts from both within and without their family group could cause tensions that, when coupled with the hard fight for survival, made life a constant struggle with death always looming on the horizon. Death was not the end, in this story at least, and the cycle of life and death, the communion of man with nature, spread from the natural world to the supernatural creating a unified whole. Thomas did an excellent job expressing this with both the form and content of her novel, successfully bringing a far distant world to life. Definitely recommended (though perhaps not the best choice for vegetarians).
For a while now I’ve been wanting to read a book that takes place in human pre-history, an era that has become more and more fascinating to me of late, and yet I had a hard time finding something that fit the bill for me. The obvious choice, I suppose, would have been Jean Auel’s notorious bestseller The Clan of the Cave Bear, but I’ve read enough about the shall we say lack in historical and scientific accuracy of the book and the sheer Mary Sue-ishness of the main heroine to (rightly or wrongly) keep me away. Luckily I stumbled upon a reference to Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’ _Reindeer Moon_ and I have to say that I was hooked from the get-go! The book is part historical fiction and part fantasy, though both elements merge into a seamless whole, each adding something to the other.
The story centres on Yanan, a young woman coming of age amongst a Paleolithic tribe of hunter-gatherers living on the Siberian Steppes some 20,000 years ago. The story is actually an intertwined narrative told by Yanan from the afterlife wherein one segment of the tale occurs in the past as Yanan recalls the experiences of her life from her time as a 15 year-old girl becoming a woman until her death in the not too distant future (this death actually occurs in chapter 2 so I don’t think it’s an egregious spoiler to mention here), while the other occurs in her ‘present’ after her entry into the spirit world where she is trapped by her tribe’s shamans so she can aid them in their struggle for survival. This latter element is obviously what gives the book its fantasy elements, as Yanan’s spirit communes with others of her kind and also assumes the shapes of various animals at the behest of the shamans (the ones who “own the air”) as her former people set her the task of aiding them in their hunts and struggle for survival. Despite these fantastic elements I found the entire story to be believable not only in the way the harsh realities of the lives of Paleolithic peoples were presented in the ‘real’ world, but in the way in which the magical elements rang true to the beliefs and lifestyle of these people as envisioned by Thomas.
Yanan herself is a compelling character, headstrong and proud, whose words and actions often lead her into trouble. She is also resourceful and devoted to her family, especially her younger sister Meri, and the story of her struggles as she comes of age in a harsh world of survival where existence is often little more than hand-to-mouth kept me reading compulsively. We follow Yanan and her tribe as they follow their yearly migration from their winter lodge to the summergrounds of a tribe of Mammoth hunters to whom their leader Graylag and the other elders have joined them by marriage. Family connections, we find, are of central importance in this world as marriage alliances and one’s lineage define one’s identity and rights.
The lives of these early humans are obviously very different from our own as the basic search for food and shelter in a world that seems to be designed to thwart them at nearly every turn are the key concerns of Yanan and her people. It is not surprising, then, to find that they have an intimate connection with the natural world around them, especially with the animals that provide both sustenance and shelter, or that can conversely be their greatest competition and danger. We come to see very quickly the ways in which these early humans lived subject to the seasons and followed the life cycles of the animals on which they depended. As the herds migrated so did the people and they often had to uniquely fashion their lives to follow the example that these creatures set, as Yanan herself learned when she and her sister were separated from their tribe:
I saw we would be like small animals while we were traveling—like foxes, maybe. A big group of people can kill a big thing and live a long time eating it, like lions or wolves. But a very small group like me and Meri would have to live like foxes, eating the frogs and lemmings overlooked by the cranes.Humans are both predator and prey, not yet the masters of the earth, and very much subject to the vicissitudes of the natural world.
Survival and family are thus the two pillars upon which these people lived and the story shows us how conflicts from both within and without their family group could cause tensions that, when coupled with the hard fight for survival, made life a constant struggle with death always looming on the horizon. Death was not the end, in this story at least, and the cycle of life and death, the communion of man with nature, spread from the natural world to the supernatural creating a unified whole. Thomas did an excellent job expressing this with both the form and content of her novel, successfully bringing a far distant world to life. Definitely recommended (though perhaps not the best choice for vegetarians).
September 12, 2008
This book was a real surprise. I thought I'd pick up a quick end of the summer read, but it really grabbed me far more than I ever would have suspected. A coming of age story of a willful, headstrong girl named Yanan some 20,000 years ago, but it's not juvenile in any way. Quite real and stark as to what survival (or not surviving) meant in this ice age gauntlet. Not a world for vegans.
It's unusual in that it is told in the first person. Also in that every few chapters Yanan continues her story, but from the spirit world after her death. Transforming from human to the animals she hunted and feared and back to human again and being pulled to lodge of her lineage by the powers of their shaman.
This is not the pat & sometimes contrived world of "Clan of the Cave Bear". Nor is it the journey William Golding ("Lord of the Flies")takes us to in his book "The Inheritors". There we journey into a truly alien intelligence and world view of Neanderthals. In this book the thoughts and emotions are so very much like us though the trappings of culture are different. These ARE our ancestors. I really became concerned for these characters with all their strengths and foibles as I would with someone today.
It's unusual in that it is told in the first person. Also in that every few chapters Yanan continues her story, but from the spirit world after her death. Transforming from human to the animals she hunted and feared and back to human again and being pulled to lodge of her lineage by the powers of their shaman.
This is not the pat & sometimes contrived world of "Clan of the Cave Bear". Nor is it the journey William Golding ("Lord of the Flies")takes us to in his book "The Inheritors". There we journey into a truly alien intelligence and world view of Neanderthals. In this book the thoughts and emotions are so very much like us though the trappings of culture are different. These ARE our ancestors. I really became concerned for these characters with all their strengths and foibles as I would with someone today.
December 18, 2022
Dec 18, 1030am ~~ I discovered this author when I read a Sy Montgomery book about octopus. I ordered a sampler of her work: a couple of memoirs, two novels, and a few of her natural history titles. I've read one memoir and when I was looking around for my December reading, I thought it would be nice to read the two novels, Reindeer Moon and its sequel The Animal Wife. So here we are!
This is the story of Yanan, who is dead when we meet her. She explains this in the prologue:
"I was still a young woman when I left the world of the living and became a spirit of the dead."
She lived in pre-historic times, "over twenty thousand years ago, in a lodge on the ice-swept tundra, in a land where death was always near". (That is from the back cover.)
I thought EMT did a great job of creating what might have been the society Yanan lived in. But the first chapter was a little disorienting for me because of Yanan explaining hand signals for her relatives and how to keep track of the family lineage. Important, of course, because the people had to be sure no close relatives had babies together, but I always have a hard time keeping such info in my head when presented with it in clumps of pages rather than spread out through a book. But that is just me and once I got past that bit, I became transported to Yanan's world and her issues, which dealt mainly with survival, but also with the human relationships that can decide a person's ultimate ability to live or die.
There are two phases of this story, but they are blended together, and the first time we shift from what feels like a living Yanan telling her tale to the spirit Yanan speaking, I was not ready for the change. At the end of one chapter she was on the trail with her family and in the beginning of the next she was a spirit and wondering what had happened to her. Well, yeah, I could understand the confusion, I felt it too! lol
But I got used to the changes, and eventually they were less abrupt: Yanan would be telling her 'living' adventures and then casually begin on a spirit memory. I could see that the adventures she had while a spirit were based on EMT's observations of the animal world. Yanan's spirit became a wolf, a deer, a lioness, a mammoth, and various birds. These sections almost felt more real to me than the 'human' phase of Yanan's story. Maybe because of age-old wondering what it would be like to be an animal or a bird. Surely I am not the only one to try to imagine the world through another creature's eyes.
For Yanan's people survival was the biggest problem of all. There was no farming, they hunted and foraged for their food, and if there were no animals nearby to be killed and eaten, the people went where they had gone. This book will make you realize just how tricky a situation life was in those years. Of course that is something we all 'know', but sometimes a book like this will make that knowing more real to us.
One thing I noticed, especially in the first chapter, is the use of the word 'coitus'. Now I know that there are many issues about writing a book set in this time period, and of course language is one of them. We have no idea which words may have been used to describe which actions, but having the word coitus leap off the page repeatedly was just weird. I even began to wonder if the rest of the book was going to be more about caveman coitus than anything other topic. Not that there were any graphic scenes of coitus just then (or ever, really) but that modern word in Yanan's voice was jarring. I would have expected a simple word or phrase or hand signal or anything rather than that scientific-sounding coitus. Who says coitus in real life, let alone in the Ice Age?!
During one part of the book, when Yanan and her sister Meri are alone and trying to find their way to their relative's lodge, I also began to get a bit confused by the different moons we all lived through. Months and months went by, each with a different name: Reindeer Moon, Moon Of Flies, Storm Moon, Hunger Moon, and so on. Me being me, I got curious and went back to count all the many moons. I ended up with fourteen, unless I missed a few somewhere. This has nothing to do with anything, but a lunar year is still only 12 months, and is actually days shorter than a solar year, so how did Yanan end up with two extra moons twenty thousand years ago? lol
I couldn't keep myself from pondering these two questions, but then as I said, they are just little blips of weirdness that I let myself think about. The book was intriguing and very hard to put down after the first chapter. And I am off now to see what happens in the sequel!
This is the story of Yanan, who is dead when we meet her. She explains this in the prologue:
"I was still a young woman when I left the world of the living and became a spirit of the dead."
She lived in pre-historic times, "over twenty thousand years ago, in a lodge on the ice-swept tundra, in a land where death was always near". (That is from the back cover.)
I thought EMT did a great job of creating what might have been the society Yanan lived in. But the first chapter was a little disorienting for me because of Yanan explaining hand signals for her relatives and how to keep track of the family lineage. Important, of course, because the people had to be sure no close relatives had babies together, but I always have a hard time keeping such info in my head when presented with it in clumps of pages rather than spread out through a book. But that is just me and once I got past that bit, I became transported to Yanan's world and her issues, which dealt mainly with survival, but also with the human relationships that can decide a person's ultimate ability to live or die.
There are two phases of this story, but they are blended together, and the first time we shift from what feels like a living Yanan telling her tale to the spirit Yanan speaking, I was not ready for the change. At the end of one chapter she was on the trail with her family and in the beginning of the next she was a spirit and wondering what had happened to her. Well, yeah, I could understand the confusion, I felt it too! lol
But I got used to the changes, and eventually they were less abrupt: Yanan would be telling her 'living' adventures and then casually begin on a spirit memory. I could see that the adventures she had while a spirit were based on EMT's observations of the animal world. Yanan's spirit became a wolf, a deer, a lioness, a mammoth, and various birds. These sections almost felt more real to me than the 'human' phase of Yanan's story. Maybe because of age-old wondering what it would be like to be an animal or a bird. Surely I am not the only one to try to imagine the world through another creature's eyes.
For Yanan's people survival was the biggest problem of all. There was no farming, they hunted and foraged for their food, and if there were no animals nearby to be killed and eaten, the people went where they had gone. This book will make you realize just how tricky a situation life was in those years. Of course that is something we all 'know', but sometimes a book like this will make that knowing more real to us.
One thing I noticed, especially in the first chapter, is the use of the word 'coitus'. Now I know that there are many issues about writing a book set in this time period, and of course language is one of them. We have no idea which words may have been used to describe which actions, but having the word coitus leap off the page repeatedly was just weird. I even began to wonder if the rest of the book was going to be more about caveman coitus than anything other topic. Not that there were any graphic scenes of coitus just then (or ever, really) but that modern word in Yanan's voice was jarring. I would have expected a simple word or phrase or hand signal or anything rather than that scientific-sounding coitus. Who says coitus in real life, let alone in the Ice Age?!
During one part of the book, when Yanan and her sister Meri are alone and trying to find their way to their relative's lodge, I also began to get a bit confused by the different moons we all lived through. Months and months went by, each with a different name: Reindeer Moon, Moon Of Flies, Storm Moon, Hunger Moon, and so on. Me being me, I got curious and went back to count all the many moons. I ended up with fourteen, unless I missed a few somewhere. This has nothing to do with anything, but a lunar year is still only 12 months, and is actually days shorter than a solar year, so how did Yanan end up with two extra moons twenty thousand years ago? lol
I couldn't keep myself from pondering these two questions, but then as I said, they are just little blips of weirdness that I let myself think about. The book was intriguing and very hard to put down after the first chapter. And I am off now to see what happens in the sequel!
April 10, 2008
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas' "Reindeer Moon" is a wonderful pre-history story, much in the same catagory as "The Clan of The Cave Bear." Its not about mammoth hunters, although some of the can do hunt mammoth.
There is no drama of a captured woman or child... only the gifts of a marriage exchange, and the arguments about the gifts.
These people seemed to be much more 'progressive' than the Cave Bear people though. They built their own shelters, and understood the concept of numbers.
I think the reason I have loved "Reindeer Moon" so much is because it is told in a first person narrative. The story begins... (this is from memory...so here goes! )
"My name is Yanan and my story began where it ended, in Graylag's lodge on the highest point above the north bank of the Char River. The lodge was big, with two smoke holes instead of one."
Yanan tells her story after she has already left the world of the living and became a spirit of the dead. She lives as a lion cub... as a wolf...
Its a facinating story that caught me totally by surprise. I wasn't expecting to enjoy it as much as I did...especially after reading Jean Auel's Cave Bear books. No one could come close to her... but EM Thomas has come close... and with a much shorter book.
I see that Amazon has some used books fairly cheap.
I can't recommend "Reindeer Moon" highly enough.
There is no drama of a captured woman or child... only the gifts of a marriage exchange, and the arguments about the gifts.
These people seemed to be much more 'progressive' than the Cave Bear people though. They built their own shelters, and understood the concept of numbers.
I think the reason I have loved "Reindeer Moon" so much is because it is told in a first person narrative. The story begins... (this is from memory...so here goes! )
"My name is Yanan and my story began where it ended, in Graylag's lodge on the highest point above the north bank of the Char River. The lodge was big, with two smoke holes instead of one."
Yanan tells her story after she has already left the world of the living and became a spirit of the dead. She lives as a lion cub... as a wolf...
Its a facinating story that caught me totally by surprise. I wasn't expecting to enjoy it as much as I did...especially after reading Jean Auel's Cave Bear books. No one could come close to her... but EM Thomas has come close... and with a much shorter book.
I see that Amazon has some used books fairly cheap.
I can't recommend "Reindeer Moon" highly enough.
January 9, 2017
Back in 1980, Clan of the Cave Bear was published and was very, very popular. As often happens, when one book is that big of a best seller, more books of that type end up on bookstore shelves. Many of them don't live up to that original example, but some of them surpass it. Reindeer Moon is one of those that went well beyond its genre.
Reindeer Moon was published in 1987, and I read it sometime around then (scary to think that was nearly 30 years ago!). As I hadn't read it again since then, it was basically new to me.
The timeline in Reindeer Moon was handled in a way I haven't seen before, but loved: In chapter three, we learned the main character was dead, and so the book contained two timelines: The living character growing, maturing, and so moving towards her death, and the same character as a spirit slowly remembering her spirit life, moving back towards her 'birth' as one. At the end of the book, those two points converged. It was so interesting and effective!
I love this author and wish she had written many more books. She's a scientist, a naturalist, and an anthropologist, and that was so clear in her writing. The prehistoric world was so detailed and believable! I loved the people, the animals, and the settings in it. The tribe's spirit world was believable as well, and I loved how she handled the spirits and their interactions with the shamans.
While the plot of the book seems simple, I hadn't thought of it that way until I sat down now to describe it. A tribe of prehistoric hunters was on the move between their summer and winter camps, when one of the men got injured. The wound got infected, and he got a fever/became delusional, and so, thinking he was seeing spirits, the others left him behind. His two young daughters stayed with him. The father died, and so the two girls had to get home, through the winter, alone.
There was an interesting plotline about a mother wolf helping them (and how that wolf's son might have started people on the road to wanting to domesticate them), and lots of plot about social interactions in small groups. It's striking me as odd how hard it is for me to pin down what the plot was, yet the book was so richly detailed and interesting I couldn't stop reading it -- I left for work late and stayed up passed my bedtime to keep reading, I just couldn't put it down. It was more about the characters' day to day lives than about some grand plot happenings, and that was perfectly fine.
The one small, small detail about the book that I disliked was that everyone called sex "coitus". While Big Bang Theory didn't air until decades later, all I could hear was Sheldon saying it every time. Plus it's just an ugly word in general.
It's disappointing that Elizabeth Marshall Thomas only wrote three fiction books total (this one, its sequel which I'm reading next, and Certain Poor Shepherds: A Christmas Tale which looks interesting but sadly isn't available in ebook format). She wrote a number of ethology and anthropology books, but those don't really interest me).
When I read older books, I always worry the author is now dead. But happily, as of 2013, Thomas is still with us and publishing books.
Amusingly, thanks to reading on an ereader and thus never seeing the cover the whole time I was reading Reindeer Moon, I thought I was actually reading Reindeer People another post-Clan of the Cave Bear prehistoric people novel. I was all excited because I actually have a physical copy of Reindeer People, so I was going to take a picture of it for my post (I've never been able to supply my own picture before!). It's amusing that they have such similar names and conditions -- published in the 1980s, read and loved by me then, not read since then. Unfortunately Reindeer People isn't available as an ebook, and the text in the physical book is too small for me, so it will go unread for now.
Reindeer Moon was published in 1987, and I read it sometime around then (scary to think that was nearly 30 years ago!). As I hadn't read it again since then, it was basically new to me.
The timeline in Reindeer Moon was handled in a way I haven't seen before, but loved: In chapter three, we learned the main character was dead, and so the book contained two timelines: The living character growing, maturing, and so moving towards her death, and the same character as a spirit slowly remembering her spirit life, moving back towards her 'birth' as one. At the end of the book, those two points converged. It was so interesting and effective!
I love this author and wish she had written many more books. She's a scientist, a naturalist, and an anthropologist, and that was so clear in her writing. The prehistoric world was so detailed and believable! I loved the people, the animals, and the settings in it. The tribe's spirit world was believable as well, and I loved how she handled the spirits and their interactions with the shamans.
While the plot of the book seems simple, I hadn't thought of it that way until I sat down now to describe it. A tribe of prehistoric hunters was on the move between their summer and winter camps, when one of the men got injured. The wound got infected, and he got a fever/became delusional, and so, thinking he was seeing spirits, the others left him behind. His two young daughters stayed with him. The father died, and so the two girls had to get home, through the winter, alone.
There was an interesting plotline about a mother wolf helping them (and how that wolf's son might have started people on the road to wanting to domesticate them), and lots of plot about social interactions in small groups. It's striking me as odd how hard it is for me to pin down what the plot was, yet the book was so richly detailed and interesting I couldn't stop reading it -- I left for work late and stayed up passed my bedtime to keep reading, I just couldn't put it down. It was more about the characters' day to day lives than about some grand plot happenings, and that was perfectly fine.
The one small, small detail about the book that I disliked was that everyone called sex "coitus". While Big Bang Theory didn't air until decades later, all I could hear was Sheldon saying it every time. Plus it's just an ugly word in general.
It's disappointing that Elizabeth Marshall Thomas only wrote three fiction books total (this one, its sequel which I'm reading next, and Certain Poor Shepherds: A Christmas Tale which looks interesting but sadly isn't available in ebook format). She wrote a number of ethology and anthropology books, but those don't really interest me).
When I read older books, I always worry the author is now dead. But happily, as of 2013, Thomas is still with us and publishing books.
Amusingly, thanks to reading on an ereader and thus never seeing the cover the whole time I was reading Reindeer Moon, I thought I was actually reading Reindeer People another post-Clan of the Cave Bear prehistoric people novel. I was all excited because I actually have a physical copy of Reindeer People, so I was going to take a picture of it for my post (I've never been able to supply my own picture before!). It's amusing that they have such similar names and conditions -- published in the 1980s, read and loved by me then, not read since then. Unfortunately Reindeer People isn't available as an ebook, and the text in the physical book is too small for me, so it will go unread for now.
November 13, 2012
This is the kind of book Jean Auel intended to write when she wrote Clan of the Cave Bear and then Valley of the Horses. (My biggest complaint about Auel's series was the routine intrusion of sex that reminded me of a tawdry Harold Robbins novel.)
Thomas succeeds as best as any writer has in opening a pathway to an imagined world of 20,000 years ago in the Siberian tundra when our ancestors were just another animal tribe. It's a world fraught with shamans, shape-shifting spirits and magical mysticism. She tells the tale of hunter gatherers who scavenge for carrion killed and partially eaten by other beasts, set snares for birds and wolves, drive great mammoths over cliffs into ravines so that the beasts die slowly, their legs shattered. They gather berries, roots and greens, leaf buds, but don't dry and store foodstuffs. Death could occur at any instant, whether it be in childbirth or because of a bite from a wolverine during a hunt.
The story is told in the voice of Yanan, a young woman who entered the spirit-world in her fifteenth year as a result of giving birth. We learn about the cultural imperatives of sex, marriage, childbirth in a matrilineal society. We learn about a time before wolves had made a trade-off for some kind of safety by becoming part of the human species' world, when a lost child and her younger sister lived with a female and her cub for half a winter.
Unsentimental, harsh in many regards, this is an amazing telling of a fully imagined world, a world that our ancestors may have actually lived in.
Thomas succeeds as best as any writer has in opening a pathway to an imagined world of 20,000 years ago in the Siberian tundra when our ancestors were just another animal tribe. It's a world fraught with shamans, shape-shifting spirits and magical mysticism. She tells the tale of hunter gatherers who scavenge for carrion killed and partially eaten by other beasts, set snares for birds and wolves, drive great mammoths over cliffs into ravines so that the beasts die slowly, their legs shattered. They gather berries, roots and greens, leaf buds, but don't dry and store foodstuffs. Death could occur at any instant, whether it be in childbirth or because of a bite from a wolverine during a hunt.
The story is told in the voice of Yanan, a young woman who entered the spirit-world in her fifteenth year as a result of giving birth. We learn about the cultural imperatives of sex, marriage, childbirth in a matrilineal society. We learn about a time before wolves had made a trade-off for some kind of safety by becoming part of the human species' world, when a lost child and her younger sister lived with a female and her cub for half a winter.
Unsentimental, harsh in many regards, this is an amazing telling of a fully imagined world, a world that our ancestors may have actually lived in.
September 25, 2017
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas is acclaimed for her ability to capture the essence of what life used to be long before anyone recorded it. Reindeer Moon (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2015) is her first novel and an iconic story of early man from 20000 BCE struggling to survive in the cold of central Siberia. We follow Yanan, a headstrong young girl who comes of age in the harsh climate and a world where death is a constant companion. She watches those around her grow up, mate, fight for food, have children, even as she herself dies young, the victim of this unforgiving world.
But that's not the end of the story. We see her leave her mortal existence to become a spirit of her family's lodge, living out this immortal existence tied by a shaman to this same group along with other dead relatives. She enters the body of different animals who struggle to survive the foodless winters, kill to eat, lose their mates, and depend on the scraps left by the human group that is her old family.
Though much of this story is unique and entrancing, one of my favorite parts was when pre-pubescent Yanan and her child sister Meri end up alone after their father dies. The two end up wintering in an abandoned lodge that to their surprise has become the den for a mother wolf and her pup. Together, the four of them feed each other, keep each other warm, and survive what might have killed any of them alone. This turns out to be a lasting relationship, even after Yanan and Meri finally find their family group.
Overall this is a book like no other. Thomas has a gift for storytelling, turning well-researched facts into compelling drama. I'll definitely be reading her other books.
But that's not the end of the story. We see her leave her mortal existence to become a spirit of her family's lodge, living out this immortal existence tied by a shaman to this same group along with other dead relatives. She enters the body of different animals who struggle to survive the foodless winters, kill to eat, lose their mates, and depend on the scraps left by the human group that is her old family.
Though much of this story is unique and entrancing, one of my favorite parts was when pre-pubescent Yanan and her child sister Meri end up alone after their father dies. The two end up wintering in an abandoned lodge that to their surprise has become the den for a mother wolf and her pup. Together, the four of them feed each other, keep each other warm, and survive what might have killed any of them alone. This turns out to be a lasting relationship, even after Yanan and Meri finally find their family group.
Overall this is a book like no other. Thomas has a gift for storytelling, turning well-researched facts into compelling drama. I'll definitely be reading her other books.
April 17, 2008
i couldn't put this book. I wouldn't share it with my husband either. It is a book about a young girl coming of age in a very primitive society or clans of families. Great book for women.
March 7, 2022
Janan on kivikautisessa heimossa elävä tyttö. Kirja kertoo heimon elämästä, selviytymisestä ja kuolemasta.
Pidin kirjasta todella paljon. Kirjan tekijä on tutkija ja kivikauden elämä pohjautuu siis pitkälti faktatietoihin. Mukana on myös paljon heimojen uskontoa, joka on pitkälti pitänyt kehittää itse, mutta se toimii hyvin. Kerronnassa on oma, hieman nykivä rytminsä, josta pidin itse, koska se sopi hyvin tarinan tyyliin.
Varoituksena on sanottava, että alku oli todella tylsä. Kirja kuitenkin paranee nopeasti ja vie mukanaan. Tätä olisi mieluusti lukenut enemmänkin.
Suosittelen tutustumaan, jos ns. realistinen fantasia kiinnostaa.
Pidin kirjasta todella paljon. Kirjan tekijä on tutkija ja kivikauden elämä pohjautuu siis pitkälti faktatietoihin. Mukana on myös paljon heimojen uskontoa, joka on pitkälti pitänyt kehittää itse, mutta se toimii hyvin. Kerronnassa on oma, hieman nykivä rytminsä, josta pidin itse, koska se sopi hyvin tarinan tyyliin.
Varoituksena on sanottava, että alku oli todella tylsä. Kirja kuitenkin paranee nopeasti ja vie mukanaan. Tätä olisi mieluusti lukenut enemmänkin.
Suosittelen tutustumaan, jos ns. realistinen fantasia kiinnostaa.
August 25, 2015
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas doesn’t write books. She writes our history, infused with dreams.
My first foray into the writings of Elizabeth Marshall Thomas was the book “The Old Ways”, and it’s a book that continually haunts my thoughts and even my conversations with others, and became more than just research for my own prehistoric trilogy. Her deep insight into the Ju/wassi tribes of Africa is a testament to her brilliant way with words, as well as her ability to make the layperson understand a culture not their own.
In “Reindeer Moon”, though, the story is much more personal and accessible. Through Yanan’s young eyes, we learn the ways of Siberian hunter-gatherers in the Paleolithic era, but Yanan could be any girl, caught between her culture and her own wishes, often to the detriment of those around her.
What is so refreshing about Ms. Thomas’ writing is that she never bows to conventionality or any restriction of how a story “should” unfold. So many times at various conflict points in the novel, I would think that somehow, Yanan must overcome her pride and learn from her mistakes (though it may be doubtful whether they are mistakes or not – she is at least always authentic) and will escape the fate that we learn of in the prologue, when Yanan tells the reader that “I was still a young woman when I left the world of the living and became a spirit of the dead.”
Though we might have read other novels narrated by ghosts, I’ve never read any other stories like Yanan’s, in which she becomes not just one other animal in her spirit journeys, but many, sometimes finding it hard to return to the world of the human spirits. But we always hope that she will, so that she can tell of us of her life. Strong and impetuous, she often finds herself at odds with the elders of her clan, but she refuses to be cowed.
The mark of a great story-teller is, as someone much wiser has said before me, enchantment. And that is the only word that can describe this novel – enchanting. We are pulled into a world we can no longer live in, even should we choose to, but a world that is still somehow familiar. Though Yanan and Meri would have lived twenty thousand years ago, their worries, fears, jealousies, and love are our own. And it is due to the magic of Ms. Thomas’ words that we find the world of spirits, hunts, bears, and famine as understandable as our own, too.
My first foray into the writings of Elizabeth Marshall Thomas was the book “The Old Ways”, and it’s a book that continually haunts my thoughts and even my conversations with others, and became more than just research for my own prehistoric trilogy. Her deep insight into the Ju/wassi tribes of Africa is a testament to her brilliant way with words, as well as her ability to make the layperson understand a culture not their own.
In “Reindeer Moon”, though, the story is much more personal and accessible. Through Yanan’s young eyes, we learn the ways of Siberian hunter-gatherers in the Paleolithic era, but Yanan could be any girl, caught between her culture and her own wishes, often to the detriment of those around her.
What is so refreshing about Ms. Thomas’ writing is that she never bows to conventionality or any restriction of how a story “should” unfold. So many times at various conflict points in the novel, I would think that somehow, Yanan must overcome her pride and learn from her mistakes (though it may be doubtful whether they are mistakes or not – she is at least always authentic) and will escape the fate that we learn of in the prologue, when Yanan tells the reader that “I was still a young woman when I left the world of the living and became a spirit of the dead.”
Though we might have read other novels narrated by ghosts, I’ve never read any other stories like Yanan’s, in which she becomes not just one other animal in her spirit journeys, but many, sometimes finding it hard to return to the world of the human spirits. But we always hope that she will, so that she can tell of us of her life. Strong and impetuous, she often finds herself at odds with the elders of her clan, but she refuses to be cowed.
The mark of a great story-teller is, as someone much wiser has said before me, enchantment. And that is the only word that can describe this novel – enchanting. We are pulled into a world we can no longer live in, even should we choose to, but a world that is still somehow familiar. Though Yanan and Meri would have lived twenty thousand years ago, their worries, fears, jealousies, and love are our own. And it is due to the magic of Ms. Thomas’ words that we find the world of spirits, hunts, bears, and famine as understandable as our own, too.
May 31, 2024
[This review contains minor spoilers that I don't think are worth hiding.]
Was this a great book? Probably not--the author uses a lot of exclamation marks! Even where they don't belong! Characterization and plot are minimal. The main character is stubborn and often acts in puzzling ways, against her own best interests, and she's slut shamed by her entire community. Even by her dead mother!
But I loved it.
I'd describe the book as a prehistoric fantasy--there are magical elements here, but they blend in seamlessly with the author's historical research. Yanan, the main character, dies in chapter two. Yes, she dies! We don't find out how until later. The book is spent describing the difficulties of human life 20,000 years ago--mostly the constant struggle to find food. The rest of the people's time is spent gossiping with each other, and political maneuvering for power in the tribe. Some things never change, I guess.
In spirit form, Yanan travels the world in the shape of various animals. And that's what this book does best, I think--shows us the natural world in fascinating detail. Wolves, lions, mammoths, hyenas, tigers, horses--nature, in a frozen prehistoric Siberian tundra, is utterly gripping.
Read this book to appreciate your pantry and fridge.
Was this a great book? Probably not--the author uses a lot of exclamation marks! Even where they don't belong! Characterization and plot are minimal. The main character is stubborn and often acts in puzzling ways, against her own best interests, and she's slut shamed by her entire community. Even by her dead mother!
But I loved it.
I'd describe the book as a prehistoric fantasy--there are magical elements here, but they blend in seamlessly with the author's historical research. Yanan, the main character, dies in chapter two. Yes, she dies! We don't find out how until later. The book is spent describing the difficulties of human life 20,000 years ago--mostly the constant struggle to find food. The rest of the people's time is spent gossiping with each other, and political maneuvering for power in the tribe. Some things never change, I guess.
In spirit form, Yanan travels the world in the shape of various animals. And that's what this book does best, I think--shows us the natural world in fascinating detail. Wolves, lions, mammoths, hyenas, tigers, horses--nature, in a frozen prehistoric Siberian tundra, is utterly gripping.
Read this book to appreciate your pantry and fridge.
June 29, 2012
I have mixed feelings on this book. I enjoyed the story, but found it choppy as it went along. If Yanan's story had been told in a more linear manner, I think I would have appreciated it more.
Flipping between her life as a spirit of the lodge, and her life leading up to her death was tedious and killed the mood of certain aspects of the story for me. It seems like parts of the story were left out, I would have felt a better appreciation for other characters if the focus on Yanan's life had been more steady.
Some parts were wonderful and vivid, whereas other sections drug on. Even so, I am curious to read the rest of the series.
Flipping between her life as a spirit of the lodge, and her life leading up to her death was tedious and killed the mood of certain aspects of the story for me. It seems like parts of the story were left out, I would have felt a better appreciation for other characters if the focus on Yanan's life had been more steady.
Some parts were wonderful and vivid, whereas other sections drug on. Even so, I am curious to read the rest of the series.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 23, 2013
Well, I certainly enjoyed this more than I was expecting.
In my youth, I read a lot of this type of prehistoric fiction, and found most of it very modern in feel, only set in some prehistoric land. This novel well and truly felt like the story was of another time. The characters were very primitive in their society; they related closely to the animals around them, to the point where they understood they were just another potential food source for a lion, and a competitor for food for a wolf. I loved reading about how an errant rhino trampled all over the family lodge. It reminded me of a grumpy elk strolling through an ants nest, and not caring about whose home it was destroying.
I enjoyed the unique way in which all the people related to each other. Who owned what, wedding gift exchanges, clothing, etc. I could say it was based on North American Native cultures, but was separate enough to be distinct of them.
The characters themselves were not quite as vibrant as the background in which they lived, but I have no outstanding complaints. And I found the ending extremely fitting and appropriate to the rest of the story. (I would even say it redeemed the fact that Yanan died early on in the book, inexplicably.)
In my youth, I read a lot of this type of prehistoric fiction, and found most of it very modern in feel, only set in some prehistoric land. This novel well and truly felt like the story was of another time. The characters were very primitive in their society; they related closely to the animals around them, to the point where they understood they were just another potential food source for a lion, and a competitor for food for a wolf. I loved reading about how an errant rhino trampled all over the family lodge. It reminded me of a grumpy elk strolling through an ants nest, and not caring about whose home it was destroying.
I enjoyed the unique way in which all the people related to each other. Who owned what, wedding gift exchanges, clothing, etc. I could say it was based on North American Native cultures, but was separate enough to be distinct of them.
The characters themselves were not quite as vibrant as the background in which they lived, but I have no outstanding complaints. And I found the ending extremely fitting and appropriate to the rest of the story. (I would even say it redeemed the fact that Yanan died early on in the book, inexplicably.)
April 15, 2016
All prehistoric fiction written after 1980 is under the shadow of Clan of the Cave Bear. Which is a shame, because in many ways Reindeer Moon is a better book. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas was an anthropologist and it shows. The world she recreates here is very real and she doesn't shy away from the harshness of life in that world. Yanan is an engaging narrator, sometimes frustrating but I remind myself that she's a teenager and her recklessness makes sense in that context. The book has an element of fantasy I didn't expect, with the dead spirits as real beings watching over the tribe, but it fits very well into the story. I'll look out for other books by this author.
November 11, 2012
Like the premise of this book - a prehistoric woman becomes the helper and guardian of her tribe when her spirit is captured after she dies. I enjoyed the story.
July 22, 2022
WOAH.
Alright, this book was recommended to me by my mother. My mother, who's an avid reader but whose tastes rarely align with mine. In this case, she was spot on.
I adored this book. Seriously, I loved it like I didn't love a book for a long time. More than fiction, one could almost read this as an anthropological story, like walking through one of those museum exhibitions that guide you in the life of a civilisation, an archeological site, and so on. I've recently visited the Stonenhge exhibition at the British Museum and I absolutely adore it. It made me discover a newfound love of pre-history and of the incredible feats of human ingenuity, resilience and bravery.
This book pretty much sums all of this up.
And it's heartbreaking.
It describes in such horrific detail how incredibly harsh life was for our ancestors, occupied with the constant worry of starvation, battling against the last of the ice ages, against a nature that still entirely belonged to the animals inhabiting it. It shows how fleeting human life was, how dangerous everything could be, and how unforgiving. We see Yanan's parents . We see many other characters perish in dire circumstances, from adults to babies "failing to thrive", as they would have said in Victorian times. In the end, Yanan herself dies, and we know that from the beginning, as the whole narration is recounted by her as a spirit.
But, don't get me wrong. Even though this book is brutal, is also incredibly tender. I was moved by the strong bond between Yanan and her sister Meri, between Yanan and her aunt Teal, the powerful shaman, and eventually by the connection she makes with her co-wife, Ethis. Most of all, I loved the chapter of The Wolf, and the tale of Yanan and Meri's survival one winter in an abandoned lodge, being cared for by a she-wolf and her pup, who will become Meri's faithful companion following, and who will cause great havoc in the two sisters' life just to defend him from the other humans. I considered this a hint to the domestication of the dog, how it was possibly one tamer wolf that began everything. Anyway, this chapter in particular was extremely beautiful, and extremely hard to read. Like this book as a whole. Stunning piece.
Alright, this book was recommended to me by my mother. My mother, who's an avid reader but whose tastes rarely align with mine. In this case, she was spot on.
I adored this book. Seriously, I loved it like I didn't love a book for a long time. More than fiction, one could almost read this as an anthropological story, like walking through one of those museum exhibitions that guide you in the life of a civilisation, an archeological site, and so on. I've recently visited the Stonenhge exhibition at the British Museum and I absolutely adore it. It made me discover a newfound love of pre-history and of the incredible feats of human ingenuity, resilience and bravery.
This book pretty much sums all of this up.
And it's heartbreaking.
It describes in such horrific detail how incredibly harsh life was for our ancestors, occupied with the constant worry of starvation, battling against the last of the ice ages, against a nature that still entirely belonged to the animals inhabiting it. It shows how fleeting human life was, how dangerous everything could be, and how unforgiving. We see Yanan's parents . We see many other characters perish in dire circumstances, from adults to babies "failing to thrive", as they would have said in Victorian times. In the end, Yanan herself dies, and we know that from the beginning, as the whole narration is recounted by her as a spirit.
But, don't get me wrong. Even though this book is brutal, is also incredibly tender. I was moved by the strong bond between Yanan and her sister Meri, between Yanan and her aunt Teal, the powerful shaman, and eventually by the connection she makes with her co-wife, Ethis. Most of all, I loved the chapter of The Wolf, and the tale of Yanan and Meri's survival one winter in an abandoned lodge, being cared for by a she-wolf and her pup, who will become Meri's faithful companion following, and who will cause great havoc in the two sisters' life just to defend him from the other humans. I considered this a hint to the domestication of the dog, how it was possibly one tamer wolf that began everything. Anyway, this chapter in particular was extremely beautiful, and extremely hard to read. Like this book as a whole. Stunning piece.
January 9, 2025
It takes courage to survive.
The descriptions of Yanan’s tribe and way of life were detailed and fascinating. I truly felt as though I had stepped into the past as I read about their religious beliefs, customs, and relationship with the spirit world. Sometimes their understanding of why certain things happened such as birth defects or difficult births in general were so different from how modern people would explain those events that I had to catch my breath and read those passages over again. This is exactly why I love this genre so much! It provides a glimpse into ways of living that I would have probably never otherwise considered.
I did find myself wishing that more time had been spent explaining why the characters in this novel never had enough food. Occasionally bouts of hunger or even starvation would have made sense, but for it to happen regularly was confusing to me due to how their territory was also described as a bountiful place in other passages. If there was so much food to gather, why didn’t they preserve more of it for winter? And why did they struggle to have enough to eat in other seasons, too?
Yanan’s character development was well done. My first impression of her was that she was an incredibly angry girl who struggled to feel any other emotions, but there were excellent reasons for this that were explored in depth later on in the storyline. Her life was a hard one, and I probably would have reacted similarly if I had lived it. If only I could spend more time getting to know her!
Reindeer Moon was one of the best prehistoric novels I’ve ever read.
The descriptions of Yanan’s tribe and way of life were detailed and fascinating. I truly felt as though I had stepped into the past as I read about their religious beliefs, customs, and relationship with the spirit world. Sometimes their understanding of why certain things happened such as birth defects or difficult births in general were so different from how modern people would explain those events that I had to catch my breath and read those passages over again. This is exactly why I love this genre so much! It provides a glimpse into ways of living that I would have probably never otherwise considered.
I did find myself wishing that more time had been spent explaining why the characters in this novel never had enough food. Occasionally bouts of hunger or even starvation would have made sense, but for it to happen regularly was confusing to me due to how their territory was also described as a bountiful place in other passages. If there was so much food to gather, why didn’t they preserve more of it for winter? And why did they struggle to have enough to eat in other seasons, too?
Yanan’s character development was well done. My first impression of her was that she was an incredibly angry girl who struggled to feel any other emotions, but there were excellent reasons for this that were explored in depth later on in the storyline. Her life was a hard one, and I probably would have reacted similarly if I had lived it. If only I could spend more time getting to know her!
Reindeer Moon was one of the best prehistoric novels I’ve ever read.
March 7, 2018
On varmaan 15-20 vuotta siitä kun luin tämän kirjan edellisen kerran. Muistan, että se oli ns. "tosi hyvä", varsinkin verrattuna moniin muihin kivikautta käsitteleviin romaaneihin. Eikä se pettänytkään. Tarinassa kyllä huomaa, että Marshall Thomas on metsästäjä-keräilijä-yhteisöihin perehtynyt antropologi, eikä satunnainen kynäilijä.
Mikään hyvän mielen tarinahan tämä ei ole. Muistan ensimmäisellä kerralla lukeneeni tätä sellaisena nuoren naisen kasvukertomuksena, jossa nokkela tyttö selviää kaikesta. Muistikuvani kirjasta olivat jotenkin... optimistisemmat. Nyt jotenkin kävi selkeämmäksi se, kuinka Marshall Thomas kuvaa pelkän lapsen kamppailua sekä ympäristössään että yhteisössään, ja kuinka kellekään tarinan henkilöistä ei käy hyvin. Kuinka voisikaan käydä: kaikkien ihmisten tarina päättyy lopulta kuolemaan.
Mikään hyvän mielen tarinahan tämä ei ole. Muistan ensimmäisellä kerralla lukeneeni tätä sellaisena nuoren naisen kasvukertomuksena, jossa nokkela tyttö selviää kaikesta. Muistikuvani kirjasta olivat jotenkin... optimistisemmat. Nyt jotenkin kävi selkeämmäksi se, kuinka Marshall Thomas kuvaa pelkän lapsen kamppailua sekä ympäristössään että yhteisössään, ja kuinka kellekään tarinan henkilöistä ei käy hyvin. Kuinka voisikaan käydä: kaikkien ihmisten tarina päättyy lopulta kuolemaan.
March 30, 2025
sweet home siberia
June 20, 2019
My first foray into prehistoric fiction was very intriguing. Because Reindeer Moon is an older book, I sometimes wondered if the anthropological elements were right, but the story was so interesting I didn't mind parts that seemed odd. I appreciated Thomas' attempt to simplify the language and understanding of these prehistoric humans to try to add realism, but it sometimes landed wrong when a more modern-sounding word sneaked its way into the dialogue. Towards the end, there was a ton of soap opera-esque drama that I kind of hated but luckily the ending itself was pretty satisfying for me.
What I absolutely loved was Yanan, and actually all of the characters. They were so well-drawn, so real. And I guess "love" is a strong word because I actually hated everyone at some points (except Meri and her wolf), but loved them at others (except Yoi), which for me felt really well-rounded. The characters were difficult and often did irrational things to interfere with their ability to progress and survive. But then their knowledge, bonds, and rituals prove successfully able to overcome these very human deficiencies, proving that they're very psychologically aware of how to create a long-lasting group dynamic if they can just overcome their personal emotions. To provoke such strong and sometimes opposing emotions from your reader is a huge success. I also loved the survival elements, the speculation about social dynamics, the spiritual aspect, and the creation of such a vivid world that feels alien and unlimited to the modern reader. And I loved the mammoths. I can't help it; I'm easy.
It felt a lot like the reason I love speculative fiction. This was a world that took place so long ago it's difficult to imagine, but Thomas imagines it well here with careful research and imagination.
What I absolutely loved was Yanan, and actually all of the characters. They were so well-drawn, so real. And I guess "love" is a strong word because I actually hated everyone at some points (except Meri and her wolf), but loved them at others (except Yoi), which for me felt really well-rounded. The characters were difficult and often did irrational things to interfere with their ability to progress and survive. But then their knowledge, bonds, and rituals prove successfully able to overcome these very human deficiencies, proving that they're very psychologically aware of how to create a long-lasting group dynamic if they can just overcome their personal emotions. To provoke such strong and sometimes opposing emotions from your reader is a huge success. I also loved the survival elements, the speculation about social dynamics, the spiritual aspect, and the creation of such a vivid world that feels alien and unlimited to the modern reader. And I loved the mammoths. I can't help it; I'm easy.
It felt a lot like the reason I love speculative fiction. This was a world that took place so long ago it's difficult to imagine, but Thomas imagines it well here with careful research and imagination.
April 13, 2016
4.5 stars
A brave attempt to address.....all sorts of things! I loved reading this account of what life might have been 20,000 years ago. I don't think it was accurate but that is rather irrelevant. That said, the things that did grate were the use of modern terms such as 'butt end' - not often but enough to annoy me. I wonder if EMT had made the culture far too capable but it was certainly interesting - and devoid of all the sexy cuteness of Jean M. Auel and Paragon Ayla. The characters were often unpleasant, including the narrator; it just made them more believable as we are all something of a biatch sometimes!
I saw that people had been irritated by the shamanic spirit side of things but I thought how clever it was of EMT to devise such a way of taking a look at the life experiences of the animals who populated the story. After all, animal social function was her real interest (see all her other books, pretty much). I did wonder how she was going to get our heroine out of that, so as to end the book, and it was done very well, I thought - not too cute and slick, as I had feared would be necessary. One of the better novels set in Prehistory that I have read. They fascinate me; I maintain that people haven't changed at all, just the level of technology; going back as far as this makes that oh, so clear.
For the record, the best novel of Prehistory I have read is Dance of the Tiger: A Novel of the Ice Age. There's no way it is 'true' but the history is pretty fabulous (author was a palaeontologist) and the Neanderthal group are so delightful!
A brave attempt to address.....all sorts of things! I loved reading this account of what life might have been 20,000 years ago. I don't think it was accurate but that is rather irrelevant. That said, the things that did grate were the use of modern terms such as 'butt end' - not often but enough to annoy me. I wonder if EMT had made the culture far too capable but it was certainly interesting - and devoid of all the sexy cuteness of Jean M. Auel and Paragon Ayla. The characters were often unpleasant, including the narrator; it just made them more believable as we are all something of a biatch sometimes!
I saw that people had been irritated by the shamanic spirit side of things but I thought how clever it was of EMT to devise such a way of taking a look at the life experiences of the animals who populated the story. After all, animal social function was her real interest (see all her other books, pretty much). I did wonder how she was going to get our heroine out of that, so as to end the book, and it was done very well, I thought - not too cute and slick, as I had feared would be necessary. One of the better novels set in Prehistory that I have read. They fascinate me; I maintain that people haven't changed at all, just the level of technology; going back as far as this makes that oh, so clear.
For the record, the best novel of Prehistory I have read is Dance of the Tiger: A Novel of the Ice Age. There's no way it is 'true' but the history is pretty fabulous (author was a palaeontologist) and the Neanderthal group are so delightful!
June 28, 2017
This feels authentically Paleolithic. This fully imagined world of mammoth hunters is really grounded in nature, the harshness and joy and beauty of the elements, the respect for other creatures sharing this earth, and the interdependence of all beings. It's also a story of a girl growing up in a small kinship group where lineages are really important to maintain genetic diversity, and where people have to use their wits, their senses, tracking skills and ingenuity to survive.
There are shamans who communicate with the spirit world and even command spirits of the dead to do their bidding, to bring herds of animals to them to be killed (when they're starving). (Spoiler alert:) The story is a chronological story of the main character Yanan growing up, interspersed with the story of her as a spirit, living on the roof of her former lodge, and taking the form of various different animals. But it's not until right at the end that the reader learns how she died.
Death is accepted as a matter of fact. People are mourned, but death is a part of life.
Something I found really interesting was the relationship Yanan and her sister Meri developed with a wolf and her cub, the cub particularly as he grew up with Meri as a kind of sibling. I can see how the relationship between wolves and people developed over millennia to the human-dog relationships we have today.
The language in this book is clear and simple – all the more powerful for being so.
There are shamans who communicate with the spirit world and even command spirits of the dead to do their bidding, to bring herds of animals to them to be killed (when they're starving). (Spoiler alert:) The story is a chronological story of the main character Yanan growing up, interspersed with the story of her as a spirit, living on the roof of her former lodge, and taking the form of various different animals. But it's not until right at the end that the reader learns how she died.
Death is accepted as a matter of fact. People are mourned, but death is a part of life.
Something I found really interesting was the relationship Yanan and her sister Meri developed with a wolf and her cub, the cub particularly as he grew up with Meri as a kind of sibling. I can see how the relationship between wolves and people developed over millennia to the human-dog relationships we have today.
The language in this book is clear and simple – all the more powerful for being so.
May 2, 2020
I was really impressed by this book!
Its been a long time since a story grabbed me so much i was up past midnight reading.. but this book grabbed me!
Its the story of a young girl in the distant past, trying to survive with her sister in the cold of ancient siberia. Yes there are the expected dangers of wild animals (lions, bears, mammoths etc) against the poor band of humans armed only with spears... but perhaps even more dangerous is the social maze of tribal politics - marriages, interpersonal strife, rumours, lies....
The technology may have changed, but humans are humans.
This jumps into fantasy territory because the story's PoV character (Yannan) is narrating from the point of view of a spirit - caught by the Shaman and used (along with a couple of other spirit relatives) to help bring successful hunts to the whole tribe. So half the story is of Spirit-Yannan becoming various animals while trying to help the tribe, with the other half recollections of her time as a young girl trying to survive. (thankfully the "how" of her death isn't revealed until the end - so the tension is kept up for the whole story.)
Great book! Now I'm on the lookout for the second book in this series.
Its been a long time since a story grabbed me so much i was up past midnight reading.. but this book grabbed me!
Its the story of a young girl in the distant past, trying to survive with her sister in the cold of ancient siberia. Yes there are the expected dangers of wild animals (lions, bears, mammoths etc) against the poor band of humans armed only with spears... but perhaps even more dangerous is the social maze of tribal politics - marriages, interpersonal strife, rumours, lies....
The technology may have changed, but humans are humans.
This jumps into fantasy territory because the story's PoV character (Yannan) is narrating from the point of view of a spirit - caught by the Shaman and used (along with a couple of other spirit relatives) to help bring successful hunts to the whole tribe. So half the story is of Spirit-Yannan becoming various animals while trying to help the tribe, with the other half recollections of her time as a young girl trying to survive. (thankfully the "how" of her death isn't revealed until the end - so the tension is kept up for the whole story.)
Great book! Now I'm on the lookout for the second book in this series.
July 10, 2016
I wanted to read this book because I enjoyed the Clan of the Cave Bear series so much. This is just as good, and without the over the top romance-sex scenes. It's really a coming of age story about a young woman trying to survive in prehistoric Siberia and it's challenges; sometimes you can't see past where your next meal is going to come from and also, the constant threat of death/dying of either hunger/starvation or being killed by a hungry wild animal. Fascinating. I also enjoyed the chapters where Yanan talks in the first person from the afterlife, and gets to live as various spirit animals. I absolutely loved this book!
July 28, 2018
I'm torn, honestly. I loved parts of this book, and it had a wonderful way of pulling me into that world and the culture of Yanan (the protagonist) and her people. Yanan was also a really well developed character, and I felt a lot of empathy towards her. BUT, there was just something that it was lacking that kept me from falling in love with it and making it a fantastic read. I can't put my finger on what that was, but it just felt like a good read, without being one that I loved and would come back to re-read.
August 19, 2010
Well, what can I say about a book that is written about an early society of hunter-gathers that is told from the perspective of one woman as both a living vibrant passionate human being and her spirit afterwards. A very powerful book.
I'm not spoiling anything with the above, it's rather blatant, but the hook in this book is simply in the story.
Oh, I've read this book four times, and I just finished my latest re-reading.
I'm not spoiling anything with the above, it's rather blatant, but the hook in this book is simply in the story.
Oh, I've read this book four times, and I just finished my latest re-reading.
October 6, 2016
TERRIBLE, i really hated every thing about it, i knew it was not going to be my kind of book from the first 20 pages. the thinking of the main character was just not realistic as being from a person living 20,000 years ago. i did read one of the CLAN BEAR books years ago and it was realistic to me or believable. this was not. after reading it, i looked up the reviews of others . perhaps it is my problem and not the authors that i did not appreciate it. hell no. it was no good
June 25, 2013
Love,love, love this book. One of my all time favorite books! So glad I decided to reread it. Follows a young girl in a prehistory time and how they lived and hunted and had babies. So good....... Now I will re read the sequal - The Animal Wife. Also wonderful!
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