The Gift of Stones

by Jim Crace

'Salute the liars – they can make the real world disappear and a fresh world take its place...' Set in a coastal Stone Age village at the advent of bronze, Jim Crace's second novel, published for the first time in Penguin paperback, is marked by astonishing poetic resonance and daring imagination. As the stories of the narrators unfold, conflicting truths are revealed - truths which deal with contemporary issues of work, love, lying and forces of change.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, British Literature, Prehistory, Novels, Literary Fiction, Historical

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

James "Jim" Crace is an award-winning English writer. His novel Quarantine, won the Whitbread Novel award and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Harvest won the International Impac Dublin Literary Award, James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was also shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

Crace grew up in Forty Hill, an area at the far northern point of Greater London, close to Enfield where Crace attended Enfield Grammar School. He studied for a degree at the Birmingham College of Commerce (now part of Birmingham City University), where he was enrolled as an external student of the University of London. After securing a BA (Hons) in English Literature in 1968, he travelled overseas with the UK organization Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO), working in Sudan. Two years later he returned to the UK, and worked with the BBC, writing educational programmes. From 1976 to 1987 he worked as a freelance journalist for The Daily Telegraph and other newspapers.

In 1986 Crace published Continent. Continent won the Whitbread First Novel of the Year Award, the David Higham Prize for Fiction and the Guardian Fiction Prize. This work was followed by The Gift of Stones, Arcadia, Signals of Distress, Quarantine, Being Dead and Six. His most recent novel, The Pesthouse, was published in the UK in March 2007.

Despite living in Britain, Crace is more successful in the United States, as evidenced by the award of the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1999.

Reviews

[BlackOxford · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Obligation Ruled

It’s tricky to write effective fiction about an entirely alien culture, even if it’s human. Naturally the writer must presume we share a language with his characters. And it helps from a literary point of view that he allows them to use that language fluently and intelligently as their own.

But then the question arises of how to convey the mores of the alien society. These, of course, are so deeply embedded in any society as to be entirely invisible to its members. To be credible, the indigenous narrator cannot refer to them explicitly. They are there in the action but never commented upon. The normal can never even referred to only implied.

This is the trick Crace knows how to perform well: dealing with the normal by never mentioning it explicitly. As in his other novels, the rules of the social game are never stated. Why should they be? They are obvious and a matter of course for all the characters. Their actions and motivations may be enigmatic to the reader. How could it be authentically otherwise?

In the Gift of Stones , the cultural context is a primitive British society which is literally uncivilised but is nevertheless fairly complex. The populace consists of villagers and wandering bands which carry out trade, armed assault and robbery in about equal measure. The economy is not just pre-capitalist and pre-feudal, it is pre-monetary. Every transaction is one of negotiated barter. There is, of course, no legal framework to protect either life or wealth.

But there is a glue that in fact binds folk into a society: obligation. Obligation drives everything in Crace’s narrative. The villagers presume an obligation to work together without discussing it. They presume an obligation to work skilfully to presume their economic niche. Not much to inspire, therefore. If that were the extent of social obligation, the book would be banal.

The interesting cultural twist/observation/comment, however, is the obligation given and received by those with different, somewhat contradictory interests, namely those like the wandering bands. Even in the face of violent threats, the villagers are convinced that the traders will recognise that the villagers well-being is in the interest of the traders. The villagers, after all, are both customers and suppliers. The goose and golden eggs come to mind.

Significantly, obligation overrides everything else. Most importantly, obligation substitutes for emotion. Emotion is transitory and not to be given in to much less trusted. Obligation greases the wheels of social interaction much more efficiently than sentiment. But obligation as the social imperative is dependent on the primitive economy of flint stone and its usefulness in the world.

Like the transition from hunting to agriculture, the transition from stone to metal in human life was undoubtedly traumatic. An unexpected cultural casualty of this transition in Crace’s fiction is the dominance of unforced obligation. Its disappearance as the matrix of society rather than the economic change is the real cause of the trauma. This can only be communicated in stories after the fact. As usual, we only appreciate what we have recently lost.

[Agnieszka · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story , set in the Stone Age concerns a small community engaged in mining , crafting and trade of stone products . People consider themselves the chosen ones and diligently guard the secrets of their craft . They have not interest in the outside world , do not like the sea over which their hamlet is located . Stone is their whole world .They know all about its texture , thickness , they know how to hit to make a suitable tool , knife or arrow head . They are endowed with the gift of stones .
And their hearts , are they made of stone too ?

The only man in the village which is not governed by the stone , is crippled , without right hand orphan boy . But what can one-armed ? Probably there would be few opportunities but certainly he can’t be a stonemason . Disability marks him and excludes from the community , though he was not too attached with too much . The boy has always been a dreamer , wanted to see what is behind the village , longed for the sea and ships . So he became a village storyteller , refining on and on his stories like an experienced master did with stone .

Why tell the truth when lies are more amusing, when lies can make the listener shake her head and laugh - and cough- and roll her eyes? People are like stones . You strike them right, they open up like shells .

But time passes , suddenly no one needs the stone , the villagers are getting poorer . Bronze Age is coming ...

The gift of stones is beautifully written and highly original metaphor … Of what ? Socio-cultural transformations , civilizational threats , new challenges , loneliness of misfit ?

[Sportyrod · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stone Age flint village setting, maraudering horsemen, a one-armed guy takes a mother and child under his wing.

The one-armed wonder didn’t have many options in his village. He couldn’t work with the flint, he couldn’t farm, and he couldn’t get a girl. So off he goes exploring the boundaries of their known world in search of inspiration for his job as a story teller. There he stumbles upon a woman, also with very few options plus an extra mouth to feed. Should they be grateful for each other? Just make it work? Despise each other?

Unfortunately I didn’t care for either of them, the kid, the village, their future, nothing. The plot was paper thin and slower moving than a turtle on land. You guessed it…another literary masterpiece. I was lured by the Stone Age setting and expected some action. I should have read the other reviews first, “prose”, “poetry”, “lyrical”. In fairness, it probably was well-written, despite very little happening. I just don’t like the genre so it’s more about my tastes than the book itself.

[Ivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like Crace's first novel this is inspired by early stages of civilization just instead of imaginary continent this one is actually set in distant past in transition from stone to bronze age. Again we have clash of old ways with new technology fall of old world and powers and rise of new but also story of birth of storytelling itself.

Since novel is set before recorded history it's hard to set authentic atmosphere yet Crace manages to do it well. Language is simple yet clean, fitting age where it is set, and even a little poetic fitting one of the narrators who becomes know storyteller.

Overall again it's good book that can be finished under two hours. Continuing on with Crace in near future.

[Maciek · Rating 4 out of 5]

He rehearsed for us the scripture of our village - that we could not be touched because we possessed the gift of stones. If all that the outside world needed was to pound and crush and hammer like savages then any rock would do. But once they wanted more, to pierce and slice, cut and scrape...then they, those farmers, horsemen, fishers, wrights, could not be free of us and we were safe.

Jim Crace's second novel is set in a coastal village in an unnamed country, during the late Neolithic period. It is the Stone Age, and the villagers are making their living by mining for resources and crafting exquisite tools from stone - tools which only they have the skill to make. Their life is smug and unhurried; they are content to dwell within their community without venturing out to explore, as those needing their tools will always have to come to them - or so they believe.

One day a visitation by outsiders turns violent - a wandering seven year old boy is shot in the arm, which quickly swells with poison. The limb has to be removed in order for him to survive - and it is done: a swift blade cuts below the elbow, saving the boy's life but also removing the ability to cut and shape the with skill and precision, rendering him useless as a stonemason. The boy has to find another role for himself in a place which is defined by cutting and shaping stones, and decides to venture outside. He sees a sail in the distance, and follows it to the cliffs and along them, until he cannot see it anymore. He goes further away than any of the villagers ever did, and brings home stories of what he saw. He captures his audience by enriching them with his imagination, and quickly becomes the village's storyteller: he transforms the sight of a solitary and distant ship not into one story, but a whole set of them. To men he speaks about female sailors who came ashore to trade sex for the goods of local merchants; women he tells about how the merchants made fools of themselves because of their lust. Children he tells that the ship brought mythical ice women, who threatened to freeze him solid unless he helps them reach the sun. But his journeys outside of the village will bring him to a hut inhabited with a woman and her child, whom he will befriend and whom he will bring with himself back to the community - not knowing that her appearance will foretell the demise of their own order - the coming of bronze and the end of stone...

The Gift of Stones works on several levels. Obviously it is a historical novel, set in the prehistoric times - a period mostly before recorded history: where people depended on oral accounts, which they had to accept and pass on as truth. The novel is presented as narrated by two figures: the unnamed storyteller and his also unnamed daughter, and their voices switch between one another - with him telling stories and her commenting on them and telling stories of her own - though an argument can be made that the daughter is the solitary narrator, and her father is only a narrative construct - one of the many characters that find their way into the novel through these stories...though couldn't it also be the other way around, with the daughter being another creation of a storyteller who relishes in the telling of imaginative untruths?

The novel is very aware of its telling, and does not pretend to try to translate the linguistic sentiments and habits of our ancestors into modern English. Its language is simple but poetic, descriptions sparse but metaphorical - both narrators are very aware that they're telling stories of how stories affected the lives of other people, and how a narrator can consciously alter the story to add additional layer of meaning, often dependent on those listening to it - as reflected by the storytellers telling of his sighting of a distant ship, the relationship between the narrator and his story reflects the relationship between the teller and his audience. People in The Gift of Stones live their lives much like we do - with work and leisure, love and jealousy, humor and sadness. Their storytellers had the imagination and insight which could entertain and educate just like ours, which makes one wonder: how much of it was lost through thousands of years, how many languages were developed and disappeared, how many stories were told and are gone now?

The Gift of Stones is also an illustration of the unavoidable shift of power and the equally unavoidable technological progress - no matter how strong we think our grip is on it, it will always slip from our fingers and will be reduced to a fraction of what it was before. It doesn't matter if it happens to a person, a community, a group, a nation, a country, an empire, or even a civilization - power will be obtained and then will rise, only to ultimately fall. It can last for centuries, but will not last forever, just like new technology will ultimately outperform the old and make it obsolete. As Nabokov wrote, the cradle rocks above an abyss - during the course of human history entities and communities whcih struggled for and attained power were born and disappeared quicker into its depths than the world could blink, and each thought that it was more powerful than the one before.

For such a short book, The Gift of Stones touches on many interesting and important questions. What can we learn from stories, and why do we need them? How much does depending on technology, commerce and resources shapes our lives and societies, and at what cost - and to what end? Jim Crace is an intelligent and entertaining writer who continues to prove himself as such with each of the novels that I've read by him, and I'm looking forward to reading more of his work.

[Bob Brinkmeyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Stars rounded up (it’s the holiday season—Ho, Ho, Ho!)

Expect the unexpected with Jim Crace. The Gift of Stones, Crace’s second novel, is set in a coastal village in the far distant past, at the end of the Stone Age and the beginning of the Bronze. The village is peopled by prized craftsmen and those who mine the stone. The narration is anything but straightforward, with two narrators, a man who as a child lost one arm and grew up to become a storyteller (good luck working stone, even carrying stone, with one hand) and a young girl whom he has helped raise; together they provide richly detailed, if at times contradictory, perspectives on the village’s everyday life and history. Along the way, the two speculate on the power of storytelling, both personally and socially, and particularly on its power as a cultural force for cohesion as well as dispersion.

At first glance, the town seems settled and secure, its stone weapons and tools valued by those near and far. But change is in the air, change is coming. That change is suggested early on when a group of horsemen show up in the village demanding weapons in exchange for protection, though they eventually give in and trade goods for the weapons, knowing their value. The villagers appear smug and confident in their wealth and future, thinking themselves “as snug as poppy seeds.” But poppy seeds can be eaten, and indeed the very act of trading points to the villagers’ eventual doom, revealing to us, if not to them, that they are already deeply embedded in a ruthless market economy that extends far beyond the village’s borders and that will crush them when their products are no longer needed. Their situation reminds me of Bernard DeVoto’s commentary, in his magisterial history The Course of Empire, on the inevitable destruction of Native American culture that was set in motion at the moment when Indians began trading with Europeans. The introduction of manufactured goods into Native American culture, DeVoto observes, initiated cataclysmic changes in Indian folkways, values, and beliefs, setting the stage for a cultural collapse more complete than that wrought by warfare. “The first belt-knife given by a European to an Indian was a portent as great as the cloud that mushroomed over Hiroshima,” DeVoto writes, adding that as Native American societies became progressively integrated into commerce with the whites, “a culture was forced to change much faster than change could be adjusted to. All corruptions of culture produce breakdowns of morale, of communal integrity, and of personality, and this force was as strong as any other in the white man’s subjugation of the red man.”

Such change is what the village inevitably faces, particularly when their stonework becomes outmoded with the introduction of brass (brought by ships with white sails, a nod, perhaps, to the early American history I've just mentioned, with the villagers imaginatively configured as Native Indians). But as Crace makes clear, even before the external forces make their impact, internal forces have been at work undermining the village’s social fabric. That’s where the cultural work of the one-armed narrator is so significant: as storyteller and entertainer (and liar—his tales are crafted entirely according to his audience’s wishes), he opens the villagers to fantasy and aspiration beyond the village. Even if the villagers don’t literally journey beyond town’s safe confines, they do so imaginatively; and as their trading in stone signals the village’s doom, so too does their imaginative wanderings—or perhaps better, their trading in the capital of the imagination. When the one-armed storyteller looks at the sea from atop a cliff, having set off on a journey from the village, the world, he says, looks upside-down—that’s what literal and imaginative journeys can do, at times for the good, at times not.

As is repeatedly observed, the one-armed storyteller is himself a craftsman working his material—that is, his audience. “People are like stones,” he observes. “You strike them right, they open up like shells.” And so too does the village eventually open up, shattered by tremendous forces of change and unleashing a turmoil characterized (in a wonderful comment) by the storyteller: “Those of us who have kicked an anthill will understand the chaos of the village.” In all this Crace complicates the way we often think of craft and craftsmen in the contemporary world, presenting craft not as an alternative to the modern degradation of work (one’s vocation devolving into one’s job) but instead as a force that paradoxically often ushers in the disruptive forces undermining the traditional—and the possibility of craft. That’s why storytelling is seen in the novel as so powerful and subversive, and why storytelling is repeatedly and appropriately (given the novel’s logic) characterized as lying—its power has the potential to turn the world and its everyday truths on their heads.

I can’t close without quoting my favorite line, a line concerning the one-armed storyteller’s growth from boy to man: “As the bully becomes the soldier, and the meany becomes the merchant, so the liar the bard.”

[Peter]

A friend once told me that really good poems operate on three levels. The first is the literal level. (What happens?) The second is the figurative level. (Abstracted, what does that mean?) And the third is the poetic level. (What if this poem were actually about poetry?)

The Gift of Stones operates on these three levels. On the literal level, it is a cusp-of-the-Bronze-Age story of an outcast who becomes a storyteller and witnesses the collapse of his village. On the figurative level, it explores the power of desire, the perils of professional stagnation, the pattern of technological obsolescence, and much more. And on the poetic level—or, in this case, on the novelistic level—The Gift of Stones is, in fact, a tale about stories and storytellers.

It begins with a narrator describing how, as a child, her father lost his arm as a result of a poisoned arrow shot by horsemen from a neighboring town. From there, it tracks the father’s growth as a young outcast, his return as a storyteller, his relationship with a widow and her child, and the change his village undergoes as its inhabitants discover that even their fine craftsmanship has been rendered obsolete by the arrival of bronze.

And throughout, the novel is aware of its telling. Its narrator tells the story of a narrator, who tells the story of his village and what he learns about telling stories. And each narrator reminds us of the skills and tools he or she uses; each narrator pulls us out of the narrative and reminds us that the teller shifts his tale to respond to the audience, that stories need not tell truths, that symbols, images, and devices enable the teller to enrich her tale and infuse additional meaning.

This meta-awareness reminds us of our responsibilities as good readers.

But even without this reminder, The Gift of Stones provokes thoughtful questions: how does desire affect our judgment? When and why do we change our habits and behaviors? Where does imagination come from? What are the goals of different socioeconomic classes? How much truth is told in stories? Why do we tell stories? How long have we told them?

By date, The Gift of Stones feels prehistoric—it is likely set sometime between 6500 BC and 2500 BC—but the characters within feel not unlike people today. They are tradesmen and merchants, they are funny and jealous, they make mistakes, they manipulate each other, they gossip, they are proud of their work, they perform minor acts of heroism, they test each other’s patience and understanding, and more. If nothing else, this novel is a fresh reminder that people have been people—and not wordless troglodytes—for a long, long time.

Do I recommend it? Absolutely. Chock full of compelling and human characters that struggle with familiar issues, the story is bound by twists and turns that reflect our better and worse natures.
Would I teach it? Tough call. The novel is perfect (perfect!) for the classroom… except that it is heavy on bodily fluids, and it contains only two female characters: a woman who survives through prostitution, and her helpless daughter. These characteristics may reflect social norms of the Bronze Age, but the former has a tendency to derail adolescent discussions, and the latter offers unfortunate gender stereotypes for developing teenagers.
Lasting impressions: Maybe it's the teacher in me, but The Gift of Stones seems to be a tale about the Bronze Age that is, in fact, a clever guise for a novel about storytelling.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of Jim Crace's earlier philosophical works, tells the tale of a village of stone workers, who live a simple life working stone into weapons, which are then traded with passers-by for food and other essentials, things they are not able to provide for themselves, in the arid landscape where they reside. It is a livelihood they think little about, it is all they know.

A boy's destiny is changed after he is injured in the arm by an arrow. The arrow is a symbol of change and both opens and closes this short, though provoking novella.

The injury becomes a turning point for a boy, his arm partially amputated, making him unable to follow in the village tradition, he must find another way of contributing to his community. His predicament is a foretelling of what is to come, but first he alone must learn to adapt.

He ventures outside, further from the village than anyone has ever been, near the sea and the heath, bringing them tales of beyond, discovering the allure and power of imagination. Experiencing things and feelings he has never encountered.

Already an orphan living with his uncle in a stone age village of people who work with flint, his injury turns him into a storyteller, inspired by his walks along the coastline towards the heath where he meets a woman with her baby living alone in a hut. He discovers how to captivate and amuse an audience, to take their minds off their day-to-day torments.

'The paradox is this - we do love lies. The truth is dull and half-asleep. But lies are nimble, spirited, alive. And lying is a craft.'

He brings the woman back to the village, however she isn't welcomed by the villagers, set in their ways. She too symbolises the lessons they must learn, though they will realise this much too late. When he tells the villagers her history, a truth, they become bored and turn away.

'Quite soon they found it far too dark and cold to listen to my father any lore. They peeled away before the tale was done, unmoved by my father's portrait of the widow and her child on the heath, her struggles not to die, her hardships, grief and hunger, the slaughter of the geese, the crushing of her hut. Quite soon there were no cousins left to hear my father's tale. His audience - excluding bats and mother - had crept away, unamused and angered by the venom in his voice.

My father stood alone and startled - for now he understood the power of the truth.'

It is a philosophical tale of unrequited love, abandonment, survival and the heralders of change, how communities react to the necessity to adjust, and to those who are different, outsiders.

It touches on the role of imagination and storytelling, not just as entertainment and a craft, but as those who foresee change, create invention, imagine other ways of life.

Poignant and intriguing, given the era within which it is set and a kind of tribute to the greater importance of storytelling within society.

[posthuman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Gift of Stones is an engrossing tale about a small tribe of stoneworkers at the dawn of the Bronze Age. A neglected one-armed boy is considered a useless burden until he begins telling outrageous stories of the world outside their insular village. Jim Crace's airy prose is not particularly lyrical or ornate, nor fraught with suspense, but his imaginative yarn-weaving was so enjoyable that I read it in a couple sittings and savored each page.

Other authors might have grounded the social groups depicted here with a lot of cultural flavor and specificity. This is the type of historical novel I tend to prefer. Love sinking my teeth into a story full of the gritty details of daily life that transports readers to the past, or to some fictional world that feels authentic. We might have no idea what languages were spoken by neolithic tribes in the east of England, for example, but Crace could have provided a sense of phonetics and cultural differentiation between the different groups in the story, or come up with some of their rituals and belief systems etc.

Instead, the villagers in this story are entirely devoid of discernible anthropology. This could be a village of craftsmen from any region or any time in history, except for the fact they make stone age tools. Yet somehow the lack of specificity works perfectly here. It positions this story more as a kind of universal fable with its own imaginative logic rather than a journey to the past. There is a rhythm to the events in the story and the ending that felt authentic and satisfying.

The author juxtaposes violence and sadness with allegorical irony and plenty of humor. The Gift of Stones was particularly enjoyable for its characters: the one-armed narrator, his cousins, his daughter who also narrates, as well as Leaf, Doe and the others were fascinating portraits, each with their own relatable desires and worries.

More from Crace on what inspired this story, and choosing invention over detailed historical research:

''I was very interested in what would happen to a community based on work which was suddenly separated from that certainty. Here was an example of a community which suddenly must have lost its lifeline when bronze came along - it would never imagine that the world could ever do without stone, and then of course the moment of metal comes.

I'm not interested in truths, like drawing an accurate picture of the real world. I'm interested in exploring the verities of the human condition. There is no intervention when you're writing fiction, no duty to a truth which is outside of you - it's a great indulgence to me. I believe that in some respects, if you hit the vein of storytelling right on the head, then you can come up with lies which are more powerful than any truth.''

[Jim Puskas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jim Crace is a writer who always takes you to a very special place and time — to a setting that may or may not have ever existed. In this novel, his protagonist (identified only as the narrator's father) is surely a literary avatar of Crace himself; both are minstrels, story tellers who create their own versions of truth, variants that are mobile, pliable to suit the audience and the situation.
I've shelved this as prose-poetry because the writing is so lyrical that in places I found myself reading it as if it had been presented in verse — like this:
One night the wind was coming off the land
and sweeping out to sea.
For once the rooks were flying over water;
and the waves, at dusk were tossing back their heads
and hair and fleeing from the beach.
The sea, so used to going with the wind,
had reared in anger at the way its mate had turned.
It was in turmoil, like a grey and boiling pot of gruel.
The wind, instead of calling "Home, go home,"
was singing "Back, keep back."
The land, so tired of all the pounding,
was turning to the sea.
The story can be read as a morality tale, a character study or a metaphor about the nature of Economic Man. It has much to say about social acceptance, the conventions we apply to the value of work, the roles we place ourselves in, and how artificial those conventions can prove to be if conditions change. Despite being set in a prehistoric era, the tale resonates today with anyone whose well-being has suddenly been disrupted by a massive paradigm shift, be it social, technological or political. Here, a community whose skill in the making of tools out of flint has rendered them prosperous and secure in their 'gift of stones' — but without warning, their entire way of life is obliterated by the dawn of the bronze age.

[Dragan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super knjiga koja me izvukla iz čitateljske letargije u koju sam pao posljednjih mjeseci, a i Jim Crace je iz knjige u knjigu sve bolji.

[Iset · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is something between a novella and a full-length novel, at 200 pages long, so it’s pretty easy to tear through. I would even call it a page-turner – chapters are short enough that I definitely got tempted into a ‘just one more’ mindset. I’m just not sure that I liked it. That’s not to say I disliked it – I feel ambivalently about this book.

The Gift of Stones doesn’t really have a point to its story, or a satisfying arc, so to speak. It’s more of a snapshot; like an artist trying to capture one striking moment in time. And the picture the author paints is harsh, bleak, and doesn’t offer satisfaction. It’s very well-crafted, well-written; I just find the picture grim and the characters mostly unsympathetic. Not sure I can explain it better than that.

6 out of 10

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

a poetic, lyrical investigation of the nature of truth and the nature of story, set in a neolithic village on the verge of encountering bronze age technology.

OR

the story of a horny one-armed inverterate liar, a semi-starved prostitute with a love of goose-flesh, a village full of rock-bashers, and a few sailboats that don't stop for lunch.

[robin friedman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Storyteller Of The Stone Age

Set in the stone age among a village of stone workers ("stoneys") and stone traders ("mongers"), Jim Crace's short 1988 novel "The Gift of Stones" is a story of the power of imagination and of the forces of social change. Crace writes simply and well. Unfortunately, the stone age setting of the book is not developed; and, beyond the setting, the story is conventional and the characters unremarkable.

The book has three layers. The outermost layer, only briefly suggested, involves the work of an archeologist who, in 1927, discovered the skeleton of a boy of the stone age whose arm appeared to have been surgically amputated. Crace takes this slender historical find to construct his tale of a young stone age man who has suffered an amputation.

The remaining two layers are developed in the novel itself. The primary narrator is a nameless man that we know only as "father" whose arm has been amputated in his youth. He is an orphan who has been raised and exploited by his uncle to work in the stone pits. When the young man loses his arm, in an operation described in substantial, gory detail, he can no longer work in the quarry. He becomes a teller of tales - beginning with the circumstances that led to the amputation of his arm - and a dreamer of dreams who fascinates the villagers with his yarns and with the power of imagination.

There is a second narrator for a portion of the novel. It is the voice of a young woman who calls herself "daughter". Initially, she appears as the daughter of the storyteller, but as the novel progresses her relationship to the storyteller becomes clarified in an anticlimactic, unsurprising way. Daughter comments and expands upon her father's stories and his life and embroiders them with stories of her own. Thus she offers the third layer of the novel -- in terms of a voice that expands upon facts using the powers of imagination. (Crace's voice is the first and father's voice is the second.)

Another major character in the book does not speak in her own voice. She is a woman who becomes known as "Doe". Doe lives on the beach, together with her baby daughter and a dog, isolated from the village of stone workers by a ridge. Her husband and two sons have disappeared and most likely have been killed. To survive in her remote hut, Doe barters herself to horsemen and other passers-by for food, pottery, bedding, and the like. Wandering over the ridge, the novel's protagonist meets Doe and her daughter and a relationship of sorts begins. When Doe's home is destroyed by marauders, the narrator brings Doe and the daughter to the village where they live unhappily. Doe resumes her former profession. The village is ultimately destroyed when its inhabitants fail to anticipate and adjust to the new "bronze age".

Doe's trade is called "the world's oldest profession" with reason. The book gives a good imaginative portrayal of how this business may have been conducted in stone age times and of the character of those engaging in it. The rest of the book is trite and commonplace. There is a lack of characterization making it difficult to become concerned with any of the persons in the story.

While an author has discretion regarding the setting of a book,setting this work in the stone age adds little of interest. It is vaguely done. The author appears to be writing a parable of the modern age using the stone age as a foil. Thus the book explores themes of the power and nature of imaginative literature, the need for cultures and individuals to recognize and adjust to forces of social and economic change, the relationship between workers (the "stoneys") and the managers (the "mongers") in terms of economic and social organization, and the relationship between men and women. The texture of the book and the characterization of ages, places and persons is too thin to support these issues. As a result they are treated in a bland, unconvincing manner. Plainly the author has more of an interest in contemporary issues than he does in his stone age setting. These two components (stone age and contemporary social commentary) are not interrelated well in the book. Thus, at best, the novel is tepid. It fails to work as a story of the stone age or as a parable. Its simple setting cannot support the broad nature of its themes. Therefore, I found the book disappointing.

Robin Friedman

[GoldGato · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was absently added to my carry-on while packing and I forgot about it until the return trip. In a darkened airliner, while my fellow passengers slept or watched media, I turned on my light and started this page-turner. I turned so many pages that I finished reading the book as the plane landed, and it was only a domestic flight. That is one of my barometers for a well-written book...the ability to keep me absorbed while the night sky flies past.

It's one thing for an author to get the reader involved in a modern day story or even in a tale from the Middle Ages. But to bring us into a late Stone Age environment and to keep us there is quite a feat of writing. It's also a lesson in general for all of us, as it speaks to adaptation and what happens when we feel we have lassoed the universe under our supposed control. Very well done.


Book Saeson = Summer

[Deb Chapman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reread for me (which is unusual)! I remember loving it when I read it in about 1988 when it first came out, and for some reason jumped into my hands again. Enjoyed it again second time and 37 yrs later! But not a stand out. Curious or and characters, the mechanism of storyteller with one arm and adopted family odd but worked, as did Doe’s sex work to keep fed. Simple kind of writing style but also very atmospheric. Curious and curiouser. Great imaginative fix!

[Conrad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ever since I read William Golding's 'The Inheritors' many, many years ago I have been fascinated with pre-historic man - by that I mean the era before recorded history. In this short but powerfully evocative little novel Crace brings us the story of a stone age village of flint workers told through the eyes of a young girl adopted by a one armed young man who, unable to work the flints, found his calling as a story-teller who fashioned tales to suit his audience just as the workers fashioned flints for various purposes. The events take place in a small orderly village somewhere on the coast of England amid the chalky, flint filled hills where the people huddle in safety while the bigger world seems to be in a state of change and turmoil as hinted at by the occasional appearance of horsemen traveling through the village. The introduction of bronze heralds the end of the stone age and the villagers must adapt or perish and it is the story-teller with his somewhat wider knowledge of the world and his imagination who must lead them on to a new life with greater possibilities. The story speaks to the power of story-telling to inspire and motivate people to accept change and rise to the challenges that lie before us.

[Iulia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another mesmerising Jim Crace story, proof of his precision, originality and boldness. We need more authors like Crace.

"As the bully becomes soldier, and the meany becomes merchant, so the liar becomes bard."

"The truth is dull and half asleep. But lies are nimble, spirited, alive."

"It seemed as if the outside world was like a mist and the mist was closing in. And all our world was shrinking, breath by breath. Someone, something, was hovering between our village and the sun."

[Kathryn Berla · Rating 4 out of 5]

My fourth book by Jim Crace so obviously I love the way he writes and I'm going to love this book and I did.

[Mary Overton]

A crippled outcast earns a place in his stone-age village by becoming its storyteller. His daughter describes the transformation:
“We have heard my father talking - and we know the way he worked. We know that when he spoke he shaped the truth, he trimmed, he stretched, he decorated. He was to truth what every stoney [craftsman who makes knives & arrow-heads] was to untouched flint, a fashioner, a god. We know that when he said, ‘I’ll keep it simple too, I won’t tell lies,’ that this was just another arrow from his shaft by which we were transfixed. And so, again, we should beware when father claimed forgetfulness and said ‘Who knows what story I dished up for them that night? Who cares?’ He knew, for sure. It was a turning-point for him - though, here again, his version was much tidier than truth. His version said that that one tale, told late at night to cousins had kicked the anthill once again. He’d startled everyone; he’d surprised himself. It was as if the village fool had, unannounced, stood up and juggled perfectly - or the stammerer had sung a faultless song. It was a revelation and a shock that in the village, hidden, uncultivated all these years, there had been this amputee, who now could hold a household silent with the magic of his words.
“The truth for what it’s worth is this ... and now I’m guessing, so can you see the value of my truth? ... my father’s talent for inflating and for telling lies was always there, from birth. But no one guessed its power - until, that is, my father transformed his defect into craft. As the bully becomes soldier, and the meany becomes merchant, so the liar becomes bard. Where is the shock in that? But father had it thus: that one good story from his mouth transformed him in that village, overnight, from the wild plant, not-much-use, into their raconteur.” pp. 56-7

[Lee Broderick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ostensibly a novel about one village facing a violent and sudden end to the neolithic (a more literal way for the Bronze Age to enter someone's life there could not be) this novel is about far more than that.

Jim Crace has a superb command of the English tongue and the language used here is beautiful. Rather than a straight forward coming-of-an-age tale though, the focus is less on the changes that the new technology brings into people's lives and more on the way in which people choose to live their lives.

The narrator is crippled at the start of the book and so is physically marked forever as different from other people and we are shown as well as told that he was always cognisantly different from others in his village. Through his stories and experiences a dichotomy is set up between freedom and independence on the one hand, as represented by living and working with nature, and communal living and fatalism on the other, as represented by the art of stone working.

The narrator(s) (in reality there are two) is also the protagonist here and through his stories Crace sets about the conceit that lies at the heart of the book. For as much as it is about the ways in which people live their lives it is about the way in which people chronicle their lives. It is a story about story-telling and, as such, reminds the reader of the responsibility that they bear in the writer-reader relationship.

The morals seems rather transparent at the end of the book; that compromise in either direction is probably better than any false dichotomy and that it's important to see and think for yourself.

[Adam Rabiner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gift of Stones is set in an unknown land, high on an ocean bluff (perhaps England, Ireland, Wales, or Scotland) but a very specific time, the tale end of the Stone Age, roughly 2,000 BCE. It's a richly imagined and beautifully written novel. Stones are the lifeblood of a an unnamed village. They support the dull and work-a-day stoners (craftspeople) and merchants whose days are spent quarrying, carving, and trading tools and implements. But change is in the winds and the arrival of distant traders from the sea with bronze implements means that the stoners' days are numbered. The tale is told by an unnamed, one armed story-teller and his unnamed adopted daughter, the child of Doe, a widow whom the story teller encounters and falls in love with in a "low heathland swept gently to the shore where thrift and black-tufted lichens lived side by side on rocks with barnacles and limpets." Doe and the story teller live in a primitive land and a hard time very different from our own. But their challenges are recognizable, despite the years that separate them from modernity. The human condition does not change that much with time.

[Jenny Mitcham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just read this book again. First read it about 25 years ago and loved it then. Jim crace was for a long time my favourite author (after discovering this book and then reading several more). There is something quite beautiful and poetic about the way he writes and I love his slightly unusual subject matter. The reason I was attracted to this book 25 years ago is pretty obvious... You don't see many books set in the stone age just as bronze starts being introduced. I was an archaeologist 25 ago and liked the realism of his characters and settings. Really nice to pick up again and remind myself of why I liked it so much.

[Željko Obrenović · Rating 4 out of 5]

Džim Krejs piše drugačije od svih. Stil mu je prvoklasan a opet rečenica nikad prekomplikovana. Teme su takođe nesvakidašnje, od prave priče o Isusu, u Karantinu, preko izmišljenih kontinenata, do kamenog doba u Daru kamena. Nijedna od njih ne prelazi 200 strana, čak ni potonja, koju sam nedavno pročitao. Jedino što bih mogao zameriti toj bitnoj priči o susretu prošlosti (kamenog doba) sa onim što dolazi (bronzano doba) je isuviše moderno pisanje za jednu tako drevno priču. Ali to je verovatno samo moj stav o tome kako bi je trebalo obraditi. Uverite se sami koliko se ništa nije promenilo i koliko nam je i danas blizak a mrzak susret s promenama.

[Yak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting little book set in the Stone Age, full of allegory and poetical prose. It seems to be impossible to set a novel in prehistoric times without plenty of symbolism and reference to modern issues -- or maybe it's just me. I'm reminded of one of Jack London's more obscure novels, "Before Adam," and to a lesser extent Paleolithic Porn (Jean Auel's "Clan of the Cave Bear" series, memorable for its heroine's resourceful invention of the world's first diaphragm). Or maybe the Flintstones.

[J.S. Dunn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Told in simply constructed prose, an odd and touching little book set as the Bronze Age appears, ostensibly along the Atlantic coast. The tale avoids the trap of using simplistic names for the characters ( the Ugg and Erg sort of name ) or ascribing limited intelligence to them, and elevates the simplicity of its language.

Would have benefited from some research to make it more authentic in atmosphere and details, but contains nothing palpably wrong that pulls one out of the story.

[Old Man JP · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a story that takes place during the Stone Age of a man who as a boy lost his arm from an arrow wound. He is from a village of craftsmen who make tools from flint and because of his lost arm is unable to pursue the craft. He instead becomes a spinner of tales. Crace writes the tale in lyrical poetry that mimics the mans stories by blending fiction with truth. The result is a realization that neither truth nor fiction is important when telling the tale only the beauty of the story.

[krin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a beautifully written book about storytelling, imagination, change and people's resistance to change. I liked the interaction between the narrator's father and the village members. I also liked how the narrator told the audience how sometimes telling stories can backfire when one wants to tell the truth.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could give this book ten stars I would. A work of genius that I would recommend to anyone who has a love of the written word and the art of the storyteller. Full review to follow.

[James M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in the stone age, this novel deals with the transition to a new age.