Crunched for time this morning, cooking for company, so only one recommendation.
KABLOONA!
Sounds like Sheldon’s new catchphrase, doesn’t it? But it isn’t. It’s the title of a book I read aloud to Mom. I referenced it during StoryADayMay when it prompted story 29. It’s also what the Inuit call (or did call, at the time the book was written) non-Inuit.
KABLOONA is a heavily edited production based on masses of notes, sketches, and photographs brought back by Gontran De Poncins, a French aristocrat who went to the Arctic to find inner peace. SPOILER ALERT: He found it.
Sadly, he came back to “civilization ” in 1939, just in time to head back to France for the beginning of World War II.
When I first started reading it, Mom said, “I don’t know about this one.” (We usually read mysteries.) I said, “When you used to have me bring you books on disc, you always wanted ones set in other countries or other times. This is right up your alley.”
We hadn’t read more than a few chapters before we were hooked. Poncins’ style is lyrical and visceral, detailed and overarching.
The Eskimo is never at a loss for reasons to linger by the way. Because his life is hard, his leisure is precious; and except among peasants and common laborers, there is no such pleasure taken from an hour’s idleness in our civilized world.
So I would say, “You want to watch television, you want to watch a video, or you want to Kabloo?” And Mom would say, “Oh, let’s Kabloo!” So we would. We were sorry to come to the end of the adventure. Mere fiction can’t compare.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Where would your main character go to find inner peace?
MA
Dan
June 19, 2015 at 8:23amFortunately, I am enjoying an idle hour (catching up on some reading).
Marian Allen
June 19, 2015 at 8:27amMom and I are reading RETURN TO LAUGHTER by … I forget her pen name. She’s an anthropologist named Laura Bohanan, but wrote this novelized treatment of her experiences in Africa under the name of …. Wait a minute while I look it up …. Elenore Smith Bowen.
Jane
June 19, 2015 at 8:24amOK. Here’s a good recommend:
Google:
Gelada monkeys tame wild wolves
Marian Allen
June 19, 2015 at 8:35amInteresting, indeed!
Jane
June 20, 2015 at 10:25amAlmost as fun as:
Google:
Kanzi cooks marshmallows
Marian Allen
June 20, 2015 at 10:31amI KNOW, RIGHT? Animals other than humans are so smart! Humans, maybe not so much.