Late to the party
I somehow missed Wolfstongue when it came out last year, but the impending appearance of a sequel (The Fox’s Tower) made me realise I needed to read the opening novel first. I have missed out far too long.
Very much it’s own book
Some of the publicity for this book quotes The Times as comparing it to Watership Down, but I do not find this particularly illuminating. True, both are tales about animals that mimic humans in character and speech, but nevertheless retain their natural appearance and some behaviours. However, Sam Thompson’s book is essentially about human/animal interaction in a way that Richard Adams’ undoubted masterpiece is not. Not does this newer book have anything of the extravagant mythologising of the earlier work. This newer book too is a very fine work of fiction, but it is not really mythopoeia; it is true fable. It is also very different, indeed idiosyncratic, in the very best of ways.
A fabulous fable
Wolfstongue reads like a fable in more sense than one. Many of the animal names are taken from folktale and fable. But that is not all of it. This is not traditional fable, it deliberately distorts the stereotypes that have grown around old tales. It makes fable anew, for our time, Both its language and its narrative structure are magnificently focused, almost condensed. Some of its narrative elisions are brusque, almost disjointed. But it tells what needs to be told and does so with searing vividness and poetic immediacy.
‘He leaned against the rugged bark of a tree that reached out to cast its shade on a place where the water ran down a rocky course and plunged into a pool, the flow singing a continuous chord. Further off, galleries of green light hung behind the trunks.’ (p 96)
Without ever distracting from its compelling story, it also invites reflection on its meaning, its parallels, its nature as parable. And it does so on the profoundest of levels.
It shows the world of the modern city and the world of the ancient forest are closer together than we think. ‘There’s only one world,’ says the grey wolf, after carrying the boy, Silas, from one to the other.
It digs into the ancient clay from which all creatures are made. It explores the potential of the deep primal matter of creation, the material of potential. It is often enigmatic, perhaps metaphorical.
The whole of Chapter 8, where Silas enters the cave to seek the healing clay ,is one of the high points of contemporary (children’s) literature. It almost ranks alongside the discovering of the imprints of hand and fern in Alan Garner’s Stone Book.
It suggests that we must not expect nature to imitate humankind. The essence of nature is wildness. It has the right to be uncivilised. It also parodies totalitarian regimes; regimes of the terrifying kind, manipulating with words, scorning truth and compassion; regimes that we currently know all too well, both in the wider world and in the playground. More terrifying still, it points a finger to the instigators of those words, those names, those distortions.
Silas, the human protagonist of the story, has difficulty with language, he is tongue-tied, except when he is with the wolves, when he almost becomes a wolf. Whilst language (alongside the opposable thumb) is the tool that fashioned civilisation, it is also the mechanism of control, of domination, of oppression. Here, it is the bully and the tyrant who have the language, the ‘hero’ is silent (in name and nature). The Wolves want to be rid of language, of names, because naming things conjures them into reality. The language of (corrupted) civilisation is set against a wildness that can know no names, Wildness must be free of language. Language can be set free by wildness. And then just perhaps, we ourselves can be more free.
‘. . . what we were isn’t what we’re going to be.’ (p 179)
Perhaps.
We must listen to the silence.
Captivating images
Wolfstongue is another example of wonderfully illustrated fiction. Anna Tromop’s images are somewhat gentler than, say Jason Cockroft’s in Running With Horses or Levi Pinfold’s in The Worlds We Left Behind, but they still complement and extend the text tellingly. This is very human drama dressed as fable and that’s exactly what these drawings are, fabulous. I find particularly affecting the ones from the very beginning and the very end of the book, Silas’ meeting with and parting from the wolves. Equally, the magical light and affecting detail on the magnificent cover make me wish that more of her illustrations were in colour.
The biggest advantage of having read this fine first book so late, is that it is not very long to wait for the next, this October.
Footnote:
Unintentionally, I seem to have fallen into something of a summer reading theme around wolves. Even more serendipitous, I have discovered a whole run of wonderfully illustrated fiction.
For any others who are into wolves, or animals generally (or indeed illustrated fiction) I strongly recommend A Wolf Called Wander by American author Rosanne Parry. It was published in UK in 2019 by Andersen Press and, thankfully, still seems to be available. It is a straightforward, get-what-you-see-on-the-tin, animal saga bursting with wonder and wildness. It is quite beautifully written, often lyrical, but powerful too and emotionally involving. It is stunningly illustrated throughout, in naturalistic style, by Mónica Armiño. Many of its images I would love to have on my walls. All in all, it is a wonderful book.
Against these same criteria, I almost hesitate to mention Katherine Rundell’s The Wolf Wilder because I expect almost all of you, interested in children’s fiction as you are, will already have read it. But there are probably many young readers who haven’t. It is very different from both the above books, but is a truly wonderful novel, to me Katherine Rundell’s best to date.