![]() ![]() So why was this book not what I thought? Well, the cover blurb tells us that as the archaeology group builds its own skull-topped ghost wall - an ancient practice that was presumably meant to be a barrier against enemy invaders - they find a “spiritual connection to the past.” Other descriptive words such as “fable” and “mythic” made me think that this story would have some magical realism to it. While the students and the professor engage in light role-playing, sleep in nylon tents, and sneak off to the local Spar for modern-day food and ice cream, Silvie’s father insists that she and her mother live “authentically,” which means no sleeping bags or pillows, no food but what they can hunt and forage, and a mandatory admiration for the ghoulish fascination that he has with the “bog bodies” - ancient preserved corpses (primarily women and girls) that have been found in the peat with evidence of ritualistic deaths. ![]() ![]() ![]() He is also sadistic, misogynistic, and abusive to both Silvie and her downtrodden mother. Nor is her father, who is behind this venture, a professor - he is a bitter, blue collar man who is obsessed with the ancient Britons. It tells the story of seventeen-year-old Silvie, who, along with her parents, is accompanying a group of university students and their professor on a 2-week “experimental archaeology” camp to reenact Iron Age life in northern England. This novella was not quite what I was expecting. Content warning: child abuse, ritual sacrifice ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |