Customer Reviews

The Gathering Night: A Novel

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Margaret Elphinstone's daring effort to portray mankind's distant past succeeds brilliantly. While many aspects of life 8,000 years ago are beyond our reach, The Gathering Night presents a highly plausible picture of the lifestyles, motivations, and beliefs of humans in that distant world. It is also a tight drama with compelling characters. Highly recommended

Had I not been interested in life in the Mesolithic I would have closed this book before I got past page 10. I had reached page 200 before it became clear that there might be some kind of plot in amongst all the descriptive chatter, and even then it was as clear as mud.
Passages describing the day to day activities of a nondescript stone age tribal family are excellent and well researched but they only serve to delay what little narrative there is. And other sections, such as the description of shamanic experiences are signally unconvincing.
The style too is difficult to follow, developing as it does as a family history being told to the new generation around the hearth. Each person speaks in turn, often repeating or merely adding to the previous speaker. They describe moving from camp to camp so often that it is difficult to know who is speaking or where you are half the time.
By the time I got to about page 300 things were beginning to move a little, but by then I was passed caring.
I really looked forward to a good read, but I was sadly disappointed.