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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Nature at it's worst in the middle ages.,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Wolves of Paris (Paperback)
Once again Daniel P. Mannix shows his prowess as a historical documentor. The author of "Those Who Are About To Die" and "The Hell Fire Club" takes us back to France in the middle ages and an ancient Paris under siege from a pack of bloodthirsty wolves. More than just a historical account, Mannix, in his typically engrossing style takes us into the life of the wolf pack, revealing to the reader the lifestyle of a wolf in medieval europe, and the unforseen outcome when nature's boundries are crossed. A bit more heavily fictionalized than Mannix's other works, and somewhat anthropomorphic, but if you're a nature lover with an interest in mideval history this ones for you. Warning: graphically violent...otherwise it wouldn't be Mannix.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Nature Writing At Its Most Feral.,
This review is from: The Wolves of Paris: A Novel (Hardcover)
This is nature writing, animal protagonists, all that, though not anthropomorphic, as in Watership Down. The animals here are animals, with animal thoughts and feelings, nothing more. And yet this book is compelling. I've read it multiple times, and it never fails to bring me in.
From the back cover (a fairly good synopsis for once): It was the winter of 1439. No human dared enter or leave the besieged city of Paris. Not because of war. Not because of the bitter cold. But because of a wild horde of wolves led by a gigantic, legendary man-eater. Driven by starvation, emboldened by the taste of human corpses acquired from the never-ending wars of men, the wolves of Paris answered the rallying cry of the courageous dogwolf Cortaud, who'd been branded a werewolf and captured with the help of a trained leopard - only to escape and terrorize the countryside. Across a frozen, war-blighted landscape the noble wolf and his faithful mate Silver led the ravenous pack into the city itself, spreading fear and death, and challenging the most powerful hunter of all, Bosselier, whose trap was destined to end the life of the killer-wolf . . . or his own. I take umbrage only to the characterization of Cortaud as `noble.' Mannix at no point falls into the trap of making the protagonists of the story (Cortaud and Silver) the heroes. In fact, there really are no heroes, making for a more accurate, if grim, bit of writing. The story is true - a pack of wolves headed by a giant red wolf dubbed Cortaud (Cut-Tail) did indeed invade Paris during the winter of 1439 in search of food, after terrorizing the countryside for weeks. This is essentially a fictional account of true events, and as I was familiar with the tale, and am interested in stories of maneaters of all kinds, I picked this book up secondhand last year and read it. Mannix's familiarity with both the humans and the animals, as well as the countryside and political climate of the times, makes for an authoritative narrative with no trace of uncertainty or hesitation. Though one knows that much of it is fictionalized, one never doubts that the author is telling the truth. Though his dialogue is stilted, there is perhaps two pages of it in the whole book, and that is really the only criticism I could make. If stories of wolves and maneaters are your thing, you have your book right here. Read it if you can get a copy.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Stimulating mix of 3 parts fantasy and 1 part fact,
By
This review is from: The Wolves of Paris: A Novel (Hardcover)
The Wolves of Paris is a conundrum. It is a fictional novel, and author Daniel Mannix makes this clear. There is a tale, documented in history, about a pack of wolves terrorizing people living near Paris hundreds of years ago. Mannix bases his novel on this subject. The novel primarily is from the wolf perspective, and that perspective is based on the acquisition of food, the protection of territory, the escape from and avoidance of injury, and the finding of mates and the raising of pups. This is not a book about talking wolves, wolves wearing clothes, werewolves, or even "weird wolves." In fact, one of the most interesting aspects of this book is that Mannix worked hard to bring accurate elements of wolf biology into the story, and even explained the predation on humans by the alpha wolf as a consequence, in part, of its hybrid parentage. I don't want to give more away here.
An entertaining yarn that doesn't make wolves either angels or demons...
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