The Greenlanders - Softcover

Smiley, Professor Jane

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1400095468 ISBN 13: 9781400095469

Publisher: Anchor Books, 2005

Synopsis

"Totally compelling...fsacinating....Sweeps the reader along...Jane Smiley is a true storyteller."
THE WASHINGTON POST
A magnificent novel of fourteenth-century Greenland, here is a rich and fascinating detail about the day-to-day lives--the joys and innumerble hardships--of a remarkable people. It is also the compelling story of one family--the proud land-owner Asgeir Gunnarsson, his daughter Margret, whose willfull independence leads her into passionate adultery and exile, and his son Gunnar, whose quest for knowledge is at the compelling center of this unforgettable book. Echoing the simple power of the old Norse sagas, here is a novel that brings a remote civilization to life--and shows how it was very like our own.

About this title

Review:

"Impressive. . . . Haunting. . . . She is a diverse and masterly writer." -The New York Times Book Review

"An epic masterpiece. . . . Spellbinding." -Newsday

"A sprawling, multi-generational, heroic Norse narrative." -Chicago Tribune

"Totally compelling. . . . Fascinating. . . . In the manner of the big books of the nineteenth century, in which complex family and community matters unravel-Dickens, Dumas, Tolstoy-The Greenlanders sweeps the reader along. . . . Smiley is a true storyteller." -The Washington Post

From the Back Cover:

At the edge of the polar icecap is medieval Europe's most farflung outpost, a Viking colony settled for generations but now struggling for survival. Here, far from the civilised world, in a land of glittering fjords, of blasting winds, of sun-warmed meadows and high dark mountains, live a people much accustomed to holding their own opinions and doing as they please. They are, however, haunted by a rising apprehension: with every year that passes the winters seem unaccountably more cruel; the fur-clad eskimos from the North more demonic; there are increasing outbursts of lawlessness and witchcraft. Has Europe, in the grip of the plague, forgotten the Greenlanders? If so, will they be able to survive in their isolation?

In this powerful and hypnotic novel Jane Smiley draws us into a fourteenth-century Norse community – into the lives of its farmers, priests and lawspeakers, into the hunts, the feasts and the long-standing feuds, the flowerings of love and the explosions of sudden violence – to reveal a world which is at once harsh and beautiful, bleak yet vibrant with life.

"This extraordinary novel is full of life and bristling with action."
COSMOPOLITAN

"A magnificent novel, Jane Smiley has brought to her immaculately researched material a deep sympathy with her characters, a sparkling imagination and a faultless narrative skill. She has truly written a saga, which is biblical in its rhythm, beauty and simplicity of language and yet which has all the excitement of a modern adventure novel."
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

'The Age of Grief, Ordinary Love' and 'A Thousand Acres' (which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) are also available in Flamingo.

About this edition

• Publisher: Anchor Books
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1400095468
• ISBN 13: 9781400095469
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 608