The Owner of the Sea
Three Inuit Stories Retold
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Carcanet Press Ltd
Published:24th Jun '21
Should be back in stock very soon
A The Scotsman Book of the Year 2021. In re-telling the Inuit stories included here, Richard Price opens out remarkable northern vistas and unfamiliar narratives, strange gods and unforgettable characters. Carol Rumens described Price as a poet who is 'brilliant quietly: inventive, sometimes dazzling, but never merely showy': precisely the talents for rendering, rather than appropriating these great story-cycles of Inuit culture. Here we learn of 'Sedna the Sea Goddess' and 'Kiviuq the Hunter', the central protagonists of the book's remarkable stories. They are rich in extraordinary incident. In Sedna's world women can marry dogs and have half-puppy, half-human children; birds beat their wings so hard they call down a storm on a fugitive kayak; walruses originate from... well that would be telling. Each story-cycle abounds in natural wonder, celebrating our creaturely relations with our fellow inhabitants of land and sea. 'The Old Woman Who Changed Herself into a Man', a short narrative, bridges the major sequences, telling the story of an older woman and a younger one who become lovers in the isolation of their remote home.
'The Owner of the Sea brings Arctic cultural history to new audiences. In Price's skilful rendering, these retellings of Inuit myths leave the reader wanting to learn more about the rich heritage of our neighbours in the north.' Ingibjrrg ggústsdtttir, The Bottle Imp
'The book is refreshingly without judgment of the Inuit's customs and mores.' Jacqueline Schaalje, Mayday Magazine
'True myths are contradictory, ambiguous, always shape-shifting as much as the characters. Price captures this with precision... Price's poetry has always had a lapidary quality balanced with a lilting, almost nursery rhyme rhythm. It works exceptionally well in this collection.' Stuart Kelly, The Scotsman
'Each tale is full of bawdy, fun and cruelty in the best of the old storytelling tradition. Price walks a tightrope between outright filth and respectable poetic style with an effortlessness that is majestic to behold...These are stories that should be more well-known, and Price's translation ought to become the standard version in English. A timeless collection.' Joe Darlington, Manchester Review of Books
'There is nothing missing. The stories inhabit a world compounded of the continuing subsistence hunting economy and centuries of shamanistic magic in which animals, especially hunted animals, will speak to you, seduce you, trick you, help you, murder you... as indeed the humans do to each other. They are full of sexual and scatological obscenities, acts of cruelty, dishonour and betrayal not to mention cannibalism, and it's all there; nothing is toned down. One can freely feel that the Inuit imaginative sphere is faithfully and fearlessly represented.' Peter Riley, The Fortnightly Review
'[a] wonderful and unexpectedly timely book.' David James, Anchorage Daily News
ISBN: 9781800171176
Dimensions: 216mm x 135mm x 15mm
Weight: unknown
188 pages