The Storyteller Trilogy

I’m reading the Storyteller Trilogy by Sue Harrison right now, which is “the complete saga of prehistoric Aleut tribal life” . It’s a very interesting story, but I’ll be honest: it’s a hard read.

It’s very well written and thoroughly researched, making the tale as plausible as possible – which is why it’s so hard to read. She takes her time, taking multiple chapters before anything actually happens.

I think that’s rather indicative of today’s society: we are so used to having instant gratification, like a horrific car crash right on page 3 or a brutal rape/murder in the opening scene. Our attention span has been degraded over time to that of a goldfish: if it doesn’t grab our attention within the first two seconds, we scroll on to the next tidbit of entertainment.

Sue builds her story slowly, giving you all the background history: telling you about their daily lives, their tools, their society. How they weave their baskets out of which type of grass. How their shelters (or lodges) are built and who owns them & why. What they eat and how they hunt. All the pieces/parts that make a community work. Only then do you begin to get to the meat of the tale. You slowly meet all the characters and get a sense of where they fit into the story and what their part is going to be.

I have (finally) completed book one of the trilogy and am looking forward to book two now. But, while I wait for the evening so I can sit & read for a while, I am scrolling through Facebook and just happened to come across an article on Otzi the Iceman. I have always been fascinated by him, so this caught my eye. 

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Otzi, his story is something else. Back in 1991 his body was discovered by some hikers up in the Italian Alps. He was so well preserved that at first the authorities treated it like a recent crime scene. However, it was soon determined that he dates back some 5,300 years!

Which – coincidentally – is about when the Storyteller trilogy takes place! (give or take a few years)

So now, when they talk about all the tools that Otzi has on him, or the clothes he wears, or the tattoos on his body, or even the arrowhead embedded into his left shoulder that ended up killing him  = all of this is in Ms. Harrison’s book!  It puts a whole new level of understanding and clarity to Otzi the Iceman’s story, making it that much more fascinating.