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Wolfstuff: Where wolf-like animal stories come from. Here's a description:
"The wolverine has not eaten for days. He has her scent. The deer is tired and bleeding, though still running. He can keep this pace up for days, she cannot. He knows that he will eat tonight. He will kill her well before dawn.
::The warming March sun had shone all day. Although the air remained frigid in the many shadows, out in the open the surface snow was melting in its glare. Then, as commonly happens in early spring this far north, when the sun began setting and the shadows grew longer across the snowy field, the melted snow surface froze and soon the entire meadow was covered by a crust of icy snow thick enough in places to support a walking man, thick enough everywhere to support almost any child, and plenty strong enough throughout to support the wolverine..."
Et-cetera. I'm not going to post the full description because it goes on another ten paragraphs. Dude, it's a DESCRIPTION, you don't post the full short story there!
Anyway, this is a story about a minority serial rapist that chases a woman through her hometown. He can't wait to get his hands on her and it's only a matter of time. HOWEVER, in a sudden turn of events she stumbles upon some policemen, but she is hesitant to show herself because she is also a minority.
At least, that's my reading. Literally what happens is a really boring and excessively long account of a sex-hungry--I mean, bloodthirsty wolverine trying to satiate his murder rage on a hungry doe. She is about to give up when she finds some humans, and they of course save the day with guns. It really reads like it should be a metaphor though because it would be completely pointless to write a stupid story about animals, right? Right?
Since the guy is Swedish and presumably raised by wolves, I will skip the usual grammar gripe and get on to the more interesting gripes.
I had trouble connecting to these characters because they were freaking animals I don't care about. We did get to see some of the humans' points-of-view, but they were as exciting as a man that pretends he's a wolf all day and then writes a creepily detailed journal about it. Actually, I would read that.
It's pretty obvious that the doe will survive because the wolverine is sort of made out to be a crazy mass-murderer type and-- Seriously, how can you write about animals like they are people? I feel weird just summarizing this plot. But anyway, I did actually find myself rooting for both of them and sitting not quite all the way to the back of my seat, but on the other hand this effect quickly faded when I excitedly thought, "The End," and there was still another freaking quarter of this novella to keep reading. And it figures the super female defenseless deer is rescued by burly lumberjack men with guns.
Because women can't do anything by themselves. HA! Stupid women.
Ratings:
Inconsistent Animal Sophistication Level: 5 out of 5. One minute these animals were using words like "obstreperous" (throwback!) in their internal monologues and the next they were talking about the strange men with their "fire sticks" and their "machine things" that "move" people. Seriously why would an animal not know the word for "gun" or "axe" but the word "boot" is totally commonplace to them? It just made feel like I was reading a description from the point of view of some savage that didn't understand what the big shiny bird that rode in the sky was (see my reading).
Tenses: 2 out of 5. After the first section of this, I had to go back and check because it felt like I had been suddenly hurled into present tense. And indeed, the first part is past tense. "Fine," I thought, "he's just experimenting with this to set the pace." And that excuse worked until he started messing it up. Some things would be twisted into strange sentences referring to the past in present tense, then there would be a past tense sentence just stuck in there, because if you can't figure out how to express it, then fuck it! (Writer's motto.)
Sounding Stilted Due to Trying to Set the Mood: 5 out of 5. This guy was writing part like he had just watched Planet Earth (highly likely) and part like he was trying to add suspense--which he was. The result was that every contraction and simple sentence was ripped out of the story entirely. I can't imagine talking to this guy. "Kids, amirite?" "They are a group of individuals which can not and will not be deterred from their insatiable curiosity, especially-" "Shut UP!"
Overall: 2.5 out of 5. It was mostly written well and stuff, but it was just boring as hell.
If you want to read something else that is boring as hell, visit amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall
