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Lawrence Norfolk
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In the Shape of a Boar Kindle Edition

by Lawrence Norfolk (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.1 out of 5 stars 11 ratings
“One of the year’s most imaginative and challenging novels” from the acclaimed author of John Saturnall’s Feast (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).
 
Lawrence Norfolk’s In the Shape of a Boar is a juggernaut of a novel, an epic tour de force of love and betrayal, ancient myths and modern horrors. The story begins in the ancient world of mythic Greece, where a dark tale of treachery and destructive love unfolds amid the hunt for the Boar of Kalydon—a tale that will reverberate in those same hills across the millennia in the final chaotic months of World War II, as a band of Greek partisans pursues an S.S. officer on a mission of vengeance. After the war, a young Jewish Romanian refugee, Solomon Memel, who was among the hunters will create a poem based on the experience, which becomes an international literary sensation. But the truth of what happened in the hills of Kalydon in 1945 is more complicated than it seems, and as the older Sol reunites with his childhood love in 1970s Paris, the dark memories and horrors of those days will emerge anew.
 
“An epic achievement . . . stitching together classical Greek culture and twentieth-century barbarism, the nature of human evil and the ambiguity of storytelling itself . . . Dazzling.”—San Francisco Chronicle
 
“Brilliant and exhaustively researched . . . In the Shape of a Boar is a Herculean task accomplished with bravado and style, but more than that, it’s storytelling of the highest echelon.”—The Hartford Courant
 
“Wonderfully complex . . . a fascinating story built from layered narrative lines.”—The Washington Post Book World
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  1. Reading age
    12 years and up
  2. Print length
    400 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Grove Press
  5. Publication date
    June 30, 2012
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  9. ISBN-13
    978-0802193674
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this novel, which begins in myth-shrouded ancient Greece and ends on a Paris film set, the boar of the title takes many shapes: first it is a savage animal, then an SS colonel during WWII, then the symbol of competitiveness between writers, then history itself. A complex vision binds the threads of the novel together and simultaneously defines each metaphorical strain. The book's first half takes place in ancient Greece, where a band of hunters chase after a mythical boar, their quest complicated by internal romantic and psychological struggles. Footnotes are sprinkled liberally throughout this section, detailing the location of relics or giving textual references, and occasionally tediously crowding out the actual text. The book then jumps to the contemporary story of poet Solomon Memel, a German Jew who was imprisoned in a Nazi labor camp during WWII, switching between tales of Solomon's life before the war, descriptions of his wartime torture and interrogation, vignettes from the his postwar literary career, and stories from the making of a film. The film's subject is the hunt for the boar described in the first section of the novel, which in turn is revealed to be Solomon's first published book, an allegory based on his wartime experiences. The footnotes in the first section, it turns out, are the responses of a fictional scholar to the work, designed to prove it historically inaccurate. Throughout, the book maintains a confidence and poetic cadence that pushes it forward, giving gravity to every event. Figures like Atalanta, a Greek huntress whose thirst for the Boar of Kalydon gives her unquestioned allure, or Solomon, perpetually persecuted and searching for a way to express himself, are timeless while also believably vulnerable. Norfolk's new work is a challenging and exhilarating read, matching his first two novels the critically acclaimed LempriŠre's Dictionary and The Pope's Rhinoceros in intellectual reach, and surpassing them in storytelling passion and intensity.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Declared Best Young British Novelist in 1993 and winner of the Somerset Maugham Prize for Lempriere's Dictionary, an international best seller, Norfolk would seem to have it made. His ambitious third novel ranges from ancient Greece, where mighty hunters track a wild boar, to a search by Greek partisans for an S.S. field commander, which has reverberations in 1970s Paris.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B008HRM8US
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Grove Press (June 30, 2012)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 30, 2012
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2.3 MB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 out of 5 stars 11 ratings

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Lawrence Norfolk

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4.1 out of 5 stars
11 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Mary Whipple
    5.0 out of 5 stars Erudite and intellectually exhausting.
    Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2001
    This is a Very Serious Work, one that cannot be read (or summarized) quickly without doing it an injustice. A newly created, "classical" epic for the first hundred pages, it has larger than life heroes from Greek mythology fighting great, ancient battles in which the survival of a culture is at stake. King Meleager of Kalydon, the lone huntress Atalanta, her dog Aura, and her cousin Meilanion are, with sixty other hunters, trying to conquer a ferocious boar unleashed upon the country by the angry goddess Artemis. As the other hunters fall prey to jealousies, duplicities, and betrayals, these three alone face the final battle, the outcome of which is never clear.

    The rest of the book tells parallel stories from three 20th century time frames, involving modern characters whose lives involve similar battles with "the boar" and what it represents. Solomon Memel, Ruth Lackner, and Jakob Feuerstein are teenage friends in Romania in 1938, when the Russians and, soon afterward, the Nazis, occupy the country, create ghettos, and bring the Holocaust. In 1952, Solomon publishes a poem, "Die Keilerjagd," in which he describes his World War II experiences with partisans in Greece, paralleling the boar hunt of the ancient heroes, as they chase a Nazi field commander through the same mountains in the war's waning days. Some years later, when Sol is 49 and a heroic icon to schoolchildren, Ruth, a successful theater figure, decides to make a film of his poem and experiences, and the accuracy of his poem and memory are challenged publicly. Sol's battles to fill the gaps in his memory and to recall uncertain events represent yet another battle with the boar.

    Time is flexible here, filtered through the consciousness of Sol, as memories from all three time periods crowd his life in no particular order, and he recollects one event after another, perhaps imperfectly. Norfolk does not always dot all the I's and cross all the T's as Sol tells his story, requiring the reader to bring his/her own consciousness to the interpretation of events, and, like Sol, to keep an open mind to alternative interpretations. His concern with myths, both ancient and modern, how they are created, what they reveal about human needs, how they reflect reality, and why they are perpetuated give tremendous impact and broad scope to his several stories. The hypnotic, musical cadences and the elaborate, minutely detailed descriptions lend a weightiness appropriate to an epic. The action is intense, the themes are universal, and the scope of the author's vision seems almost limitless. This is a slow, but ultimately rewarding, reading experience, sometimes requiring the reader to fight his/her own battle with the boar. Mary Whipple
    27 people found this helpful
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  • Alan A. Elsner
    1.0 out of 5 stars Very strange and incomprehensible
    Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    I found this book frankly unreadable - which doesn't happen to me that often. The first section seems to be an accumulation of citations from ancient myths - each footnoted - adding up to some kind of melded narrative. But despite my efforts to retain enough interest to keep reading, I ultimately had to admit that I was getting nothing out of this book. I was totally unengaged and mystified about what the author was trying to do.

    Maybe others experienced it differently. But this is my experience.
    8 people found this helpful
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  • dinadan26
    5.0 out of 5 stars The hunting of the boar
    Reviewed in the United States on June 13, 2006
    Wow. This is a book which I picked up pretty much on spec. The description on the back sounded intriguing and it was on sale. And then it sat on my bookshelf for a long time waiting to be read. And now that I have finished I am somewhat dazed, uncertain as to what exactly I have just read. But I have given this story five stars, why? Because it is so rare for a book to leave me thinking - what was that really about, what was I supposed to take from this story, I understand some of what the author was trying to convey but part of me thinks I missed something very important.

    In the shape of the boar is essentially a story in two parts. The first a poetic retelling of the greek myth of the hunting of Kaldyon boar heavily footnoted and referenced to original sources, the second half being the tale of the a middle aged Jewish author in the seventies, observing an old friend turn his poem covering the hunting of said boar into a movie. As the author interacts with his childhood friend who has lived many years in America he remembers his youth in Romania, his fleeing the Nazi's overland to Greece, his time with a partisan unit and then his participation in the hunt of a senior Nazi officer which forms the basis of his poem. Or does it? Did the events that he describe really happen, or as another childhood friend would accuse years later, was the officer just a minor official who died elsewhere.

    In the end I take this book to be a meditation on the urge to survive, the need for heroic myths in time of upheavals and the banality of evil in the lack of a true monster. If you are looking for something challenging and very intelligent I would recommend "In the shape of a Boar"
    9 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Pikeperch
    4.0 out of 5 stars Gripping and challenging
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 11, 2005
    Verified Purchase
    I was almost put off this book by some of the very negative comments on this site and am very glad that I ignored them. The story ranges over millennia, from Greek myth to the near past and effectively interweaves them. Lawrence Norfolk has the ability to create powerful and lingering images through his erudition and use of language.
    The first section is heavily footnoted. Many of these references are of academic interest only but others expand upon the sources and open up the mythical background, in addition to reinforcing the plot later in the book. Rather than tiresome, as described by some reviewers, I found the footnotes also added to the journey undertaken by the protagonists in the tale, the notes becoming clues and tracks to echo the hunters' progress. It makes for a halting read at times (but then a hunt would also be halting as the trail progresses) but then the pace accelerates and one is propelled inexorably towards the quarry.
    Film and the creation of a movie forms part of the plot and indeed this book reminds me of the sort of high quality foreign film that is not afraid to challenge it's audience and leave them thinking. Excellent
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