Author: Megan Lindholm (also knowns as Robin Hobb)

Title: The Reindeer People - Part One of a two-book sequence

Published: 1988

Not available in Finnish.

 

A friend recommended me this series after she heard I've read The Farseer Trilogy, and she lent me both books of this series. She praised these books a lot, and since I also loved the The Farseer Trilogy, my expectations on this book are pretty high!

The story is about a healer called Tillu, and her son, Kerlew. They are staying with a hunter-gatherer- like group, and the shaman of that group, Carp, wants Kerlew to be his apprentice, and Tillu his wife. Tillu doesn't like such ideas, and makes up a plan to leave the group and Carp. She's worried over her strange son, who is greatly affected by Carp and his words and ideas. Kerlew is often judged as a half-witted, clumsy boy, but as my friend said, he seems more authistic than anything else. The symptoms seem to fit, but of course, no character in the book has knowledge of something like authisism. So Kerlew is teased, mocked, and beaten for forgetting things and in general "doing things wrong". Tillu wants to protect him from such behaviour, and even though Carp is friendly with her son, she still dislikes him, thinking the shaman is only stealing her son from the world he should live in. What is scary about Kerlew is that he sometimes pronounces things that eventually will happen, prophecies.

Eventually Tillu leaves, heading north. They face much trouble, scarce food and much cold, but finally they camp - and without knowing it, they are really close to a village of reindeer herders. Tillu meets two of them while hunting for food. One of the men is injured by an arrow, and Tillu heals him. The men are Lasse (the injured one) and Heckram, a man who feels sympathy towards Kerlew and tries to teach him things like carving and hunting.

The reindeer people are without a healer, and so when the villagers hear of her, many seek for her help. Tillu fails only once, when Heckram's wife Elsa has been mutilated, and Tillu tries to heal her but in vain. 

Elsa's death angers Heckram, because he thinks he knows who caused her condition, but there's nothing he can do. He has no proof....

Okay, I think that's enough of the plot, without spoiling too much. Now. The narrative was absorbing, the language is used beautifully (and there were words from language that could be Sami, perhaps), and the suspension of the plot made me want to skip some pages just to know what is going to happen - that tense was the suspension. I have nothing bad to say about the book or its characters, only that I share Tillu's thoughts about Carp and a reindeer herder called Joboam, and Kerlew kind of a scares me with his powers.

I have nothing more to say. Can't wait for the second part!

 

Started: Feb 7, 2011

Finished: Feb 9, 2011

Recommended for: all Robin Hobb- fans, all those interested in history of this period.