The Gathering Night

Margaret Elphinstone, the Scottish writer, kept me spellbound with her novel The Gathering Night, which I read for the Scottish Literature Challenge. I paid a lot for the paperback and when I opened the book, I realized why. It's not published in the U.S. but in Canada.

In any event, the read was well worth it. Elphinstone cast a spell over me. She creates a vibrant world during the time of Mesolithic Scotland, back when the country's inhabitants lived close to the sea and were hunter-gatherers living in tribal clans. What I loved most about her rendering was the society of the Auk people and how they lived so closely, so in tune, to every living and non-living thing in the natural world.

Now, as I walk in the woods around me, I find myself spiritually in tune with Haizea, Amets, Kemen, and Nekane, a few of the main characters. The Animal Spirits. The Grandmother Mountain spirits. The whole concept of the Go-Between, who were very special people that traveled between the spirit world and the world of the living.

I also enjoyed the intricate details of the Auk People's hunting and food gathering. It seems such a good life in Elphinstone's telling that one wonders why people ever settled down to one place and took up agriculture. Supposedly, according to historians, it was a more stable and secure lifestyle, but I don't think it was, not really. Your thoughts?