Rating: 
Summary: A SUPERIOR READING
Review: Kathryn Harrison, author of "The Kiss" and "The Binding Chair," underscores her reputation as a writer of compelling fiction with this tale of passion and obsession on the desolate Alaskan frontier. Fred Stella provides a superior reading.It is 1915 when Bigelow, a young scientist, is dispatched to build a weather observatory in Anchorage. He is optimistic and enthusiastic, little realizing what life will be like in an arctic railroad town peopled by men and precious few women. The nights are endless and lonely. Before long he is held sway by a seemingly unknowable woman, Aleut. She is not his only obsession - he designs a kite intended to fly higher than any kite has ever flown. Harrison's recreation of an icy landscape in all its beauty and danger is spectacular. Stella's reading illuminates that world and her words. - Gail Cooke
Rating:
Summary: A SUPERIOR READING
Review: Kathryn Harrison, author of "The Kiss" and "The Binding Chair," underscores her reputation as a writer of compelling fiction with this tale of passion and obsession on the desolate Alaskan frontier. Fred Stella provides a superior reading. It is 1915 when Bigelow, a young scientist, is dispatched to build a weather observatory in Anchorage. He is optimistic and enthusiastic, little realizing what life will be like in an arctic railroad town peopled by men and precious few women. The nights are endless and lonely. Before long he is held sway by a seemingly unknowable woman, Aleut. She is not his only obsession - he designs a kite intended to fly higher than any kite has ever flown. Harrison's recreation of an icy landscape in all its beauty and danger is spectacular. Stella's reading illuminates that world and her words. - Gail Cooke
Rating:
Summary: the triangularity of desire, passion, and obsession
Review: Never afraid to chart the dark sides of passion, obsession and human desire, Kathryn Harrison takes these trademark themes a step further in her latest novel, THE SEAL WIFE. Just as Harrison is known for charting these elements in her novels (there perhaps is not one novel in which she does not dissect these emotions), we are here introduced to a young man who is himself charting elements: the meteorological polarities of WWI-era Alaska for the United States government who wish to utilize Alaska's resources during wartime due to national dearth. In this regard, Harrison takes her usual narrative and thematic interiority and places her protagonist within an exterior setting so strikingly similar to his interior struggles that each balances or belies the other accordingly as the novel progresses. By escaping from the first-person narrative normally employed by the writer, she gives us an objective account of both setting and character, never venturing too far, however, from Bigelow, the protagonist. Her prose is gorgeous in this novel; while THE BINDING CHAIR found her playing more with plot than character, Harrison here seems to return to her more poetic, hypnotic, and captivating style, found particularly in POISON and in her now-infamous memoir, THE KISS. The style of the novel echoes the intensity of Bigelow's character, the swift fluctuations between needing, desiring, and merely wanting to possess. For this is a novel about possession; Bigelow's engulfing passion (bordering on obsession) for the silent Aleut woman grants him the opportunity to conjure her in his mind as he sees fit. Her silence---and the other noted silences within the novel---seems to set off his passion, as though an almost Lothario or Don Juan syndrome is at play, in which the male's pursuit of the female is more satisfying than actually possessing her. Once again, Harrison has created a world in which interiority and exteriority are inextricably linked, a world in which passion rules. Undaunted in her exploration of passion and obsession, most notably their dark and irrational sides, Harrison's novel is certain to entertain and to enlighten those who have ever felt, and then later questioned, the duality of desire. Reviewed by: kris t kahn, Author of ARGUING WITH THE TROUBADOUR: POEMS
Rating:
Summary: the triangularity of desire, passion, and obsession
Review: Never afraid to chart the dark sides of passion, obsession and human desire, Kathryn Harrison takes these trademark themes a step further in her latest novel, THE SEAL WIFE. Just as Harrison is known for charting these elements in her novels (there perhaps is not one novel in which she does not dissect these emotions), we are here introduced to a young man who is himself charting elements: the meteorological polarities of WWI-era Alaska for the United States government who wish to utilize Alaska's resources during wartime due to national dearth. In this regard, Harrison takes her usual narrative and thematic interiority and places her protagonist within an exterior setting so strikingly similar to his interior struggles that each balances or belies the other accordingly as the novel progresses. By escaping from the first-person narrative normally employed by the writer, she gives us an objective account of both setting and character, never venturing too far, however, from Bigelow, the protagonist. Her prose is gorgeous in this novel; while THE BINDING CHAIR found her playing more with plot than character, Harrison here seems to return to her more poetic, hypnotic, and captivating style, found particularly in POISON and in her now-infamous memoir, THE KISS. The style of the novel echoes the intensity of Bigelow's character, the swift fluctuations between needing, desiring, and merely wanting to possess. For this is a novel about possession; Bigelow's engulfing passion (bordering on obsession) for the silent Aleut woman grants him the opportunity to conjure her in his mind as he sees fit. Her silence---and the other noted silences within the novel---seems to set off his passion, as though an almost Lothario or Don Juan syndrome is at play, in which the male's pursuit of the female is more satisfying than actually possessing her. Once again, Harrison has created a world in which interiority and exteriority are inextricably linked, a world in which passion rules. Undaunted in her exploration of passion and obsession, most notably their dark and irrational sides, Harrison's novel is certain to entertain and to enlighten those who have ever felt, and then later questioned, the duality of desire. Reviewed by: kris t kahn, Author of ARGUING WITH THE TROUBADOUR: POEMS
Rating:
Summary: Startling beauty, lonliness and isolation in 1915 Alaska
Review: There's always a feeling of discomfort when reading a Kathryn Harrison book and "The Seal Wife" is no exception. It's set in Alaska in 1915, where winters are long and cold, mosquitoes are plentiful, and there are very few women. And so when Bigelow Greene, age 26, is sent there by the government to set up a weather station in Anchorage, he is lonely and disoriented. There's startling beauty here and a sense of isolation. Bigelow yearns for a woman and soon begins a relationship with a native woman he knows only as "The Aleut". He's completely obsessed with her, and adores her strength, her unpretentious sensuality and complete self-possession. The writing itself is sensual too; from the descriptions of how the woman butchers animals, to the erotic details of their coupling. The fact that she never speaks only adds to his passion for her. When she moves away, he is devastated. Much of the book details this period of his isolation, in which he plunges himself into his work, building a unique kite which holds instruments and carefully measures the weather conditions. His need for a woman is overwhelming though and the reader feels his pain and isolation as he attempts to satisfy his raging feelings. Eventually, he connects with another women, who is also mute. Her other characteristics disgust him however. How this all plays out is fascinating and forced me to continue reading this spare 256-page book all the way through in a very short time. The reader gets to know Bigelow intimately. I felt I was right there with him as he struggled to understand the weather, the landscape and his own emotional needs. There's a constant feeling of isolation and a metaphorical statement about the human condition. It's fascinating. And even though I've come to expect different and innovative settings for Ms. Harrison's novels, this one is unique in focusing entirely on one character's point of view. The result is an unsettling portrait of loneliness and alienation. Naturally I expected an unhappy conclusion. I was wrong. It was a pleasure to be smiling wistfully as I turned the last page.
Rating:
Summary: Startling beauty, lonliness and isolation in 1915 Alaska
Review: There's always a feeling of discomfort when reading a Kathryn Harrison book and "The Seal Wife" is no exception. It's set in Alaska in 1915, where winters are long and cold, mosquitoes are plentiful, and there are very few women. And so when Bigelow Greene, age 26, is sent there by the government to set up a weather station in Anchorage, he is lonely and disoriented. There's startling beauty here and a sense of isolation. Bigelow yearns for a woman and soon begins a relationship with a native woman he knows only as "The Aleut". He's completely obsessed with her, and adores her strength, her unpretentious sensuality and complete self-possession. The writing itself is sensual too; from the descriptions of how the woman butchers animals, to the erotic details of their coupling. The fact that she never speaks only adds to his passion for her. When she moves away, he is devastated. Much of the book details this period of his isolation, in which he plunges himself into his work, building a unique kite which holds instruments and carefully measures the weather conditions. His need for a woman is overwhelming though and the reader feels his pain and isolation as he attempts to satisfy his raging feelings. Eventually, he connects with another women, who is also mute. Her other characteristics disgust him however. How this all plays out is fascinating and forced me to continue reading this spare 256-page book all the way through in a very short time. The reader gets to know Bigelow intimately. I felt I was right there with him as he struggled to understand the weather, the landscape and his own emotional needs. There's a constant feeling of isolation and a metaphorical statement about the human condition. It's fascinating. And even though I've come to expect different and innovative settings for Ms. Harrison's novels, this one is unique in focusing entirely on one character's point of view. The result is an unsettling portrait of loneliness and alienation. Naturally I expected an unhappy conclusion. I was wrong. It was a pleasure to be smiling wistfully as I turned the last page.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect
Review: What more is there to say? As I read it, I forgot a person had created it. The events and characters are so real. I'm having difficulty putting my feelings about this book into words. It's as if the book existed without an author; her presence is nowhere felt, but everything that happens in the book is intensely true. I was particularly touched by the ending. I enjoyed Harrison's book "The Binding Chair," too, but it was more realistic and more obviously "written." This one seems dreamed.
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