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A review by doriastories
A Kayak Full of Ghosts: Eskimo Folk Tales by Lawrence Millman
3.0
How to write a review for a book which represents a marvelous achievement in folklore, yet whose content is so disturbing that I could only read a few pages at a time? Millman has done a great service in collecting and assembling and publishing these tales from Inuit tradition (he uses the term "Eskimo"). He even provides provenance for each and every tale, most of which he collected personally from their tellers, in itself a tremendous achievement.
However, these are not stories you'll want to read before bedtime. Recurrent motifs of murder, dismemberment, cannibalism, sexual taboos violated stalk the stories, which are retold very simply, without any form of flowery language. The descriptions are as stark as the arctic setting, and the style is unsentimental, to say the least. Happy endings are rare; lessons invariably learned the hard way. If you are looking for "scary stories" to tell at a haunted house, you've struck gold. But make sure that you and your audience have strong stomachs and are not easily rattled by disturbing material.
However, these are not stories you'll want to read before bedtime. Recurrent motifs of murder, dismemberment, cannibalism, sexual taboos violated stalk the stories, which are retold very simply, without any form of flowery language. The descriptions are as stark as the arctic setting, and the style is unsentimental, to say the least. Happy endings are rare; lessons invariably learned the hard way. If you are looking for "scary stories" to tell at a haunted house, you've struck gold. But make sure that you and your audience have strong stomachs and are not easily rattled by disturbing material.