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Wildlife photographer Beryl Findham joins an all-male expedition to northern Canada to photograph polar bears. During the location shoot, the team becomes stranded on the frozen tundra wastes of the Hudson Bay. Beryl and her fellow colleagues must adapt to the brutal conditions if they are to survive in the wild. National ads/media.
Beryl holds an ice cube in her hand as she sits in her closet. The air is humid with the slow heat of August. The water from the ice drips steadily down her arm. Her palm hurts from the cold. She holds the ice, trying to imagine herself in temperatures of thirty and forty below. She tries to see herself sitting outside in a metal cage, a cage too small to move around in to keep warm.
The wind blows. All sound echoes close and loud. Snow shivers across the ground. She sits, her legs crossed. The only warmth for miles around is contained in the heavy arms of the white bears that mill about her cage, curious, strong and hungry. The snow squeaks beneath their feet. Pale mist blows at her from their black mouths. The bears push their wide white faces forward, against the cage. They suck in her smell, snort out. Steam touches her skin. Her face, like their beards, is covered with frost -- it's moisture from their breath, from her breath.
She understands that if the cage fails in any way, they will kill her. They'll reach in, rip the biceps from her flailing arms, the bowels from her belly, the tendons from her neck. They'll bite and tear, swallow. Her body will jerk at first beneath their strength, then slowly slacken. Her neck will roll back for their touch as though for a kiss.
Her eyes watch, dark and small, like theirs.
The ice cube makes the bones of her hand ache.
The Cage. Copyright © by Audrey Schulman. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
Anonymous
Posted October 14, 2002
I thought this book was good except for the fact that it had a bad ending. I didn't think that the ending was very complete. It needs more of a finish. I enjoyed the specific details. They brought me deeper into the book's purpose. I also enjoyed the romance that occurs during their traveling. What I didn't think was very thought out was the fact that the book ended with a sad ending. There was too much death.
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Posted June 7, 2000
Not a great book, not even suspenseful.The book has a rhymth that the author perhaps thought was poetic.Author's idea of characterization was to pile up endless amount of back stories, anecdotes, incidents about the main character Beryl.It became pointless and very tiring after a while.These back stories/details have nothing to do with the drama except take up space and giving the book a sense of being out of focus.After a while, you wish the author would get on with the story.No more about what happened to Beryl when she was five or the mechanics of taking a good photograph!It was as if we are hearing about Beryl from some third person.Schulman doesn't give us Beryl at face value.There's very little dialogue.Whatever dialogue the characters spew out is stiff and awkward.Some of it, clearly,more a product of the author's exhaustive research into her topic than anything that would come out of the mouths of well drawn characters.There is absolutely no drama at all except for two incidents.Beryl got lost in Churchill in a snow storm in a somewhat contrived scene that was not in anyway believable.The end of the book where the crew found themselves in danger was threadbare.Building suspense is a bit tricky.It is a question of chosing the right details and the presentation of those details.The final drama is well described but doesn't build up correctly.It's flat.There's no suspense,no danger.There's more heart pounding excitement in a six page Jack London story than in this whole book.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted December 9, 1999
The Cage was given to me as a gift for my birthday in 1999. Initially I was set off by the covers icee look and feel and unsure of what the 'cage' could have been. However, as soon as the main characters tale began, I too was entranced and enthralled by the cage's potential for danger, yet opportunity for the greatest adventure of the main character's life, as well as my own! Great read, highly recommended.
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Posted September 22, 2012
No text was provided for this review.
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