Overview
In a huge, dark forest somewhere in the north, a round, rather simple hedgehog called Pork emerges from a pile of leaves in the night... and sets in motion this powerful - and unusual - collection of animal stories for adults.
There is mystery and terror in the great woodland, and there is love. It is a world where fear and death and the survival of the fittest are the pitiless underlying themes. Though they are loosely linked, the stories are written to be read as separate tales, usually with a single main character: an ugly, love-lost squirrel, a wantonly savage stoat, a bat, a veteran hare running before the hounds. They are suspense thrillers or romantic interludes, pure adventure narratives, even horror stories; they all draw us deep into the stern forest through the elements we share with the animals - cold and dark, rain and sun, suspicion, loyalty, the need for warmth and the safety of shelter - above all, the feeling that, even in a world where death is inevitable, there is always enough to make life worth living.
The style is clear, straightforward, often very simple, but there is passion as well as knowledge in the book. It brings the wild creates fiercely to life, in a disturbing way, with menace and unease - but vividly, in a literary debut of great imaginative strength.
"A collection of finely wrought stories. Freddi's imagination is so special and so powerful, his writing so clean and masterly that we are left quite impressed, quite satisfied and wanting more." - San Francisco Chronicle
"Cleverly imagined and beautifully realised." - Newsday
"Manhattan is a picnic compared to the paranoia engendered in this forest. Freddi's literary debut is wondrous in its own way, affectingly terrifying and, above all, strange." - Los Angeles Herald Examiner
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781908556134 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Apostrophe Books Ltd |
| Publication date: | 02/16/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 192 |
| File size: | 538 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Excerpt: “Somewhere in the damp deciduous north there was a forest like any other, a place where the animals could walk and talk and sometimes die, and wake up too soon during hibernation.”
Latest reviews:
“There continue to be writers who follow their own imaginative paths. Such a writer is Cris Freddi, young British author of Pork and Others, a flawlessly written collection of short stories in which forest animals are the only characters, often speaking to each other as eloquently as humans, while they struggle with the dangerous conditions of their world. We see through the eyes of these animals, and Freddi’s skill is such that we never doubt their reality, be they snakes or dormice, bats or otters, birds or deer. But at the same time, these characters aren’t animals at all. They are heroes, lovers, monsters and murderers, their battle with death so relentless and fraught with treachery that it transcends the mere struggle for survival. These characters fascinate, sometimes frighten, frequently compel. … The work as a whole is darkly lustrous, beautifully written, rich. It is a collection of finely wrought stories, and Freddi’s imagination is so special and so powerful, his writing so clean and masterly that we are left quite impressed, quite satisfied, and wanting more of his work.” - Anne Rice, San Francisco Chronicle
“Pork is just what I thought (and hoped) it would be. I wish I could have written something like this – but I didn’t, and now I’m sure I can’t. These aren’t parables, though the psychological resonance of waking too soon, of having a trick of the blood interrupt the peace and safety of a winter’s hibernation, reminds me of something frightening and essential in the human condition – though what it is, I can’t quite say. That’s part of the remarkable control and wit of Pork – just when you think Cris Freddi is about to forge the link between his creatures of the forest and we bipeds with books, he submerges his story deeper into the leaf and muck and weather of the forest … Porkproves yet again the uniqueness of the art of fiction: Cris Freddi has made up a universe of his own in order to brilliantly illuminate the one we all share.” - Scott Spencer, author of Endless Love
“Astounding…it makes you feel as if he really knows animals. The writing is clear, simple, it has perfect lucidity…Incredibly sensitive, a totally unsentimental insight into animals, which is to say that one believes every word of it.” - Alice Adams
“An imaginative coup.” - Richard Wilbur
“Animals are the characters in this strange but oddly captivating collection of stories. Freddi examines the lives of denizens of the forest, but he does so without patronizing cuteness or whimsey. In these 11 tales nature is randomly cruel, bloodshed and death are omnipresent. A stoat kills a crow and a family of badgers before being itself attacked by a huge pike which has demolished a shoal of roach; the killers finish each other off. Freddi’s remarkable achievement is to convey the personalities of the various creatures in an unsentimental, straightforward manner, through their speech and through the instinctive behaviour characteristic of each species. Although we never forget we are reading about animals, the stories take on other dimensions as well: one is a classic suspense mystery, another has the theme of a Greek tragedy, some are exciting adventure narratives…Freddi’s curious imagination, meticulous observation and empathetic insight make him an author to watch.” - Publishers Weekly
“Pork, by Cris Freddi, is a very good book. So careful is Freddi’s eye in surveying his northern swatch of nature; so particular his words in describing its forests, soils, and mountains, all constitutions of weather and seasons, all sensate responses to growth, color, odors and decay; so content his mood with the laws that cause both life and death…Pork is not fantasy. It is deadly realistic…Half the skill and most of the entertainment of this book is that its characters are sharply drawn personalities…That this book is not oppressively morbid is its triumph…such humor, such tiny, sharply etched gestures of caring, of hope, of sweet premeditation, assure the reader that, though death may rule at its parameters, life after all is an opportunity, and each being has some say in how might be lived.” - Walter Wangerin Jnr, Washington Post
“Fascinating as someone else’s nightmare…The book of related tales defies analogy on several levels, first because it is neither a novel nor a collection of stories…The edgy, uncomfortable feeling this book gives one has a positive flip side in a weird spellbinding quality, much the same quality that forces drivers to examine squashed animals on the road as they cruise by. The chattiness of the characters, set off by their lurking murderousness, creeps up until the wary reader can trust no character. Manhattan is a picnic compared to the paranoia engendered in this forest. Freddi’s literary debut is wondrous in its own way, and affectingly terrifying, and above all, strange. Do not read it while eating dinner.” - Los Angeles Herald Examiner
“Animals move through a forest that is honorably conveyed in its intricacy as in its scale. Simple passages of precise description move these stories like a current, and lead us unsuspecting to the rapids of plot…Each story pulses with the anticipation of violence, and the attacks are as artfully staged as anything in Jack London…Freddi skirts most of the cliches about woodland creatures, and therefore keeps these tales from settling into the transcendental seagull groove. His animals have tangible feelings and loyalties, a finely honed social sense…It is Golding cum Tolkien, with a dash or Darwin and not a trace of Blake.” - The Village Voice
“The English writer Cris Freddi has created a gallery of believable animal characters who, though they speak in the language of human beings, express themselves as wild creatures might do. The reader puts down the volume believing that he has seen the forest as the animals see it. These stories are cleverly imagined and beautifully realized…it is impossible not to admire the writer’s talent. Even readers immune to the allure of Watership Down and Jonathan Livingstone Seagull will be impressed by the skill reflected in these brilliant, unsentimental tales.” - Newsday