Shaman (novel)

Lore & Background

The novel begins with Loon, a boy from a tribe called the Wolf Pack, being stripped naked and sent into a lonely valley to survive alone for two weeks as a test of manhood. Despite a rainstorm, he succeeds in starting a fire, killing animals for food, and making clothing. During his trial he encounters Neanderthals (called 'the Old Ones') who attack him, and he injures a leg while escaping, an injury that troubles him for the rest of the story. He completes his trial and returns to the Wolf Pack, at which point it is revealed he is just twelve years old.

Loon is raised by Thorn, the Wolf Pack's shaman, who teaches him about the spirit world, stories of his people, and practical survival skills. Thorn is a wise but crotchety master who flicks Loon's ears when he makes mistakes. Another prominent member is Heather, a wise woman skilled in medicine. Every summer the Wolf Pack attends a festival called the 'eight eight' where local bands meet to dance, share stories, and shamans corroborate astronomical observations. At one such festival, Loon meets Elga, and they fall in love, marry, and have a child, against Thorn's belief that shamans must not marry.

At the next year's festival, Elga is abducted by men from a northern tribe called the Jende. Loon follows but is also captured. They are taken far north to the foot of the great ice cap on the shores of the Great Salt Sea, where the Jende use captive slaves. Pippiloette escapes and returns to the Wolf Pack. Thorn enlists the help of Click, a Neanderthal who has befriended the Wolf Pack after Heather gave him medical aid. Thorn and Click travel hundreds of miles north, rescue Loon and Elga in a surprise attack, and the four travel back. Click dies near home, and Thorn reluctantly decides they must eat his body to survive. After returning, Thorn is haunted by Click's ghost. Loon later paints animals in a cave, gets lost in the dark for four days, and is rescued. The novel ends with Loon training his son to be a shaman, flicking his ears when he misremembers things.

Reader's Guide

Shaman is significant as a work of historical fiction that imagines life during the Ice Age from the perspective of early modern humans. The novel's setting is 32,000 years ago in what is now southern France, and the cave where Thorn and Loon paint is the Chauvet Cave, a recently rediscovered site of impressive cave art. In the final chapter, Loon paints the fighting rhinoceroses and the four horse heads that can be seen on the walls of the actual cave. The novel received mixed reviews: Publishers Weekly called it 'entertaining but slight,' Kirkus Reviews described it as 'richly detailed but with a disappointingly modest plot,' while National Public Radio praised the vividness of the setting. Writing in The New Yorker, Tim Kreider described it as one of Robinson's lesser novels, criticizing its depiction of Ice Age society as less savage and alien than evidence suggests. The book explores themes of shamanic training, human-Neanderthal interaction, and the transmission of knowledge across generations.

Did You Know?

• The novel's setting is 32,000 years ago in what is now southern France, as stated by the author.
• The cave where Thorn and Loon paint is the Chauvet Cave, a recently rediscovered site of impressive cave art.
• In the final chapter, Loon paints the fighting rhinoceroses and the four horse heads that can be seen on the walls of the actual cave.
• The Neanderthals in the novel are called 'the Old Ones' by the Wolf Pack.