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I learned of this book through a recommendation in an interview from Terry Pratchett - author recommendations still being a better way of discovering new books than any algorithm I've met, even if they do occasionally go awry and leave you reading Jonathan Carroll.
Anyway, the central conceit here is that mainstay of historical comedy - the people in the past are aware of our terms for and perspective on their period. So the narrator's father is given to grand speeches about how the family are o I learned of this book through a recommendation in an interview from Terry Pratchett - author recommendations still being a better way of discovering new books than any algorithm I've met, even if they do occasionally go awry and leave you reading Jonathan Carroll.
So the narrator's father is given to grand speeches about how the family are on the verge of making it from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic, and so forth.
And, given how much of this could almost serve as a school primer on prehistory, that really shouldn't be as funny as it is. I think the secret may be the terribly fifties British tone of the narration. I read the presentation on the back cover of the italian edition, and I've been hooked ever since. Do you understand Italian? Who cares. The bottom line is: it's great.
It's Darwin meeting Monty Python. Father, the clan leader, is the proto-politician, bringing his family into the most modern of the worlds, no matter what. Yes, sometimes he is annoying. The family comply, with the exception of uncle Vania. The clan takes into the discovery of fire for the household , modern cuisine elephant bbq , warfare from spears to bows , arts, fashion and foreign politics. Then you put down the book a second to look at the news on tv and the only difference you can see is in the outfit of the spokesperson.
This should be in everybody's library View 2 comments. That's about all you need to know to decide whether you want to read the book. Fans of Pratchett will and non-fans won't. It tells the story of a typical Stone Age family. Using a peculiar irony Roy Lewis writes a story on the origins of humanity able to be at the same time light and very perceptive. What a strange little book! This was recommended to me by a friend, who found the overall conceit and voice of the book essentially, self-aware "cave men" actively working to push sub-humanity forward in the style of a British comedy of manners- or something adjacent.
I have a fondness for such a style and was positively disposed to like this text. The text is occasionally funny, and Roy Lewis' portrayal of these cave men and their deliberate quest for technological progress or not is vaguel What a strange little book! The text is occasionally funny, and Roy Lewis' portrayal of these cave men and their deliberate quest for technological progress or not is vaguely amusing.
On the whole, however, I found that, though there were sometimes funny or clever lines, the text was generally just Not Funny Enough. Some clever phrases or jokes punctuate the work, but overall my impression of the humor was the sort of patient smile or laugh you give to something that isn't actually very good.
The text is also seriously dated and a clear artifact of its time. Though clearly not meant to be taken seriously being, as it is, basically a satire , the cave men are presented according to very clear, very obvious, and very tedious Anglo-American gender roles plucked straight from the s.
Cave "men" being the key here, because, although there are women in the text, they are very clearly secondary actors. This type of thing is plainly anachronistic: it is nonsense on its face that humanoids in the Pleistocene would be behaving according to gender roles from the s, but this aspect might be forgiven if the text were saying something intelligent with that construct.
Instead, we are treated to male characters who have agency, and female characters who are implicitly raped. It's difficult to find this funny, not least since it isn't. This book isn't terrible, but it isn't particularly good, and I don't know to whom or why I would recommend it. Oct 24, Laurence R. I absolutely hated how impossible everything in this book was. The story itself and the characters weren't too bad, but everything else happens so much quicker than it really did and the way they speak is so different from the way they spoke at this moment that I always felt the need to point out every difference and it made my reading experience awful.
I'm not one to hate books generally, but I would never reread this one. View all 3 comments. This is a book about cavemen on the inexorable march toward technological, cultural, and moral progress.
They invent flint strikes and feathered arrows, capitalism and exogamy. And now this! Edward, if ever I warned you before, if ever I begged you, as your elder brother, to think again before you continued on your catastrophic course, to amend your life before it involved you and yours in irretrievable disaster, let me say now, with tenfold emphasis: Stop!
Certainly a turning point in the ascent of man, but is it the? It affects everybody. Even me. You might burn down the forest with it. Control of technology, it turns out, has been an issue for quite some time. Fire proves a lovely innovation, enabling the family to wrest a cozy cave from a band of bears, but it takes quite some effort at first.
Each time the fire goes out, Edward has to hike up to the top of the nearest volcano to light a new torch and convey the flame, stage by stage, back to the cave. The family is happy to enjoy the comfort and safety of the cave and fire, but Edward is ever restless. He sees only one direction in which to move: forward. He is ever mindful of the evolutionary imperative:. I tell you we must train out this instinctual tendency to revert to quadrupedal locomotion.
Unless that is lost all is lost! Our hands, our brains, everything! We started walking upright back in the Miocene, and if you think I am going to tolerate the destruction of millions of years of progress by a parcel of idle wenches, you are mistaken. This zeal for progress eventually leads Edward to gather his older sons, including Oswald, and lead them away from the cave.
Edward sets his sons in search of mates, at the threat of a run-through with his trusty spear. Release 03 November Search for a digital library with this title Search by city, ZIP code, or library name Learn more about precise location detection. View more libraries Edward, the leader of his horde, recognises that his species is standing on the threshold of a major phase in their evolution, but his steadfast commitment to progress brings him into conflict with his family, including the reactionary Uncle Vanya and his sons, who want to keep his inventions for themselves instead of sharing them.
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