I would never thought there are books like this.
Well, of course I?ve read both Seton Thompson and Durrell, but that's not it. Former plays puppet show over and over again, under the pretence of normal beasts. Latter is amusing, but zeroes in on exoticism way too much.
So what about truth? What about usual routine life of a common fox? What do we know about them, except that they steal chicken while alive and become perfect neckpieces for your coats afterlife?
What do they eat? What do they think and dream of? What are they afraid of and what do they believe in? How do they build relations with their children and do they change their mates often? Can a fox live in a town among people? How do they treat other animals?
That?s what Garry Kilworth?s ?Hunter's Moon? tells us about.
And it doesn?t tell us that exemplarily, or as a schoolbook. You are just reading about a generic family with its joy and grief. The only thing is that characters are foxes, not humans. And they act totally sane ? like beasts, not like some fairy therianthropic people. So the reader shouldn?t exert himself; he just starts thinking like them, he fits on their skin.
Sometimes this book is mentioned as juvenile. That?s a glaring mistake. Its realias are faraway from babyish ideas. Besides, it?s full of episodes and thoughts interesting for adults only.
How do you like a fox supporter of extremal sports, or a philosopher fox? Or a dope fiend vixen, or a religious zealot vixen? Or a vixen who had eventually lost her husband and all her younglings?..
To forgive a sworn enemy and to let him in your home. To pay off old scores with a Chimera of your nightmares. Not too babyish themes, are they? Except perhaps that there isn?t too much naturalism which is so popular in modern action thrillers.
But there are lots of other things in return: romance and peculiar mythology, a special language full of notions unknown to us. Gerflan and hav, Heff and rangfar, Groff and Firstdark, ranz-san and Perfect Here ? these are not just funny sounding words. It?s THEIR world.
And foxes have their own mythology, too ? a very advanced and developed one, with their own gods, heroes and condemned. All that is portrayed so lively, brilliantly and interestingly, that you literally feel it on your own skin.
In sum, this really is a book about foxes. Detailed, but not even a little boring. And it occasionally gives a handle to think about and maybe even reconsider our own life.
