A review by e_austin
The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth

5.0

Last night I finished my journey through this novel. It contains a story of brutality and overwhelming sadness, conveyed in a shadow tongue quite removed from modern English.

Within this context, Kingsnorth perceptively examines humanity through lenses of history, religion, language, and relationships. The prose, in its starkness, brings a world removed from us by a millennium into sometimes beautiful, sometimes painful focus. I have seldom felt so united with the past, even as differences became acutely visible.

While it is a challenging book in several ways, The Wake is also very rewarding.