FARLEY MOWAT, 1921-2014

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I've been hearing this story for hours now, and hadn't gotten around to posting it. I guess i didn't really want to think about. Farley Mowat, an internationally renowned environmentalist, and a very successful author, died today, just a week short of his 93 birthday. His writing is not great literature, but he was a superb story teller. I was introduced to him by reading Never Cry Wolf. Then i read The Serpent's Coil, a gripping story from a master story teller--and one which happens to be true. He served in Italy in the Second World War, and tells a mild version of that nightmare in My Father's Son. He tells of his childhood in Born Naked. He has two great stories for adolescents--Lost in the Barrens and The Viking Grave. Speaking of vikings, he also wrote a thorough analysis of the Norse in North America, entitled Westviking. Scandinavian critics panned it, but that was largely because he did not rely on the standard linguistic analyses of the sagas. But Gwyn Jones, then the reigning expert on Norse sagas in the English language, whose important book, The Norse Atlantic Saga came out juts before Farley's book, had nothing but praise. He also then wrote a speculative work on the Albans (also sometimes called the Picts, although the Albans were a blend of Picts and the natives of Scotland when the Picts arrived 2000 years ago), entitled The Farfarers (published in the UK as The Alban Quest). It sets for the thesis (very speculative) that the Albans reached Iceland, Greenland and North America long before the Norse.

For as controversial as some of his ideas have been, all of his works have been masterworks of story-telling. I, for one, will grieve for the loss of him.

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@Setanta,

Not a word in the press here, I think I read Never Cry Wolf a million years ago.

Joe(I'm going to go find the Farfarers.)Nation

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@Joe Nation,

Me too, reading it a million years ago.
I'm glad to know all this, however late I'm learning, and will keep my eye out for his books.

Meantime, RIP, Farley Mowat.

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Suddenly I feel old. Mowatt, along with Roy Chapman Andrews, were the two authors of my childhood's imagination.

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@Setanta,

I think my heart broke a little bit with the news of Farley Mowat's death.

He meant a lot to me in a lot of ways. He wrote books I liked as a child, as a young adult and as, well, an older adult. He lived in a part of Ontario that I think of as home. He donated Vagabond to the Canadian Canoe Museum. He had interesting things to say on pretty much anything that happened. He was just interviewed on the radio last week about the plan to put WIFI into national parks. He didn't think that was a good idea.

I witnessed (maybe) something that is referenced here

http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/farley-mowat-dead-at-92-1.2634772

Quote:

"Heaven knows he believed in the causes he adopted — and often they were unfashionable causes like the people of the North or animals or fish," according to his former publisher Doug Gibson.

"He was feisty, a fiery guy," who might tease about lifting his kilt at parties, Gibson recalled.

"He was small in stature, but a giant when it came to courage and the big issues."

In the late 1960's or perhaps 1970, the hamburgers and I went to NYC. We saw the sights, saw the shows ... including a taping of the David Susskind Show and a taping of To Tell the Truth. Farley was a guest on To Tell the Truth - and offered to show what he wore under his kilt. I've blocked out what happened next Very Happy

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@ehBeth,

I've read more and less of Farley Mowat than I'd thought - because he wrote more than I'd realized.

People of the Deer (1952; revised 1975) ISBN 0-89190-818-8

The Regiment (1955) ISBN 0-7710-6575-2

Lost in the Barrens (1956) ISBN 0-553-27525-9

The Dog Who Wouldn't Be (1957) ISBN 0-553-27928-9

Coppermine Journey: An Account of a Great Adventure (1958)

Grey Seas Under: The Perilous Rescue Missions of a North Atlantic Salvage Tug (1959) LCC 58-11440

The Desperate People (1959; revised 1999) LCC 59-13733

Ordeal by Ice (1960)

Owls in the Family (1961) LCC 62-7169

The Serpent's Coil: An Incredible Story of Hurricane-Battered ships the Heroic Men Who Fought to Save Them (1961)

The Black Joke (1962) LCC 63-13462

Never Cry Wolf (1963) LCC 63-19169 filmed in 1983 ISBN 1-55890-281-3

West-Viking (1965) LCC 65-20746

The Curse of the Viking Grave (1966) ISBN 0-553-27525-9

Canada North (1967)

The Polar Passion (1967)

This Rock Within the Sea: A Heritage Lost (1968) LCC 69-12137

The Boat Who Wouldn't Float (1969) ISBN 0-553-27788-X

The Siberians (1970) ISBN 0-14-003456-0

Sibir: My Discovery of Siberia (1970)

A Whale for the Killing (1972, revised 2012) ISBN 978-1-77100-028-4

Tundra: Selections from the Great Accounts of Arctic Land Voyages (1973) ISBN 0-7710-6627-9

Wake of the Great Sealers (1973) LCC 73-14315

The Snow Walker (1975) ISBN 0-7704-2209-8 short story Walk Well, My Brother filmed in 2003 ISBN 1-59241-410-9

Death of a People-the Ihalmiut (1975)

Canada North Now: The Great Betrayal (1976) ISBN 0-7710-6596-5

And No Birds Sang (Farley Mowat) (1979, revised 2012) ISBN 978-1-77100-030-7

World of Farley Mowat (1980) ISBN 0-316-58689-7

Sea of Slaughter (1984) 0-87113-013-0

My Discovery of America (1985) ISBN 0-87113-050-5

Virunga: The Passion of Dian Fossey (1987) ISBN 0-7710-6677-5

Woman in the Mists: The Story of Dian Fossey (1987) ISBN 0-446-51360-1

The New Founde Land (1989) ISBN 0-7710-6689-9

Rescue the Earth!: Conversations with the Green Crusaders (1990) ISBN 0-7710-6684-8

Born Naked (1993) ISBN 0-395-65029-1

Born Naked (1994) ISBN 0-395-73528-9

Aftermath: Travels in a Post-War World (1995) ISBN 1-57098-103-5

The Farfarers: Before the Norse (1998 - Reprint 2000) ISBN 1-883642-56-6

The Alban Quest The Search for a Lost Tribe (1999) ISBN 0-297-84295-1

Walking on the Land (2000) ISBN 1-58642-024-0

High Latitudes: An Arctic Journey (2002) ISBN 1-58642-061-5

No Man's River (2004) ISBN 0-7867-1430-1

Bay of Spirits: A Love Story (2006) ISBN 0-7710-6538-8

Otherwise (2008) ISBN 0-7710-6489-6

Eastern Passage (2010) ISBN 978-0-7710-6491-3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farley_Mowat

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@ehBeth,

Thanks Beth> while I read a number of his works, Ive yet to do comprehensive "Read". MAybe Ill do that this summer along with my plein aire.
Thanks for the list.

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@Setanta,

I read Never Cry Wolf when I was about 12 years old. I still remember parts of it.

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While of course I have heard of him, and thought, once or twice, that I might read one of his books, I never actually did so. Bases these testimonials I'm going to fit one in on my current short list.

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FARLEY MOWAT, 1921-2014

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