I was very new to blogging in March 2007 when I first read The Tenderness of Wolves and wrote a rave review of the novel. I really loved it then, and so I was pleased when I got to re-read it the other day as part of the free-lance writing project I'm involved in at the moment. But would I still love it as much? How would it stand up to a second read?
I don't often re-read books, though I used to do when I was teaching. The last time I can remember doing it for sheer pleasure was when I'd read Sarah Waters' The Night Watch and loved it so much that I started it again straight away -- partly a function of the way it was plotted as it is structured anti-chronologically so it's fascinating to go back to the beginning armed with the knowledge of how it all started, if you see what I mean.
It was interesting in a comparable way to read The Tenderness of Wolves again -- as at the heart of the novel is a crime that has to be solved. In case you haven't read it, the novel is set in a remote settlement in Canada in the 1860s, and begins with the discovery of the murder of a trapper, Laurent Jammet. His body is found by Mrs Ross, a woman originally from Scotland. On the same day, her seventeen-year-old son Francis, a rather troubled teenager, disappears and becomes a prime suspect. So Mrs Ross sets off to look for him, accompanied by the taciturn William Parker, a half-Indian tracker. Much of the novel deals with their journey over the trackless, snowbound wastes of Canada, and part of the interest lies in the way their relationship develops as a result. But this is a very rich and complex novel and there are numerous other plot strands and other mysteries to be solved.
So, of course, on the second read, those mysteries were mysteries no longer. But this seemed surprisingly unimportant. Of course I knew who did it, and rather more important who didn't do it, which might have spoiled the novel if it had been an ordinary whodunnit. But there's so much more going on here, and I picked up a lot of things I'd missed the first time round. One discovery I made was that Mrs Ross does actually have a first name, though it is so subtly revealed that I'm not surprised I missed it the first time round. I'd forgotten much of the detail and enjoyed being reminded of all the twists and turns, all the complexities of feeling and relationship, all the multifaceted characters. So yes, it stood up well and yes I did enjoy it the second time around.
The novel made such a huge splash when it won the Costa in 2007 that it's hard to believe there's anyone out there who hasn't read it. But if there is, and it's you, go for it!
