Born in Togo, Michel as a child sees a book on Greenland, Robert Gessain’s Les Esquimaux du Groenland à l’Alaska (The Eskimos from Greenland to Alaska), fascinated he decides that he is going to go to the land of ice, snow and Eskimos. Aged 17, in 1958, he leaves his home and slowly works his way up the west coast of Africa, making it to Marseilles by 1963. Learning new languages and educating himself along the way. This resourceful man makes it to Greenland two years later.
He gently writes about the Eskimos attitude to sex, relationships, fishing, home, dogs, time and alcohol. The erosion of a harsh way of life that is being subsumed. Commercial fishing replacing hunting for seals, whales and walrus. Through the lens of a life in Africa, the hard life of the Eskimo is told with clarity and directness. From the effect of alcohol, the long, long nights of winter and what it does to a man/woman, the food, friendship and fishing. How the society is set up and the feeling of cold. Real cold and the harshness of the climate.
An interesting book published in France in 1977, and in English in 1981, there is a flavour of a time and culture now gone. Michel has decided to retire his life in France and spend his remaining years in Greenland, a place that has forever a place in his heart.
Marks out of 10: between 6 - 9
Words used to describe it: dog eat dog, inspiring, elucidating, illuminating, admiral
Next book
The Dutch House by Anne Patchet
Next meeting
Wednesday 5th October at 117 Harbord St
