British - Novelist | September 7, 1960 -
When a wolf doesn't want to do something, they look really cute.
Michelle Paver
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Have you ever held a snake? They are so strong. You can see why there are so many myths about them: they are unlike any other creature. It's extraordinary how that little brain can keep everything moving in different directions.
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It's the little details I love. How to fletch your arrows with owl feathers, because owls fly silently, so maybe your arrows will, too. How to carry fire in a piece of smouldering fungus wrapped in birchbark. These are the things which help a world come alive.
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I talk to children in schools all over the world, and I've found that both boys and girls are fascinated by how hunter-gatherers manage to survive entirely on what's around them in their environment: trees, rocks, animals and plants.
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I've climbed Stromboli when it's erupting, which is quite a heavy climb: three hours with a helmet to get to the top. When you're there, and it's dark, and you can see this eruption and feel it, it's quite different to watching it on TV.
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To experience the northern forest in the raw, I went to northern Finland and Lapland, travelling on horseback, and sleeping on reindeer skins in the traditional open-fronted Finnish laavu. I ate elk heart, reindeer and lingonberries, and tried out spruce resin: the chewing gum of the Stone Age.
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Doing field trips rather than simply researching online allows me to experience the story from the point of view of my main character; you can't get that by sitting at a desk.
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I think true wilderness can still be found, but it's hard to reach and dangerous when you get there, which is probably why it still exists.
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Why do so many children love the idea of being snowed in or shipwrecked, of having to survive on one's own? When I was a child, I was no exception. I wanted to hunt with a bow and arrow like the Stone Age people: to skin deer and build my own shelter. And I desperately wanted a wolf. As we lived in London, my options were limited.
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The most remote place I've been to was in Greenland. I remember setting out for a solo hike from a small cabin, itself several hours' boat ride from the nearest settlement.
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For a novelist, the great thing about the Stone Age people is that we know virtually nothing about their beliefs - which means that I get to make it up! But it's still got to be plausible.
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I live on my own, happily, and I've never wanted children, but it did occur to me one day that there's part of me in 'Torak' - he's a loner, I'm a loner - as there's part of me in 'Renn,' who's quite waspish. I think, in some senses, 'Torak' is the son I never had.
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