Let me start by saying this book was WAY too smart for me. There were so many philosophical ideas and issues discussed. Some that I understood; a great many that I didn't. The over all plot of the book was relatively easy to follow, but many of the conversations between the characters or inward reflections of the main character went way over my head. I'm not going to pretend that I understood everything. Not even a little.
Despite all that, I thought The Sacred Book of the Werewolf (2005) was alright. The biggest difference from most books that I've read is that it didn't have any chapters. There were just page breaks and it continued on like it should have had a chapter break. I think this is because of the way the book was set-up to played out to the reader; as a paper/book written by the main character for her lover. And honestly, this was only apparent to me right at the end of the book.
I found the description of the plot on the back jacket a little misleading to the actual content of the book once I read it. I expected a little more story, character building and sex, but instead I got a lot more philosophy, existential ideologies and internal moral questions than I bargained for. Not saying that is bad, it's just not what I, personally, expected or was aiming to read. But I read it anyway.
The basic plot of The Sacred Book of the Werewolf is as follows: were-fox A Hu-Li is a sex worker, she meets a werewolf and falls in love with him. She attempts to share her past, thoughts and ideas with him to essentially save his were-soul. In the end, he leaves her and she writes the 'book' for him and other were-creatures to read to show them the path to liberation and salvation. This basic plot is overlaid with deep thoughts, conversations and were-creature beliefs and ideologies.
Many of the philosophies, were-beliefs and big questions that I understood came at the end of the book. The idea of the 'super-werewolf' and the 'Rainbow Stream' made the most sense to me at the end because there was actual character discussion the topic. Many of the things I didn't understand were just conversations between characters that expected you to already understand the finer points and history of what they were talking about. There just wasn't enough explanation on certain topics for me.
I sound like I am complaining too much that this book made me feel stupid. Let me be clear, I do not feel stupid for not understanding most of this book. Philosophy is not my thing, and I don't really care to learn more on the topic. If that is your thing, then definitely read this book. It absolutely made me think about things a little differently, even if I didn't always get quite what was going on or being said. There was one particular passage where A Hu-Li and her sister discuss the finer points of murder that was very interesting.
Now that is cleared up, I did find out something amusing when I was doing a Google search for an image of the book cover: there seems to be a fan-art following for this book. A lot of the images that came up in the search looked like fan-art imaginings of scenes from the book, and of the characters. That is kind of cool.
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So, The Sacred Book of the Werewolf wraps up my Fall and Winter 2017/2018 Reading Challenge. I went a little over the end of April than I planned, but I still wrapped it up with enough time left to crank out reading our May choice for Book Club. We haven't had our meeting for our combined March/April book yet, so that post is still coming sometime soon.
I am thinking forward to the rest of my 2018 year in regards to reading and how to spend my "book time" in between Book Club novels. I have some ideas in mind and I still have to post about my reading challenge experience as well, so... Expect an update near the end of May/start of June on my RC conclusions and thoughts and what my upcoming plans are.
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