This is a story about some things that happened to me about twelve thousand years ago.
| Noema by Dael Akkerman | |
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| Category: Historical Fiction | |
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Reviewer: Jill Murphy
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| Summary: A book blending pre-history and spirituality in an engaging and thought-provoking way. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 204 | Date: July 2022 |
| Publisher: tRaum Books | |
| ISBN: 978-3949666070 | |
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Maya is a young girl living in a hunter gatherer village during the Mesolithic era. Climate change is occurring, the Sea of Grass encroaches further and further into Maya's forest home, and food is becoming more and more scarce. What to do? Can the law givers in the federation of villages muster peaceful ways to cope? Can the Traveller, a spiritual figure who interprets the wisdom of All Life, provide solutions? Perhaps the simplistic, linear narrative of human development is actually off the mark and the understanding Maya seeks is of an entirely different nature. As food insecurity grows, solutions present themselves. But they all come at a cost. Who is prepared to pay it?
Noema is such an unusual story and it's a pleasure to read. Part history of human transition from hunter gathering to agriculture, part spiritual musing, part mystery, it defies classification. Strange things happen - Maya and her friend Arlen share visions that come true. But why? And what purpose does the vicarious experience of the horror of men massacring their fellow human beings serve? Who is the Traveller, really? What is the All Life? And why are those known as the Lost Ones unmentionable?
Told in a conversational style, Noema is both easy to read and highly engaging. You don't usually find a book that ponders the great questions of life - does the end justify the means? What, really, is the greater good? Does life have a purpose? What is time? - to be much of a page-turner. Such works are usually reflective and meandering experiences. But while Noema is both reflective and meandering, it also has an urgent and pressing feel. You want to find out what happens to Maya, if she is, indeed, simply the village girl Maya. You want to uncover the mysteries.
Akkerman has produced a truly thought-provoking work here. Noema works on many levels: as an exploration of historical human development; as a rumination on the connection between the embodied and the spiritual; and as a meditation on the non linear nature of time. I haven't read anything quite like it before. I finished it in one sitting but I haven't stopped thinking about it since. And that's a recommendation in itself.
If Noema appeals, you might also enjoy The Ghosts of Heaven by Marcus Sedgwick, a collection of short stories, which packs a similar punch of meaning into something eminently readable and thought provoking.
You can read more about Dael Akkerman here.
Noema by Dael Akkerman is in the Top Ten Self-Published Books 2022.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Noema by Dael Akkerman at Amazon.com.
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