≡ PDF The Wolves of Paris A Novel Daniel P Mannix 9780525235873 Books

The Wolves of Paris A Novel Daniel P Mannix 9780525235873 Books

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The Wolves of Paris A Novel Daniel P Mannix 9780525235873 Books

Wolves are naturally shy and avoid people, but under the leadership of wolf-dog Courtaud they change all that! Instead of eating deer and rabbits they munch on peasants and children and soldiers and well, anyone. People seem unable to stop the supernatural Courtaud even after wasting themselves in expensive hunts and hiring experts. Somehow this wolf-dog gets away again and again. And the writer is clearly in awe of this mutt.

The good parts of the book? The cheetah and the eagle. I learned a lot about hunting techniques of the Middle Ages and it was very informative even if my French is rusty. I was also rooting for the boars who fought off the over-sized wolf pack. Go boars! It seems like the animals are portrayed lovingly and the people are all inept so you have to root for a sounder of hogs.

Not a bad read, but the front cover of my edition was done before there were a lot of wolf reference photos so the wolves look like shiba inu dogs on the cover. Otherwise enjoyable.


Tags : The Wolves of Paris: A Novel [Daniel P. Mannix] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. An historically and zoologically accurate reconstruction of the terrorizing of the French countryside in the 1430s by a pack of man-eating wolves and of the animals' invasion of the city of Paris itself,Daniel P. Mannix,The Wolves of Paris: A Novel,E P Dutton,0525235876,100208116,General,Paris (France);Fiction.,Fiction,Fiction General,Paris (France)

The Wolves of Paris A Novel Daniel P Mannix 9780525235873 Books Reviews

This is an interesting tale - told mostly from one wolf-mix's P.O.V. Being an older book, its look into how wolf packs operate is a bit dated. New research has emerged after this book's 1978 publication. Still, it is pretty exciting and Courtrand was certainly a sympathetic anti-hero. Other books like Dorothy Hearst's Promise of the Wolves A Novel (The Wolf Chronicles) and David Clement-Davies' The Sight have succeeded in a better, more entertaining and educational read with the same subject matter, though the medieval setting here is unique, and well-researched. I enjoyed this, but just didn't really love it. I was mostly annoyed at how this story could have been told in a better, and more thrilling, way.
This is nature writing, animal protagonists, all that, though not anthropomorphic, as in Watership Down. The animals here are animals, with animal thoughts and feelings, nothing more. And yet this book is compelling. I've read it multiple times, and it never fails to bring me in.

From the back cover (a fairly good synopsis for once)

"It was the winter of 1439. No human dared enter or leave the besieged city of Paris. Not because of war. Not because of the bitter cold. But because of a wild horde of wolves led by a gigantic, legendary man-eater.

"Driven by starvation, emboldened by the taste of human corpses acquired from the never-ending wars of men, the wolves of Paris answered the rallying cry of the courageous dogwolf Cortaud, who'd been branded a werewolf and captured with the help of a trained leopard - only to escape and terrorize the countryside.

"Across a frozen, war-blighted landscape the noble wolf and his faithful mate Silver led the ravenous pack into the city itself, spreading fear and death, and challenging the most powerful hunter of all, Bosselier, whose trap was destined to end the life of the killer-wolf . . . or his own."

I take umbrage only to the characterization of Cortaud as `noble.' Mannix at no point falls into the trap of making the protagonists of the story (Cortaud and Silver) the heroes. In fact, there really are no heroes, making for a more accurate, if grim, bit of writing.

The story is true - a pack of wolves headed by a giant red wolf dubbed Cortaud (Cut-Tail) did indeed invade Paris during the winter of 1439 in search of food, after terrorizing the countryside for weeks. This is essentially a fictional account of apparently-true events, and as I had read a little about the actual history, and am interested in stories of maneaters of all kinds, I picked this book up secondhand last year and read it.

Mannix's familiarity with both the humans and the animals, as well as the countryside and political climate of the times, makes for an authoritative narrative with no trace of uncertainty or hesitation. Though one knows that much of it is fictionalized, one never doubts that the author is telling the truth. Though his dialogue is stilted, there are perhaps two pages of it in the whole book, and that is really the only criticism I could make.

If stories of wolves and maneaters are your thing, you have your book right here. Read it if you can get a copy.
This author seems to have been inspired by London and the real life legend of the beast of Gevaudan.
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This is an excellent book, if you love books like White Fang and Hatchet you will absolutely love this one it is vivid and gruesome and tense I love it.
Anyone who enjoyed reading Jack London's "The Call of the Wild" will enjoy this book. Based on a real incident in 1400's France in which a pack of wolves led by an animal the locals called Cortaud (Cut-Tail) entered the city of Paris and killed a number of people, it is a fictionalized but completely plausible account of how this may have occured.

There is nothing anthropomorphic about this animal. Just as "The Call of the Wild" is told from the "point of view" of the dog Buck in a realistic way without attributing human emotions to him, so is this story told from the wolf's point of view. The result is a very interesting and absorbing tale which not only gives the reader insight into the real habits of wolves and other animals, but offers an unblinking view of medieval human life and values as well. And the view ain't for the faint hearted!

In real life author Mannix spent years hunting and observing many types of wild animals both on his own and with some of the most accomplished hunters and trackers of his time. He observed how these hunters operated, their tactics, how they used dogs, traps, their knowledge about the habits of their quarry, etc. These experiences, as well as his own historical research, inform his narrative with an absorbing realism that is rarely matched.

Highly recommended, but be warned. These animals (and people) aren't Disney characters!
If you like medieval history or at least a facsimile you will enjoy this. The ending does not comport with reports on the internet.
Wolves are naturally shy and avoid people, but under the leadership of wolf-dog Courtaud they change all that! Instead of eating deer and rabbits they munch on peasants and children and soldiers and well, anyone. People seem unable to stop the supernatural Courtaud even after wasting themselves in expensive hunts and hiring experts. Somehow this wolf-dog gets away again and again. And the writer is clearly in awe of this mutt.

The good parts of the book? The cheetah and the eagle. I learned a lot about hunting techniques of the Middle Ages and it was very informative even if my French is rusty. I was also rooting for the boars who fought off the over-sized wolf pack. Go boars! It seems like the animals are portrayed lovingly and the people are all inept so you have to root for a sounder of hogs.

Not a bad read, but the front cover of my edition was done before there were a lot of wolf reference photos so the wolves look like shiba inu dogs on the cover. Otherwise enjoyable.