Review: Epic. Monumental.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 21, 2014
Gravettian Goddess is a substantial, provocative journey. This is a book, for readers like me, who enjoy an immersive connection with an epic story. It offers a great deal to think about academically and enough well-defined emotional honesty to keep a reader satisfied as they flip through the pages. You may think you recognize the story when you begin, but hang on. It’s going to take you places you never dreamed of.Gravettian Goddess reveals the tale of Greg Janeszko, an academic who becomes unexpectedly thrown into a mystery forcing him to confront every aspect of reality and the value of his imperfect knowledge. Beginning with his assistance on an archaeological recovery in Mediterranean waters, one clue leads to another until he comes under the scrutiny of an archaic player in an ages-old battle. As the battle is drawn, Greg discovers his true self and a home worth protecting.Papa Tolkien, arguably the foremost writer in fantasy that is informed by ancient cultures, always wrote how he believed that all myths, folk-tales and legends as well as much religious dogma are based on actual, historic events in the distant past. Our own multi-species evolution has provided a great deal of material to consider, as it is clear now that several of these species made contact and even conflicted over territory and hunting, leaving origin questions again unanswered. The author unfolds an engaging quest for answers that leads back into the deepest human history and before. Into time long forgotten by most, but not all. Here, as the intrigue deepens and our most basic cultural biases are strained, Howerton suggests arcane events and conflicts behind many historic references and religious beliefs. The ancient struggle between those whose culture honors and protects the sanctity of the earth, and those who see the earth as a possession to be exploited, plays out in soaring eloquence and well-paced action.Author Howerton has created a monumental work that will appeal to anyone who wonders why we are here, what made us the way we are and sowed the seeds of discord among us. Give an extra star if you are a student of sociology or paleo-anthropology and unification theories in cultural writing. You’ll remember Gravettian Goddess long after the reading is finished.