Midnight Son
In ‘Midnight Son’ the author James Dommek, Jr. sets out to achieve just that, to discover the path to enriching his modern westernised life by better appreciating his ancestral past.
Just as it is ineffectual to try and serve two disparate masters or precarious to try and sit on two different stools, it is impossible to make progress whilst striving to keep things unchanged. In order to arrive, first one must depart and in departing something is necessarily left behind. But what if it is too heart wrenching to discard all that we know and love?
By its very nature, whenever modernisation produces something amazing: keyhole surgery and precision pharmaceuticals; speed of light communication and data compression; reliable plumbing and soft toilet paper, it tears down and steamrollers at least some part of the past, often indiscriminately. Ill prepared for such an assault, the beautiful, fascinating, colourful and enriching edifices of folk tradition and cultural identity all too often collapse into a grey morass of frustration, substance abuse and violence.
…the great outdoors casts an almost malignant shadow…
But it doesn’t have to be this way. It is quite possible to benefit from progress whilst also enjoying the traditional. All it requires is more thought about what is valuable and more effort in choosing the best way forward.
I experienced this many layered story as an audio book. Hovering somewhere between radio play and documentary it mixes together studio narration by James himself with on location interviews and backing tracks of traditional music. With utmost journalistic skill, it takes the listener on an adventure within an adventure within an adventure as it explores the hostile border between the mysticism of indigenous tradition and the corrosive nature of invasive white culture.
Following the tragic tale of one man caught in the cross fire, it presents the ongoing cultural battle in a journalistic style that manages to be both fair and neutral. This evocative story really came alive as I listened and I got a real sense of the metaphoric clash of swords at the heart of this earthy conflict.
At the same time, the author includes a note of fantastical whimsy as he retells the folk story of an ancient, lost and half-forgotten race of people that choose to live in primitive isolation, nestled deep within the uncharted Alaskan wilderness.
Nevertheless, James avoids romanticising traditional life and the gritty reality of the Alaskan environment. Though proud of his ancestry and homeland, James makes it abundantly clear that the wilderness is an inhospitable place full of discomfort and death. As enlightening and revealing as it proves to be, the great outdoors casts an almost malignant shadow across the events of the book.
I very much hope that this becomes the first of many audio books by James and Co. I look forward to more of their thoughtful yet passionate insights.
If you do decide to plunge into this adventure (or already have), please leave a short comment to let me know what you think about my review.
Even better: What do you prefer, remaining anchored in the past or only looking forward? What experience do you have reconciling the traditional with the modern? What would you do if you re-discovered a lost civilisation?
Find out more about James Dommek Jr. and his books at: