A copy of Rebecca Sykes’s Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art was prominently displayed at my local independent bookstore, so I picked it up because I'd read Yuval Noah Harari’s glowing review in the NYTimes:
She has done a remarkable job synthesizing thousands of academic studies into a single accessible narrative. From her pages emerge new Neanderthals that are very different from the cartoon figures of old. “Kindred” is important reading not just for anyone interested in these ancient cousins of ours, but also for anyone interested in humanity.
You will seldom see a more positive review than that, nor by a more renowned reviewer.
It turns out that the book is almost unreadable. Here is a sample passage about flint knapping, chosen almost at random:
One enduring legacy of Bordes’s typology is that the different assemblage types seem to show a chronological pattern when compared stratigraphically between numerous sites. Across South-west France Neanderthals were making a lot of Levallois-rich assemblages during MIS 5, but far less so as time went on. Instead, in MIS 4 the Quina techno-complex appears, but is then itself succeeded by growing amounts of discoid technology as well as some assemblages with numerous bifaces.
I get the point that Neanderthal culture was not static. It evolved over time and different geographic communities made use of different technologies. But Sykes goes on like this for page after page, throwing around terms that no general reader could ever remember.
I can see that a specialist might recognize the distinctions among Levallois, Quina, and discoid lithics, but it was impossible for me to keep them straight, much less care about them. I count myself as someone interested in both our ancient cousins and humanity, but reading Kindred is like wading through molasses.
Kindred no doubt has many virtues, but I think a responsible reviewer ought at least to alert potential purchasers to its dense complexity.
[Note: I order my books from Evanston's Bookends and Beginnings over the internet. Picking them up in person requires that I go very briefly to the front desk, located a few steps from the entrance. Kindred was on a table about an arms-length away, so I grabbed it while waiting for my pickup, Colson Whitehead's Harlem Shuffle (which I highly recommend). As much as I love local bookstores, I regret that do not feel like I can recommend browsing browse these days, for personal health reasons, even though I am for those triple jabbed like me. YMMV]
UPDATE: I have amended the above paragraph after receiving this note from an old friend: "I am saddened by your final paragraph as I fear your view, which I understand, will harm bookselling and the fine art of browsing. Saddened does not mean I do not understand."
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