Word: harge
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Harg, in this novel by Vardis Fisher, was one of several hundred squat, hairy, apelike men roaming the part of Europe that is now France. They were about 5 ft. 4 in. tall, and weighed about 200 Ibs.; they had huge heads, almost no necks, broad faces and pale brown eyes of metallic hardness. The women had a heavy thicket of black hair over back, chest and belly; a huge mane of hair hung from skull to waist...
Among them, Harg was a genius. He built fires, and arrogantly put them out. He took women away from other men, drove the men away with burning faggots. He became to his people the sorcerer, medicine man, curer of ills and conqueror of evils. But as they began to revere him as a supernatural being, to follow wherever he led, Harg thought they were trying to spy out his secret. He became unhappy, confused, resentful...
...story in it is the use that Harg makes of his discovery. Success inspired him; because he had made one discovery, the world became filled with possibilities where it had held only menace before. Because the women looked to him confidently, expecting him to save them in each crisis of attack or hunger, he was driven to superhuman feats of courage and ingenuity. To make a home, he drove a bear from a cave in the cliffs. He killed a mammoth caught in a pit by building a fire around...
...fire also proved his undoing. The fleet, supple, Cro-Magnons-6 ft. tall, weighing 250 Ibs., hunting with arrows and lances, wearing clothing to protect them in winter and painting pictures on their cave walls-grew vexed when they saw Harg's imitation of their golden rooms. "For the first time in the history of the human race on this planet, men were ready to go to war." The Cro-Magnons wiped out Harg's people, one by one, with bow and arrow, usually without a fight...
Tale of the Present? Through the simple, subdued prose of Author Fisher's novel, some quietly ironic points appear, though not so plainly that readers can be sure of the author's intent. Harg's people, stumbling, awkward, terrified, sometimes brutal, are far more human and likable than the more civilized, capable Cro-Magnons. Here & there through the book some readers may suspect that Author Fisher is actually writing a modern allegory, placing his story in prehistoric times because its picture of humanity would be too harsh if laid in the here...