Wardini Book Review: The Chthonic Cycle – Una Cruickshank (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $35)

The Chthonic Cycle by Una Cruickshank.

REVIEW

This book is a series of essays connected by “Earth’s interlocking cycles of death and re-use”, and that’s where the word chthonic comes in - relating to, or inhabiting the underworld. The pieces are complex, readable and fascinating.

The essays were born in lockdown as a way of “facing and contextualising” crises.

They speak of the origins of life on Earth and the extravagance of nature – how species “lived for a million years, then died out”. And how our whole species’ history would fit into one iteration of the ammonite.

Each piece is cleverly detailed: one is about a mass poisoning and hallucination in 1951 in Pont-Saint-Esprit in France – “the sickest people smelled like stale urine and dead mice” –; another begins “all of the amber in the world was born from wounds” and discusses humans working with amber and placing value on it 13,000 years ago in Northern Europe.

Another poignant snippet also connects humans over the ages: little bears carved from jet were found in fourth-century infant burials, and Una writes, “the love of those grieving parents reaches a hand across the millennia and squeezes your heart”.

The Chthonic Cycle is a book of history and philosophy. It’s a warning and a lament and puts into beautiful words the idiocy of humanity in what it values and what it is prepared to destroy in the pursuit of riches. But it’s also comforting and hopeful as it connects people throughout history in an admonishing love letter to humanity — a beautiful, invigorating book.