I <3 Books

Joseph Boyden

Giller prize winner. Always good. Giller prize winners are always good. Bloodletting was good, excellent in fact (they're making it into a movie). TBS wouldn't be great as a movie. Bishop's Man: hopefully good.

Will Bird. Will Bird was a real person, a war hero, Canadian. Connection? Don't know.

The book is absolutely engrossing, beautifully written. Haunting, like the woods, like the wilderness. The scene in which Will comes across a sun-bleached, ancient, intact, huge whale skeleton on the beach is more beautiful than a photograph. What a thing to come across. What a sign of isolation. No one's been there to disturb it. No one.

The book reveals a lot about native life and guilt. There is so much the characters cope with. Uncertainty about their role in the world, rage at the white man, anger at themselves, and guilt for continuing it. There so many steps toward breaking the cycle, and so many steps back.

The book documents a miserable life. There's little romance in it, and little nobility. So much is lost, and so much is trying to be clung to. But there is so little left. Alcohol, drugs, violence, unemployment, poverty, and recklessness, and yet there is a pride. An uncertain pride, but a pride nonetheless. Why would anyone live up there? Bleak, barren, hostile, boring. Beautiful, wild, natural, real. Who knows.