Joseph BoydenReseñas

Historical Fiction

A brilliant read, start to finish. As in real life, the lines between villains and heroes are a bit fuzzy.

4.5/5. WENJACK is a heartbreaking story of an Ojibwe boy who escapes the residential school he has been forced to attend due to the government's push to culturally assimilate the indigenous people into the white man's world at the expense of losing his own heritage. I read this novella in less than an hour, but I will remember the experience for a long time. Controversy has surrounded Boyden because he is not part of the Ojibwe community. Some have criticized him for writing from that point of view. Cultural appropriation is a thorny discussion point, and I know too little to speak about it here. The book was extremely sympathetic to the Ojibwe people and their plight, so one might argue that Boyden shouldn't have been criticized. What, however, if he hadn't been empathetic? The bigger problem lies in the fact that Boyden claimed to have indigenous DNA, but solid proof is nowhere to be found. It's the opposite effect of what June did in YELLOWFACE. There, she blurred her background (with the help from her editors) to possibly seem to be Asian. Here, Boyden claimed outwardly that he had indigenous blood when the research so far shows he doesn't. All of this controversy takes away from Chanie Wenjack's story, which I feel should still be told.

Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden is a novel that explores indigenous culture, family ties and identity. I found this to to a powerful story that follows two distinct POVs. The elder voice is that of Will Bird, a retired bush pilot who lies in a coma as his mind is actively going over the events that led to his condition. The younger voice belongs to Annie, Will’s niece who visits with her uncle and tells him of her journey of the past few months as she followed her missing sister’s trail to Toronto, Montreal and New York City before returning home to their small community of Moosonee near the shores of James Bay.

While the story takes us through heartbreak, mysterious disappearances, and violent confrontations what jumped out at me was the strong bond of kinship that these two characters shared. While not directly addressed, as the story advances, the plight of the indigenous people with drugs, alcohol and the death of their traditional way of life is made very clear.

Although there has been some controversy surrounding this author, I chose to simply concentrate on the story and I found it to be powerful, original and unforgettable. My only concern was that the ending seemed rather contrived but overall this was a very rewarding read.½

Il taglio dei capelli neri che mi arrivavano fino in vita era un simbolo dell'autorità dei wemistikoshiw, della nostra sconfitta.
(106)

Nell'oscurità della notte penso che la mia vita sia stata divisa in tre parti da questi wemistikoshiw. Prima di loro e del loro esercito c'era la mia vita, ora c'è la mia vita nel loro esercito, e, se sopravvivrò, ci sarà lamia vita dopo che l'avrò lasciato e sarò tornato a casa. Deve esserci qualcosa di magico in questo numero tre. Tu, Niska, mi hai insegnato che un giorno dovremo intraprendere tutti il viaggio di tre giorni, e ora mi chiedo se non ci sia qualche connessione tra il loro mondo e il mio.
(269)

Ci sono più anishnabe di quel che puoi immaginare su questi campi di battaglia. Vogliamo tutti tornare a essere guerrieri.
(311)

Non sempre condivisibili le 'occidentalizzazioni' del pensiero Cree di Boyden, per quel che ho visto e sentito (soprattutto non sentito) la riluttanza all'adattamento dei First Nations resta viva ancor oggi. Boyden, alla fine del libro, si ricrede e ciò che cambia va eliminato.

Great novel. The story of two Canadian Cree Indian friends who become snipers in the first world war. The story is told as flashbacks from one of the protagonists as he slowly returns home on a river trip by canoe in Canada. The horrors of the war are experienced differently by the two friends, and are tied to and related by reference to Algonquin mythology (manitous and so-called windigo psychosis) and to images of nature, both in Canada and in no-man's land. A moving account of the war to end all wars.
Recommended by A2J, and seems to unite his interests in Canadian history and Zombie attacks.

This is a book that all Canadians should read, and it certainly should be included in higher education history curriculums. The book is about our Canadian forbearers. They were not the ancestors of the majority of Canadians, as all of our Canadian non-First Nation ancestors were immigrants. Our ancestors were the ones who built this country into the wonderful country it is today--but at what cost to the first settlers in our land? The story is set in 17 century Canada, and is a prequel to Joseph Boyden's Bird Family trilogy. I had read Three Day Road and Through Black Spruce, so now it was time to see where it all began. The book is a masterpiece, and, in true Joseph Borden style, a sweeping saga of history in a small area of Canada near the American border. It tells the story of Bird and his tribe, who were Hurons, who lived in this area. They were a tribe that were farmers and grew crops to feed their people. Surrounded by many enemy tribes, they had to fight constantly in order to survive. Then, along come the Jesuits from Europe who were sent to these foreign lands by their Pope to civilize and convert these heathen nations. The story is told through the eyes of three narrators - Bird who is the Chief of his Huron nation, his adopted daughter Snow Falls who was an Iroquois captive who Bird adopted as a young girl after he had slaughtered her family in a revenge strike to avenge the death of his wife and daughters, and Christophe, a young French Jesuit who arrives in the region where the Hurons are living, while following the orders of his high level priests to go and live among the "sauvages" as they call these native people, and preach the word of God to them. I listened to this book on audiobook, and it is narrated by Graham Rowan and Edorado Ballerina. I'm not sure that listening to this particular audiobook was a good choice for me because there is a lot of war, killing, torture and other very graphic scenes in the book. Having it read is rather uncomfortable and totally shocking. The narrators did a good job of portraying all of the scenes in the book though. History jumps off the pages though, whether you are reading or listening because of Boyden's writing style. It is like being there and watching everything as it is occurring (but from a safe distance). The final battle scene between the Huron and the Iroquois decimates a nation, but even with that, there is hope at the end when the few surviving Huron people manage to get away, and each survivor then finds his or her own way to survive. I highly recommend this book. It's another winner for one of my favourite Canadian authors.

Joseph Boyden's [b:Wenjack|30079906|Wenjack|Joseph Boyden|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1469406055s/30079906.jpg|50500001] is probably the most important Canadian story published this year. Or possibly any year.

Telling the story of Chanie 'Charlie' Wenjack, a young boy who ran away from a Northern Ontario residential school in the 1960s, Boyden is sensitive and delicate. Even for a novella, Wenjack is short, but Boyden doesn't need more pages, he more than fills the ones he has. It's a hauntingly beautiful elegy.

Alternating between Chanie's perspective and the perspectives of the manitous that watch over him on this desperate journey back home, Wenjack firmly places Chanie, and the brothers he is with, as part of nature. The residential school they are forced to attend, where they are punished for speaking their own language, beaten for any minor transgressions, is anathema to them, a spiritual excommunication from their people, the chasm growing as English "civilization" is forced upon them.

Residential schools are among Canada's greatest transgressions against humanity, perpetuated against indigenous children. It's important to remember that 30% of indigenous children were forcibly ripped away from their family, exposed to physical and sexual abuse, deprived of their language and culture. Nearly every school was built with a cemetery adjacent, because so many children died. The last federally funded school closed in 1996.

Wenjack is beautifully written and the words stir the heart deeply. Boyden's use of language is evocative and easy to read, the subject matter weighing heavily on the reader in a way the prose doesn't. The line between fiction and non-fiction is blurred here, allowing us a glimpse into a world many have not thought of. This book should be mandatory for all students in Canada to read so they can give a face to the unheard victims of our own country.

rabck from rubyrebel; a haunting read set during WWI. Two young Canadian Indian men decide to join up for the war effort, where they are sent to fight in France. The book goes back and forth between the war, life in the trenches and their progression to being snipers because of their hunting prowess. But that prowess was honed on their childhood upbringing in the North Ontario "bush" by Xavier's Aunt Niska.

Toward the end of this harrowing novel about the First World War, a soldier narrator remarks, “We all fight on two fronts, the one facing the enemy, the one facing what we do to the enemy.”

So says Xavier Bird, thinking of his boyhood friend and brother in arms, Elijah Whiskeyjack. Neither name actually belongs to them, for they are Cree, a Native people of Canada, and white people have bestowed those handles on them. Likewise, the prejudice the two friends face in the ranks of the Southern Ontario Rifles runs deep, embodied in their insecure, less-than-capable immediate superior, Lieutenant Breech, who views them as alien to begin with, though with gradations that fit his convenience.

Or separate them, rather, to Elijah’s frequent gratification and Xavier’s constant pain. Xavier grew up in the backwoods, but after his mother’s death when he was very young, attended a repressive religious school until his aunt, Niska, rescued him. Elijah, whom he met there, came to live with them later, and Xavier taught him all the backwoods knowledge he has. They became skilled hunters, and at the front, they conduct the ultimate hunt — or Elijah does, anyway. Hence Xavier’s remark about reckoning with what one does to the enemy.

But that’s not where Three Day Road starts, for better or worse. The novel begins with Xavier, one leg amputated and addicted to morphine, coming home to a heart-stricken Niska. She believes he’s returned intending to die; and since she doesn’t know what he saw or did in France, she’s unsure what will help him.

I admire Niska’s resolve, dedication, and passionate attachment to her threatened way of life and her sister’s only child. Much of her narrative has to do with hardship and sacrifice, with rare pleasure cut short by betrayal. In that way, her existence parallels the soldiers’, a touch I like. The blind hatred she endures whenever she ventures into or near town etches a sharp criticism of the white men who presume superiority to her.

However, she recounts many scenes while Xavier is asleep, under the influence of morphine, or just plain silent. Such interior monologues feel like set pieces shoved into the story for the information they contain. I imagine that Boyden might have wrestled with where to put these scenes, because nearly all take place well before the war and would have hampered the main narrative had they appeared chronologically.

Caught between that constraint, Xavier’s understandable reluctance to speak about the unspeakable, and his nearly constant self-medication, the author does his best with Niska’s memories. They just don’t always fit seamlessly.

But Boyden superbly re-creates the First World War, in the trenches and behind the lines, some of the most impressive descriptions of that subject I’ve ever read. Nothing purple, just plain, straight, and spot on.

I also like how Boyden has the two friends’ paths diverge, and what he does with that. Xavier’s the better marksman and tracker, though Elijah’s no slouch, and they’re both assigned to sniper duty. But Elijah speaks better English, knows how to joke, and to put himself forward, so he gets the glory. Using the Cree language, unique to them, he protects Xavier in public from Lieutenant Breech’s ornery mindlessness when he can, because he understands the white man’s insecurity. But he doesn’t share the credit for the sniper exploits, and that burns Xavier more than he’s willing to admit.

The weak link in the novel is the lieutenant, a clichéd depiction and historical anomaly. Junior officers were taught to show courage under fire to the point of recklessness and suffered higher casualty rates, on average, than enlisted men. But Breech almost never faces German bullets, a fault that his superiors would have noticed, and he’s got enough flaws as it is.

Had Boyden allowed him personal bravery, the lieutenant would have seemed truer. Likewise, the two noncommissioned officers Elijah and Xavier know come across as types, the salt-of-the-earth core of any army, though each has skills that make them interesting.

Finally, since the narrative revolves around what’s essentially a squad, lack of other officers makes it seem as if Breech commands an entire company, not a platoon. Again, I understand the desire for economy, but I get a skewed, conflated picture of their battles, as the lens expands to set the stage for famous engagements, only to telescope to almost nothing.

Nevertheless, Three Day Road provides a glimpse of the Native contribution to Canada’s war, a subject I’ve never read about before, and as a trench novel, it’s terrific.

This book tells the history of interactions among the Huron, Iroquois and Jesuits in Canada during the 1600s. The author relates this history through the perspectives of three main characters, each told in first person, of a young Iroquois female (Snow Falls), a Huron warrior (Bird) and a Jesuit missionary (Christophe). I thought the author did an excellent job of showing how differences in perspective can lead to misunderstandings. I enjoyed the descriptions of the physical beauty of the country and the way in which the people lived. The characters were well-developed, and they evolved over time.

I found the book well-written, engrossing, and educational. I recommend this book to those who enjoy historical fiction, or who want to learn more about Canadian history or the lives of native peoples of North America. WARNING: It is EXTREMELY graphic in describing torture of captives of the warring tribes. It depicts a brutality that will likely be disturbing to many readers.

THREE DAY ROAD (2005), is the first book of Canadian author Joseph Boyden's Bird Family trilogy. I read the second book, THROUGH BLACK SPRUCE, a couple years ago and quite enjoyed it, although I thought it went on a bit too long. I would say the same thing about this one. Set during the years before and during the Great War, we follow the wartime adventures of two young Cree men, Xavier Bird and Elijah Whiskeyjack, who come out of the northern wilderness to enlist in the Southern Ontario Rifles. They are sent to France where, over the next few years, they become a feared team of snipers. Elijah, educated by Catholic nuns in a brutal boarding school and the more outgoing of the two, has an appetite for killing. Xavier, who narrates their story, was raised in the bush by his aunt, and is more reluctant about it. Their close friendship begins to unravel as Elijah becomes addicted to morphine. Trench warfare in all its grisly detail is constantly center stage in their story, with all the mud, blood, gore and misery, to the point where you wonder how anyone at all survived.

The other part of the novel is narrated by Xavier's aunt Niska, a medicine woman of sorts, an epileptic outcast who has visions. She tells her own story, as well as how she came to be Xavier's protector.

This part of the novel I found less interesting, and almost wished Boyden had just limited his narrative to the war side of things. But,as was the case in THROUGH BLACK SPRUCE, the writing here is quite beautiful, and kept me reading. I'm not sure yet if I will read the final book of the trilogy. I found these first two at used book sales, and I'm glad I did, because Boyden is a fine writer, no question. Maybe I'll get lucky again. I will highly recommend both of these books, especially if you're interested in good Canadian fiction.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER

The imagery is fantastic. The story is heartbreaking.

This wasn't an easy book or a fast read. It was a beautifully written and painful story to be savored. The parallel journeys of Will and Annie are fascinating. The descriptions of the natural world and the plight of Canada's First Nations are mean to be pondered. I hadn't ready Boyden's previous book but certainly plan to!

Beautiful book, absolutely amazing to teach... but I feel I have to take a star off because of the author's dubious credibility, which undermines the whole book.Sigh. (Bonus question - does this make it more or less interesting to teach/Should it be taught? Revelations about the author's claims that he was connected to indigenous communities came out whilst I was teaching this book for I think the 6th time. It made for amazing teaching matter, but we felt we had to remove the book from our curriculum for future years.)

This is a beautifully written book with some extremely difficult scenes showing the harsh realities of Canada when Europeans first started to appear. The story depicts the war between Wendat and Haudenosaunee as group tries to manipulate the French and the English, themselves at war and themselves manipulating warring Indigenous nations.
Set in a background of harsh winters, unforgiving draughts and cruel revenges, this story could easily have become a horror boo. Yet, Boyden manages to capture also beauty, love, friendship, forgiveness and hope. Most unlikely alliances between a Jesuit and a Wendat Chief, a beautiful love story between an abducted Haudenosaunee girl and a Wendat boy, an enchanting Anishinaabe sorceress turn the murderous plot into a multifaceted epic tale full of wonder and grit.
Based on historical events, this book is also a great way to learn more about Canada's early history.

Cree returns from WWI addicted and destroyed by memories of killing his combat crazed best friend, can his medicine woman aunt salvage him?

> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Boyden-La-haut-vers-le-Nord/66321

> LÀ-HAUT VERS LE NORD, de Joseph Boyden. — Vers le nord de l’Ontario, du côté de la Baie James, cohabitent les Anishabe (les Indiens) et les Wemestikushu (les Blancs). Là-haut vers le nord dresse le portrait tragique d’un peuple dont est issue une myriade de personnages étonnants ; Jenny Two Bears, la fille Sucre, Joe Cul-de-Jatte, etc. « Joseph Boyden parvient à conférer à ses personnages une beauté, une humanité, celle de peuples à moitié déracinés mais entretenant néanmoins un lien inaliénable avec la terre », selon un journaliste du Voir. L’auteur canadien du Chemin des âmes signe ici treize histoires au parfum de légendes, inspirées par ses propres origines amérindiennes, écossaises et irlandaises. Le Livre de Poche, 320 p., 12,95$
—Le libraire, No 60 | Août - Septembre 2010

I love this book. It is definitely in the pack of books I would carry with me from a burning building. I read it 2 years ago or so, and recently browsed through it again for a book club discussion. I feel surprised with myself that a book with so many graphic descriptions of battles and death does not however make me put it on the list of books never to reread. For all the sadness and destruction it describes, still it does not leave me downhearted. I guess I see the characters' struggles as an illustration of the strength of the human spirit, and specifically the strength of the aboriginal community. There are so many layers in this book - aboriginal integration - or not - and its sad consequences; friendship; war; madness - and each one is handled by the author with extreme skill. The language is beautiful, the characters well developed, the research into WWII remarkable. I look forward to reading more books by Boyden and cannot recommend this book enough.

It is impossible not to compare Through Black Spruce with Boyden’s earlier book, Three Day Road. And Through Black Spruce does fall short of the first one.

Boyden again writes with poetic prose, and has well-developed, complex characters. This story could be read as a sequel of the first – although it does stand alone – in an epic historical account of the aboriginal community in Canada through 4 generations, from the great-aunt Niska, a shaman woman in the beginning of the century and her nephew and WWI hero in the first book, then – in the second – his children and grand-children growing up on a reserve and dealing with the aftermaths of aboriginal schools: alcoholism, unemployment, gangs. However, Boyden is too scared to deal with the most natural outcome of such reality for aboriginal women: prostitution. He chooses instead to send the young female characters into the world of advertisement, making then super-models. Unfortunately this is not an environment that is natural to Boyden, and it shows. While his accounts of the North, the cold, the hunts, even the jealousy, friendships and animosities fostered in a small community all sound very true, the accounts of his nieces high life in Montreal and New York is too stereotypical.

Even if aspects of this book did disappoint me, I am still eager to read more of Boyden’s writing, and I am already waiting for his next book. He has a natural voice as a writer; he is perceptive and moving. I hope his next attempt stays truer to his voice.

This affecting historical fiction, set in the first half of the 17th century, takes place in what is now Canada at a time when Huron and Iroquois are in the midst of a series of ongoing retaliatory attacks. Complicating matters, French Jesuits have begun traveling west from French Canada, embedding themselves and attempting conversion among the native populations, while unknowingly also bringing devastating disease. An elegant narrative, told from multiple perspectives, depicts in vivid detail the tragic dynamic at play during this dark time in history. Reading the first few chapters, I wasn't certain this book was for me, but I was soon swept away into the story and found it difficult to put down. That said, I feel conflicted having read more about the author, who claims First Nations connections, and has even accepted awards intended for writers with native ancestry, but has been unable or unwilling to provide evidence of those claims.

This isn't a breezy read. The dreamy narrative and the flowing structure meant a lot of times I had to re-read sentences to ensure I got the full meaning. This would be an issue if the writing wasn't absolutely beautiful, which it is. Boyden is an incredible writer - I was floored at many of the sentences, and he does a great job painting WW1 trench life as the buffet of horror it was.

Xavier and Elijah are very good choices for protagonists, there's a lot to each of them and though we never really get an easy idea on their motivations, I think that's the point. There's not much normalcy on the front lines of the first World War, particularly for snipers. They're enigmatic by nature, I suppose?

Hearing of the controversy surrounding Boyden is yet another challenge of whether I can separate art from artist. I still don't know the answer, but what I do know is that I just finished a compelling, difficult story about indigenous Canadian soldiers in World War 1, which of course I didn't know very much about. I still don't know very much, but learning about Francis Pegahmagabow and a few others is fascinating.

I think the book was a bit too long and slow for me to go to 4.5 or 5 stars, but this is still an amazing book, I'm really glad I read it.

Reading for a second time, it is even better than the first time.

Last year I visited a national historic site in Midland, Ontario called Saint-Marie-Among-The-Hurons. It is a recreation of a Jesuit settlement in the land of the Wendate, the first European settlement in Ontario. On my way home I bought this book almost at random in a street sale, so it was ironic to discover it is a work of historical fiction that strongly borrows from that site. In some respects it is the standard story of Native Americans encountering Europeans, with a touch of the mystical. It starts as you might expect and the Jesuit missionary and Huron warrior are practically stock characters, with the typical misunderstandings of one another. But the girl Snow Falls is unique from the moment she is introduced and had me intrigued. She develops her own ideas about the other two, and a new self-identity in the wake of her family's death. By the time Champlain enters the story, Snow Falls has become a symbol of the Orenda, the Native American soul. The priest and warrior acquire depth, and while the story remains true to history, it no longer feels like any similar story I've heard. How it plays out in this telling, and the way it is told, forms what John Ralston Saul's review calls "a new memory of how we came to be who we are."

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