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Là Haut Vers Le Nordnouvelles (2010)

by Joseph Boyden(Favorite Author)

4.05 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

2253128155 (ISBN13: 9782253128151)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Librairie générale française

review 1: I've been on a Boyden binge recently, reading everything he's written, starting with "Three Day Road" recommended to me by a Miqmak friend in Canada. Having loved that, I then read "Through Black Spruce" (2008)so "Born With A Tooth" took me backwards in terms of his oeuvre. "Born With a Tooth" was his first novel, published in 2001, and it gives you a chance to see where his thinking started, and reveals the origins of some characters he's stayed with, or should I say, have stayed with him. Surely these men and women remain in his psyche, for they certainly haunt mine, in a good way.You can read his novels in any order you like and they'll all make sense, great sense, even if you've never been to the rez or the far North. His work has driven home the value of Canadian lite... morerature, for me anyway, since he's actively exploring the edges of what others call multiculturalism but haven't a clue about. European politicians have declared that multiculturalism is dead, that it doesn't work, but the people who say such things haven't got any skin in the game like Boyden and his people do. Unless you have intermarried, formed deep friendships with those who you speak a second or third language with, you've yet to begin your multicultural work.There are great benefits to be reaped, as Boyden demonstrates. His 'people' are real and raw, engaged with the Earth and each other, the perils of drugs and alcohol, the joblessness, the poverty and prejudice AND the beauty of Nature, living off the land, of the medicine ways, ceremonies and songs, whose power redeems some of the most broken, in unlikely but unforgettable instances. It upset me to see that the Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature (2004 edition anyway) did not even mention Joseph Boyden, but future editions will be incomplete without him. If you've ever caught yourself making a stereotypical remark about 'Native Americans', read Boyden's work. It'll cure you.
review 2: It's easy to overdose on a collection of short stories, and it's hard to fairly judge one as a "book" when its form intends not to be greater than the sum of its parts. Its parts, in fact, ought to be wholes (although the final four tales overlap quite nicely) and should only be approached as such. A few of the stories fairly glowed with a magic realism that many Ininew would no doubt appreciate but few if any would admit to experiencing today. Others portray a degradation that is hardly balanced or representative. That is not to suggest, Boyden disrespects the people of James Bay; he obviously identifies with and cares deeply about them.Most of the stories are well told and interesting, a few may be brilliant. Others were disappointing. less

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