I read Joseph Boyden’s latest book, The Orenda, the same week that it finally became available in the U.S. But I haven’t written about it until now, because I didn’t know what to say. It was a hard book to read, and even harder to process. Read More
ByGD
Book Report: The Orenda
ByGD
An Imposture of Writers at Iceland Writers Retreat
In the library at Bessastadir (the Icelandic White House)
Ironically, there is no collective noun for writers. According to Google, James Lipton has suggested “a worship of writers.” Although Lipton is an expert on collective nouns (he’s written a book about it after all) the term hasn’t caught on. The very people who both enshrine common usage of words and mint new words where language provides none have for centuries neglected to establish a collective noun for their own work. Perhaps this is because writing is such solitary work. Read More
ByGD
Book Report: Through Black Spruce
The public library waitlist for Joseph Boyden’s books is so long, I knew Through Black Spruce would be good. I am still number 19 in line for Orenda. And now I know why. Through Black Spruce begins with the story of a plane crash. In the first chapter we learn that the narrator is a comatose bush pilot; the coma is not from a plane crash; he implies violence. In this first chapter, Boyden shows the whole snowy world that his First Nations characters inhabit; he familiarizes us with the eccentric rhythms of their speech and the practicalities of survival in the far north. He introduces the major themes in the book and gives a glimpse of the recurring title image.
I read those four pages and thought, “Damn. Now that’s how you start a book.”