Greer on Boyden

Every so often, Christopher Moore scoops Charlevoix on a bit of New France related news -- and I'm very glad for it!  Most recently, Moore turned his readers on to a review of Joseph Boyden's The Orenda by Allan Greer, who teaches at McGill and who is one of the foremost scholars of Early Canadian history.  The verdict: great literature but dubious history? See here.

P.-F.-X.
 

A Month's Highlights

Apologies, faithful readers, for having fallen off the blogging wagon a month ago to the day.  So many things to do, so little time!  It is not, to be sure, that nothing worthy of interest has been happening.  A couple of quick highlights:

The reenactors of the Compagnie de La Vérendrye were honoured with this year's "capot" award at the Festival du voyageur in Winnipeg (Radio-Canada).  Félicitations!

The promoter of François de Laval and Marie de l'Incarnation canonization in Rome is optimistic that they might be placed on the fasttrack for sainthood (National Catholic Reporter).  Really?

Joseph Boyden's The Orenda won this year's Canada Reads (CBC), but was challenged by Aboriginal scholars Hayden King (CBC) and Taiaiake Alfred (see his Twitter feed) for perpetuating old stereotypes.  Hmm...

Last Friday a colloquium on recent developments in research on the seignorial regime was held at Université de Sherbrooke (CIEQ).  A packed programme!

P.-F.-X. 

Joseph Boyden in New France

I'm dying to get my hands on Joseph Boyden’s latest novel, The Orenda (Hamish Hamilton, September 2013; not to be confused with Kate Cameron's Orenda: A Novel of the Iroquois Nation published by Random House in 1991).  Were I more of a hipster, I might take this opportunity to proclaim that I've been into Boyden since before he was cool.  Don't get me wrong: Three Day Road (Penguin, 2008) deserved the universal acclaim it received, but Born With a Tooth (Cormorant Books, 2001) too was a delight -- dare I say that it already presaged greatness?  It doesn't have anything to do with New France, but read do read it if you enjoy good literature.

Boyden's latest book does have something to do with New France.  He turns from the twentieth century to the seventeeth, and explores the delicate and dramatic relations between Aboriginal peoples and Jesuit missionaries.  Here is the publishers' blurb :

The Orenda opens with a brutal massacre and the kidnapping of the young Iroquois Snow Falls, a spirited girl with a special gift. Her captor, Bird, is an elder and one of the Huron Nation’s great warriors and statesmen. It has been years since the murder of his family and yet they are never far from his mind. In Snow Falls, Bird recognizes the ghost of his lost daughter and sees the girl possesses powerful magic that will be useful to him on the troubled road ahead. Bird’s people have battled the Iroquois for as long as he can remember, but both tribes now face a new, more dangerous threat from afar.

Christophe, a charismatic Jesuit missionary, has found his calling amongst the Huron and devotes himself to learning and understanding their customs and language in order to lead them to Christ. An emissary from distant lands, he brings much more than his faith to the new world.

As these three souls dance each other through intricately woven acts of duplicity, small battles erupt into bigger wars and a nation emerges from worlds in flux.

In an interview with Maclean's, Boyden explains: “It seemed like the right time for a story I grew up immersed in”.  As a child he spent summers on Christian Island in Georgian Bay, where many Wendats (Hurons) fled in 1649, and attended Brébeuf College, named for one of the Jesuit martyrs. “Even if I did my best to get kicked out of that school—right down to a Mohawk haircut—I think my Jesuit education stuck.”

A Black Robe for the 21st century?  Whereas Brian Moore's 1985 novel andits 1991 film adaptation followed a Jesuit protagonist, the narrative voice in The Orenda deftly shifts from Bird the Wendat, to Snow Falls the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), and Christophe the Jesuit.  In Boyden's version, by the way, the Jesuit is not a Black Robe, but a "Crow".

 

The Globe and Mail has a book review on Boyden's Orenda.

P.-F.-X.