I might be one of the dissenting voices here as my review is not stellar. It is one of those books that I read and appreciated, but I will never take it to a desert island. It was an interesting perspective, and a perspective is truly a big thing in sci fi genre, but sometimes, the exploration of ideas is not enough for me.
On goodreads, it is shelved as a dystopian novel, but it has the twist as the events take place in a reservation and the village gradually loses all the connection with the Canadian government, including internet, phone, TV, and later electricity and water.
As readers, we can only make assumption about the end of the world and its aftermath for this community. These assumptions are strengthened by the “refugees” of the bigger world, but the end has never been explained.
Now, the biggest question one should ask if this is indeed a novel of the end of the world or the novel of rebirth. I believe it is a novel of rebirth of Anishinaabe community with their traditional lifestyle with hunting, fishing, and gathering as the cornerstones of their society.
It is a story of emotional and cultural awakening, and I am not surprised that the only white man was the evil one. He is a symbolic figure of a white man that brings havoc and destruction, and I do not blame the author for this formulaic representation after the Holocaust-like experience that white colonizers caused, but still it was a hackneyed trope.
Writing has not impressed me either – it was simple, but not simplistic, yet it lacked sophistication, even thought this simplicity was intended. Again, I can hear the European tradition of writing in me speaking loudly, and I can not suppress this voice. I DO NOT need purple prose, BUT I love smart allusiveness, I love rich styles: I also love laconic, terse and pithy styles. But this one was neither.
I felt like the author in this hypothetical situation viewed the catastrophe as a passage of transformation, as a way of returning to his roots, and there is no remorse about the lost civilization, and even no interest about the origin of this massive demise, just an opportunity to be born anew, to start life anew true to the traditions and customs of the Anishinaabe community.
To me, with my European background, that would have been a very painful experience as it means saying goodbye to everything that is part of my identity – arts, literature, storytelling, and of course, books.
I think I could not embrace this book more because of the genuine discrepancy of cultures. On the other hand, I need to view it as an eye-opening experience – what we value as accomplishments can be irrelevant to others.
tzulfia 