Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Itty Bitty Book Review: "The Orenda" by Joseph Boyden

Wow…quite a book.  Not surprisingly considering what Boyden accomplished in his first novel:  Three Day Road.  I took it to Palm Springs but wasn't really in the mood to deal with all the torture scenes.  Somehow you get over this and the story is just really quite wonderful.  An amazing accomplishment and I'm pleased to see it won the "Canada Read"  "book that will change our nation"  award.  It just might be "the great Canadian novel"  that I kept expecting Margaret Atwood to write.

http://arts.nationalpost.com/2014/03/06/joseph-boydens-the-orenda-wins-canada-reads/?__federated=1

In Boyden's words:

“I wanted the average Canadian not to think of First Nations before first contact as a bunch of Indians huddling around the fire, waiting for civilization to discover them and help them,” said Boyden. “I wanted Canadians to understand that long before the Europeans arrived there were incredibly complex and beautiful societies and complicated societies already here.”