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Reviews
Journey into Mohawk Country by Hilary Sycamore, George O'Connor, Harmen Meyndertsz Van Den Bogaert
ava_a07's review
2.0
I don’t know what to really think about this book. I thought it was informative on its topic but I just feel like I’ll forget everything I read.
jwinchell's review against another edition
3.0
I've become a fan of George O'Connor, so it was interesting to read this pre-Olympians title. His general idea is intriguing: to illustrate a primary document and bring to life one Dutch trader's diary of his journey into "Mohawk Country." I had lots of questions while I was reading: what's the value of this? why should I believe his pictorial deviations from the text? is this really what the Mohawk looked like? I guess the best use of this text would before history students to use it is an alternate history, to read the actual journal, to do other research into the era. Because as just a straight narrative, this was not a very good read. The drawings of Native Americans seemed to me to be dangerous caricatures, and I was uncomfortable with O'Connor's basic purpose of exalting this early era in colonialist history.
saidtheraina's review against another edition
2.0
Things I liked:
1. GEORGE O'CONNOR - I LOVED his picture books ([b:Kapow|1249164|Kapow!|George O'Connor|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182251544s/1249164.jpg|1237906] and [b:Ker-splash|1249169|Ker-splash!|George O'Connor|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182251547s/1249169.jpg|1237911]), and his sense of humor comes through beautifully in his illustrations.
2. Primary Sources Made Accessible - As a history buff, I love that a primary source is getting reintroduced to the public in such an approachable way.
3. Pretty Colors - Hilary Sycamore colors make this totally stunning.
Things I'm not such a big fan of:
1. Relevancy? I never really attached to the purpose of the journey. What was the goal? When did they reach it? Also, I didn't know where they were. I know they started on the island that would become Manhattan, but did they stay on it throughout? I REALLY wanted a map following their journey, preferably overlayed with current geography. I realize that maybe historians don't know exactly where they were, but it felt lacking.
2. Midrash - I love creative interpretation of well known stories - filling in the gaps of ancient religious texts, for example. But here, I don't know the story yet. So I find myself confused about what is fact and what is imagination. My initial reading of the story is tainted by the expansion in the illustrations. So I'm not sure the text is as well served as it might be in a more black and white (figuratively) telling.
3. Stereotypes. I already said I love O'Connor's style, but it does lean toward caricature. And when your topic is European exploration of Native American lands, it feels dangerously close to racism. I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT IS THE ARTIST'S INTENTION, but it makes me nervous and distracted me during the reading.
And when it comes down to it, all the philosophical stuff distracted me so much, I didn't actually enjoy reading it very much. I feel bad for giving a bad rating, since I believe the intent is good. It just didn't work for me.
1. GEORGE O'CONNOR - I LOVED his picture books ([b:Kapow|1249164|Kapow!|George O'Connor|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182251544s/1249164.jpg|1237906] and [b:Ker-splash|1249169|Ker-splash!|George O'Connor|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182251547s/1249169.jpg|1237911]), and his sense of humor comes through beautifully in his illustrations.
2. Primary Sources Made Accessible - As a history buff, I love that a primary source is getting reintroduced to the public in such an approachable way.
3. Pretty Colors - Hilary Sycamore colors make this totally stunning.
Things I'm not such a big fan of:
1. Relevancy? I never really attached to the purpose of the journey. What was the goal? When did they reach it? Also, I didn't know where they were. I know they started on the island that would become Manhattan, but did they stay on it throughout? I REALLY wanted a map following their journey, preferably overlayed with current geography. I realize that maybe historians don't know exactly where they were, but it felt lacking.
2. Midrash - I love creative interpretation of well known stories - filling in the gaps of ancient religious texts, for example. But here, I don't know the story yet. So I find myself confused about what is fact and what is imagination. My initial reading of the story is tainted by the expansion in the illustrations. So I'm not sure the text is as well served as it might be in a more black and white (figuratively) telling.
3. Stereotypes. I already said I love O'Connor's style, but it does lean toward caricature. And when your topic is European exploration of Native American lands, it feels dangerously close to racism. I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT IS THE ARTIST'S INTENTION, but it makes me nervous and distracted me during the reading.
And when it comes down to it, all the philosophical stuff distracted me so much, I didn't actually enjoy reading it very much. I feel bad for giving a bad rating, since I believe the intent is good. It just didn't work for me.
crystabrittany's review against another edition
3.0
I appreciate that the text comes directly from historical diaries and I enjoyed the artwork. The art certainly made the text more interesting, but a diary of a trader in the seventeenth century is not thrilling reading, so the story was a little dull. Still, though, since a good insight into that time and place, and it made me wish I was teaching a class on trade, colonization, diaries, etc.
books_n_pickles's review against another edition
2.0
A pretty cool concept for a graphic novel: take a real historical text and bring it to life. In this case, O'Connor chose a 17th-century Dutchman's journal of his trade visit with some tribes in upstate New York. It seems an odd choice at first, because the journal is, well, pretty boring if you aren't a historian. Many days are much like the others: walking, cold, bedding down at night; or stuck at one village because of snow. On the other hand, this gave O'Connor plenty of room to play with and interpret the events as he wished--the lack of details was a blank canvas...er, page.
This is an excellent opening for both an artist and a historian to play. Details that would require an entire museum exhibit or text-only book can be compressed between two covers when there are images and actions to support a story. Adding literal as well as metaphorical color to dry documents can draw in readers who might not otherwise give old pamphlets like these a chance, and reviving them so creatively ensures that the text will have far more readers that it ever would if it had either been sitting in an archive or just digitized and printed for a narrow audience of researchers. As a publisher, archivist, librarian, and English major by training, practice, and passion...that's pretty freakin' awesome!
However, that "blank page" was also part of the problem for me, in a way. There's really not much grounds to call this anything but historical fiction, because when we get emotions or feelings or any kind of visual information, it's entirely from O'Connor, who didn't abridge the text in any way. I have no problem with historical fiction, but juxtaposing a primary source with something so far removed that I have no idea how many of the visual details are accurate makes me a little uncomfortable. For three examples:
1) Early on, the travelers come across a tent (?) with women in it. For some reason, these women are naked. No other women in the book are naked when they're inside. I have no idea at all whether this is based on historical fact or completely made up to support an ensuing visual gag.
2) The climax of the trading mission takes place entirely off screen while we watch another member of Van den Bogaert's party having fun with an entirely made-up companion. It would have been boring to show the final agreement scene--by this point a rehash of previous discussions--but the scenes in the village are entirely invented, with no tie at all to the original. They're interesting, but they also feel out of place and irrelevant to the point of the story/journal.
3) This is the least comfortable to me. O'Connor has Van den Bogaert spotting a mysterious American Indian around him in the woods, usually in creepy settings. Is this man supposed to be a real person? Signs point to no, but it he a vision? There's no apparent reason why Van den Bogaert would be seeing things. Is this mystery man just there to try to give the reader a little suspense, since we're reading through a boring return journey at this point? Is he supposed to be a metaphor for European settlers' fear of American Indians?
Maybe a little commentary on these items, or at least a more robust author/artist's note about his research and historicity vs. invention would have mitigated my feelings.
I usually gush about the art in graphic novels, but for me, this art wasn't much to write home about. It served the purpose: to illustrate. It felt more like the kind of simplified art you used to see in the comics pages of newspapers (*sob*) than a work of art in its own right. For a historical work, I might have liked a few finer details and less comic-y characters. I did notice at least one other reviewer loved the art, so take this as a matter of taste, not critical commentary.
I do think that the idea behind this work--to shed light on archival materials that can potentially tell us so much about the past--is valuable and wonderful. I very much hope that O'Connor and others like him continue to do this work, remixing and making history accessible. Just...maybe with more robust historical notes.
I'm not really satisfied labeling this 2 stars, but Goodreads says 3 means "liked it." I found it fascinating, but can't say I was more than "okay" about it. So if a 3 meant "average", like you'd think it would, then this would be a 3. I'd recommend it to historians with relevant interests, but probably not to others.
... Finally, to comment on the journal/journey...why the heck did anyone think it was a good idea to do this trip in the dead of winter? It was freezing cold, the snow was thick, and everyone at home thought they'd died. Waiting for spring seems like it would have been logical.
This is an excellent opening for both an artist and a historian to play. Details that would require an entire museum exhibit or text-only book can be compressed between two covers when there are images and actions to support a story. Adding literal as well as metaphorical color to dry documents can draw in readers who might not otherwise give old pamphlets like these a chance, and reviving them so creatively ensures that the text will have far more readers that it ever would if it had either been sitting in an archive or just digitized and printed for a narrow audience of researchers. As a publisher, archivist, librarian, and English major by training, practice, and passion...that's pretty freakin' awesome!
However, that "blank page" was also part of the problem for me, in a way. There's really not much grounds to call this anything but historical fiction, because when we get emotions or feelings or any kind of visual information, it's entirely from O'Connor, who didn't abridge the text in any way. I have no problem with historical fiction, but juxtaposing a primary source with something so far removed that I have no idea how many of the visual details are accurate makes me a little uncomfortable. For three examples:
1) Early on, the travelers come across a tent (?) with women in it. For some reason, these women are naked. No other women in the book are naked when they're inside. I have no idea at all whether this is based on historical fact or completely made up to support an ensuing visual gag.
2) The climax of the trading mission takes place entirely off screen while we watch another member of Van den Bogaert's party having fun with an entirely made-up companion. It would have been boring to show the final agreement scene--by this point a rehash of previous discussions--but the scenes in the village are entirely invented, with no tie at all to the original. They're interesting, but they also feel out of place and irrelevant to the point of the story/journal.
3) This is the least comfortable to me. O'Connor has Van den Bogaert spotting a mysterious American Indian around him in the woods, usually in creepy settings. Is this man supposed to be a real person? Signs point to no, but it he a vision? There's no apparent reason why Van den Bogaert would be seeing things. Is this mystery man just there to try to give the reader a little suspense, since we're reading through a boring return journey at this point? Is he supposed to be a metaphor for European settlers' fear of American Indians?
Maybe a little commentary on these items, or at least a more robust author/artist's note about his research and historicity vs. invention would have mitigated my feelings.
I usually gush about the art in graphic novels, but for me, this art wasn't much to write home about. It served the purpose: to illustrate. It felt more like the kind of simplified art you used to see in the comics pages of newspapers (*sob*) than a work of art in its own right. For a historical work, I might have liked a few finer details and less comic-y characters. I did notice at least one other reviewer loved the art, so take this as a matter of taste, not critical commentary.
I do think that the idea behind this work--to shed light on archival materials that can potentially tell us so much about the past--is valuable and wonderful. I very much hope that O'Connor and others like him continue to do this work, remixing and making history accessible. Just...maybe with more robust historical notes.
I'm not really satisfied labeling this 2 stars, but Goodreads says 3 means "liked it." I found it fascinating, but can't say I was more than "okay" about it. So if a 3 meant "average", like you'd think it would, then this would be a 3. I'd recommend it to historians with relevant interests, but probably not to others.
... Finally, to comment on the journal/journey...why the heck did anyone think it was a good idea to do this trip in the dead of winter? It was freezing cold, the snow was thick, and everyone at home thought they'd died. Waiting for spring seems like it would have been logical.
emmkayt's review against another edition
2.0
I love that this graphic novel's text is an unabridged and unedited primary source document, the journal of a Dutch trader about his wintertime journey among the First Nations of what is now New York State. Very neat idea. The downside is that it lacks much of an arc. I think there are ways it could have been given more layers and annotations of some kind for added richness. I found the illustrations rather samey - in particular the nubile Disney Pocahontas-like women (who also seemed under-dressed for the weather) - what was up with that?
erine's review against another edition
5.0
I was a little hesitant about the cover and the excerpt (I thought it was a violent story that stereotyped Native Americans), but once I read the Introduction, the concept of this graphic novel sucked me in and spat me out the other side. This is a primary document, a journal written by a Dutch Trader on an expedition to feel out some of the Natives in the area that is now New York. O'Connor set it up in graphic novel style and, with the aid of research, added his own interpretation through pictures to the original words of the journal. The result was impressive and brought a journal alive that would otherwise have been difficult to read with a lot of detail hard for lay readers to grasp. As a former history major, I give this graphic novel about a hundred thumbs up for making history so exciting.
Any reader interested in history, particularly the early days of colonial America, should read this book JUST to see how the format treats the historical document. Any history teacher who's been teaching the same old lesson plans about early American colonization should hand this to the class before uttering one more boring date or fact. This would make an excellent start on a discussion about primary sources and the interpretation that is required to understand them.
Partial nudity (women). Some sexual innuendo.
Any reader interested in history, particularly the early days of colonial America, should read this book JUST to see how the format treats the historical document. Any history teacher who's been teaching the same old lesson plans about early American colonization should hand this to the class before uttering one more boring date or fact. This would make an excellent start on a discussion about primary sources and the interpretation that is required to understand them.
Partial nudity (women). Some sexual innuendo.