Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by alertnerd
The Orenda by Joseph Boyden
2.0
This book was recommended to me by a coworker. I had read Three Day Road in college and loved it, so I was excited to give this one a try. As is typical with Joseph Boyden, the prose is absolutely beautiful, the characters are well developed and the story is engaging. However, the recent allegations about Boyden’s heritage makes some of his writing decisions problematic (at best).
The amount of violence in the novel was the first red flag. Not only were the descriptions extremely graphic, but the use of violence was entirely one sided. Only the First Nations characters were the ones engaging in violence, with incredibly drawn out and graphic scenes of them torturing each other. The idea that the French colonists were nothing but harmless traders and missionaries would be laughable if it wasn’t so disgusting. This does nothing to debunk the very common stereotype of Indigenous peoples as wild and violent savages.
While characters like Bird, Fox and Snow Falls were seen as incredibly violent, the French were depicted as intelligent and peaceful. Any harm they brought to the Haudenosaunee -- like the diseases that nearly destroyed their entire tribe -- was shown to be unintentional. The Haudenosaunee were constantly impressed by the technology the French brought with them in almost a child-like way. The Haudenosaunee characters, however, never brought anything useful to the French and their way of life was shown to be backwards, out-dated, and fading away in the “new world”.
The depiction of the First Nations characters as violent savauges and the Frenchmen as innocent, intelligent nobleman wasn’t the end however. The characters of Bird and Gosling were stereotypical. Bird was the stoic, warrior savage while Gosling was a nondescript mystical being. Even Fox, who despite being very important to Bird wasn’t given much of a character beyond being an excellent warrior. More time was spent on battle than was on their home life and too much of their culture was described through the eyes of a racist missionary.
Overall, Boyden told a great story but fell into many racist tropes that are all too common in literature written about Indigenous peoples but not by Indigenous peoples.
The amount of violence in the novel was the first red flag. Not only were the descriptions extremely graphic, but the use of violence was entirely one sided. Only the First Nations characters were the ones engaging in violence, with incredibly drawn out and graphic scenes of them torturing each other. The idea that the French colonists were nothing but harmless traders and missionaries would be laughable if it wasn’t so disgusting. This does nothing to debunk the very common stereotype of Indigenous peoples as wild and violent savages.
While characters like Bird, Fox and Snow Falls were seen as incredibly violent, the French were depicted as intelligent and peaceful. Any harm they brought to the Haudenosaunee -- like the diseases that nearly destroyed their entire tribe -- was shown to be unintentional. The Haudenosaunee were constantly impressed by the technology the French brought with them in almost a child-like way. The Haudenosaunee characters, however, never brought anything useful to the French and their way of life was shown to be backwards, out-dated, and fading away in the “new world”.
The depiction of the First Nations characters as violent savauges and the Frenchmen as innocent, intelligent nobleman wasn’t the end however. The characters of Bird and Gosling were stereotypical. Bird was the stoic, warrior savage while Gosling was a nondescript mystical being. Even Fox, who despite being very important to Bird wasn’t given much of a character beyond being an excellent warrior. More time was spent on battle than was on their home life and too much of their culture was described through the eyes of a racist missionary.
Overall, Boyden told a great story but fell into many racist tropes that are all too common in literature written about Indigenous peoples but not by Indigenous peoples.