Take Indian Horse By Richard Wagamese Expressed As E-Text
wanted to love this more than I did, I was totally absorbed by the story of an Ojibway family trying to keep their children safe from the Canadian government who was removing first Nations children from their families! and the journey of Saul Indian Horse into his new and undesired life.
So I was surprised when half the novel was suddenly a sportsing hockey novel, almost like the author got bored, The slow reveal of sexual abuse felt added in for the wrong reasons and didn't seem to fit, I still want to read more by this author perhaps someone can recommend another title more
I first talked about this book when I included it in a book speed dating project sitelinkearlier this year and it was definitely compelling enough to finish.
Maybe come for the child story, and stay for the hockey, if that's your jam,
I was sent a review copy in print by Milkweed for its USA debut, which was earlier in, The book originally came out in Canada in, If I had known that hockey was central to this novel, I may not have picked it up, But I'm so glad I did, Wagamese writes with grace and truth and I was spellbound by Saul's rocky journey, And yes by the hockey which was much more than a game to Saul.
The book is a fastpages, but I feel as if Ive been through a life marathon, Young Saul Indian Horse starts life with a loving family: “My people are from the Fish Clan of the northern Ojibway, . . ” living in northern Ontario, Canada, We follow him from his familys attempt to escape having their children stolen by the government, to his life at the mercy of the monstrous Catholic Church folk in a horrific Indian school, to a brief but elegiac escape into playing ice hockey, to.
. . Well, read the book.
The writing is stark, poetic, and moving, The sense of the land and weather is visceral, The shifts from white peoples reality to Indian visionary reality is seamless, And the book and story are so good, it makes me forgive the reportwriting at the end that felt like analysis,
There is much to resonate with for anybody who has survived being broken, Im glad I read this book,
Wagamese envelopes me into this story, Its hard to believe this was written in, Its only been on my radar since all the news of the the recent residential graves have been discovered in Canada,
The reality of Indian children taken from their families to residential schools where they had their culture physically and mentally stamped out of them, The shame we should have as Catholic Canadians,
But there is beauty and magic out of this annihilation of both traditions and spirit, Saul Indian Horse, is an Ojibway child, taken from his family and put into one of these residential schools at the age of, It is here he finds his escape through his love of hockey, team camaraderie and community,
It is through this skill, he is able to escape the brutal conditions the children suffered, It is through this vision, he is given the opportunity when a scout comes along to play for a junior A team in Toronto,
But the past will continue to haunt, The discrimination will continue to be felt until he realizes he cant move forward until he faces the tragic past, Only then can he reclaim himself and his love of the sport and be at one with nature again,
I love this quote from grandmother: "We need mystery," she said, "Creator in her wisdom knew this, Mystery fills us with awe and wonder, They are the foundations of humility, and humility, grandson, is the foundation of all learning, So we do not need to seek to unravel this, We honour it by letting it be that way forever, " Pg
And this paragraph seems to sum up the residential school situation:
"When your innocence is stripped from you, when your people are denigrated, when the family you came from is denounced and your tribal ways and rituals are pronounced backward, primitive, savage, you come to see yourself as less than human.
That is hell on earth, that sense of unworthiness, That's what they inflicted on us, " Pg Richard Wagamese wrote beautifully!
Indian Horse is a heartbreaking and heartwarming story about growing up, racism, community residential schools, survival and hockey,
The author creates a memorable character in Saul Indian Horse, As a child Saul
finds himself without his family and in the depths of a residential school, As the reader we are there for every heartbreaking moment as the child tries to survive and understand and finds solace in playing hockey,
A story of unspeakable horrors in the's amp's and it's lingering effects on our country's native people, This novel has opened my eyes to the horrible atrocities committed behind closed doors, It is a great injustice to the youth of Canada that our education system chose to glaze over these horrific events in years gone by and it is only after reading this book that I was made aware of the Indian Residential schools where immoral priests and nuns worked to break the students spirit and sever their ties with their aboriginal life.
Many tears but also a must read! It's only March but I can already guarantee this will be in my top books of, Considering sitelink Medicine Walk was my favorite read of, it's safe to say Richard Wagamese is quickly becoming one of my alltime favorite authors,
This book made me cry uncontrollably in the end, which has literally never happened before, I think once or twice I've gotten mistyeyed while reading a book, but no book has ever moved me as much as the lastpages of this novel.
The story follows Saul Indian Horse, a young Ojibway boy growing up ins Canada, He's taken from his family and put in a residential school where he falls in love with hockey, We hear from Saul later in his life as he recounts his upbringing, the trauma he endures, and how hockey helped him cope while he and his fellow students suffered at the hands of the clergy that run the residential school.
If you know anything about the history of residential schools in Canada, you will understand how difficult this book is to read at times, Trigger warnings for .
However, it's an incredibly important story to tell and Wagamese does it so powerfully and respectfully,
I absolutely loved reading from Saul's perspective, He felt like a real person, and the journey he goes on, both externally and internally, was profound, It's because of that depth Wagamese wrote into Saul's character, and how we were able to see him through his highs and lows, that made me so attached to him.
Along with a moving plot and great characters, this story was so beautifully written, Wagamese's writing, especially his descriptions of nature, come to life off the page, The writing is almost poetic in nature, and you can hear the babbling brooks and feel the harsh winds of Winnipeg,
A new alltime favorite and makes me even more eager to keep reading Wagameses work! sitelinkblog sitelinkthestorygraph sitelinkletterboxd sitelink tumblr sitelinkkofi
Gutwrenching and haunting Indian Horse depicts the horrific realities of residential schools, as well as racism and discrimination ins Ontario.
This is the third novel that Ive read by Richard Wagamese and, while Medicine Walk and Ragged Company were no walks in the parks, Indian Horses unsparing bleakness and distressing content make those two seem like light reading material.
In spite of how upsetting and chilling this story was, Wagamese never sensationalises his characters suffering nor does he include graphic and or painful scenes as a cheap way to shock his readers.
He writes with such empathy and compassion that I found myself unable to tear myself away from Sauls story,
Indian Horse opens with Saul Indian Horse, who is Ojibwe, being in a treatment centre for his alcoholism, He then begins recounting his childhood, of the early years he spent with his family on the lam back in the earlys in the wilderness of Northern Ontario after his siblings were taken, kidnapped really, by the socalled authorities.
His parents are heartbroken and survival is difficult, but, compared to what is to come this part of his life seems like a vacation almost, Eventually, Saul is also stolen and taken to a residential school, Wagamese is unflinching in his depiction of the horrors that occur in residential schools such as the one attended by Sault, Words like horrifying or brutal do not succeed in conveying the monstrous actions and behaviours of the people in charge of these schools mostly nuns and priests.
The corporal and psychological violence they inflict on their charges are abhorrent, stomachchurning, horrific, Their antiindigenous teachings see them punishing read: abusing children for speaking in their native tongue, or for expressing nonChristian beliefs or for merely acknowledging their reality that of having been forcibly taken from their families and communities.
Saul finds solace in hockey, When Father Leboutilier notices how skilled Saul is on the ice he encourages him to keep on playing, tutoring him along the way, Saul temporarily plays with a midget hockey team but resentful white parents and their children are unwilling to see him take the spotlight and soon enough hes out of the team.
Eventually, Saul leaves the residential school and goes to live with the Kellys, an Ojibway foster family who wants him to join their communitys junior hockey team.
Over the following years, Saul and the rest of his teammates are subjected to many forms of discrimination, from the racist slurs other teams and their fans throw their way to the everyday discriminations and roughing up they are subjected to.
Saul initially refuses to retaliate when opposing players pull dirty tricks which actually earns him the contempt of his own teammates, who view his decision not to respond to violence with violence as passive, cowardly even.
Later on, Saul is scouted by the Toronto Marlboros where hes yet again a victim of discrimination, As time passes Saul decides to abandon hockey and develops a taste for drinking,
Whereas Medicine Walk and Ragged Company were very dialogueheavy and in many ways read like long conversations between the characters, between humans and the natural world, between past and present, Indian Horse is a more quiet work that is far more introspective in nature.
Sauls recollection of his childhood and teenage years is permeated by a sense of sorrow and loss, From the traumatic experience of being separated from his family to the horrifying realities of residential school and the later abuse he was subjected to once he began playing hockey professionally.
this is not a fun or nostalgic foray into the good olden days, Wagamese captures in painful clarity how much Saul struggled with the abuse, violence, and racism he experienced growing up, He conveys these experiences through his younger eyes, so that we too, feel as confused, hurt, and lost as he did, The loneliness he feels is truly heartbreaking and there were times that I struggled to keep on reading, But, as I said earlier on, Wagamese never makes a spectacle of his characters suffering, Hes matteroffact when it comes to recounting Sauls difficult life, making his experiences seem all the more real,
As with Wagamese's other novels, the narrative incorporates various Ojibway teachings, and here we see just how powerful they are in that they tether Saul to the culture he was so violently ripped away from.
Much about the tone of the novel brought to mind one of my alltimefavourite novels, Last Night I Sang to the Monster by Benjamin Alire Sáenz.
While they do portray very different realities, prose and tonewise the two share a similar quality, Selfforgiveness is a crucial part of both of these novels, and both authors demonstrate extreme empathy in the way they handle trauma, loss, and addiction,
If you are a fan of Wagamese, or Sáenz, and you are prepared to have your heart broken and possibly stitched back together, you should seriously consider reading Indian Horse.
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