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21. The Steep Approach to Garbadale by Iain Banks
One of the reviews quoted on the cover says it's his best book since The Crow Road. I have to agree. Of course, if The Crow Road isn't your favourite Banks novel, YMMV. The Crow Road comparison is pretty obvious; this is also about a bloke from an established Scottish family trying to find out things about the family's past. There's fewer laugh out loud moments (probably a good thing for those of us who read in public places), but it's altogether a fun journey nonetheless.
22. The Long Exile: A true story of deception and survival amongst the Inuit of the Canadian Arctic by Melanie McGrath
I saw a review of this a while back and had to get my hands on it; it wasn't until I did that I realised it's by the author of Silvertown, which I read earlier this year.
She probably should have stuck to things she knows. Or at least had an editor who knows the first thing about Canada give it a quick read. The story of the Canadian government's forcible relocation of Inuit peoples from the Ungava region to the high arctic in the 1950s in order to support Canada's claim to that area (still disputed by the US and Denmark) by populating it is an important one that warrants a wide audience, and deserves better than this book.
She focuses a lot on the fact that one of the people who was relocated was the son of Robert Flaherty, the maker of Nanook of the North, where I find it only incidental to the story. Is it because she thinks that readers will only care about the story if one of the protagonists was part white?
What bothered me most was the stupid mistakes that could so easily have been rectified by a half decent editor. The most glaring (and angry-making) one was referring to native Canadians as "Indians". Does anybody other than racists of my parents' generation still call them that? I didn't think one could still get away with that in a publication which is distributed in Canada. It's especially jarring because she's so careful to be respectful of the Inuit. The CBC is not the "Canadian Broadcast Company". In a book about the history of Canada, it's probably not wise to use the term "lower Canada" to refer to all of Canada south of the arctic, because in the context of the history of Canada, "Lower Canada" specifically means Quebec. Referring to all of arctic Canada as "the Barrenlands" is also something I don't think is accepted terminology (those who spend more time in Canada can feel free to correct me there). The interior of Newfoundland is The Barrens, but it's not the same thing. The use of this terminology is especially stupid when a large part of the point of the book is that the original lands the Inuit inhabited in Ungava were anything but barren.
So - um - important story, packaed in an accessible mass-market format, which is good. The execution unfortunately leaves a lot to be desired. I'm glad I got this one from the library.
One of the reviews quoted on the cover says it's his best book since The Crow Road. I have to agree. Of course, if The Crow Road isn't your favourite Banks novel, YMMV. The Crow Road comparison is pretty obvious; this is also about a bloke from an established Scottish family trying to find out things about the family's past. There's fewer laugh out loud moments (probably a good thing for those of us who read in public places), but it's altogether a fun journey nonetheless.
22. The Long Exile: A true story of deception and survival amongst the Inuit of the Canadian Arctic by Melanie McGrath
I saw a review of this a while back and had to get my hands on it; it wasn't until I did that I realised it's by the author of Silvertown, which I read earlier this year.
She probably should have stuck to things she knows. Or at least had an editor who knows the first thing about Canada give it a quick read. The story of the Canadian government's forcible relocation of Inuit peoples from the Ungava region to the high arctic in the 1950s in order to support Canada's claim to that area (still disputed by the US and Denmark) by populating it is an important one that warrants a wide audience, and deserves better than this book.
She focuses a lot on the fact that one of the people who was relocated was the son of Robert Flaherty, the maker of Nanook of the North, where I find it only incidental to the story. Is it because she thinks that readers will only care about the story if one of the protagonists was part white?
What bothered me most was the stupid mistakes that could so easily have been rectified by a half decent editor. The most glaring (and angry-making) one was referring to native Canadians as "Indians". Does anybody other than racists of my parents' generation still call them that? I didn't think one could still get away with that in a publication which is distributed in Canada. It's especially jarring because she's so careful to be respectful of the Inuit. The CBC is not the "Canadian Broadcast Company". In a book about the history of Canada, it's probably not wise to use the term "lower Canada" to refer to all of Canada south of the arctic, because in the context of the history of Canada, "Lower Canada" specifically means Quebec. Referring to all of arctic Canada as "the Barrenlands" is also something I don't think is accepted terminology (those who spend more time in Canada can feel free to correct me there). The interior of Newfoundland is The Barrens, but it's not the same thing. The use of this terminology is especially stupid when a large part of the point of the book is that the original lands the Inuit inhabited in Ungava were anything but barren.
So - um - important story, packaed in an accessible mass-market format, which is good. The execution unfortunately leaves a lot to be desired. I'm glad I got this one from the library.
