“Child of Dragons”
Written by Regine Haensel
Published by Serimuse Books
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$14.95 ISBN 9-780993-903212
Saskatoon writer Regine Haensel
recently released Child of Dragons,
Book Two in her fantasy series, The Leather Book Tales. This ambitious
publication follows her 2014 novel Queen of Fire, which was nominated for a
High Plains Book Award. In the new novel we journey with restless
sixteen-year-old Rowan as she searches for two missing children, is
romantically pursued by two young men, and benefits from the protection of a
foreign soldier with a penchant for making cryptic statements, like "There
is no end to a circle … and when you stand at the centre you can see it
whole" and "The moon rises in the evening, until it does not."
There are numerous interesting characters in this hard-to-put-down tale, and
the author does a splendid job of making each distinct and memorable with her
keen gifts for dialogue and physical description.
The book's opening image depicts a
small caravan of horse riders, oxen and wagons crossing a "dun-coloured
land" near Aquila, City of Eagles, to Vatnborg, a city on a lake. Like all
good writers, Haensel quickly moves from scenery to scene, and we learn that
Rowan's saying good-bye to a father she's reconnected with after a long
separation, the leader of the caravan is a woman named Ursallia, and a good-looking
fellow traveler, Jernan - "He sits well on a horse" - has caught
Rowan's eye. The story's told from Rowan's point of view, so when she's thinking
about her past - her mother's death, Rowan's imprisonment in a castle with her
father and younger brother, and the dark fact that she's killed a man - the
back-story is seamlessly inserted.
This is fantasy, so dragons, castles,
legends, ravens, and ancient magic - including Rowan's bequeathed silver
bracelet - are in grand supply. Late in the story we meet the soothsayer,
Tristicus.
I'm impressed by how quickly I was
drawn into Rowan's adventure. Whether I was shivering with her in the desert
night's cold during the caravan, sailing toward an island ("the sail
bulging with wind") to find the two children, or drinking yet another cup
of "tisane" with her, I was there.
Rowan, an herbalist and healer, has several opportunities to impart the benefits
of bee balm, sage, coneflower and mint, for example, and it all seems credible
and consistent with the plot.
At one point the precocious heroine
says "Such simple and common things we do while horrors go on in the
world," and it's partly this deep empathy that makes her character so
appealing. She also possesses a fantastic imagination, so at times even she's not sure if what she's
"seeing" is a vision or just a young girl's fancy. "Am I
dreaming?" she asks the wise Grandmother late in the book, and the woman
answers, "Does it matter?"
Fantasy elements aside, this story
strikes a very human chord in its exploration of family, and particularly,
parents who've left their children, and how this affects those children for
years to come. This is a fascinating book.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL
BOOKSTORE OR FROM THE SASKATCHEWAN PUBLISHERS GROUP WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
__________
“Nēnapohš
Legends”
Narrated by Saulteaux Elders
Transcribed, Translated and Edited by
Margaret Cote
Syllabics by Lynn Cote, Glossary by
Arok Wolvengrey
Published by University of Regina Press
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$19.95
ISBN 978-0-88977-219-9
Nēnapohš
Legends, Memoir 2 in the First Nations Language Readers
features seven traditional Salteaux stories I'm happy to have been introduced
to. As explained by Margaret Cote and Arok Wolvengrey, these language texts
have been used to teach Saulteaux (Plains Ojibwe) in classrooms at First
Nations University of Canada in Regina, and prior to this they existed
exclusively as oral stories shared between generations.
The central character is Nēnapohš
(pronounced NAY nuh bohsh), the "'trickster' or culture-hero" in the
Saulteaux tradition. Cote First Nation Elders Andrew Keewatin, John F. Cote,
and Cote's daughter, Margaret Cote, a retired Assistant Professor of Salteaux
Language Studies, are to be congratulated for preserving these stories via sharing
them both orally and in this text. Aside from the fun and imaginative bilingual
tales, Nēnapohš Legends includes a
Saulteaux syllabary, an extensive Salteaux-English glossary, and detailed ink
drawings by Denny Morrison, a Salteaux artist from Ochapowace First Nation.
The first story, "When the Earth
was Flooded and How Nēnapohš Recreated It," shares many aspects with the
Noah's Ark story, though here God is "Great Spirit," the Noah figure
is Nēnapohš, and the ark is "a big raft" which saves its builder and
"some of his animal brothers," like beaver, otter, and muskrat, who
is responsible for diving and returning with the handful of dirt that Nēnapohš blew on to recreate the
world. Wolverine and wolf also play major roles. The final line - "That's
as far as it goes for now!" – gives the story that storytelling flavour,
and indeed, all of the tales end similarly.
Most of these very short mythological
stories begin with the main character "out walking around". Soon he
gets bored, or hungry, or mischievous, and something dramatic happens. The
one-page legend "Nēnapohš and the Owl” provides an explanation as to why
the owl can turn its head around. The brave owl was attacking the protagonist
as he walked through the forest, then Nēnapohš "got a good hold of the
owl's head" and broke his neck. In another story, "Nēnapohš and the
Geese," readers learn why Geese always fly in a "V"
formation.
Humour's especially evident in
"Nēnapohš Makes Red Willows". Here sly Nēnapohš is roasting ducks on
a fire and instructs his own "rear-end" to stay on watch for
predators while he sleeps. When wolves appear, "his rear-end let out a
loud fart to wake him up," but when hunters later arrive and quietly eat
the ducks, Nēnapohš isn't warned, and his rear-end is punished by having to sit
on a "red-hot rock".
Nēnapohš is simultaneously portrayed as
playful, dangerous, clever, and dim-witted, ie: at one point he thinks he's
eating dried meat left by his grandmother on the snow, when really he's so
hungry and dazed he's been eating his own scabs. Chickadee teasingly sings the
truth, and "That's as far as it goes".
This University of Regina Press book
squarely hits the mark, both as a teaching tool and an entertaining read, and
Morrison's welcome illustrations are worthy of frames.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL
BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
__________
“Mudeater: An American Buffalo Hunter
and the Surrender of Louis Riel”
by John D. Pihach
Published by University of Regina Press
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$27.95
ISBN 9-780889-774582
It's significant when an illustrious individual
appropriates an ancestry, ie: Archie Delaney reinventing himself as Grey Owl. Frontiersman
Irvin Mudeater had Grey Owl beat: Mudeater switched back and forth between Indian
and European ancestry each time he crossed the 49th Parallel. Born to a Wyandot
Chief in Kansas, Mudeater's story encompasses buffalo hunting, stage coach
driving, the Civil War, and criminal activity that saw him flee to Canada in
1882 and become "Robert Armstrong," the white man who settled in
Prince Albert and was credited (with two others) for bringing Louis Riel into
custody in 1885.
Yorkton writer John D. Pihach became
fascinated with Mudeater/Armstrong's Wild West and Canadian stories after
learning that his neighbor was the great-grandson of the famous man, and that
Armstrong had written an accessible and unpublished memoir. Considering
Armstrong's storytelling penchant, "some of his claims relating to certain
historical events appear unconvincing," but Pihach believes the
"savage nature" of his "Indian" encounters are reliable.
The book includes the memoir, photographs, and reports concerning Riel by
reporters and others.
Mudeater's great-grandfather was found
as a starving and abandoned Caucasian child by a party of Wyandots; the boy was
eating riverbank mud to survive. The Wynadot's adopted him and christened him
Mud Eater. Irvin Mudeater's father was politically active, serving as a
longtime Wynadot chief and council member who helped establish Kansas, and led
his beleaguered nation from Kansas to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. Interestingly,
there's no mention of Mudeater's own Indian ancestry in his memoirs, thus
avoiding a conflict of cultural interest when he aided in Riel's arrest.
Mudeater's spectacular experiences
included nearly losing his life to Cheyenne warriors while driving a freight
wagon over the Sante Fe Trail; "[practicing] scalping on dead bodies"
after a battle; joining Buffalo Bill's crew to supply meat for railroad
workers; making pets of an eagle and panther; and killing a man "while on
a drunken spree" in Wallace, Kansas.
In 1883 Mudeater was living in Prince
Albert, captivating folks with his Wild West tales (including the killing of
126 buffalo in one day), and transporting settlers from Qu'Appelle to Prince
Albert. During the 1885 conflict he became a chief scout for General Middleton,
then a hero upon Riel's capture. Post-1885, Armstrong became a family man but kept things
colourful re: shenanigans that included shooting the toe off a man, and
returning to live in the US with two of his daughters before retirement in
Calgary, then a final return to the US.
Mudeater's sometimes rough and often
boastful memoir ("at the age of fifteen years, I had a man's experience
and I had almost said a man's strength") and the articles and oral
accounts concerning him sketch a captivating portrait of the pioneer, but Pihach
admits that much of the hot-tempered hero's life remains a mystery. Anyone who
enjoys tales of the Wild West and/or the Riel Rebellion – and wishes to hear
them straight from the horse's mouth - will find much to chew on in this
entertaining book.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL
BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
__________
“Virgin Envy: The Cultural
(In)Significance of the Hymen”
Edited by Jonathan A. Allan, Cristina
Santos and Adriana Spahr
Published by University of Regina Press
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$27.95
ISBN 9-780889-774230
Until I read Virgin Envy: The Cultural (In)Significance of the Hymen, I never
knew that viragos are Latinas who
assume "'male' traits and [transgress] popularly accepted gender
roles.'" I didn't know that sexual abstinence in Stephenie Meyer's popular
Twilight series is a subject of
academic study, nor was I aware of the sketchy business of virginity testing as
a literary motif in both medieval romance novels and contemporary English
Orientalist romance literature. The trio of editors for this illuminating
eight-essay collection by University of Regina Press invite readers to consider
the myriad political, social, cultural, and literary complexities concerning
the "utter messiness" of virginity.
Firstly, the editors tackle with the
difficulty of a singular definition of "virginity," and point to
subjective and objective meanings, and the notion that the hymen is not always
"the signifier of
virginity," (boys and queers lose their virginity, too). The editors and
writers of this text "go beyond the hymen" in their considerations of
virginity, and this makes for an especially provocative treatise. They also
look at perceptions around losing one's virginity, ie: at what age does it
become embarrassing to remain "intact"?
Virginity is a serious subject, but one
need only read the section titles to ascertain that the editors also have good
fun with their disparate material. Part 1 is titled "Too Much Pain for
Such Little Reward," and the essays in Part 4 appear under the title
"F*ck: They Entrapped Us In Social Issues And Politics".
The first essay, by researcher Amy
Burge, examines virginity testing both historically and in literature,
comparing medieval romance approaches to those in contemporary romance
literature. Historical tests included the ability to carry water in a sieve, and
how loudly-and for what length of time-one urinated, while folk stories and
medieval romances included magical proofs, ie: "a harp that plays out of
tune when a non-virgin approaches." Burge explains that the problems with
virginity testing include veracity and the "patriarchal structures"
that make virginity testing an "almost exclusively female discourse."
It's interesting that the editors have
selected contributors with disparate credentials, ie: Gibson Ncube earned a PhD
(in French and francophone literatures) in South Africa, three have connections
to Brock University, and Jodi McAlister researches the histories of love, sex,
romance, and pop culture, and is linked to Macquarie University in Sydney. The
latter notes that contemporary romance novels are largely written by and for
women, and "the hymen is regularly represented," but the pain
associated with virginity loss is becoming less of a "gory" emphasis
than it was in previous texts (in which blood and passing out was frequently
featured), and female pleasure is receiving more emphasis.
From the Virgin Mary to The 40-Year-Old Virgin, from British
director Derek Jarman's experimental 1976 film Sebastiane to HBO's True
Blood vampire series that unsettles "socially conservative ideologies,
such as female virginity and sexuality," Virgin Envy delivers a rip-roaring ride (bad pun?) through the ins
and outs (again?), perceptions and misperceptions of virginity now and then,
here and there.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL
BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
