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Klee Wyck
The title of artist, writer, and rebel Emily Carr's first book means "Laughing One," the nickname given her by the Native people of Canada's west coast. She returned the favor with Klee Wyck, a collection of 21 "word portraits" of their lives and ways. The memoir describes in witty, vivid detail Carr's visits and travels as she painted their totem poles and villages and go...more
Paperback, 144 pages
Published
March 11th 2004
by Douglas & McIntyre
(first published 1941)
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I did not write Klee Wyck, as the reviewers said, long ago when I went to the West Coast Villages painting. I was too busy then painting from dawn till dusk. I wrote Klee Wyck...in hospital. They said I would not be able to go about painting here and there any more, lugging and tramping. I was sore about it, so, as I lay there, I relived the villages of Klee Wyck. It was easy for my mind to go back to the lovely places. After fifty years they were as fresh in my mind as they were then, b
...more
I had considered reading The Forest Lover,which is a novel about Emily Carr by Susan Vreeland as my Canada book for Around The World in 52 books, but I'm glad I didn't settle for Emily Carr at second hand. She writes lovely prose.
Here is my favorite quote from this book:
"Down deep we all hug something. The great forest hugs its silence. The sea and the air hug the spilled cries of sea birds."
Emily Carr traveled to various Canadian First Peoples villages to sketch their totem poles and other car...more
Here is my favorite quote from this book:
"Down deep we all hug something. The great forest hugs its silence. The sea and the air hug the spilled cries of sea birds."
Emily Carr traveled to various Canadian First Peoples villages to sketch their totem poles and other car...more
This book was first published in 1941 and was the first book published by noted Canadian West Coast artist, Emily Carr. Towards the end of her life, Emily Carr was finding it more difficult to travel and paint and started to edit the notes and stories she had written all her life so that they could be published. When a version of Klee Wyck was published for schools in the 1950s, some stories and some sections of the text were omitted. These were held to be counter to the prevailing political opi...more
After reading The Forest Lover and visiting the Emily Carr house in Victoria I was really excited to read one of the books she had actually written about her life. This was about her visits to various Indian Villages on Vancouver Island and also in the Queen Charlotte Islands. This was her first published book and was published just a few years before she died in the early 1940s. What I thought was interesting and disturbing was that in 1950 the publishers decided to publish a new edition that w...more
Living in Victoria B.C., Emily's fascination with the native culture of the area, specifically the Haida, is clearly celebrated in her clever and humorous tales as she moves about their lands to study and draw their totem poles. Her listless, respectful and resourceful accounts of life amongst the tribal villages is set eminent. Her love for their totem poles and the stories surround them had her working hard to try and gain the relationships she needed to help her gain access to what she was st...more
I hadn't realized Emily Carr was a writer as well as an artist. She lived in Victoria BC in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Emily painted and struggled to support herself by running a boarding house for many years. She achieved considerable recognition only quite late in life. She is well known for her paintings of the Northwest Coast forests, Indian villages and totem poles. Thls little book of word sketches is about the Indians of Vancouver Island and their way of life that wa...more
I give this 5 stars not because of literary merit but b/c it's so real, moment by moment just how things and people were, especially the Indians and how they were and their conditions. Wonderful descriptions of the land, the water, the boats. Especially loved her adventures, she would take off alone (except for her little dog) with anyone who would take her to see the totems. When she had to go below in that little boat and sleep in a "bed" the size of a coffin....yikes...I could hardly stand it...more
A wondnderful read! Carr offers us a window into her experiences as a young painter in search of totem poles to paint along the British Columbian coast. It is amazing how she can spin a story out of a few everyday events and write it down so simply. Equally amazing are her descriptions of the totem poles and how she personifies them. She literally paints them with words. I wish I could write like that.
I must add that this book was purchased on a gift card I received from a student. Merci beaucou...more
I must add that this book was purchased on a gift card I received from a student. Merci beaucou...more
This book makes me want to travel to all the old native villages to learn more about them and to see the totem poles myself. Carr was a brave young woman to get herself into some of the situations she did. I also admire her for speaking her mind when anyone asked her to use her influence in the native community to persuade them to do things like send their children to residential schools, etc.
I think what I liked most about this auto-biography is that Carr doesn't seem to try too hard to hide he...more
I think what I liked most about this auto-biography is that Carr doesn't seem to try too hard to hide he...more
Another B&B find. From the age of fifteen, Carr was obsessed with painting the rapidly vanishing totem poles of the Northwest Coast Native Americans. This book of short verbal sketches revisits some of her adventures and interactions with the remnants of the tribes who once inhabited the coast. Her essays/sketches were written long before Native Americans were recognized as posessing a complex culture of their own plus a legitimate world view.
Having just returned from British Columbia, where I visited the wonderful museum of Victoria which is full of totem poles and photos of people living the way Carr describes the First Nations people living, I was very struck by this book, which I found inexpressibly sad and beautiful. Carr comes through here as gutsy and sensitive and aware of the passing of the culture she struggles to describe both in words and through her paintings.
Interesting memories of Canadian Emily Carr on her experiences among the native Indians along the Canadian west coast when she visited various villages/islands during her painting years. Even though the sites she went to were very primitive, she makes one want to on some of her jaunts just to see the lay of the land and the totem poles and what is left of the Indian houses.
Emily Carr is quite a unique individual and this group of vignettes of her experiences is very compelling. A nice companion volume to The Forest Lover, by Susan Vreeland, which is a novelization of Emily's life.
Well, being an Emily Carr fan, (so much so, that I named my first born, Emily), I really enjoyed going with her on canoe trips to Indian villages and sharing the totems.
Interesting descriptive little vignettes of Emily Carr's experience with West Coast natives during her lifetime, and with her outlook.
This was pretty good but I loved The Book of Small and The House of All Sorts more. This was great for more focus on painting.
first person account of Emily Carr's trips and experiences along the BC coast 100 years ago
I knew she could paint, but I had no idea that Emily Carr could write like this. I might be developing a bit of a historical crush lol
1 like · like · see review
A book I can read again and again, and do!
Another book written about getting to the inside of a culture to which the author is alien. Unlike the book about the Hopi, I like this one. It's all about not being on the inside, about being alien and, yet, a sensitive representation of Emily Carr's experiences.
Apr 27, 2012
J. Whitley
rated it
2 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Those interested in indigenous populations
While I think the stories in this book are important, they do not represent Carr's best. Many are repetitive. The value of the book lies in the portraits she paints of the changes to the tribes in and around British Columbia.
Emily Carr meets Aboriginal peoples and paints in their communities. Reads like a journal of her experiances.
21 short stories of the native Indians of British Columbia
May 21, 2013
Lisa RC
marked it as to-read
May 12, 2013
Gina
marked it as to-read
May 11, 2013
Anneke
marked it as to-read
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Emily Carr (December 13, 1871 – March 2, 1945) was a Canadian artist and writer heavily inspired by the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. One of the first painters in Canada to adopt a post-impressionist painting style, Carr did not receive widespread recognition for her work until later in her life. As she matured, the subject matter of her painting shifted from aboriginal themes...more
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“Indians do not hinder the progress of their dead by embalming or tight coffining. When the spirit has gone they give the body back to the earth. the earth welcomes the body-coaxes new life and beauty from it, hurries over what men shudder at. Lovely tender herbage bursts from the graves, swiftly, exulting over corruption.”
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Feb 05, 2012 12:02am