The Scorched-Wood People

by Rudy Wiebe

Sixteen years later Louis Riel would be dressing himself again ... to be hanged by his neck until he is at last, perfectly, dead. O my God have mercy. So begins Rudy Wiebe's powerful portrayal of Louis Riel, the mystic revolutionary of the Northwest, and Gabriel Dumont - "the savage" as he calls himself - the great buffalo hunter who becomes Riel's commander-in-chief. With the same epic scope and inspired vision that he brought to The Temptations of Big Bear (winner of the Governor Generals Award for Fiction), Wiebe recreates an agonizing chapter in Canadian history which can never be forgotten - the explosive world of the North West Rebellions and the characters of the two men who led them. Written with powerful clarity and compassion, The Scorched-Wood People is an immense achievement, a brilliant exploration of the faces of prophetic vision, the morality of politics and the nature of faith.

Genres: Fiction, Canada

430 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Wiebe was born at Speedwell, near Fairholme, Saskatchewan in what would later become his family’s chicken barn. For thirteen years he lived in an isolated Mennonite community of about 250 people. He did not speak English until age six since Mennonites at that time customarily spoke Low German at home and standard German at Church. He attended the small school three miles from his farm and the Speedwell Mennonite Brethren Church.

He received his B.A. in 1956 from the University of Alberta and then studied at the University of Tübingen in West Germany. In 1958 he married Tena Isaak, with whom he had two children.

He is deeply committed to the literary culture of Canada and has shown a particular interest in the traditions and struggles of people in the Prairie provinces, both whites and Aboriginals.

Wiebe won the Governor General's Award for Fiction twice, for The Temptations of Big Bear (1973) and A Discovery of Strangers (1994). He was awarded the Royal Society of Canada's Lorne Pierce Medal in 1986. In 2000 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Reviews

[Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

An intense novel about Louis Riel, the Métis, the tribes of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and the drama and tragedy of the Riel Rebellion of the late 1800s. The powerful and rugged prose of Rudy Wiebe makes its mark on your mind like a blaze on a tree.

This was a story that Louis L’Amour said he wanted to take his pen and imagination to just before he passed.

A great novel.

[Sean Arthur · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like other reviewers here who "really wanted to like this book," I too found it tough going. Even before checking Wiebe's biography, I wondered if his first language was German, not English. I really struggled with the convoluted syntax he used to compose his sentences. Like the old joke, "German sentences are so long, by the time you get to the end you forget what it was about." This may also be a function of the tendency in novels now to go with the more stripped-down prose style of Hemingway, not my favourite either, and a form that has been badly abused by imitators.
The many instances of Riel's prayers was grating after awhile. I found myself wondering: does this serve the story, or was it a reflection of Wiebe's struggle with his Mennonite spirituality at the time the novel was written? Of course, Riel was a deeply devout Catholic, so it fits his character. But surely a couple of examples of his prayers would have sufficed. Ultimately I thought Wiebe's portrayal of Gabriel Dumont was the more sympathetic of the two.
To his credit, Wiebe manages to walk a mostly neutral line when it comes to the controversial nature of Riel's character. Was he a genuine visionary or just a mentally unstable religious fanatic? Was he a hero to the Métis nation or merely a criminal guilty of treason? Weibe seems content to let the reader decide, though at times one wishes the author had fallen clearly on either side of those lines. For me the best part of the book was the last act, after the Battle of Batoche—Riel's terrible prison ordeal while awaiting execution. It's here the author's passion for his subject becomes apparent at last, and real soul-searching questions are left with the reader about this critical moment in Canadian history.
The dramatic pacing to me seemed slack at times, weakened by too much interior monologue. Unclear transitions to new events left me scratching my head. At times it read like a stream-of-consciousness novel. To be fair, the way novels are written has changed greatly since 1977 when The Scorched-Wood People was published. It would be interesting to read a later novel from Wiebe to see if his style too has changed in comparison to his earlier work.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sad. This is history, so there's no spoiler alert that Riel was hung, the Metis and the Cree and the Blackfoot were robbed of their land and their way of life by the Fathers of Confederation. There was some violence, yes, but the outcome was never in doubt no matter how inept the conflict was handled. It was a bit of history I taught for years as part of the Grade Eight curriculum. But this little chapter of Victorian colonialism really couldn't have felt more fresh and relevant read as a duet with the newspaper accounts of the death of a young Indigenous man who frightened a farmer, two Indigenous deaths at the hands of police in Ontario, a Prime Minister juggling his desire for reconciliation with his fear of jeopardizing a few oil patch jobs and corporate profits. I don't expect any surprises there either. But Weibe's account was hard hitting and honest. And it breathed life into people that that have become myth.

[Zena Ryder · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really, really wanted to like this book, but I just didn't. I very much want to learn more about Louis Riel and, for me, historical fiction tends to be a good place to start on any historical subject, before reading non-fiction. But there doesn't appear to be much historical fiction about Riel, which is surprising, given how interesting his role in Canada's history is. So I had a lot of eggs in this particular basket. And, unfortunately, the basket wasn't my cup of tea. ;) The book oscillated between quite beautiful (albeit difficult to understand) poetic prose, and really dry "telling what happened", without any vivid characters other than Riel himself. I found myself fluctuating between confusion and boredom as I tried to get through this. I ended up not even finishing it.

[rita ✴︎]

am I crazy orrr....