A Geography of Blood: Unearthing Memory from a Prairie Landscape (David Suzuki Institute) in Around the World in 80 Books

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Jul 31, 2015 Jim rated it liked it

Shelves: memoir, history, non-fiction, canadian-authors, aboriginal_studies

Sometimes an author lets too much of their own personality seep into their work, and if it happens that the author's personality is one that doesn't match with yours you might end up resenting or disliking their book. I think a little of that has happened here...I was developing an intense dislike for Candace Savage.

Ms Savage and her husband moved to a small town near the Cypress Hills in western Canada. Once established they commenced exploring their environs and getting all giddy over the fact Sometimes an author lets too much of their own personality seep into their work, and if it happens that the author's personality is one that doesn't match with yours you might end up resenting or disliking their book. I think a little of that has happened here...I was developing an intense dislike for Candace Savage.

Ms Savage and her husband moved to a small town near the Cypress Hills in western Canada. Once established they commenced exploring their environs and getting all giddy over the fact that this part of the planet is really, really old and people have lived here for a long time and we really have to write a book about it all. They do their exploring accompanied by a number of unleashed dogs and insist on travelling in an unreliable vehicle which, annoyingly, has to be recovered a number of times. Savage seems to delight in the fact that the tow truck driver was discomfited by the fact that his cab was filled with dogs on the way back to town. I'm sure she thinks she is endearing herself to the reader but by this time I'm thinking what an annoying t**t she really is!

The book starts off as a hometown sketch, morphs into a geological history, and ends with Savage gushing liberal white guilt over the plight of the indigenous peoples, starved, land stolen, yadda yadda. I think she mentions crying a lot about it. Don't get me wrong...I'm not blind to the fact that technological and numerical inferiority left the aboriginal people of North America open to a royal screwing, and that they were displaced by (mostly) European settlers. I know. I get it. But here's the thing: it's done...and it won't be undone. You can write six books about it, and cry a bucket of tears, and it won't change a thing. All the people who screwed the aboriginal people are dead, and all the aboriginal people who were screwed are dead. All that are left from any of the participants are people born here, and no one has any place left to go back to. I'm not saying Savage should forget it, but let's move forward and work the thing out. Anyway, she's really, really sorry for being a white person and she's welcome to feel that way. I reserve the right to feel otherwise because, you see, I've never harmed anyone.

This might have been a decent read, Savage is a decent writer, but she put too much of herself in it for my liking. I'm really glad that she and her annoying dogs didn't move in next to me. ...more

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Sep 05, 2016 Jocelyn marked it as to-read

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Around the World in 80 Books