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Customer Review
- Reviewed in Canada on May 1, 2014When Franklin Starlight is sixteen he receives a summons by his father to visit him urgently. He is surprised but also pleased. "Still, he is my dad" is his response to the old man on whose farm he has been living as long as he can remember. "Don't expect it to be pretty." The old man warns him, but then, he knows that it never was easy... He gets the horse ready for the one day ride to the town where his father lives...
Richard Wagemese's new novel, MEDICINE WALK, tells the story of Franklin, usually referred to as "the kid", and his search of who he is and where he comes from. The book is, in the words of none other than Jane Urquhart (on the back cover), "a deeply felt and profoundly moving novel, written in the kind of sure, clear prose that brings to mind the work of the great North American masters...". Following his great success with his previous novel, INDIAN HORSE, Wagamese's storytelling has become even more refined, subtle and deeply affecting. I was blown away pretty much from the beginning and not only by Wagamese's beautiful writing and the sense of place and his evocation of the natural beauty, but also by his rendering of the underlying drama of the story. While his characters are born out of and grounded in his own background and the Northern Ontario landscape, the fundamental questions he reflects upon - the questions of identity and family - are universal.
Frank was very young when he first met his father who appeared at the farm for a brief visit. The kid didn't have much of a concept of what a father was. And the visit didn't change that. He was raised by "the old man", who felt like family to him. The farm was 'home'. The old man had taught him the difference between a guardian and a father... yet, his questions about his mother remained unanswered. Her story was up to the father to tell his son... Yet, the father has never been in the mood or condition to tell his son anything much.
The Medicine Walk takes the central place and theme in the novel: the father's urgent call requested the son take to him to a particular place, a three day ride into the bush, a place that holds deep memories for him. It will hopefully bring his tortured soul and disintegrating body peace and a permanent resting place. Wagamese's description of the Walk is paced in the rhythm of the horse's movements, carrying the weight of the father and the son's pace. Franklin guides the horse over uneven ground, decides on resting places and provides for all the essentials needed to sustain them. He is more than comfortable in the bush. There are many periods of rest, time to reflect or dream, drink in the fresh air or let the mind wander over the fields in the distance... When they come across a bear, Frank intuitively knows what to do, to the father's surprise and admiration. Is this a turning point in their relationship?
Frank is a quiet and reflective young man, determined to asking the questions he has kept in his mind for years, Yet, the dialog does not come easy to either of them and time appears to be running out. "He could feel words churning in his gut, like fish fighting their way upstream. None broke the surface..." he describes his difficulty to talk to his father later on. In contrast, "His father was like a photograph that had been in the light too long. He was a stranger." Over time, the father gradually opens up, but "... He talks a lot, but I still got no sense of him. So far it's all been stories. - It's all we are in the end. Our stories..." They are not easy stories, however, they are painful and heart-wrenching ... but they make up a portrait of Franklin's family and they will help the kid to answer many of his fundamental questions. [Friederike Knabe]
