A Quality of Light tells the story of two isolated ten year old boys, pretty much mirror images of each other (one born Native but raised by white people and one born of White Trash but who feels Native at heart), who are thrust together, becoming blood brothers and life-long influences on each other, whether together or apart.
Joshua is an Ojibway who was adopted as an infant by a deeply spiritual, farming Christian couple who infuse him with a love of God and a love of the land. They consider him to be as much a part of their family as any biological son could be, and since they view Joshua with perfect acceptance, they never realise that they are doing him a disservice by not acknowledging his Native roots. By contrast Jonathan, raised in an aura of instability, moving often and abruptly across the sprawling and impersonal city of Toronto, is essentially ignored by his alcoholic father and enabling mother. When Jonathan's family moves back to the rural idyll of Mildmay, he and Joshua bond over a love of baseball and books, bringing out the best, the warrior, in each other. As young men they clash over what they see to be their individual responsibilities to themselves and to their communities and their paths diverge, only to meet up again later in a politically charged and very public confrontation. This is broadly the plot, which I found compelling, but in the particulars I wasn't completely impressed.
The writing promised to be interesting and lyrical, opening with a meditation on the nature of light and its connection to memory: You lay on a hillside in the high sky heat of summer, the red behind your eyelids making you so warm and safe and peaceful, it's like the scarlet a part of you remembers through the skin of your mother's belly when you, your life and the universe was all fluid, warmth and motion. But this light metaphor crops up several times in each chapter, and instead of serving to anchor the story, it becomes strained, a distraction. And while I did enjoy many turns of phrase (Jonathan describing his drunken father: People would say "Let's go out for a couple" and they'd be thinking a couple of beers and my father would be thinking a couple of weeks), in a lot of places I found it overwritten: It's not so much the lurk and leer of death that elevates us in the face of war as the tintinnabulation of life within and around us. (Not only do I not perfectly understand that sentence, but I think that only Edgar Allan Poe gets to non-ironically use the word tintinnabulation. Like, evermore.) And to add one last complaint, Joshua and Jonathan spend a lot of time sermonising to each other, giving long monologues about what they believe and what they have learned. Granted, there was obviously a lot of information that Richard Wagamese wanted to include in this book, but it felt unnatural and preachy.
As I was reading, I became impatient with how perfect the characters of Joshua and his family are: turning the other cheek with idealised Christian charity, even refusing to publicly name the attackers who beat Joshua into the hospital. I later became impatient with Jonathan's experience with perfect Natives: every Native, in every band he visits across North America, has an idealised connection with the land and culture of their peoples. Even the militants who provoke confrontation at Alcatraz or Oka aren't seeking money or land settlements or revenge, just respect and dignity. But when the boyhood friends do finally come face to face, these idealised characters seemed to rise to the level of archetypes, and I think that was the author's plan: By being unwavering representatives of their individual philosophies the plot takes on a fable-like feeling and the two men might just as easily have been Mole and Spider seeking the light in a Creator story; creatures of a fixed nature, acting according to impulses they don't question. By then having the friends find the common ground between them, they are revealed to be the humans they were born to be-- creatures capable of seeking and discovering the light inside themselves. (Or am I overthinking this?)
There were cliché moments in A Quality of Light -- in particular heartfelt exchanges between father and son -- but I ultimately found them touching. I think that the author had a lot of love for his characters and sympathy for the different points of view. What I appreciated the most in this book was the opportunity to take a hard look at the injustices that have been suffered by the Native peoples, from residential schools to full out massacres, and they are discussed with justifiable anger but not bitterness or fatalism. There aren't any answers offered here, no path to move forward toward the shared prosperity that I do believe every Canadian wants, but I welcome any opportunity to have these conversations. I realise that this is one of Richard Wagamese's first novels, and having read Indian Horse, I know that he has grown in technique and art and am looking forward to reading another of his books very soon.
I was a cocktail waitress when we lived in Edmonton and that
was a job I loved. Like I was just telling the girls the other day, it was like
hostessing a great party every night: everyone was happy to see me and wanted
to chat and I just walked around making sure everyone was having a good time. Especially before the DJ showed up at 9, and
the party actually started, I could have real conversations with the patrons,
and yes I was there to make money, but I never faked being interested in
people. There were a couple of Native guys who came in some times, but it being
Edmonton, and my club being for the young, dancing crowd, that was a rare
enough occurrence. However they weren't completely out of place when they did
come in, and just as I did with everyone else, I treated them with respect. So
one day, one of these young guys said, "Hey, Krista, do you have a little
Indian in you?" I was surprised he could tell but I answered, "Yes,
on my Dad's side." His buddy started laughing and said, "You were
supposed to say 'no' so he could ask if you wanted a little Indian in
you". Oh, a joke, a come on. But
suddenly the first guy was interested in what I had said about having some
Native blood and he had questions about the who and where in my family tree. He
wanted to know if I had ever visited with the elders or participated in rituals,
and when I said that no, I knew nothing about this part of my heritage, he
shook his head and said, "It's always sad when our people lose their
culture". This felt wrong to me, like maybe I had overstated my percentage
of Mi'kmaq, but I treated his judgement with respect and nodded my agreement.
Having read A Quality of Light, I'm reminded of this
exchange. Near the end of this book, Jonathan explains to Joshua that it was
easy for the first priests to connect with the Natives they encountered on a
spiritual level, and gaining their trust, they were able to effectively be the first
conquerors by changing and removing traditional culture, bit by bit. On a large
scale, I have always seen that assimilation is an evil, but somehow, before
reading this book, I have never considered that through my branch of the family
tree, someone's culture has been erased; my great-grandmother, daughter of
One-Eyed Willy, Chief of the Wildcat Mi'kmaq clan, married my (white)
great-grandfather, and by my generation, not a drop of that Native blood is
obvious or honoured. She has been assimilated; obliterated. (Notwithstanding
the couple of cousins I have with treaty cards, a play for unwarranted
compensation that I don't respect.)
It's very interesting to me that I read this book on the
heels of Away which prompted me to examine my Irish roots, and as I wrote in
my review for that book, it's frustrating to me that I don't know more about my
heritage-- and am unlikely to ever ask for more information. This quote struck
me as appropriate:
That's what white trash is -- a motley collection existing without the life-enhancing benefits of background. No cultural, historical anchor. No rich emotional homeland. Life without detail is life without edges, borders, perspective. I hated it. I heard an elder say one time that in order to know where you're going, you need to know where you've been. History. I never had one. My father kept it all to himself. His story. That's all I had. Not history, just his story. He mongrelized us, lessened us, defined us by his bleary-eyed vision of the world.
Okay, so my Dad didn't drink, but he did scare us, and maybe
the worst thing of all is that he's the only one I could go to for answers.
Which means I'll never know anything about that side of my family unless some
cousin that I don't know has the info to make a family tree that I eventually
stumble upon. It's funny, when Ken started laying a guilt trip on my parents for
moving back to Nova Scotia, something that really didn't bother him until he
had kids that they only saw once a year, my mother said, "You kids don't
know what it's like. We were born here and moving back home was something that
called to us the whole time we were away". The mean and bitter thing that
I thought but didn't say was, "You moved us around our entire childhoods
so that we have no hometown, we have no roots, we don't belong anywhere." The
more mean and bitter thing I thought but didn't say was, "I would have
thought that you were trying to teach us that home is where your family is, and
we're all right here, where you left us". So this abandonment plus
the lack of a background -- a cultural, historical anchor -- does make me feel
rootless and unconnected. I have not one aunt or uncle who knows or cares about
me (okay, I do get a Christmas card from Mike in Calgary), not one cousin I
could connect with (I can't even name all my cousins, and there aren't that
many of them), and my grandparents are all gone now. I have no roots in the
community I live in, and after a lifetime of bonding with then leaving people,
I am beyond trying to make close friends. I have my own family, my brothers and
their families, my husband's family -- and this is not a shortage of riches --
but I have to wonder where my place is in this universe. And this isn't meant
to be self-pitying, just an objective evaluation. So were we white trash? I
never thought so, but you might ask the neighbours who heard my father roaring. (Or just see the related story in my review of Little Bird of Heaven.)
Here's another thing this book has made me think about: My
husband's sister's boyfriend's first wife (there's a mouthful!) was in the same
situation as Joshua: she was adopted as an infant by parents who adored her and
treated her exactly as their own child. As a matter of fact, they didn't tell her
she was adopted until she was an adult. And that was the first that she heard
she was a full blood Native. Something about that knowledge made Robin go
wild -- as though she had always known she was different and it explained a hole
she had at her center. It also gave her terrible attachment and abandonment
issues. When things got rough with Dan, she kicked him out. She did the same to
her next boyfriend, who had lasted ten years. When their older son started getting
into trouble, skipping school and using drugs, Robin wanted to kick him out of
her house, but was terrified he would feel as unwanted as she had felt ever
since she heard she had once been given up. It seems facile to say it, but
would Robin be healed if she connected with these Native roots, like in the
story? The author is Ojibway, so I'm going to assume that he's not just
perpetuating stereotypes -- would a sweat lodge heal Robin from the wounds of
assimilation? What would it do for me and my brothers? That feels like a
cheapening of Robin's pain for me to equate our situations, but I'm thinking of
the guy in the bar in Edmonton who recognised that in me a spark of something
had gone out. In order to know where you're going, you need to know where
you've been.
I'm suddenly more fascinated by the notion of personal history; by the
mourning for lost geographies.
