Indian Horse (alkuperäinen julkaisuvuosi 2012; vuoden 2018 painos)

This book is as beautiful as it is heart-breaking. It was an emotional marathon to read it, and more than once I had to push myself to keep on reading it. Yet, as a Canadian – albeit an adopted one - I felt that I had to do it. One of the most important reasons why we tell and listen/read stories is so we can avoid letting history repeat itself.

Richard Wagamese tells the story of a residential school survivor with compassion and beauty. Although a work of fiction, the story of Saul Indian Horse is a common one in its basic facts – an aboriginal child striped of family and culture who eventually turns to alcohol to deal with the emotional scars of his experiences in the school, and the racism and bigotry he meets when he comes out of it.

To me it is a serious reminder of the danger of rightness and cultural fundamentalism – the idea that one culture should be imposed on other.

I would like to push this book on everyone, but especially on Canadians.
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This is a beautifully told and devastating story about Saul Indian Horse, who was taken away from his family and sent to a residential school as a child. He discovers a talent for hockey, and that keeps him going for a while, but eventually it too is insufficient to help him cope with the trauma of having his culture erased and his identity as a human being denied. There is little I can say about it that would do it justice. Just read it. ( )

This book is poetry in motion. The motion of a young native boy growing up in the bush with his close family. The motion of tremendous loss. The motion of people who just can't take the loss anymore. The motion of hockey and all the things and life lessons that entails. The motion of despair. The motion of lost innocence. The motion of the long fall down, and the motion of recovery. This is a book about Saul Indian Horse who went through all the motions above before he finally broke, and then going through them all again in retrospect to put himself back together. Richard Wagamese's writing is some of the most beautiful prose that you'll ever encounter. His descriptions of nature, people and the game of hockey (in this book) are breathtaking. His description of the disease of alcoholism will rip your heart out. "Booze is the ultimate device. It lets you go on breathing, but not really living, It lets you move but not remember. It lets you do but not feel." Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese. This is what Saul tells his brother and best friend when describing his fall. On the other side of the coin, the beauty and humanity - "The game is always the same, its speed and power. Hockey's grace and poetry makes men beautiful. Dreams unfold right before your eyes, conjured by a stick and a puck." - Richard Wagamese, Indian Horse. This book says everything you need to hear about the tough subjects. Racism, hypocrisy, lecherousness, separation, despair, hopelessness, the travesty of residential schools and it also shows the strength of family, history, faith and healing. How can Richard Wagamese do that in only 218 pages? Wagamese was a master storyteller, and the world is a sadder place without him in it. I highly recommend this book, and all of his other books. No Canadian should miss the chance to read his stories of this land and it's people. ( )

This novel addresses so many important subjects: the spirituality of indigenous people that is wed to the earth (a well spring of wisdom we should learn from), the displacement and mental, physical, and sexual abuse of indigenous children by criminal priests and nuns and its long term destructive effects, the vicious, ingrained racism against indigenous people, and alcoholism. It also captures the beauty of ice hockey, the world of “reserve hockey “, and the life long bonds of team and tribe. The novel is written in brief, potent chapters. The sentences are plain spoken but have a poetic sensibility. It’s one of the best novels I’ve read, and highly recommend it, especially in this time of resurgent intolerance. ( )

I listened to this book on Audible. I laughed, found myself making the faces (pursing my lips, clenching my teeth, or tilting my head) as the author described it in the book, crying or choking back tears, and raging with the main character.

This is a great book. It was a free book offer by Audible during Christmas, and I’m afraid I wouldn’t have listened to it had it not been free, which would have been to my loss.

It’s a great story, and while fiction, it contains a lot of truth of the residential schools in Canada, racism, and our poor history with First Nations people. And there’s also a lot of hockey.

This is a great book and I’m grateful to have experienced it. ( )