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 Turn off the stereo or the television if you have them on when you read. Listen, really listen, to these words as you read them. Beautiful writing, marvelous story, engaging characters. This was my first book of the new year. What a promising beginning!
Reviewed by Donna Denn
The Flight of the Goose
by Lesley Thomas
Far Eastern Press
430 pages, ISBN 0967884217
This book is not a quick read. Nor will you want it to be. It's the story of two people, an orphan named Kayuqtuq and a scientist by the name of Leif. Kayuqtuq studies shamanism in her Inupiat village. Leif researches the effects of oil spills (as well as evading the draft). Their lives will connect in unforgettable ways.
I come from that generation that still had the draft, and I've got some friends that moved up to Alaska back in the early seventies. I've always wondered what the attraction was for them. To me it seems a cold and harsh place, and indeed it is. The Flight of the Goose paints a picture of the countryside and the culture of the people there in the way that only someone who has lived there would be able to do. It's absolutely enthralling. Like I said, you won't want this one to be a quick read.
I knew I was going to like Lesley Thomas' writing as soon as I finished the prologue. When I sat down to read it, I wasn't sure what to expect. The invitation of that prologue made me feel like I was going to be meeting a friend or two:
Once in Taimmani, in long ago times, a hunter wandered into a village that kindly took him in. He married the headman's daughter. But as always in these stories, he did not stay. After he left the village and looked back he saw that they were really birds. He had been living with birds and even making love with one, yet he had not known. This old story reminds us that we are not so different from the other creatures and that we must take care of their feelings. But it also tells us that we can live in a society, a family, and never know who they truly are or who we ourselves are until we leave and look back.
The Flight of the Goose gives us an understanding of the ways of Inupiat culture, the impact of man on the environment, and a remarkable story of people you will come to care about.
Lesley Thomas uses quotes at the beginnings of the chapters, many of which have their own impact. Journal entries tell part of the story, too, so that you have this one from both perspectives, both Leif's and Kayuqtuq's.
I was curious about what part the goose had in everything and one of the entries from Leif's journal stands out for me:
Entry. Back to the Goose, got to find the answer. I keep thinking of the Canada goose he blasted when I was five. Some kind of catalyst. So graphic my recall: the beady eye, the perfect ebony bill bubbling red, the drop of green guano, the black webbed feet, and feathers dense with shades and meanings I couldn't fathom. Fahr carried it by the serpent-like neck and tossed it on the counter as if he hated it. Why, I wondered, and still do, because it was so lovely, and it had given itself to him like my mother. He knew she was of the Goose clan; she wouldn't touch it and was so upset even when he apologized after he sobered up. And the bird haunted me... "In my bout with anthropology I found geese in every culture. Other birds are the creators but the goose is always the soul, isn't it, in its flight between realms? 'Bird thou never wert'...Suddenly a memory comes up of Fahr reading to me 'Though it's a Swedish tale':a callous teenager gets transformed into a tiny boy-a soul, see? And he rides a barnyard goose to join a wild flock flying to Lapland, where the geese teach him to respect nature and other peoples.
Turn off the stereo or the television if you have them on when you read. Listen, really listen, to these words as you read them. Beautiful writing, marvelous story, engaging characters. This was my first book of the new year. What a promising beginning!
About the Reviewer: Donna "Diamond" Denn works at a Hastings store in the book department, and loves her job. Books are an addiction for her, and she participates in a number of reading groups online, and runs an online fantasy reading group. She also knits, crochets and works on the garden as sidelines, but books are her first love.
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