Warm, Living Picture of A Young White Girl Abducted by Shawnee
Deborah Larsen creates a lyrical novel based upon the life of Mary Jemison, who was abducted by a Shawnee raiding party in 1758. When she was in her 80's, Mary told her story to James Seaver who authored a book based upon Mary's life.
Larsen alternates between Mary's voice, dreamy and poetic, and details of what did and what might have happened. Even as her life as a "white" fades, she finds passages from the Bible entering her head to explain her life as a Seneca woman.
"Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden and I will give you rest... For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" For me this saying of the Lord's was fulfilled in my life among the Seneca."
For a while, Mary mourns her loss of the ability to read and write and then she realizes that
"She loved the open air and the contrasts of its temperatures; earth dry and sodden, loamy and rock-like; fire and its warmth and scorch; water cleansing and flooding. The closer she came to these things the more she realized that words were not the same as the real wild onion, the actual rabbit fur, the coiled fern frond, the lightning."
Mary lives much of her life in the Genesse Valley of Pennsylvania with her husband, children, house and land. Slowly, the whites move into the area, peacefully settling nearby. The beauty of fictionalized accounts is that a fine author such as Deborah Larsen brings to us a warm, living picture to embrace and remember.
by Judith Helburn
for StorycircleBookReviews
www.storycirclebookreviewsorg
reviewing books by, for, and about women
You will be transported!
When my sister-in-law, VP Operations for Messiah College, told me about this book, I just had to read it. Being a Pennsylvania native and having been educated early in grade school about the native American heritage of Pennsylvania, this book fit in. At Messiah College, before coming to campus all first-year students were expected to read a novel which would draw them together and allow them to identify with one another in the familiarity of the novel's message and themes. "The White" was the novel chosen for the class of 2010.
"The White" with its strong focus on the themes of identity, family and the security strangely found in the non-familiar, is an excellent book to bring readers together. In short, this book details the life of Mary Jemison from her capture by a Shawnee raiding party when she was sixteen to her death. Larsen's highly lyrically novel begins with the scalping deaths of Jemison's family and continues with chronicling the intense turmoil Jemison faced in the aftermath. Jemison's transition into the Seneca tribe, her resulting marriages, pregnancies and decision to remain true to her new Seneca tribe when offered the choice of returning to life as a free white woman are poetically rendered.
In her discussions of "The White", Larsen noted that "the significant amount of white space was meant not only to tie in the novel's title and themes for the reader on a subconscious level, but also to allow the reader time to fully digest the material of the novel and to reflect on the intense details of Jemison's story."
Some reviewers have inappropriately referred to this book as "junior high" level reading. Well, gee, I read "Moby Dick", "Great Expectations" and "A Tale of Two Cities" in junior high. If this is the class of literature to which the reviewers referred, than, yes, by all means place "The White" in with this reading.
Beautiful Interpretation of Historic Records
This book is a very poetic interpretation of Mary Jemison's life.As someone who teaches history to the public I understand the challenge of constructing a story out of historic documents.
and I was pleased with Larsen's book.I think the author was highly successful in presenting the story of an individual who lived in early America.
As a woman of color, it was gratifying to finally read a historic
novel which discusses how ethnicity affected people's day-o-day lives. Larsen does a good job of presenting information in
a balanced way.
One reviewer said that she felt the novel was something a middle school student would read, and I agree, but that is another thing I enjoyed about it. Don't get me wrong the book is as complex
and subtle as Moby Dick, but it is also very accessible in part because it is a first person account of a woman whose formal education in English was aruptly cut off.
FOR TEACHERS
This book is an excellent resource to use along with
the actual account of Mary Jemison.
Junior High reading level
I bought this book expecting an historical novel. What I read was something akin to what a Junior High student would read. I felt the book was misrepresented as adult reading. I did like the historical background. I especially liked the information about how much each Indian tribe warred against eachother, and their confusion about the French-English war. In rewritten history, one is given the impression that the Indians all loved eachother and the whitemen were the killers. This book dispelled that myth for me. Also, so rarely are the now nonexistent Eastern tribes described, although these tribes interacted more with the white settlers than any others, and aided our colonial survival. Although disappointed by it's flat simplicity, the facts were interesting enough to recommend for a quick read. Definitely a beach blanket book!
Novel as Poetry
This brief beautifully written novel, based on the real life of Mary Jemison, reads more like a short epic poem. Written in an almost stream-of-consciousness style, the narrative follows the history of Ms. Jemison from the time she is captured by the Shawnee until her death many years later. Until the day she died, she chose to remain with the Indians, even when provided with the choice of returning to the White world. In the interim, she marries twice (and is widowed both times) and bears 6 children. Her capture is sudden and shocking and she lives while she watches her entire family die. Her silence becomes her refuge; within it she heals, and is able to adjust to her new life. She becomes a part of the Seneca tribe in trade for a brother who died fighting the whites. Thus the brutal conflict, as well as the peaceful blending, of two cultures becomes the backdrop of Mary's existence. The wonders of the natural world, as well as the cruelty of mankind, are revealed in the descriptions of the world and the people who inhabit it. The love of family and the pain and loss of war are both described in prose that works as poetry. Mary, taken in by two sisters who care for her, slowly adapts to the Seneca ways of life and ultimately finds a world she does not want to leave. The story slowly unfolds and the narration is split between third person and first person. Mary's thoughts are scattered at times, but they parallel the action and can be quite effective and moving. However, I wanted to read more, in more depth, than this brief novel provided to me. I found Mary's story fascinating and this book just gave me a taste of it. Lovely novel, far too brief.
(21 reviews)
