an historical redux

OK, so right now I'm waffling about whether to read Patricia Wrede's new book, The Thirteenth Child. The book takes place in an alt-North American frontier, a land in which there are still mammoths and other megafauna, and in which the North American continent was not settled by people at all until the European-equivalent folk got there; no one ever came across the Bering Land Bridge because it was blocked by magic.

Now, upon first glance at this premise, my immediate reaction is a wince and a twitch. Actually, that's my second-glance reaction, too. And most of my debate over whether to read the book is whether I have the time and energy to see whether it's possible for the worldbuilding to overcome the massive, huge, really problematic problems with that premise.

When I mentioned said premise in conversational passing today to somebody, I found myself having to explain the problems, from the core out; and I know several other people who for good and valid reasons, such as having been raised in a different country, didn't notice them.

Basically, in my opinion this premise, unless done extremely carefully and with very thorough worldbuilding-- which it is possible this book may have done; as I said, I have not yet decided whether to read it-- this contributes to the general absence, the silencing, the Othering, the general disappearing from popular culture and the self-defined mainstream of First Nations peoples.

So far I do not think I have said anything that hasn't been said on this topic before. This has been summary. What I want to explain now is why my wince and twitch were so thorough and profound and immediate. I can do this best, I think, by explaining the effects that the way First Nations in the US are treated and discussed has had on my life here, growing up in this country.

Now, I am not a member of any of the First Nations. I'm white. People who are native to this continent know far, far more about this than I do, and have to live with it in ways I know perfectly well I cannot comprehend. I can't tell you about what it's like to be part of the people damn near wiped out. I can tell you what it is like to be a person several generations on who was born to the group who did the wiping out, and who lived in an area where that had happened fairly recently.

( It goes like this: )

an historical redux

OK, so right now I'm waffling about whether to read Patricia Wrede's new book, The Thirteenth Child. The book takes place in an alt-North American frontier, a land in which there are still mammoths and other megafauna, and in which the North American continent was not settled by people at all until the European-equivalent folk got there; no one ever came across the Bering Land Bridge because it was blocked by magic.

Now, upon first glance at this premise, my immediate reaction is a wince and a twitch. Actually, that's my second-glance reaction, too. And most of my debate over whether to read the book is whether I have the time and energy to see whether it's possible for the worldbuilding to overcome the massive, huge, really problematic problems with that premise.

When I mentioned said premise in conversational passing today to somebody, I found myself having to explain the problems, from the core out; and I know several other people who for good and valid reasons, such as having been raised in a different country, didn't notice them.

Basically, in my opinion this premise, unless done extremely carefully and with very thorough worldbuilding-- which it is possible this book may have done; as I said, I have not yet decided whether to read it-- this contributes to the general absence, the silencing, the Othering, the general disappearing from popular culture and the self-defined mainstream of First Nations peoples.

So far I do not think I have said anything that hasn't been said on this topic before. This has been summary. What I want to explain now is why my wince and twitch were so thorough and profound and immediate. I can do this best, I think, by explaining the effects that the way First Nations in the US are treated and discussed has had on my life here, growing up in this country.

Now, I am not a member of any of the First Nations. I'm white. People who are native to this continent know far, far more about this than I do, and have to live with it in ways I know perfectly well I cannot comprehend. I can't tell you about what it's like to be part of the people damn near wiped out. I can tell you what it is like to be a person several generations on who was born to the group who did the wiping out, and who lived in an area where that had happened fairly recently.

( It goes like this: )