“I rigged a slot into the center of the sled and planted the harpoon. Its shadow crossed the deck on the starboard side of stern. It flickered as a low cloud slid by, then set. The mark stayed true. I had harnessed the sun.”
This is as good a quote as many other possibilities to begin a review of Compass by Murray Lee. The narrator, only named Guy by the Inuit who live at the Arctic Circle, is clearly self-absorbed and arrogant. And he truly, truly is. In the opening he tells us/admits that/is proud that he has made an excellent living re-telling the geographic explorations stories of poor planners and buffoons who made disastrous errors and faced the consequences. Clever me.
Ha! A colleague reveals that he has never been to the Arctic Edge, where the Arctic ice meets the open sea, though he speaks about it as though he has.
So guess who gets to go to the Arctic? Our arrogant, self-absorbed narrator. Who thinks he can “harness” the sun. (the midnight sun that never sets) He retroactively tells his own tale which bounces from one egregious mistake to the next. Guy loses his Inuit guide and finds himself alone and afloat on an ice floe. He hallucinates and the story becomes suspensefully surreal – there is no time, it is a construct of civilization; the Inuit gods are real and Sedna is angry.
As a teen, I found Robinson Crusoe fascinating reading. I wanted to remember everything he did so that if I were stranded somewhere I could survive. Compass provides the opposite material – and, like RC for us now, points to white society's unfounded sense of superiority and Western exceptionalism.
The themes, the superb writing, the comic undertone, the surprising plot added up to an excellent read for me. Lee has been a fly-in doctor for isolated Inuit communities on the Canadian arctic for over 15 years. Amazingly, this is his first novel, and in addition to everything else, is well worth reading for the presentation of the Inuit culture and the Arctic landscapes.
I received an advance e-copy of this book from Publerati via BookishFirst. This is an honest review.
This is as good a quote as many other possibilities to begin a review of Compass by Murray Lee. The narrator, only named Guy by the Inuit who live at the Arctic Circle, is clearly self-absorbed and arrogant. And he truly, truly is. In the opening he tells us/admits that/is proud that he has made an excellent living re-telling the geographic explorations stories of poor planners and buffoons who made disastrous errors and faced the consequences. Clever me.
Ha! A colleague reveals that he has never been to the Arctic Edge, where the Arctic ice meets the open sea, though he speaks about it as though he has.
So guess who gets to go to the Arctic? Our arrogant, self-absorbed narrator. Who thinks he can “harness” the sun. (the midnight sun that never sets) He retroactively tells his own tale which bounces from one egregious mistake to the next. Guy loses his Inuit guide and finds himself alone and afloat on an ice floe. He hallucinates and the story becomes suspensefully surreal – there is no time, it is a construct of civilization; the Inuit gods are real and Sedna is angry.
As a teen, I found Robinson Crusoe fascinating reading. I wanted to remember everything he did so that if I were stranded somewhere I could survive. Compass provides the opposite material – and, like RC for us now, points to white society's unfounded sense of superiority and Western exceptionalism.
The themes, the superb writing, the comic undertone, the surprising plot added up to an excellent read for me. Lee has been a fly-in doctor for isolated Inuit communities on the Canadian arctic for over 15 years. Amazingly, this is his first novel, and in addition to everything else, is well worth reading for the presentation of the Inuit culture and the Arctic landscapes.
I received an advance e-copy of this book from Publerati via BookishFirst. This is an honest review.