Joseph Boyden

Three day road

It is 1919, and Niska, the last Oji-Cree woman to live off the land, has received word that one of the two boys she saw off to the Great War has returned. Xavier Bird, her sole living relation, is gravely wounded and addicted to morphine. As Niska slowly paddles her canoe on the three-day journey to bring Xavier home, travelling through the stark but stunning landscape of Northern Ontario, their respective stories emerge--stories of Niska's life among her kin and of Xavier's horrifying experiences in the killing fields of Ypres and the Somme.

Three Day Road

altlovesbooks

"The cruelty of living and dying can be astounding."


This one will stick with me for a bit. 

Xavier Bird grows up in the bush with his aunt Niska, but finds himself pulled into World War I by his friend Elijah who is enamored with the idea of heading off to fight. Xavier reluctantly follows. The story is told from two points in time: Xavier having returned from the war without a leg and addicted to morphine being paddled down the river on a 3-day journey home by Niska who picks him up at the train station, and Xavier reliving his time during the war and what happens between him and Elijah. The war is, predictably, horrific, and does terrible things to both Xavier Bird and Elijah's minds and bodies. We also get some backstory for Niska herself, as she cares for her nephew during his periods of unconsciousness and delirium. She tells him stories of her life, as a way to reconnect him with the life he left (in a "do you remember this" sort of way) and as a way to get herself in the right mindset to help care for him. 

This was a tough book for me to get through, not because I didn't enjoy it, but because it covers tough material. The war was not kind to anyone, and there's graphic depictions of how it was for Elijah and Xavier. The two friends had a very close bond going into the war, and it was really interesting/heartbreaking to see how it evolved during it. 

There's some inclusion of spirituality in this book as well, with some discussion of Cree mythology and traditions that really highlight Niska's and Xavier's connection with the land and themselves. I thought that was an interesting inclusion, and between it and the sporadic inclusion of Cree words for things, really added another layer to the book for me. 

Finally, the prose/writing itself was spectacular. Some of the trench depictions had me right there with Xavier, and I spent basically all of the book at the edge of my seat trying to figure out what happened to them that Xavier ended up where he did at the end/beginning. I also thought the quiet/less intense moments of the story were thoughtful, and added a lot to the characters in the story. 

I feel like I'm not doing this story justice for how good it was to me and the feelings it made me feel. It's one of those books that will stick with me for a while, for good reasons. It's evidently part of a series, but the second book looks unrelated to the first, at least in the summary. I'm definitely going to pick it up at some point.

Stephanie Honour

Beautifully written, sometimes uncomfortably raw depiction of the Cree's culture, and their contribution to WWII.

Reyna Wren

Read for school. It was interesting from a literary perspective, but I didn't really enjoy it.

Melody Izard

I've read a few WWI books. Not so many - but a few. I've read a few books that center around Native Americans. But I never even thought about the newly displaced Native Americans who fought in the war. These Native North Americans lived in Canada and were members of their military. But their heart was in the old ways. The internal despair of being snatched from their way of life was still freshly painful, even more for the main character since his aunt still lived her life in the old way. 

I have been watching "The Walking Dead". WWI was a lot like that. Starving soldiers. Dead bodies piled high in nasty trenches. Snipers who sit undercover and fire at whatever is perceived to be the enemy. And the beautiful connection of humanity and nature severed completely.

Laura Springall

There are so many layers to this book that I don't even know where to start. 

I had to read Three Day Road for a class I'm taking, and throughout the entirety of it we've had a love/hate relationship. The biggest thing that bothered me was how detached Xavier was for most of the story, but at the same time I realized the purpose his distance served and knew that the book would be entirely different had he been more of a participant. Despite that, Xavier's distance made it very difficult for me to get into the book. It wasn't until the last half that I actually started enjoying it. When everything started falling apart, and as a result all those loose ends came together. Watching both Xavier and Elijah's rapid descent was quite the experience. There were many moments while reading Three Day Road that I was bored out of my mind, but then the next page would be gripping and have me flipping pages as fast as I possibly could. This book made me feel, mostly horror and disgust with the things happening around them, and quite often with what Elijah had been up to in his spare time. The relationship between Xavier and Elijah, as well as Xavier and Niska were so deep and interesting that I'm actually looking forward to writing this essay on their bonds. 

Overall, I can't really decide if I loved or hated Three Day Road. But I'm still giving it 4 stars because, despite my occasional boredom, this novel is actually very compelling once you get into it. The amount of symbolism and word play and references to past events of the novel were endless and fascinating. Boyden is a genius storyteller, with the capability of weaving so many narratives into other narratives within yet another narrative, and doing so in a way that is not difficult to follow and somehow makes sense by the end of it.

I.m. ruzz

I found Three Day Road when a notoriously late friend was more than an hour late to meet me and I had time to browse a local bookstore. I didn't pick the book up that day, but i noted it. 

Later, while near the bookstore I went back in and grabbed it. The idea of the book crossed a number of vectors of interest for me. War history (wait, don't stop reading yet), snipers (please, keep reading), and early 20th century Natives. 

I expected it to at least titillate my love of snipers, and war and the romantic ideal of Canada's native people. 

What happened in fact is I was reminded that the medium of the novel is meant for many things, but of all those things, first is and always will be story-telling. 

There are always messages, and lessons, and commentary in all human thought, and likely all stories. But its so easy to become consumed by the desire to share an ideal, an idea, a view of the world--we lose sight of the greater need.

That greater need is to be captivated, carried, led into another world entirely. To be entertained and touched. To be free of our reality and it's annoyances, stresses and even sometimes joys. And, in very rare cases, we need to find a safe place to feel more fully than the concrete world might permit. 

And it is through great story-telling we are reminded how we can love characters in books. Be stirred and impassioned by simple words. be felt fully human-confusingly-through our emotional range and capacity to feel. 

This book while not the benchmark upon which to measure storytelling, was still strong enough to remind me of this need. It's the first book I can recall in some time where I could turn off my analytical mind and just go with the characters. 

perhaps the last was A Fine Balance. 

Even if you care nothing for war history, snipers, or native idealism you should read this book for its great characters and ability to bring you somewhere else for 400 pages.

Three day road

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