Margaret Craven

I Heard The Owl Call My Name

Saffia

There was one more thing he felt it his duty to inform the vicar. The vicar might as well know right now that, as for himself, he was an atheist; he considered Christianity a calamity. He believed that any man who professed it must be incredibly naive. The young vicar grinned and agreed. There were two kinds of naivety, he said, quoting Schweitzer; one not even aware of the problems, and another which has knocked on all the doors of knowledge and knows man can explain little, and is still willing to follow his convictions into the unknown.

Sarah Sammis

What does one do for a friend who has only a year or two to live? Do you coddle him or challenge him? That's the premise of I Heard the Owl Call My Name. The bishop who is faced with this question, chooses to send his young ill vicar off to the hardest and most remote parish, a small village in British Columbia. The book covers the remaining months of the vicar's life without dwelling on his situation.

Instead, the book focuses on how the vicar learns the culture of the Kwakiutl and likewise how the Kwakiutl begin to slowly accept that the outside world is beginning to seep into their culture as their children seek education outside of the village.

 I Heard the Owl Call My Name is a tender story about two cultures learning from each other as seen through the eyes of a young vicar sent to Kingcome, a village in the Pacific Northwest. It's one of the few books where neither culture is favored in how they are portrayed. Both have their good bits and their bad bits. Characters have good days and bad days and are allowed to grow into well rounded individuals.

I Heard The Owl Call My Name

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