Joseph Boyden: Who Are You, Really?

[Litopian]

The latest Litopia After Dark episode has just been released:

Joseph Boyden: Who Are You, Really?

Please feel free to discuss the show below.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I well remember that show. It was a bit like watching a car crash as Mr Boyden's annoyance grew and the questions continued coming. They were friendly, and fair enough, I thought, but it was clear what they were driving at.

I am half Irish. If I wrote an 'Irish' novel with the positioning that I was a descendent of the Irish diaspora, I wonder how that would wear. But I do feel partly Irish. Secular, and let's not forget the other two quarters, Scottish and English, but I look like my Irish father, and he came from Catholics, though he turned his back on all that. Someone has just signed a 2 book deal driven in part by the marketing of Irish identity (lives in England)

How much does it matter, if he is a damn good writer with a damn good story? I don't know.

If the history was not so dark, and the legacy of that history still very much ongoing, maybe not much. Writers write about people and that includes writing about whatever is 'other'.

But sadly, the history is alive and dark.

 

[AgentPete]

How much does it matter, if he is a damn good writer with a damn good story? I don't know.

If he'd simply said, Look - I don't really know my antecedents... I may/may not have FN blood... but that's not the point, the thing is, I write with passion and respect... then no-one could have taken issue with him. But he chose to cloak himself in the whole FN mystique. As many have done before him. Smart marketing... for a while, until you get called on it.

Another writer makes this point very well:

“It appears that Mr. Boyden has not been forthcoming about his indigenous identity, benefiting from a crafted ambiguity” says Hayden King, who himself traces his First Nations ancestry back through seven generations. “Mr. Boyden is just the latest”, he adds. “Last year prolific scholar Andrea Smith’s claims to Cherokee ancestry were debunked. Before Ms. Smith were academics Susan Taffe Reed and Ward Churchill, writers Margaret Seltzer and Archie Belaney (Grey Owl), actors Espera Oscar de Corti (Iron Eyes Cody), Johnny Depp and so on. There is a long tradition of playing Indian.”

He was not a sympathetic person to interview. Couldn't get over himself... and neither could we.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Yes. I just don't know as a reader how much the identity question matters in general. It's clearly a potential and ongoing hot potato for writers in many places. I have a Native American friend here in the UK, adopted away from her birth mother, off a Canada reservation as a wee one. Ojibwe. She feels it brought her a better life, but at what cost, and she had no say in the matter. It haunts her (stunningly excellent) poetry...this displaced but still ever present identity. One look at her tells you her ancestry.

It came up here recently, a NZ member talking about the difficulty, the risk of causing offence, incorporating Maori cultural or mythical references in her writing. That the only morally available mythos to her on that patch of ground, her own homeland but only of recent generations was LOTR

Joseph Boyden (I bought The Orenda on the strength of this interview - grim, great writing) was plainly very hard work in this interview, uncomfortable. Ian affable as ever, was persistent, but I failed to see how the interview was one bit racially insensitive. The author was personally sensitive about being asked, and could have fielded it very differently, maybe along the lines you suggest but seemed to decide his integrity was being called into question.

 

[AgentPete]

As Ian said in the interview, “authenticity” is a big deal these days. Certainly, I’d get more interest/money from a publisher if the manuscript were authored by a “genuine” First Nations writer than by someone else.

And yes, “cultural appropriation” is another big issue, too (not explicitly yet raised, I think, in the case of JB, but can’t be far behind now). An intelligent approach to this would suggest that any author, of any background, should be able to write about any issue... as long as there is some basic intellectual honesty/ transparency/acknowledgement going on. What’s hard for me to agree with is the ascendant view that only members of a designated group are permitted to write about that group. This rapidly gets into vertiginous territory... after all, if you can self-identify as [insert group name here] then who is to say whether you can/cannot write about it?

Racially insensitive... well, the conclusion I came to after all the shitty comments on Youtube is this: that it is apparently racially insensitive for two white boys, such as Ian and myself, to even raise the question of racial origins with a self-declared First Nations person. Personally, I think that’s a truly dreadful viewpoint... However are we to live in greater harmony on this planet if we can’t talk freely and honestly with each other? If there is a growing blacklist of topics that are verboten? Totalitarianism can’t be far behind.

Happily though, the following show with Dr. Leo Killsback was really excellent... he was warm, patient with our slightly daffy humour and I found what he had to say memorable.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

It was brill. LAD is brill. BBC now makes me furious most of the time. Even-handed it is not. Anything but, and smug, condescending and incestuous a lot of the time. I'd say Andrew Neil is an exception, others may disagree, but the mainstream literary and cultural scene is rather too cosy. And sanctimonious with it. You've taken what some might see as a few chances with other guests on LAD, and there could have been backlashes - from vested interests with thin skins. But the guests and the conversations were absolutely worth it. I hope there will be more shows in future.

 

[AgentPete]

Thanks, m'dear

Been thinking hard about the overall direction of Litopia next year, nearly ready to share and discuss. Lots of interesting things coming.

 

[Sea-shore]

I thought Ian's exit was hilarious.

 

[Marc Joan]

I don't normally get the time to listen to these things, but a virus has laid me low and I indulged myself. I got the impression he was uncomfortable from the start, possibly tired, maybe a bit down. He didn't have easy or glib answers to the (perfectly reasonable and inoffensive) questions that were put to him; but if he was deliberately trying to build a false persona, perhaps he would have taken the trouble to prepare said answers? So the poor answers are not necessarily a black mark, especially as many [most?] authors aren't great at dealing with that kind of public examination. That said, I'd have expected him to be able to say how many generations ago his American Indian heritage lies. Odd that he couldn't.

In the end, he shouldn't have walked off -- rude and unprofessional -- but his heart just never seemed to be in it. Or maybe Ian was 7/8s too honky, who knows.

 

[Marc Joan]

It was brill. LAD is brill. BBC now makes me furious most of the time. Even-handed it is not. Anything but, and smug, condescending and incestuous a lot of the time. I'd say Andrew Neil is an exception, others may disagree, but the mainstream literary and cultural scene is rather too cosy. And sanctimonious with it. You've taken what some might see as a few chances with other guests on LAD, and there could have been backlashes - from vested interests with thin skins. But the guests and the conversations were absolutely worth it. I hope there will be more shows in future.

Yup, I've given up on the BBC.

 

[Marc Joan]

Thanks, m'dear

Been thinking hard about the overall direction of Litopia next year, nearly ready to share and discuss. Lots of interesting things coming.

We live in interesting times...

 

[AgentPete]

Ain't that the truth

 

[Arlene Adamo]

I live in Canada and that interview is what drew me to Litopia. Robert Boyden grew up as a white guy in an area of Toronto called Willowdale, which, when he lived there, was very Canadian Anglo-Saxon. That's his background and it is well reflected in his books. It's no surprise that many in the First Nations community are very upset that he has been made into the darling "Native" representative and spokesperson by the elite establishment in this country while real Natives with real Native experiences feel that they are being ignored and even silenced. There are several Native publishers in Canada who publish books by some very talented indigenous people so it's not like there aren't plenty of authentic voices out there. They just aren't being given the same speaking privileges as Robert Boyden. For many it's the continuation of colonization by co-opting their identity and re-writing their stories to fit a traditional British-Canada agenda and elitist system. I think they have valid concerns.