Hi Ken, I grew up loving Farley's books, and I still enjoy many of them. However, recently "Saturday Night", a Canadian magazine, published an article on Farley suggesting he is pretty liberal with the truth. The cover featured Farley's photo, digitally altered to have Pinochio's nose. Farely himself has acknowledged that he sometimes plays a character and suggests that he tells greater truths than the facts themselves would allow. As a writer myself, I have a lot of sympathy for wanting to tell an entertaining tale. I don't mind at all the idea that books like "The Boat That Wouldn't Float" or "The Dog Who Wouldn't Be" may not be word-for-word true. I approach them as I would sitting round the fire shooting the bull with friends; the facts should not get in the way of a good story. The situation is far more problematic with books that are supposed to be historically true. It really bothers me to be uncertain of how much I can rely on in books like "People of the Deer" or "Westviking". An acquaintance of mine in academic circles told me years ago that Farley Mowat is known as "Hardly Know-it" to many professionals in anthropology and history. To translate this into American cultural terms, you might compare it to the debate about how reliable Margaret Mead's writings on Samoa were. It's also comparable in that Farley's POV of native peoples tends towards the Rousseauean "noble savage". Hope this helps a bit. Cheers, Philip T. "The opinions expressed in this posting are not necessarily those of my employer, or indeed, of any sentient being." At 03:34 PM 11/26/98 EST, Ken wrote: > I have a question for this group. Maybe somebody out there knows the >answer. > > Regarding "Paddle to the Arctic", by Don Starkle. The author is paddling >north along the western shore of Hudson Bay and meets a local Indian. All goes >well until the local realizes that Don is writing a book. The local then clams >up. Apparently, sometime in the past, the local had met Farley Mowat in this >area and for some reason, they disliked Farley Mowat because of his writings. > I have read most of Farleys books regarding this area, (i.e. "People of the >Deer" & his arctic trilogy, etc.). I have always found Farley to be very >compassionate of these people. Is there something that I don't know about this >story? Is there a book that I missed? > Maybe some worldly person out there will broaden my horizons. > >Ken Mannshardt >San Francisco Bay Area >BASK >*************************************************************************** >PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List >Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net >Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net >Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ >*************************************************************************** > **************************************** Mountain Equipment Co-op 1655 West 3rd Avenue, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6J 1K1 Tel: 640-732-1989 Fax: 604-731-6483 email: pid_at_mec.ca Visit our website at: http://www.mec.ca ***************************************** *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Nov 26 1998 - 13:25:46 PST
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