The Book that I have chosen is Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden and it’s quite the wild ride. The book follows Niska, one of the last Oji-Cree to live in the forest, and her nephew Xavier, who had just returned from the war and is addicted to morphine. They begin a journey back to Niska’s camp and throughout the chapters, a bunch of different stories are told. Niska tells the story of her youth to her nephew as he comes in and out of consciousness and when Xavier is coming in and out of consciousness, we see his flashbacks to his training and his time in the trenches.
In the latest chapter, Xavier had just killed the phantom sniper, one of the deadliest fritz (German) of that battle, but based on how the others just ignore him because he doesn’t know a lot of English, he probably won’t as much recognition as, for example, Elijah, his best friend from home who was raised by nuns and is a people person. I also think, based on Elijah’s first try of morphine, he will get addicted to it and will be the reason Xavier gets addicted. I also think that the morphine plays such a big part in the story, for example, Grey Eyes was high on morphine when he was supposed to be looking over Sean Patrick, who “was a kind of bridge between me and Graves and Fats and the others.” (Boyden, 120) and ended up dying. Because it plays such a big part, I think that the morphine will be the reason that Xavier loses his leg.
If we look at Niska’s story, she has lost a lot to the wemistikoshiw because they were converting her people into God worshippers. For example, her sister Rabbit was taken, “Will she come with us? She is called Anne now” (Boyden, 95) and the fact that they were separated and Rabbit was converted, I think that there is going to be a confrontation in the future that changes how Niska goes on with her life and behaves with others.
The book was written with certain language techniques. Although they never say phrases in Cree and they just say when they’re speaking Cree, he still included a lot of words from the Cree language such as wemistikoshiw (a non-native American person), awawatuk (hunter), ahcahk (spirit) and many others. The great part about how he integrates the language is that you can figure out the context based on what’s being said so that you don’t feel left out or put off by the different language.
I am going through this book so fast because it just leaves you on cliff hanger after cliff hanger. It also has great imagery so that when you reading about the trenches or Niska’s home you can almost be there with them which helps keep the book interesting too. It also seems like Joseph Boyden has done his research on Cree culture and what it was like during WW1 because it’s very detailed and the things he has talked about, I’ve heard in history class and my late night Wikipedia searches so it shows that he cares about the stuff he writes and the readers view too.
It’s an easier read language wise but you need to be paying attention when you’re reading it or you will get lost very quick. I am quite enjoying it at the moment and I would definitively recommend it to my friends and family.
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