Books which I pick up for an absurdly low price at the local library discards, and then review have become kind of the new normal for this blog entry, have they not?
So it is that I decided to go ahead and pick this one up, as well. This is "To The Bright Edge of the World" by Eowyn Ivey. It was the first time that I read a book from this particular author. And in some ways, it kind of took me by surprise.
First of all, there are numerous narrating voices for this particular audiobook. It took me a while to get adjusted to that. Other audiobooks might use one or two different readers. This one has three, and each character has quite a distinctive voice and sound. At first, it was confusing and a bit of a distraction. Once I managed to get used to it, however, it actually enhanced the story. In fact, I began to look forward to hearing the distinctive voices of the various characters.
The book begins when a man and his wife are soon to be temporarily separated, as he is set to take off from Perkins Island for an expedition to explore the unknown wilds of Alaska, particularly the dangerous Wolverine River. While the Wolverine River of this novel is not real, Ivey nevertheless did base this story on a real historical expedition in 1885 along Alaska's Copper River by Lieutenant Henry Tureman Allen. So there are some actual historical similarities, even if this remains a work of fiction.
SPOILER ALERT
SPOILER ALERT
SPOILER ALERT
Okay, so by now if you are still reading this, I have to imagine that you either are familiar with this story already, or perhaps you do not mind the spoilers. Please just don't say that you were not given advanced warning.
Now, let's get into the book. It mostly focuses on the adventures of Lt. Col. Allen Forrester. He has been tasked with exploring Alaska a little less than two decades after the United States purchased it. We learn that their have been other attempts, but they have been woefully unprepared. This expedition is set to be different, and Forrester is to go with the loud and boisterous Sergeant Bradley Tillman - a manly man - and the quiet and ponderous Lieutenant Pruit. This group is to be sort of the Lewis & Clark of the new territory of Alaska.
Initially, Forrester's wife Sophie Forrester is also supposed to accompany him. However, she winds up being pregnant, which is a source of joy and hope to them both. We get the impression that neither of them had precisely been expecting this, but it is viewed as a blessing by both. So despite her disappointment at not going, she will stay behind at the Vancouver Barracks in Portland, Oregon, missing her husband, but overjoyed at feeling of the signs of new life growing inside of her.
Most of the book bounces between the correspondence between two of them through letters. They inform one another of their experiences during their time of separation. Yes most of the book is related to this correspondence, but certainly not all. There is also a letter correspondence in modern times between Forrester’s great-nephew, Walter, and Joshua Sloan, a curator of an Alaskan history museum , after Walter had given this man's museum a sizable and impressive portion of his great-uncle's collection. These two men exchange their views on the expedition and some of the relics, as well as life in generally. Soon, they come to view themselves as friends through and beyond this correspondence. In fact, they provide a modern perspective on much of the story, which takes place at a time and under conditions which otherwise might be difficult for us to truly comprehend.
So now, back to the main part of the story. Lt. Col. Forrester writes his journals marking the progress of the expedition. It seems to be going slower than he would care for, at least at first. He is anxious to get through it and clearly feels tired and perceives this more of a burden than an adventure. His wife's pregnancy has changed his perspective, and he wants to rejoin her and focus on family as soon as possible. That is why the seeming impediments to progress seem to dispirit him to the extent that they do.
The biggest obstacle for the expedition will be the Wolverine River. In particular, there is a stretch of the river between a canal of mountainous cliffs on both sides which is supposed to be particularly treacherous and dangerous. Forrester wants to get there before the ice melts, because as dangerous as it might be with ice, the legendary white water rapids once the waters from the snow melt in spring make this particular part of their voyage truly dangerous.
One person accompanying them, at least initially, is a mysterious old Indian man. He wears a distinctive black hat, and other Native tribes view this old man as an outsider. Yes, he is a Native like them, but they view him almost with awe, as a medicine man. He is known as "he who flies," and we eventually learn why. This old man might be helpful, or might actively hurt the expedition. There is no way to really know. At times, he seems to mock them, and even to get other Natives to laugh at these clumsy white men, who travel slowly and overly cautiously. The distrust between the white men - particularly Forrester - and the old man grows as the story goes along.
The group received assistance from the local Midnooskies, an Indian tribe which the group heard rumors associating them with cannibalism by earlier Russian explorers. It appears that these reports were exaggerated, however. The group makes progress, but it is tricky and slow. They get to the Wolverine River and eventually reach the treacherous canal. Indeed, the ice is particularly difficult to traverse. Worse, there are parts which seem to have already melted, which means the ice is fragile. Since there are cliffs on both sides of the river, there is no other way out then to get through this stretch as quickly as possible.
Finally, they get past the canal, but seem to be on the verge of starvation. They shoot their rifles in a call out to a nearby Native tribe, and eventually are taken to it. Strangely enough, they find the Old Man once they get there. He again seems to mock them, and they learn some legends about him from people of this tribe. They also are told not to travel through the mountains farther north as they planned, although they ultimately ignore those warnings. When he asks more about the Old Man, specifically asking why he is known as the "Man Who Flies," he is told simply that it is because the Old Man flies. They also tell Forrester that he will encounter the Old Man later in their trip, although they will not recognize him in his form.
Meanwhile, a lot has happened with Allen Forrester's wife, Sophie. There is one odd thing that continually recurs with her. She is visited by a very strange raven, who seems insistent on getting her attention. At one point, she recognizes one eerie thing: it has not eyes of a raven, but rather, human eyes. We see the resemblance to the old man, who has been haunting the group of explorers, particularly her husband.
We find out that she is incredibly curious, and goes for daily walks in nearby the Oregon hills, despite warnings not to do so by the doctors. She also steals a medical book in order to learn more about the process of the development of her baby inside of her, but ultimately finds it disturbing. Unfortunately, tragedy strikes, as she loses her baby.
Unbeknownst to her, her husband unexpectedly and inexplicably hears a baby deep in the woods at a tree. He seeks out the noise and finds that it is indeed a baby. When he asks the local tribe, they are not surprised after learning that his wife is pregnant. But they refuse to provide him any more meaning than that.
Sophie is grieve-stricken. Ultimately, however, she begins to recover and takes on what appears at first to be a hobby. It is photography, and we once again find out about her insatiable curiosity. She learns all about the process of taking and making the photographs, including creating a dark room and obtaining and using the chemicals involved. She also becomes more skillful in taking quality pictures. Ultimately, she succeeds in obtaining a high quality photo of a baby mockingbird taking it's first flight. She sends this to her husband, who is fascinated by it.
Back in Alaska, Forrester's crew decides to ignore the warnings of local Native Americans. When they try to cross a large lake, clearly disregarding the legends of a huge creature or monster in the lake, they are attacked by something that matches the description of the mysterious creature. They dismissed warnings about the mountains being the land of the dead. Things grow eerie once they travel on the mountains. When it grows dark at night, the hauntings by the ghosts of the past grow intense. The party gets separated, and Forrester comes very close to being so disoriented that he very nearly dies.
During both of those tumultuous times, Forrester sees the Old Man, or the Man Who Flies. He crosses the same lake without any incident. And later, in the mountains is certain that a bird flying above them is the Old Man in bird form. He almost loses his mind, wanting to kill the bird, to shoot it from the skies.
Despite the trials, they survive. After that, things get considerably easier, and they find their way back to a coastal village. Before they do, Lieutenant Pruit pulls Forrester to the side. He has seemed quieter than when Forrester knew him, and we find out why. He has taken an active part in a massacre. This has shaken his belief in humanity, including himself. He decides to stay behind in the wilderness of Alaska, away from people.
Specifically, Pruitt explains the appeal of this rough wilderness, which they just barely survived:
“Hunger, sun, cold. Pure unto themselves. No false veil between a man & a world around him … No pretenses. Nothing to hide behind.”
So now, there are only two men left, Tillman and Forrester. They have reached the village, and so wait for the next ship to get back to civilization. They can wait there until then, although Forrester is anxious to leave. Before they get a chance, Tillman gets in a physical altercation with another man one evening. That man still has hard feelings, and later, he shoots and kills Tillman. Forrester is distraught, as he feels that a major part of his mission was to bring both of the men in his expedition back home safely. So this feels like a major failure. He longs for Sophie now more than ever.
In the end, the book ends with the modern correspondence between Walter Forrester and Joshua Sloan. At several points, Joshua has expressed amazement at the eerie resemblances between Forrester's descriptions of the Old Man (Man Who Flies) and other historical accounts from a century earlier. Now, he explains an old news report where someone matching the Old Man's description having been killed in an accident on a boat. We even learn that the human carcass of the man killed has been discovered, although the Native Americans believe that he survived in bird form.
The two men have enjoyed their letter exchanges, and Joshua urges Walter to do what he has always wanted to do and come up to Alaska. Walter is flattered but being old, he remains unsure. But Joshua continues to persuade him. At the very end, Walter is informed of specific travel plans which have been set for him to pay a visit to Alaska at Joshua's invitation, to explore the Wolverine River. We can only guess, but it seems like Walter will finally get to see Alaska after all.
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2016/0811/To-the-Bright-Edge-of-the-World-hauntingly-portrays-Alaskan-wilderness
The contrast is complicated and intensified when Allen's expedition encounters a mysterious infant in the wilderness, an event Ivey characterizes as half-hallucinatory. “It will not leave me,” Forrester writes in his journal. “Clear fluid bubbling up from the ground.
Clotted blood & moss once side and the same. Can it be true?”
“At times,” he adds, “I no longer know – am I awake or dreaming?”
That undertone of delirium begins to dominate the inland expedition. The men gradually run out of healthy food and begin succumbing to fatigue and, in Pruitt's case, scurvy. The awe-inspiring natural world around them serves only to accentuate their helplessness, driving each soldier to different extremes of delusion and ecstasy. “Can something half-dead and rotted to pale be resurrected?” Pruitt writes in his journal upon discovering the bleached skull of a mammoth in a river bed. “Can the clean breath of this land enter me?”
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