pickThis book takes time to read but in the good way it washes through you. The Permanent Astonishment, the northern kingdom, starts as the backdrop for this memoir but I realized with about 50 pages left that this landscape is really the biggest character in this. The human characters bubble up like champagne and play along the surface with a humor, compassion, and love that tickles the brain.
An interesting pairing of the books I‘m reading for two different book clubs right now.
I‘m disappointed in Tomson Highway for spreading misinformation about garter snakes in his memoir. Firstly, their skin is NOT slimy, it is dry. Secondly, they cannot “prick your hand with their thread-like tongue.” Their tongues are actually sense organs. Garter snakes use their teeth if you have annoyed them to the point of biting your hand. (End rant.)
When I think back on it, even the fact that I am a “girl” does not faze Dad. Where too many men would beat the woman out of their effeminate boys to turn them into “men,” thus destroying the lives of those boys, the lives of their families &, most blindly, their own, the world‘s most athletic, most masculine man, world-champion dogsled racer Joe Lapstan Highway, loves me even more.
Yes, Virginia, there are two-spirit cows, two-spirit bulls, two-spirit fish, two-spirit trees & two-spirit rocks; the universe seethes with gender; two-spiritness is a biological normality—my male self was spliced with my female at the moment of conception, perhaps even prior; my body is both genders as is my heart as is my spirit (though I should specify that I do have male genitals & male genitals only & greatly enjoy them!).
[By the last week of August] the fall winds have come and the temperature plunges. Augurs announcing the advent of autumn, they whip the water into waves so gigantic they look like churches coming to get you for not confessing all your sins to Father Cadeau, they are that scary.
This call, of course, is what they are known for. Haunting, a lilting airborne la-la-la, a pentatonic tremolo that cuts to the heart, that makes men weep inside their beings, it, in the end, is Canada‘s sonic signature, as indelibly Canadian a sound as the two Cree syllables that make up the name “Quebec.”
(Internet image)
But far too often have I wished that I was blessed with a name like Bill Johnson, Bob White, Ron Cooper or Mstislav Michiskovich. Or even, for that matter, Paul Gagnon, Michel Tremblay or Row Bare Go Bare (Robert Gaubert). But no, I am just bizarre, unusual, ridiculous, multilingual, optimist unstoppable, laughter-loving, piano-playing—and utterly unique—Tomson Highway.
It tastes like steel. Like the dishes it is served on, there is something plastic about it. Or soap or chemicals. Maybe they soak it in Lysol before they cook it.
In his memoir, Tomson Highway frequently uses a stilted sentence structure that is different from the way he speaks. It‘s one reason why I prefer to read his book in small doses. Here, he writes about confession:
“Saturday evening and it is time for the act for, on the morrow, we take communion. Every weekend without fail does this happen.”
(Internet photo)
“Marches!” he shouts, and off they go. (The French word from which comes “mush,” the canine directive that means “go!” and is now used by all dogsledders. And it‘s always “marches” as opposed to “marchez” because the verb is singular and so is meant for the lead dog only.)
(Internet photo)
Each chapter in this memoir is episodic, so reading one or two a day works well. One of the chapters recounts a childhood memory that Highway previously drew upon to create (together with artist Brian Deines) a children‘s picture book: Fox on the Ice. I reviewed that on my blog way back in 2013: https://lindypratch.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-fox-in-winter-three-northern.html?m...
Balazee Highway‘s adopted Dene rivalled her native Cree in fluency. In fact, her speed in either language was such that she could make lip-readers go blind with one Hail Mary, is how legend has it.
[Balazee was Tomson Highway‘s mother]
White, a general, a universal white. A hopping rabbit here, an Arctic fox there, a ptarmigan, a weasel, all four species in their seasonal white, a chickadee here, a junco there, a lynx, a squirrel, the forest is alive, the forest is an act of soundless magic.
I grown to love attending author events in the comfort of my living room. Tomson Highway is such a lovely, joyful man and I‘m looking forward to reading his memoir.
Permanent Astonishment: A Memoir | 
