Book Review by Katy Spangler

Initiation by Virginia Frances Schwartz

Schwartz, Virginia Frances. Initiation. Markham, Ontario: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 2003. 268 pages ISBN: 1-55005-053-2 available in hardback and paperback

Initiation is a young adult novel set in fifteenth century coastal British Columbia among a tribe of Kwakiutl people. The protagonists are young teenagers Nana and Nanolatch, twin children of the group's chief, and a shaman's daughter, Noh, a slave captured during a raid on a Salish village. The central conflict of the story is Nana's coming of age during a time of famine for her tribe. While Nanolatch undergoes initiation rites to become a man and succeed his father, Nana is conflicted about who is she, and why she should be made to marry a man chosen for her by her father. Compounding the issues of famine and coming of age is Noh, the slave girl of uncommon wisdom and sensitivity who senses Nana's conflict and simultaneously falls in love with Nanolatch.

The complex story is told in the voices of the three teenagers. The author used archaic and dreamlike language in an attempt to represent the spirituality of the teenagers, however, the effect created is confusing and unrealistic. She also borrows the traditional indigenous story of transformation to resolve the story. The theme of growing up and realizing who you are is compounded with issues of following family protocol, disobedience and the promise of romantic love.

This young adult novel raises many issues of concern about its appropriateness for readers ages 12 to 16, especially for indigenous children in Alaska and Canada.

1. Is the story free of negative stereotypes; false language, comic or crass illustrations and other demeaning stereotypes that would make an indigenous child feel uncomfortable, embarrassed or ashamed?
Initiation contains many stereotypes and other literary devices that are problematic. Here are a few examples that illustrate story elements that might make an indigenous child feel uncomfortable:

-Nana and Nanolatch's tribe carries out a raid on an innocent Salish village, killing the men, dispersing the women and children, and taking a slave. The raid is violent and bloody. The treatment of Noh, the slave, is at times cruel and harsh. While it is true that Pacific Northwest Coast Indians did have slaves and did have capacity for warring, these actions are central to this story.
-People are compared to salmon: a grandmother is "wide and full, like a salmon feeding long years at sea" (page 29.) Noh is "narrow and lean like a fish skeleton, her skin bark browned" (page 58.)
-The language is often convoluted and oddly constructed. I believe that this was a mode the author was trying to use to convey a past, more "spiritual" time, such as this "sentence" found on page 62: "Nowhere to breathe in the smoggy place, except as high up as I can climb, where the air is clear, looking down over the water." In many instances, the author reverses the normal order of English words in sentences like this from page 226 "Out I push my arms from their bindings." The effect of this language is that it's false and pretentious.
-The term "fishwife" is used to describe the women who cut fish. This word is pejorative in English.

2. Does the story help the reader develop understanding about the human condition? Is it good literature?
The story does illustrate the pains of coming of age; however, the terms are those of modern westerners. Issues are developed about feelings of romantic love, separation from family, rebelliousness, gender expectations and distancing from parents. No one can judge if these issues existed in pre-contact Pacific Northwest adolescence, however, they seem false to me. It's as if the author dropped today's teenager into these characters that were supposed to have lived 560 years ago.
The author obviously has attempted to write a literary young adult novel, however, the problems with language, plot complexity and point of view make the book seem pretentious rather than literary.

3. Does the story show history, culture and spirituality accurately?
The history presented in this book is based on what archaeologists have found, and what nineteenth century anthropologist Franz Boa and photographer Edward Curtis documented. The rest is pure speculation.

4. How does the language help tell the story?
As mentioned above, the language is strange and seems to be too strangely constructed, flowery and literary to convey this story. The language is full of simile, description and impression. The result is more like poetic language from a nineteenth century romantic poet than that of teenagers. Since these people had a strongly developed oral tradition, perhaps it is acceptable to surmise that their language was ornate, however it simply doesn't read well, and annoys the reader rather than captivates her.

5. Does the story develop a range of characters?
The three teenagers are fully developed characters. The twins' parents, uncles and grandmother are flat characters with stereotypical traits: the father, a "chief," is strong, narrow-minded and rigid, the mother is passive, the uncle is warlike, and the grandmother is wise and caring.

6. Will children want to read or listen to this story?
This book has not been successful, and is out of print as a hardback in one year. It is still in print in paperback. I was able to find one review, from School Library Journal, which called it "inaccessible." I agree. I can't imagine a teenager reading it. As it was, I struggled with boredom and annoyance as I read it.

7. Is the author and/or illustrator qualified to make this book?
I met the author, Virginia Schwartz, last year at the IRA convention. She is a white woman, of Canadian birth, now living in New York City. She has won awards for her previous novels for young people. She is certainly qualified to write young adult novels, however, her authorship of this novel is informed only by speculation.

8. Does the story give young people something to think and talk about?
Most teenagers are concerned with issues of separation, finding one's own path in life, questioning authority, leaving childish ways and with finding love. There is no question that Initiation deals in great detail with these issues.

What concerns me most about this novel, however, is how Nana resolves her issues. After all of her angst and soul searching, her resolution to her problem is to dive into the river where the salmon run and transform into a salmon, thus sacrificing herself to save the lives of her village. A story that is presented as fiction suddenly becomes the traditional indigenous story of "The Girl Who Swam with the Fish," which apparently is part of Pacific Northwest Coast tradition.

If we accept the entire story as a legend or myth, this is a satisfactory conclusion. However, since the story has adopted the attributes of fiction, with characters showing modern concerns and issues, the resolution to Nana's angst is suicide. This is an unacceptable resolution for any teenager, and in light of the high rate of adolescent suicide in Alaska and the North, this is simply a bad model, and the book is entirely inappropriate.

9. Does the local Native community approve of the telling of this story?
The author cites Judge Scow, a Kwakwaka'wakw elder, as an "insightful reviewer," as well as the U'mista Cultural Society and several other First Nations people who assisted her on the book.

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