Burning Water
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Book Overview
First published in 1980 to high acclaim, Burning Water won a Governor General's Award for fiction that year. A rollicking chronicle of Captain Vancouver's search for the Northwest Passage, the book has over its career been mentioned in recommended lists of postmodern fiction, BC historical fiction, gay fiction and humour. This gives you some idea of the scope of what has been called Bowering's best novel. I have sometimes said, kidding but not really kidding, writes its author, that I attended to the spirit of the west coast, and told the story about the rivals for our land as an instance in which the commanders decided to make love, not war. As an accurate account of Vancouver's exploration of our coastline, Burning Water conveys the exact length-99 feet-of the explorer's ship, and contains citations from his journals. As a work of fanciful fiction, things usually thought to be impossible transpire, without compromising the realism of the text. Bowering recalls that his free hand with history particularly incensed the founder of the National Archives, who had written a biography of George Vancouver and complained in print that Burning Water differed too much from other, similar books in its field.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:1554200369
ISBN13:9781554200368
Release Date:October 2007
Publisher:New Star Books
Length:256 Pages
Weight:0.75 lbs.
Dimensions:8.3" x 0.8" x 5.3"
Customer Reviews
1 rating
European Invaders
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 16 years ago
Burning Water is a book for readers who like their history leavened with imagination. The basic story is of the mapping of the Inside Passage and Puget Sound by George Vancouver, but this book is much more than that. The character of Vancouver himself is interesting and quite believable: Competent and tormented, autocratic and lovelorn, he worms his way into your heart almost despite himself. Residents of the Pacific Northwest will never think of Peter Puget and sundry other characters who have leant their names to various Northwestern geographical features in the same way again. This is the rare book that mixes the story of the European explorers with that of the Indigenous peoples who occupied these lands long before they were "discovered" by Europeans. This book is often funny and irreverent, but it can also be heart-rending and tragic. I think most people interested in the Pacific Northwest and/or Canadian History will find it a good reading experience. On the other hand I suspect that readers of British Naval history might be offended. this is not Master and Commander, but neither is it a Flashman adventure.
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