The Marrow Thieves is a 2017 Young Adult dystopian novel by Metis Canadian writer Cherie Dimaline. Seven of us met on Saturday Nov. 18, and had the best discussion we’d had in a long time. The story was just outstanding, and we were all happy to jump into a YA book about social justice, Indigenous culture, climate change, and a touch of Sci Fi.
Bonnie came right out the gate, exclaiming, “I can’t deal with Science Fiction.” Marian tried to reason with her, offering, “But the Sci Fi was really an aside. The Sci Fi was a vehicle.”
Bonnie retorted “Right, I understand that, and I met someone from Canada who was Indigenous, who went to a residential school, and he was telling us that the present Pope came to apologize to the group of people who were impacted. I understand that the Sci Fi is a vehicle.”
Marian followed up with, “The Sci Fi aspect was only a vehicle and to me it was very tiny. The part about extracting the marrow.”
BarbL reminded her, “But also, the sort of post-apocalyptic piece.”
Robin remarked, “I have to say this was written in 2017. In 2017 I had no idea that climate change was going to mean all this rain. But this author did, obviously.”
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| photo from Sciline.org |
Bonnie explained further, “I have a cousin who was a very well-regarded economist, and he wrote a book called Climate Shock: The Economic Consequences of a Hotter Planet. What’s going to finally get people to do something is insurance companies. There are places where you cannot get homeowners’ insurance.”
Robin added, “And certainly not flood insurance anymore.”
Bonnie elaborated, “So, what’s going to happen is people won’t be able to sell their houses. On the Jersey shore, since Hurricane Sandy the houses are all built up on stilts. The air-condition compression units are built up from the ground.”
Robin jumped in with “I really liked this book.”
Marian went further, saying, “I liked the voice of the young boy. Adventures told from an eleven-year-old boy point of view. He was eleven when his family first disappeared. He spent five years in the wilderness with this group.”
Robin shared further, saying, “Even though it was post-apocalyptic setting, because it was a YA book, I thought that it was going to have a happy ending.”
Marian told the group that she liked how the narrator always said, ‘That Minerva, she’s old-timey.’ “He meant old-timey in the admiral sense because she kept the culture. “
Barbara M. added that she liked it, saying, “I think this author is a good storyteller. She keeps you engaged. I got a little confused at the ending. It piqued my interest. Because I started looking at how many Indigenous peoples around the world have been put in this position. Children have been taken away from them; language taken away from them. I think she brought the characters to life.”
Shelara gave us, “I thought there were some really beautiful passages, like in the beginning when Frenchie was describing the sky. I liked the pace of the story. I love the messages: the importance of the elders and the youth. Her dedication to the grandmothers, then the children. And the idea that the real theft is the theft of the language, the theft of the culture, the theft of the ceremonies. How desperate the oppressor was for the marrow. It was marrow. That is the marrow of a people. That’s always the playbook, kill the elders, kill the history that they carry and then change the children. That’s definitely what the Indigenous people still endure.”
Laura compared the text to other famous works, stating, "It reminded me a lot of Parable of the Sower. I love the idea of the owner of the story being able to tell their own story. It made me think of Fahrenheit 451. People were living in boxcars out in the forest, and they would keep stories alive by saying ‘This is War and Peace’ people had memorized the entire works, and they would recite them aloud.”
Barb M. said, “This book was banned because it had sexual overtones and introduced homosexuality.”
Bonnie: reading from her phone, spoke out loud, “Why was The Marrow Thieves banned? It contains anti-white and anti-Catholic themes, depicts human sexuality and sexual acts.”
Robin added “I thought it was interesting that Isaac was mix-raced and appeared white.”
BarbL: observed that, “When Miig spoke it was The Story. When different ones of the group told a story, it was their ‘coming to' story. Those of us who have our ‘coming out’ stories, really appreciate the notion of ‘coming to stories’ The kids got frustrated when they weren’t old enough yet to hear the stories.”
Laura: told us to look at page 79 “Everyone tells their own coming to story. The Story Miig told was the larger historical story.”
Shelara responded, “I really did love the story of Miig and Isaac, the way it was told. The romance of Miig carrying what he thought was Isaac’s bone marrow around his neck. He kept that vial because he thought it was Isaac. The author made a very deliberate choice to make them a couple and make it kind of the central idea of the book. Indigenous groups had a different sense of homosexuality. They called a gay person “two-spirited.”
Barb M: told us, “This book makes us aware of how we see people as ‘other.’ The recruiters were convinced they were doing right. How do you justify taking someone else’s children? I once talked to an Asian student at Yale. He said, ‘Can I ask you a question? I don’t understand. Both my people and your people were brought as prisoners to this country. We flourished. You didn’t.’ I said, ‘let me start by saying, they took our language away, our religion away, you were allowed to maintain your language, your religion, and your identity.’ We had several discussions. When I read this book, all those thoughts flooded in.”
Shelara responded to all that with, “One thing you really never hear, because they’re so marginalized, you never hear, ‘Why can’t the Indigenous people get themselves together? Because it’s always been clear that they have been systematically made nonviable. There’s something about the history of it that no one can ever skirt around. Some of the people who had been enslaved by the indigenous people, were given the worst land out in Oklahoma. Yet, those people, when freed, were able to create Black Wall Street out in Tulsa. When people say we haven’t flourished, we should say, ‘yes, we have! Every time we built something, someone came to burn it down.’”
Barb L., bringing us back to the book, shared, “I was thinking about the role of the elders and how for the first three quarters of the book it looks like it’s Miigwans who is the keeper of the tradition and Minerva is respected and quiet. She carried the language and the magic, but she is a quiet character until the end when we find out about her power. How when captured, she had the power to destroy the school. We have a woman author telling this story that appears to be carried by the men and then Minerva turns out to be this powerhouse.
Robin added, “And I was really impressed with how little fear she had, that she knew the recruiters were going to come that night. She moved the ladder, she protected the group. She was amazing.”
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| Cherie Dimaline, photo from Wikipedia |
Near the end of our discussion, Marian wanted to talk about “dreams” in the literal sense (brain activity while you’re sleeping) as opposed to “dreams” as in aspirations or plans. Robin shared that people who don’t experience REM sleep suffer from health issues.
Barb L. said she thought that it was losing the ability to dream while sleeping that totally interfered with their lives.
Barb M. explained further, “the book talks about how the inability to dream was driving people to murder and suicide and I think it was because of sleep dreaming and aspirational dreaming.
Shelara called our attention to page 29:
“After the rains started and the lands shifted so that some cities fell right into the oceans, people had to move around. Diseases spread like crazy. With all this sickness and movement and death, people got sad. One of the ways the sadness came out was when they slept. They stopped being able to dream. At first, they just talked about it all casual-like. ‘Oh, funniest thing, I haven’t dreamed in months.’ ‘Isn't’ that odd. I haven’t dreamed either.’
Laura reminded us of the Langston Hughes Poem: Dreams
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
Laura continued, “From the passage on page 29 it does feel as if it’s more about having dreams when you’re sleeping but I think that there’s a metaphor also for hope.”
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