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MY THOUGHTS ON "THE COUNTRY BEYOND"

My Thoughts on: James Oliver Curwood's "The Country Beyond"

Hello Readers! I picked up James Oliver Curwood's "The Country Beyond" off of my personal book library to read. This is the second Curwood book I have read. The first was "The Flaming Forest." He writes about adventures up in Canada involving the Canadian Mounted Police / Patrol. This one involved a big rotund revolver carrying, jovial in appearance, man on the run. He was on the run because he had stolen things and interfered with the mail or whatnot in order to help the northern indian Cree peoples up in the far north of Saskatchewan (not sure if I spelled that correctly). I actually looked up two of the lakes on google maps to get a sense of where this was one being Wallaston Lake and the second one Pashkokogan Lake. What great places it seems to go kayak fishing and nature hiking and shooting photos it seems, A?

The book starts out with a dog named Peter who is a mix of an Aerdale and MacKenszie dog. The book largely involves that dog and its personification really. The dog plays an instrumental role at various points of the book and the ending. Which is fine, but for me the personification of it was a different way of story telling from the other book of his I read and I didn't really care for it as it made it too "childreny" for me; but maybe that's just me. Not a big fan of things like Benji etc.

I did enjoy the native american culture injected into it. Particularly with regard to how he helped them amid the ravagings of sickness etc. as well as his interaction with them upon his return to them while on the run from his pursuer, long time pursuer and almost friend, Cassidy. While he was with the Cree people he had helped, he was consulted by a "see-er" or "witch doctor" or "sorceress" whatever you want to call her, who foretold many things which would happen in the story but not everything because a cloud would always come forth and blind her to the rest of the story she was trying to give to our big fat jovial hero.

Sometimes I draw sketches based upon the books I am reading and this one I did a sketch of Nada. It is mostly true to the part where I read prior to drawing it. The torn dress and breast exposed, the axe she used, the torn and generally tattered dress, her thin frame and her hair all wild. Although when I drew it, she was in the pines, not the birches. . . although afterward in the book there were birches so that turned out to be true to the story too. . . I could add some black to the dead tree (snag) and make it scorched to include the forest fire that happened in the book. But I'm not going to, just going to leave it as it is. Also, I won't say about the axe and the red implication if that is true to the story of not lest you plan on reading it. I have in mind other sketches to make from the book, but probably won't. Because next up is Walden & Civil Disobedience. Gotta get crackin' on that!

With these light books I do not get to "mine" many statements as to culture and society etc or new words, but did pick up a new word to add to my vocabulary with it "chortling" / "chortling voices." I shall now, whenever walking in the woods and shooting nature photos listen for the chortling voices and they will remind me of Nada and her supersize Jolly Roger.

The book if trigger warnings were a thing or even if they should be a thing. I am not going to opine on whether they are important or necessary or should be. But if they were, this one would have injury to animals and physical abuse in it as a trigger warning. Readers do not like when authors (some readers) create characters that injure animals, here, one of the main characters of the book, Peter, the dog was injured and Nada grew up with a physically abusive drunk foster father.

At its root it is a story of love and devotion beyond measure. Imagine having a love like that!

I guess I shouldn't spoil the ending but I liked the ending. I wasn't sure how it was going to end up. It was overall an enjoyable time up in the forests of canada again courtesy of James Oliver Curwood. I like the light reading as a break from the heavier / deeper classic literature I usually read and am most drawn to. The book I read is I believe a 1st Edition of it from 1922.

Discussion / Thought Questions Inspired by my Reading of this Book:

Do you like books in which animals are personified?
Is smoking a pipe truly more enjoyable if you can see the smoke? p203
Do you talk to your dog/cat aloud?
When should a book reveal in it the source of the title? Is it something you pay attention to?

I will leave you also with a quote from it that I noted:

"I hate men!" p46. No, That's not the one I meant but thought that would make you laugh. Ok back to seriousness here is the quote I will leave you with from it:

"There was nothing of man-made religion in the soul of Roger McKay. Nature was his god; its manifestations, its life, and the air it gave him to breathe were the pages which made up the Book that guided him" p37.. . just a guess but I guess that was perhaps auto-biographical of Mr. Curwood perhaps given his writing. Like Aldo Leopold he is really good at bringing nature forth in his writing. That is probably what I like most about the two books of his I read. So if you like nature, I think you too might enjoy the light adventures he creates.