ReviewMeTwice: My Name Is Not Easy by Debby Dahl Edwardson

This week, we did My Name Is Not Easy by Debby Dahl Edwardson.  It was a very depressing, but at the same time touching, book.

Though the first character we see is Luke (and, generally, I would consider him the main character.  After all, the book is named for him) the point of view shifts all over the place.  We go from first, to third limited, to third omnicient, sometimes in the same chapter.  Really, I don't think that this did much to add to the book.  If anything, it was incredibly confusing because one second, you were hearing Luke's inner montage and then the next you were hearing Sonny.  It got really confusing sometimes.

I really like how she portrayed the power dynamics.  It was interesting that both Indians and Eskimos are an underdog, races of people that hasn't been treated very well.  Yet, instead of banding together, then tended to fight, to have these deep seeded rivalries. 

This book also does very well with the whole language/power thing.  The kids at Sacred Heart are not allowed to speak anything but English, taking away their control.  In the very beginning, Issac is taken away from his brothers and family, shipped off to a "Christian" family, never to be seen again.  The idea that Eskimo children could just be taken is an unfathomable one.  But part of the reason it happens is because that Luke doesn't have any power.  He's too afraid to communicate or, just doesn't know how.  We see a lot of him not being able to vocalize what's happening around him TO the people around him.

The power shifts later to the kids at Sacred Heart, however.  And, interestingly enough, it's through language that it's done.  They write an editorial about the tests that are being done on Indians and Eskimo alike.  Amiq writes a missing person ad for Issac and Luke then sends it to a Texas newspaper.  It's through this act of mere language, they seem to take back their school and, inevitably, their lives.

While there are some great aspects to this book, the writing just wasn't that strong.  It didn't really grab me.  Edwardson has some really interesting and impressive themes in her book, but her writing style just wasn't quite up to the task of the topics she was writing.

My Bottom Line 3 out of 5

One of my favorite things about doing this blog with Cassy is that she sometimes picks a book I would never pick up and read on my own. This is one of those books.

I didn't love it. But I didn't dislike it. I enjoyed reading it while I was reading it, and then I was done reading it and I probably won't read it again.

The point of view really threw me off. Let's have a little lesson about narration. First-person narration is when the character tells you what's happening. "And then I ate an apple." Third-person narration is when some disembodied voice tells you what's happening to the characters. "And then Alex ate an apple." Third-person omniscient means that the narrator knows about everything that's going on, not just what's happening to one character. "And then Alex ate an apple, not knowing that Cassy had poisoned it."

So you can probably see why it would be confusing to bounce around between narration styles and points of view. My Name Is Not Easy has this problem. I think I understand the choices Debby Dahl Edwardson made in this regard (I'm fairly certain all the out-of-the-blue third-person narration is about the same character, making him seem more distant to the reader) but it was difficult to get used to.

Other than that, there was nothing particularly wrong with the book. It told a solid story with developed characters and real events. (By "real" I mean that they carry weight, not that they're necessarily non-fiction.) It feels important, and I'm glad I read it, but it is not quite my type of book, so I didn't rabidly devour it like I do with some books.

Inuit–Yupik

This week, we're reading My Name is Not Easy by Debbie Dahl Edwardson.  Since there's so much about the Eskimo people in the book, we decided on a little history lesson.  Lesson one: Inuit-Yupik means Eskimo!

This is how most people imagine an Eskimo family. 

Which, is actually pretty accurate.

The Eskimo people have been around for about 5,000 years (way longer than any of the rest of us have been here, let's face it.)  They generally live in Eastern Siberia, Alaska (in the recent US Census counts, about 19% of Alaskans are Native American or Native Alaskan), all across Canada and in Greenland.  Most speak Yupik, though the language has many different dialects. (In those same aforementioned Census results, it was calculated that about 85% of Alaskans over the age of 5 speak only English at home. 3.5% speak Spanish, 2.2% speak another Indo-European language, 4.3% speak an Asian language, and 5.3% speak "other" languages - which includes the Native Alaskan languages - at home.) While the official name is Inuit-Yupik, anyone not in Alaska usually calls them Eskimos (mainly because we can't pronounce the name.  Which... is almost entirely the point of the book we're reading this week.  So chew on that one for awhile.)

Inuit-Yupik is also to reflect both groups (or tribes) of the Eskimo people.  There is a third group of Eskimos, called Aluet.  Technically, the word Eskimo does not refer to this group of people.  All three branches also have their own form of the language and dialect, which you can see the breakdown of below:

Aleut

Aleut language

Western-Central dialects: Atkan, Attuan, Unangan, Bering (60–80 speakers)

Eastern dialect: Unalaskan, Pribilof (400 speakers)

Eskimo (Yup'ik, Yuit, and Inuit)

Yupik

Central Alaskan Yup'ik (10,000 speakers)

Alutiiq or Pacific Gulf Yup'ik (400 speakers)

Central Siberian Yupik or Yuit (Chaplinon and St Lawrence Island, 1,400 speakers)

Naukan (700 speakers)

Inuit or Inupik (75,000 speakers)

Iñupiaq (northern Alaska, 3,500 speakers)

Inuvialuktun (western Canada; together with Siglitun, Natsilingmiutut, Inuinnaqtun and Uummarmiutun 765 speakers)

Inuktitut (eastern Canada; together with Inuktun and Inuinnaqtun, 30,000 speakers)

Kalaallisut (Greenland, 47,000 speakers)

Inuktun (Avanersuarmiutut, Thule dialect or Polar Eskimo, approximately 1,000 speakers)

Tunumiit oraasiat (East Greenlandic known as Tunumiisut, 3,500 speakers)

Sirenik Eskimo language (Sirenikskiy) (extinct)

(Source: Wikipedia.org)

So what differs between the Eskimo we think of and the real deal?  Well, for one, they don't live in the houses made of ice that we think of as Igloos.  Igloo means "House" so while, technically, they do live in igloos, it's not the one you're thinking of.  That's not to say that the snow covered structures don't exist!  They are just temporary houses, however, built for survival during the hunting season.

Igloo we traditionally think of.

Real (temporary) Igloo.

        

Also (technically) an Igloo.

They also don't have thousands of words for snow.  While there are many, it's not thousand (probably more like 50.)  There are however, many words for ice, because they describe color, type and even how to cross it, in just a word.

And if you've ever used a kayak, you can thank the native peoples of Alaska. "Kayak" is what they called their canoes made from the skin of animals they hunted.