White River Crossing by Ian McGuire
If you value that there was once a Cormac McCarthy in the world, a writer who had his characters say such things as “Your heart’s desire is to be told some mystery. The mystery is that there is no mystery,” then it’s more than recommended you pick up an Ian McGuire novel. His settings are historical and violent, where optimism is always in short supply. It may sound paradoxical, but such bleakness opens the possibilities, especially in the hands of an expert novelist.
In White River Crossing, it’s 1766 and a small group leaves Prince of Wales Fort in what is now Manitoba. Three of the men are technically employed by the Hudson’s Bay Company, but the fort’s chief factor has them swear not to divulge the true nature of their mission to the others. The reason: they believe gold deposits exist far in the north, and they intend to keep it for themselves.
Their indigenous guide, Datsanthi, thinks it’s a bad idea, for he doesn’t trust the Inuit in the far north. Not only is the feeling mutual among the Inuit, two of the Hudson’s Bay men, Thomas Hearn and John Hearn, don’t trust each other either. To say the least, things are not going to go well.
Back in England, Hearn once studied to become a minister. But the sudden deaths of his mother and sister obliterated his faith. Scripture “became like frail constructions designed to obscure the horrid truths of human suffering and death.” Bookish and a loner, he stands in contrast to Shaw, a man for whom logic and reason hold little purchase. Shaw will be swayed “by only the application of a moral force as massive, brutish, and unyielding as his own.”
Throughout, it’s almost impossible for each respective faction to fully understand each other. While it might be benign and amusing that an Inuit chief who is ridiculously squat in build be described as resembling a “fairground pugilist,” it’s downright dangerous for the Company men not to fully appreciate how the indigenous operate in their demon-haunted world. Their daily motivations, of course, are very different from men willing to risk everything for gold.
When Keasik, Datsanthi’s daughter in law, is convinced that the fat-bodied raven following the party is actually a spirit seeking revenge, a weary Hearn eventually tells her that sometimes a “bird is just a bird.” Keasik basically pities him, wondering how he and others like him know so little about the world. She knows a “curse is still a curse.”
As one calamitous event begets another, tagging along with these folks as things deteriorate makes for a captivating read. It’s of course a tale of how avarice spins one’s moral compass. But it also illustrates how the pursuit of gain can become dangerously “self-justified, unchained by fear” and can make one feel “fully, astoundingly, alive.” In a world of pain and chaos, holding the coin of the realm in your hand will often cause it to close to an unyielding fist.
Review by Jason Sullivan
