The Temptations of Big Bear. Introduction by Alan Bevan.

Wiebe, Rudy:

ISBN 10: 0771092229 / ISBN 13: 9780771092220

Published by McClelland & Stewart, Toronto,, 1986

About this Item

2. Auflage. XV, 415, (9) S. Ill. Orig.-Broschur. Taschenbuch (= New Canadian Library). - Papier altersbedingt leicht gebräunt. Handschriftlicher Eintrag auf Schmutztitel; ansonsten innen sauber. Gut erhaltenes Exemplar.

Seller Inventory # 029618

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Temptations of Big Bear. Introduction by Alan Bevan.
• Publisher: McClelland & Stewart, Toronto,
• Publication Date: 1986
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0771092229
• ISBN 13: 9780771092220
• Binding: Soft cover
• Seller catalogs:
  • Kanadische Literatur

About this title

Synopsis

“What can that mean, I and my family will have a ‘reserve of one square mile’?”

So asks Big Bear of Governor Morris, come to impose a square treaty on the round, buffalo-covered world of the Plains Cree. As the buffalo vanish and the tension builds to the second Riel Rebellion, Big Bear alone of the prairie chiefs keeps up pressure for a better treaty by refusing to choose a reserve. He argues, “If any man has the right to put a rope around another man’s neck, some day someone will get choked.”

It is Big Bear’s story – and the story of Wandering Spirit, of Kitty McLean and John McDougall–that is told in this novel with rare and penetrating power. Permeated with a sense of place and time, this eagerly awaited work by Rudy Wiebe reflects the author’s sensitivity to the Canadian prairies, their history, the minds and hearts of their diverse people.

Exploring Big Bear’s isolated struggle, Wiebe has encompassed in one creative sweep not only his hero’s struggle for integrity, but the whole range and richness of the Plains culture. Here is the giant circle of the prairie horizon, and the joy, the sorrow, the pain and the triumph and the violence of unconquerable human beings faced with destruction.

Review

""The Temptations of Big Bear" is one of the best novels, perhaps, ever written in Canada."
-- Maclean's

"The Temptations of Big Bear is one of the best novels, perhaps, ever written in Canada."--Maclean's

"Wiebe tackles history and succeeds in making it dramatic, intriguing, romantic and tragic.... An astounding and deep portrayal of human emotion."--Calgary Herald Magazine

"A very rare, complexly emotional and profoundly philosophical experience.... A fictional meditation, in which [Wiebe] enters the very texture of the lives of his characters, Indian and white.... He has created a style for [Big Bear's] incredible voice that fully wins our belief in its greatness and power.... A masterpiece."--Edmonton Journal