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drew hayden taylor's the night wanderer
Dec. 5th, 2008 08:06 pmA few days before I taught Twilight for the first time, I needed a break, so I came home to finish my overdue ILL book, Drew Hayden Taylor's The Night Wanderer. I didn't have any comparison in mind; it was just the book next on my queue. It certainly didn't occur to me until I was well into The Night Wanderer that both are modern vampire tales with Native paranormal characters (well, counting the Twilight series as a whole). Once I started thinking about it, of course, it was impossible not to compare.
The Twilight series is the better-written set of books, and yes, that's a fairly damning statement of TNW (which I think just needed a better editor). But TNW has a more interesting concept, bringing European vampire legends to a modern Anishinabe reservation in Ontario. Tellingly, the treatment of Native people in Ojibwa Taylor's work is substantially different from that in white Meyer's work. There's no sexy bronze and copper skin in Taylor's book. There's a wise older generation, but they are wise in the ways of Native medicine and tasty pickles, not wise in the way of mysterious tribal legends which will protect all those who are appropriately inscrutable. There's an exotic supernatural creature -- exotically European in origin. And the dangerous paranormal Ashinabe man never turns into a noble savage, violent toward the women and children of his band, but instead consistently reveres life and home.
I have no idea which one is truer to life, though I've read mixed Native reactions to Meyer and overwhelmingly positive Native reactions to Taylor which lead me to believe Taylor is. But they're surely different.
The Twilight series is the better-written set of books, and yes, that's a fairly damning statement of TNW (which I think just needed a better editor). But TNW has a more interesting concept, bringing European vampire legends to a modern Anishinabe reservation in Ontario. Tellingly, the treatment of Native people in Ojibwa Taylor's work is substantially different from that in white Meyer's work. There's no sexy bronze and copper skin in Taylor's book. There's a wise older generation, but they are wise in the ways of Native medicine and tasty pickles, not wise in the way of mysterious tribal legends which will protect all those who are appropriately inscrutable. There's an exotic supernatural creature -- exotically European in origin. And the dangerous paranormal Ashinabe man never turns into a noble savage, violent toward the women and children of his band, but instead consistently reveres life and home.
I have no idea which one is truer to life, though I've read mixed Native reactions to Meyer and overwhelmingly positive Native reactions to Taylor which lead me to believe Taylor is. But they're surely different.
