I Heard the Owl Call My Name

by Margaret Craven

Book Overview

Amid the grandeur of the remote Pacific Northwest stands Kingcome, a village so ancient that, according to Kwakiutl myth, it was founded by the two brothers left on earth after the great flood. The... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385025866
• ISBN13: 9780385025867
• Release Date: January 1973
• Publisher: Doubleday Books
• Length: 166 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A wonderful book - it creates a world for the reader...

...and at the end, you are sad to leave it. For me, when I read an absolutely excellent novel, I have a hard time getting into another one - you end up rejecting the new one because it's not as good as the last one. This is one of those novels for me. So, I guess I'll be cleansing the reading palate with a few magazines. I first read this novel when I was 14 or 15 years old. I haven't thought about it for years until I came across it at a book sale and picked it up on a whim. I approached re-reading it with some trepidation - I was afraid that it would not be as good as I remembered and I would be disappointed. Well, it wasn't as good as I remembered - it's much better! Age and experience make you appreciate some things better, I suppose. I shot through this novel in less than 24 hours - a new record for this slow and steady reader. Granted, it's a short novel (my copy was 159 pages), but it pulls you in an you want to learn more about this native American village and the young vicar sent to minister to them. I teach high school and I have a small library of books in my classroom. From time to time, I am asked by students to recommend a book and this one will shoot up to the top of my list with 'Of Mice and Men.'

EXQUISITE - AN ABSOLUTE GEM

MY DAUGHTER READ THIS BOOK THIS SUMMER,CHOSEN FROM HER 9TH GRADE SUMMER READING LIST. MY MOTHER AND I ALSO READ IT AND WE WERE ABSOLUTELY DELIGHTED. I'VE READ IT 4 TIMES ALREADY, AND I ALWAYS FIND SOMETHING NEW TO APPRECIATE. IT HAS NOW BECOME ONE OF MY TOP TEN BOOKS OF ALL TIME.IT SHOWS THAT FAITH AND LOVE CAN MOVE MOUNTAINS,JANET

Beautiful Depiction of Alaskan Native Life

Having lived in Southeast Alaska for two years, in a village that could have served as the model for Kingcome, I find Margaret Craven's book to be magical in its ability to capture the tone of that area and its inhabitants. Her elegantly understated depiction of villagers and their social dynamics, as seen through the eyes of the terminally ill priest, are accurate and reflect what I myself observed in my time in the village of Metlakatla, Alaska. With beautiful descriptions and vivid depictions of the surroundings and lives of the village inhabitants, Ms. Craven draws us into a world few are privileged to experience.

Mythical. A gentle, soul pondering look at humanity.

I reviewed this book as part of a book group. A resoundingnumber of us loved this beautiful, simple tale. Personally I believeit is a classic. It is written in the style of a myth - short, simpleconstruction with generally only one verb per sentence. This reflects perfectly the pace of life amongst the Kwakiutl, the sense of inevitability and acceptance as one moment flows into the next. This is a beautiful novel for anyone who has a life threatening illness or knows someone who is dying and is an uplifting reminder of what it is to truly live as a human being.

amazingly fantastic and gorgeous work of Canadian literature

Hi, everybody. Out of the twenty four books from the school's summer reading list that I have read during the holiday, I chose I Heard the Owl Call My Name, written by Margaret Craven, for my oral report. The book, which can be found under the Canadian Nature section, was Craven's first work and was first published in 1967. With stunning narrative, the plot revolves around a young dying vicar, Mark Brian, who went to an Indian village called Kingcome in the Pacific Northwest completing his last mission (though he did not know he only had three years to live). He had to overcome many great difficulties in order to help and convert these proud, Kwakiutl native people, for the old ones were unreligious while the young ones had little respects toward the old people and the old way of life. His first problem was trying to be accepted into this struggling primitive community, which was starting to be swallowed into white man's world. Then he had to help preserve the old culture of totems and salmons from being replaced by a new culture of alcoholism and residential schools. In the end he did succeed in earning respect and trust, maybe even love, of the people, but, most of all, he learnt a most valuable lesson - the acceptence of death, life and submission, as quoted by the author: Often in the avalanche of letters I received after I Heard the Owl Call My Name was published, people asked me what disease killed Mark Brian. I don't know. What matters is that he learned more of love and life in his three years with the Indians than most men learn in a long lifetime, and that it was he who thanked them. - from Again Calls the Owl, Craven's autobiography Margaret Craven, the author, actually went to an Indian village to do her research and learn the culture, the tales as well as the language. Some of the characters and events in the story are based on people she met at the village, and that makes her work much more realistic and believable. Some of the themes discussed in this book are cycles or changes of life, vanishing way of life of the natives, and, most of all, acceptence of death. The only main character is the vicar himself and the conflict of the novel of his being accepted. The book is fairly simple and straight forward, but the author describes the setting with vivid imagery, which makes me really understand and learn a lot about the Kwakiutl culture and customs, for example, in one of the chapters, she talks about the cannibal dance. The mood remains quite consistent throughout the whole book. It is not really the sadness that urges me to read on - it is the calmness and the selflessness of the native people that are so enchanting, and the closeness with nature as well. I have to agree that the beginning of the book was quite dull to begin with, and the climax did not come until the second last chapter. However, if I really read the book carefully, I can also see that every few chapters is a sho