Creation [Hardcover]

From the forebiding shoreline of the Labrador Coast to the genteel homes of American gentry, Katherine Govier takes the reader on a journey that will never be forgotten. The subject is one of the most renown naturalists of the world, John James Audubon. Seizing the moment to write about his life unknown to many beyond his skilled illustrations, his 'Birds' the author skillfully introduces him as a man with a questionable past, who suceeds against all odds to fulfill his dream.

Audubon floats through this novel like a ghost, seemingly living both in the past; his childhood in France, to the present; watching his beloved son scale the cliffs for his one desire, birds. It is these birds that fascinate him from a young age, and inevitably draw him to his demise. As he becomes estranged from not only his family, but the world around him, he delves back into the lost events of his life, trying to salvage from them his future.

The sucessful journey through the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the Straight of Belle Isle is seen through many eyes; among them a young British sea captain, and cartographer, Audubon's former assistant, and also his wife. Not to be left out, the 'Birds' take many shapes in Govier's work, not only gracing the pages as part of the impressive story line, but also as carefully chosen prints.

It is easy to be put off by Creation in its early going. The intrusive narrator is a bit too intrusive and the reader (this reader at least) quickly wearies of the tactic and begins to consider whether the story is worth putting up with the style. Luckily, however, Govier soon leaves the authorial wonderings ("is it because he goes north and off the map? Has what happened . . . been ripped from the record?") behind and lets the two main characters, Audubon and Captain Bayfield, enfold us in their own personal stories and obsessions. Each of which in their own right is interesting enough, but it is the burgeoning relationship between the two of them, which is most captivating.
Govier takes as her starting point a "missing" point of Audubon's recorded life--his journey to the coasts along Newfoundland and Labrador. Here she imagines him meeting Bayfield, an English captain tasked with charting these same coasts. Both men, therefore, share an impossible job: Audubon to paint every North American bird, Bayfield to identify every island, every shoal, every inlet to make the waters safe for sailing. This similarity by itself is of little interest, however--who wants to read a novel full of conversations about "my job's harder than your job"? What drives the energy between the two men is not simply their shared determination to complete a monumental task, but how those tasks are in seemingly complete opposition to one another-after all, if Bayfield completes his navigation charts, allowing more men to sail freely through the northern waters, it only increases the likelihood of Audubon's chief fear--that he will never finish his work before his birds "disappear", killed by men sailing Bayfield's safe routes. The two men do not shy from conflict over this, and Govier handles their conversations skillfully, affording both men the chance to state their beliefs and without letting either slide into too-easy cliché or didacticism.
As the two men move in and out of each other's circle, their watery paths crossing and criss-crossing periodically, we move back and forth through Audubon's past and present, bearing witness to his many false names and lives, the effect of his obsession on his wife and sons, his inability to see the true worth of Maria--the woman who has replaced his wife in his heart, his shame at his origins, the self-contradictory nature of his work (killing that which he worships so he might capture its wildness on paper), and his fear for the future--both his and the wild's.
Through it all we are never left to forget for to long just what it his "great work" is--Govier brings us back again and again in superb detail to many of Audubon's specific paintings, reproduced in black and white for the novel. Some readers might find it, in fact, a bit too much detail and the same could also be said of the engraving process described toward the end of the book. These are minor complaints though and easily rectified by the reader who chooses to skim those same passages.
If there is a general flaw, I would say that sometimes Govier overwrites in the sense that she gives the reader, either through narration or, often, internal monologue, too much of what she has already skillfully and more subtly communicated to us via dialogue or description/action; she should have trusted her writing more. The same is true I think for her ending, where she could have done without the epilogue (though I understand the need some feel to tidy up just what happens to historical figures, to place the evens of the work in the historical context). Again, though, it is a minor complaint and the book as a whole more than makes up for these small flaws. Though Audubon's story and inner voice dominates the work, one derives as much pleasure from the moments we spend in Bayfield's mind or in Maria's presence or even, despite how minor a role he plays, in conversation with Godwin, Audubon's pilot. As mentioned earlier, the beginning of the book is somewhat trying, but the journey past that point is well worth it

The deeper I got into this novel, if that's what it is, the more it seemed to me like one of those birds that Audubon pursued through the Labrador wilderness. It has great beauties - some of the descriptive passages are very striking - and Govier has I think done a wonderful job of bringing Audubon to life. But at the same time, the book has a habit of flying off in all directions, so that at one moment we are clambering with Audubon over the rocks of some islet, at the next we are somewhere in his past in Europe or America, and at the next with his son in an engraving studio in England. It is also a curious mixture of fiction and what might be called documentary. Similarly we are never sure that the author's voice, when she launches into some verbal play ("North is the negative of south. North is the nesting ground, the first feathers; south is full plumage" etc.) is meant to be reflecting Audubon's thoughts, or her own.

In the end, I wished that like Audubon I could pick up a gun and bring the book to earth, so that I could put an end to its flitting from bush to bush and get a good look at it.

Govier has done her research, so it is all the more surprising that one of her characters should seem to think that James Cook is still alive in 1833, when in fact he had been dead for over half a century. She has also been betrayed by her editor in a few places -- notably the use of "lie" as a transitive verb. (I sometimes think editors do a global search-and-replace for any occurrence of "lay", whether correct or not.)

P.S. After reading Andrea Barrett's Voyage of the Narwhal, I was struck by the similarity of the two books -- both deal with naturalists journeying north and the women they left behind, and they have a similar approach to the inner lives of their characters. If you enjoyed one, you'll probably enjoy the other.