Creation

by Katherine Govier

In this atmospheric and enthralling novel, Katherine Govier tells the story of the world's greatest living bird artist as he finally understands the paradox embedded in his that the act of creation is also an act of destruction.
Running two steps ahead of the bailiff, alternately praised and reviled, John James Audubon set himself the audacious task of drawing, from nature, every bird in North America. The result was his masterpiece, The Birds of America. In June 1833, partway through his mission, he enlisted his son, Captain Bayfield of the Royal Navy, and a party of young gentlemen to set sail for nesting grounds no ornithologist had ever seen, in the treacherous passage between Newfoundland and Labrador. Creation explores the short, stormy summer throughout which the captain became the artist's foil, measuring stick, and the recipient of his long-held secrets. It is an exploration of that fateful expedition, a probing and imaginative narrative that fills in a gap in the visionary naturalist's well-documented life.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Canada, Animals, Natural History, Birds, Canadian Literature

315 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Katherine Govier is the author of eleven novels, three short story collections, and a collection of nursery rhymes. Her most recent novel is The Three Sisters Bar and Hotel (HarperAvenue). Here previous novel, The Ghost Brush (published in the US as The Printmaker's Daughter), is about the daughter of the famous Japanese printmaker, Hokusai, creator of The Great Wave. Her novel Creation, about John James Audubon in Labrador, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 2003.

Katherine's fiction and non-fiction has appeared in the United Kingdom, the United States, and throughout the Commonwealth, and in translation in Holland, Italy, Turkey, Spain, Japan, Romania, Latvia and Slovenia. She is the winner of Canada's Marian Engel Award for a woman writer (1997) and the Toronto Book Award (1992). Creation was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 2003.

Katherine has been instrumental in establishing three innovative writing programs. In 1989, with teacher Trevor Owen, she helped found Writers in Electronic Residence. In 2011 she founded The Shoe Project, a writing workshop for immigrant and refugee women. She continues as the Chair of its Board of Directors. In 2019 Katherine was made a member of the Order of Canada.

She has edited two collections of travel essays, Solo: Writers on Pilgrimage and WIthout a Guide.

Reviews

[Megan Baxter · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, John James Audubon...asshole or humongous asshole? I mean, are we at usual levels of assholishness, or does he really truly achieve a new high score?

Note: The rest of this review has been withheld due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.

In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook

[CynthiaA · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me a full 2 weeks to read this book. I could only get through it in small amounts at a time, partially because the detail was so overwhelming, and partly because the action moved so slowly. But. Even though Mr. J.J. Audubon was not a perfect man, or perhaps even a good man, he also was a man to be both respected and, for his dedication to his work, admired. I did like this book. It made me appreciate Audubon's dedication to his work, and also understand just how daunting his task really was. I enjoyed the bits about Captain Bayfield as much as the bits about Audubon, and since I visit Bayfield, Ontario regularly, I will view the town with a tad more insight. Audubon's prescient understanding of man's impact on wilderness is moving and revealing, and he'd be astounded to know that an entire empire has been established in his name to protect wild places. It's hard to explain. I wasn't really "enjoying" the book much until I finished it and saw all the pieces put together. Then, I appreciated both Mr. Audubon, Mr. Bayfield, and mostly, Katherine Govier for her thorough and thoughtful story-telling.

[Caleigh · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m not quite sure what to say about Creation - a fictional telling of a period in the life of bird artist/discoverer JJ Audubon. The writing was lyrical - beautiful to read, even when it wasn’t saying much of anything. And I could’ve lived with that if it had eventually gotten someplace, but it simply didn’t live up to its promise.

The cover reads: "In a life so well-documented, these next few months form a rare gap. It is as if the dark cloud and fog Audubon sails into transcends mere weather, and becomes a state of mind. As if Labrador itself (or its weather) swallows the story." That’s an absolute treasure for an author, to have found this undocumented gap in the life of an important historic figure, and to have the delicious opportunity to fill it. Katherine Govier didn’t take best advantage of it, though, since the only intrigue she described was one already documented (an affair he'd had previously and which his wife knew about) and simply recollected rather than occuring during said “lost period”. Basically Audubon travels from rock to rock, catching and painting his birds, and doing nothing much out of the ordinary at all.

I’m not sorry I read it, but I won’t remember it a year from now.

[Janellyn51 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started this, put it down for some reason and am now reading it from the begginning again.

There were parts of this book that I enjoyed.....but however fictionalized this portion of Audubon's life is, or however brilliant he may have been artistically....I think there is probably enough of his true personality here to let me know I wouldn't have thought much of him in terms of being a man you can depend on. I found much of the book upsetting in terms of carnage. It was nicely written, and interesting conjecture on the part of the author. Being someone who has always seemed to team up with self absorbed artist types myself, you'd think I'd be more sympathetic to the man, but I came away from the end just a little bit upset. I guess we need people, these maniacally driven artists or the world would be a much duller place...and now I cherish my little downy woodpecker that comes to my suet thing daily just a little bit more than I did before!

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is another example of historical fiction done well. I didn't know anything about John Audubon prior to reading this and it's really piqued my interest. Apparently he kept extensive diaries but there was considerable excising by a descendant. This book covers one of the periods where there's a gap in the record.

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

John James Audubon and Captain Bayfield of the Royal Navy, artists and explorers, sail up the labrador coast charting wildlife and geography. The dialogue is stylised and impressionistic, but this works in a book that is essentially about art and creativity. I adored this book.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never understood why this beautiful book did not get more attention when it appeared in 2002. It's a version of Audubon's story—extraordinarily well written and memorable.

[Steven Buechler · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read. The story of the two men - John Audubon and Captain Henry Wolsey Bayfield - as they explore the region between Newfoundland and Labrador is a mindful.

-page 266-267

"North is the negative of south. North is the nesting ground, the first feathers; south is full plumage. Labrador is black and white while Charleston is colour. Here, down north, the white rims along the shore are crushed shells; sea urchins dissolve underfoot. There is the occaisional gleam of sun, and a white wooden cross here and there down by the water, as if a sailor had died at sea and his fellows marked the nearest place. There are hummocky dunes flocked with blue and green grasses. By the woods there is fireweed and the white plumes of Queen Anne's lace.
Labrador is the proof, the first print pulled from the press. North is the unpainted version. It is created by taking away.
The curlews are gone but Audubon still walks the smooth crescent beach of the Bras d'Or. As he walks, birds of all description depart in the clouds above his head.
It is only the beginning of August but the razorbills, the guillemots and the kittiwakes are going south. The young Arctic terns dart restlessly with their parents, ready to go too. Remaining are the immense and quarrelsome gannets, shouldering each other off their breeding rocks. The young are a speckled grey, long-winged and gawky. They flap their wings incesantly, letting small soft feathers - the last of their down - drift into the air. Once they are strong enough, they too will be off abandoning this place to a depth of winter he cannot imagine.
Summer is so short that it might never have happened. Six weeks only summer flowers are emerging even as summer birds are leaving.
In going south, the birds go to Maria. To her colours, her fragrance, her summer. It is a kind of exile he suffers here.
So too his youth will be gone. It has lingered; he has kept it, far past his just desserts, far past what is natural, kept it even when he knew in his bones in his numb fingers in his lungs that it was leaving. Propelled as he was by the desire to cover the territory his covered, he could not rest."

[Bobbi]

I read a biography of Audubon not long ago, so thought this story would fit right in. Which it did, but it got to be tiresome after a while, and I finally gave up. It's about a trip that Audubon and his son took to Labrador to find birds that he might not have yet seen. The author assumes the reader has not read much about Audubon's life, so constantly brings in snippets here and there to fill it in. That's not so bad, except that the story suffers because of it and never really goes anywhere. It could have been a very good book otherwise as Govier's writing is often quite fine.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

I kept my copy of Audubon's book handy so I could reference the birds and the drawings mentioned in this book. It's sad that some species were already extinct, and others that he painted are now extinct.

[Barbara · Rating 1 out of 5]

Honest I'm sure that this is a wonderful book, but I just couldn't get into it. I tried for about two weeks to get past chapter 1 with no success. Just wasn't my style.

[Ginny · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is and interesting novel but it took me many months to read it. I had to put it down and come back to it. It had much to ponder on the various levels of humanity and how we impact our world.

[Marlaina McCauslin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a wonderful book. It was a hard read, but the way she wrote the story made it seem like i was right there, I couldn't put it down :D

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is the Epilogue that wraps things ups, in this ENDING, really ending.
"A LIE IS A SPARK, a break and a reconnection. A way of dissembling, of taking things to pieces.
Audubon was a vessel. On his midlife voyage, with his hopes and his premonitions of doom, he was boarded by an unwelcome idea: the idea of the death of nature at man's hands.
The shoreline is a narrative.
The fog is fog, what we try to see through.
The wind has begun to move the ropes; both men can feel the ship nudging its anchors, ready to move. They stand.
I must get back to my birds, says Audubon.
HIS BIRDS THAT SUMMER. The Labrador Duck, last seen 1875, extinct. The Great Auk: last seen 1844, extinct. The Eskimo Curlew: observed by Audubon in Labrador arriving in dense clouds, 'flock after flock increasing in number for several days,' last seen in 1964, presumed extinct. The Atlantic Puffin, successfully reintroduced to Maine and Eastern Canada through nesting pairs."

Snippets from the epilogue (endings and extinctions):
"Audubon's Bird still glitters 170 years later, while the creatures he watched in nature are gone. For it came to pass as Audubon predicted. The fish were drained from the sea and the clouds of birds failed to return and the native people fell prey to despair. The wild habitats were eroded. And it was this as much as the destruction of eggs and the indiscriminate shooting that extinguished the wild creatures. As Audubon suspected, man could not be moved to pity the birds. He saw the future and it was terrifying; he saw the wilderness made barren, and then he went out and shot twenty-seven puffins for sport. He saved the birds in art, and that was all he could do."

and then, the fate of Maria, of women (who ended up marrying her sister's widower husband, really, how creepy, and icky),
"...[Maria Martin] She never received full credit in her lifetime for her work, although she is thought to have contributed to at least twenty of the prints in The Birds. Audubon named a woodpecker for her: Maria's Woodpecker, but the name did not survive. As the girl in Newfoundland had wondered, some birds, like this one, had a name already, and so even this gesture of acknowledgement was lost."

It's hard not to root for him, at the same time I despise him. It's hard not to negate all his work because of his inhuman treatment of the birds and yet not wonder at the breadth and depth of his oeuvre, that has spawned conservation and care of birds across the globe. It's hard not to throw out the good with the bad. Here, is Govier's story about Maria's rejection of him and his reaction which is typical of his belief in his own superiority and his right to control women (and thus he sees Maria as a bird), friends, family, and above all birds:
"He crumples the letter. She has rejected him.
He feels her giving way under his hands, but that is not the way it is. He is in her hands being crushed, having the breath pushed out of his lungs. After all that he has done to the bird while asking the bird to trust him, he is now in the hands of the bird. He is helpless. He has given her the power to blow his life to bits. She has taken up her musket and it is loaded."

Govier brings it home and I have faith (and hope which Audubon says only humans can have and not birds--how horrific he is). Maria shows him that drawing from live nature is the best, and that is her technique. She draws the butterfly from different angles, depending on if its wings are open or closed. She teaches him. This is something new for him, being taught, especially by a woman (whom he sees as inferior but desired). Is this how it happened? It could have, it makes sense:
"'Drawn from Nature, by J.J. Audubon. You write it on every watercolour. But you do not draw birds from nature. You watch them, it is true. You adore them in nature. But they are not good enough for you that way. You have to kill them. Your birds suffer to give you your art. You don't allow them life.'
'They do not suffer, Maria. To suffer is to have hope. Birds do not hope.'
'Is that your final word?'
He did not understand what they were talking about.
Maria collected her brushes and colours. She took up the paper between two fingers. There was half a butterfly on it.
'Can you imagine that I would be content with this?' she taunted.
Then she was gone, so slender, so quick amongst the tropical plants. She paced toward the house alongside the peacocks that strutted in their alley. He came along behind her.
'You--and my brother-in-law. There are two of you,' she said. 'Old men.' She had changed again. It was her teasing voice. 'You fight over my kisses. For you it is an amusement. You must know this. I'll have one man for a husband, not two to court me. I will be an artist of the world, not of the garden.'"

The pretend letter (made up letter) that starts his change:
"Dear Maria,
I have seen much on my journey and made some portraits which, God willing, you may enjoy.
This is a journey I did not wish to make. I did not wish to leave you.
I confess, I am weary. Weary of cold and wet, weary too of seeing. Seeing, for me, has always led to pleasure, but here, now, pleasure does not come, only an immense dread.
I wish I could see you. No, not see you. My eyes are protesting. Hold you. Like a blind man, against my person.
A bird is not really a bird. A bird is an elaborate costume, a disguise for a spirit. Each bird is the object of my passion, in a new disguise.
You are all my birds."

Here is where Govier begins to show her mettle. I was thinking critical, and feeling betrayed by her lack of insight. But she was setting up the analysis that comes soon. The analysis that shows the contradiction in Audubon's process (killing wild animals so he can paint them in the wild--barbarian):
"He thinks of Maria. He cannot help it. He cannot look at the heart of the bird without looking at his own heart. He cannot look into his own heart without coming face to face with Maria. He is sick of her, sick to death of longing, but the anatomy of birds has become the study of his longing.
He imagines that, rather than the fragile cormorant, he holds the cradle of Maria's bones within his hands. He tests the soundness of it, pressing here and there on the curved ribs, sensing, exploring the strange, magical construction of this creature.
He frightens himself."

Feeling a fraud, always feeling a fraud, and yet feeling so sure of himself (isn't that how I feel at times?). This happens in Edinburgh:
"Lizars, the engraver, was the first to be astonished by the Birds. The others followed with dizzying speed. Within a week, one hundred drawings were hung and displayed. The newspapers published such glowing accounts of Audubon that he was embarrassed to walk on Prince's Street. His evenings were given over to long dinner parties and meetings with men of such achievement that he was abashed in their presence. It was their wives, so often great beauties, and intelligent too, beside whom he was seated. He made certain the wives were entranced. But even when they were, he was certain they noticed the inferiority in him. When he went home to his rooms at night, he wrote to tell Lucy [his wife]. It was the only way he could be sure it was happening."

I remember Joanne Lloyd (?) at the restaurant, making the loon sound, and the wait staff admonishing her to stop. And then she was murdered by her husband, or so we all thought.
"'An ancient bird,' says Bayfield, 'And lonely as the rocks.'
'Not at all, not at all,' Audubon says. 'That cry in which you hear loneliness is in fact the sound of devotion. They have a devoted family life.'
'Oh, they too,' says Bayfield, dryly.
'They do! They fly here in pairs, the male taking the lead. Sometimes they are so high that you cannot pick out their shape, only, if it is calm, hear their wings beating the air. Whenever the bird alights it dives, as if to taste the water. When it surfaces it shakes its wings and makes that cry to reassure its mate."

I'm trying to find something in this book. The debates are the important thing, which gives the history, but where is the story? Bayfield is being influenced by Audubon, but more. This reminds me of Jen McFadden's story. Why do I remember it? Did she just tell me or did she give it to me to read? Here is something (and it also teaches, it always teaches--show, don't tell!):
"But he [Bayfield] would love to walk on the shoal.
It is a foolish idea. What if he lost his footing? If he tipped the boat with his instruments in it, even worse.
But he likes the idea of standing on the rock, which is just inches above the surface [deep in the ocean].
No.
Yes.
He places his hands on the thwarts and steadies the boat. He inches the hull forward so the boat is more secure. He gets one foot on the shoal, and balances with the other in the boat. He slowly shifts his weight. The boat rises under him and slides a little on the shoal. He holds his breath. Then, quickly, he pulls out the other foot and stands. The water swills around the mound of granite, only a few feet across.
He has done it. He feels as if he is walking on water. He wishes he could stay all night. He could fool the fishermen as they went past in the morning. They would think he was the Almighty. He laughs out loud, picturing it. He is becoming profane."

In a debate between the surveyor, the ship's captain and Audubon (and more later). This is philosophy, science, a way to understand the characters, a technique?:
"'Yes. Faith in my mathematics [Bayfield speaking]. But faith requires imagination. Don't you agree? Triangulation is an act of the imagination. There are three points--the base which is my eye, the distant station and the immutable star.'
'Another sea captain once taught me something of this,' says Audubon, warming just perceptibly. 'On the Delos.'
'Three points. Where you stand, where you strive to be and the unreachable star by which you measure.'
'I like that very much. He did not teach me that. You have laid down the coordinates of my life.'
'Of mine as well. Where I stand, where I strive to be and the fixed point which defines both. Between these three is a relation. Once you know it, it can be used to discover any distance you have not yet travelled.'
'I would like to know that prophetic relation,' says Audubon gently."

Lovely image:
"...The artist takes a turn on the deck, wrapping his buffalo cloak around his shoulders to warm him as if it were love..."

This is where I thought this would be great. It still might be. But so far (and I'm just starting the second section), it is laboured. Maybe that's the point. Hmm. And I also think about The Luminaries and the voice she used, Catton used the "we" all through. Is this the only place in this book? It connects us to the action, the story, the author, the narrator.
"The anchor is shipped. The sails are set. The schooner moves gently out of the harbour. The boats that have moved out to it turn back to the shore. The crowds on the wharf cheer. Then, all but the most loyal turn their backs, roll up their pennants, and go about their business.
But not us. We can go with him to sea."

So far, I'm not having a lot of enjoyment in this book. It is laboured by history, and man, and the mystery does not enchant me. But there is much beauty in her writing, and the idea of writing a story about a historical figure is interesting, challenging, and useful (I could do this too). Some of the great writing:
"Facts are deceiving. We may know them, but never all of them. Only the bits and pieces that survive the voyage. In real life, the story is never finished. Discoveries may be made to shed light on it; for instance, in some attic, some cellar, the lost pages of the diary [Audubon's diary does not survive from this period that Govier writes] may be discovered--Maria may have repented of her decision to destroy them.
Fiction is another story. We can be sure of it, for we make it up; it is complete and finished. We can embrace it, because it is what we know."

I have read other Katherine Govier books, and this is completely different. It is a rendering of the time that Audubon was seeking birds in the area around Newfoundland, and something happened (did it really?). Anyway, his work is seminal but his technique is horrific. They observe the birds in the wild (admirable) and capture them. Audubon paints them from the living captured creatures and then they kill them, dissecting them to discover their abilities, to learn the intricacies. It is barbaric, and horrifying. I have lost all respect in him, and any interest I had in his opus.

Thus it BEGINS, brilliantly. Audubon arrives.
"Just suppose.
That it is a bright, cold May morning in the year 1833, and two men alight from the stagecoach in a little town on the Main seacoast.
They are father and son, judging by their flowing chestnut locks and aquiline features, by their matching one-handed swoop off the high step. The older man slings his gun over the shoulder of his fringed jacket; he must be a frontiersman, a hunter. But he has a certain vibrancy, as if his whole body were a violin freshly strung, and his deep, gentle eyes take everything in. The son, of more solid flesh, has a fine-looking pointer at his heels."

[Czarny Pies · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars on the international scale, five on the Canadian scale.

Katherine Govier's "Creation" is a highly entertaining book that is very similar to Tracey Chevalier's "Girl with a Pearl Earring". Govier's novel is of roughly the same length. Both works recount a fictionalized episode in the life of a famous painter. The "Girl with a Pearl Earring" features Jan Vermeer while Govier's "Creation" is about the American bird painter Jean Jacques Audubon. While it is possible that there are simply more readers interested in Vermeer than Audubon, the major reason why "Creation" failed to attract a wide readership internationally was that its Canadian publisher did not know how to market a book about an American hero. "Creation" will be an absolute delight for any person familiar with the exquisite art of the gun-toting Jean Jacques Audubon. It contains a great deal of insight into the process of artistic collaboration (in this case between an American painter and an English engraver). Finally, Govier elucidates brilliantly what it means to be an American.
"Creation" tells the story of Audubon's final major expedition to observe new species in the wild and shoot specimens to use as models for the pictures in his magnificent collection of engravings "Birds of America". The trip will take him to the west coast of what was the then the Dominion of Newfoundland and the extreme eastern portion of what is now the province of Quebec but which at the time was simply ungoverned territory claimed by Britain. Audubon will find only a handful of new species for his collection. Once the voyage is over he will call it quits. Govier explains in the opening pages that Audubon's literary executor had destroyed most his letters and journals from this trip which provides her with poetic license to write a fictionalized account.
Predictably, Govier will have the great painter reflect on his past life. She will also describe him having a near brush with death which presumably influences his decision to retire. The major drama in the narrative, however, comes from a series of meetings that Audubon will have with Captain Henry Bayfield of the Royal Navy who is charting the dangerous waters where Audubon's is sailing about in search of bird species. Bayfield is a real historical person who will go on to have a major career making maps of the east coast of Canada but also of where the action of Lakes Superior and Huron.
The meetings between the two men are of historical record. Their conversations are fictions of Govier. Audubon sees in Bayfield a man of determination and intelligence comparable to his own. He decides to confess his life's sins to Bayfield who as a reserved Englishman is shocked by Audubon's resolve to confide intimate details of his life to him. Audubon reveals that he has been a compulsive liar and an unfaithful husband. Born out of wedlock Audubon pursues fame and fortune in America with all his tremendous energy . Born with the decidedly Jewish name of Jean Rabin in Santo Domingo, he goes through two more aliases before settling on Jean Jacques Audubon. Self-taught as a painter, he tells people that he has studied under David in France. To give himself noble status, he tells others that he is the lost dauphin of Louis XVI.
Bayfield instinctively admires Audubon but consciously disapproves. Audubon thinks only of himself while Bayfield creates charts to save the lives of sailors. Audubon sees himself as a Byronic hero. Bayfield believes that he is simply a loyal servant of the King. Audubon understands that as a doer and a flamboyant self-promoter, he is profoundly American. Bayfield believes himself to be an Englishman never realizing that will be finish his life as a Canadian. Audubon requires that his engraver, wife, lover, and children devote their lives to his ambitions which he feels is in their self-interest to do. Bayfield subjects his crew members to great hardships , occasionally putting their lives at risk, while believing that he is only asking them to do their duty. Audubon enjoys sex in and out of marriage. Bayfield is a repressed 40 year-old bachelor. Audubon lashes out at Bayfield calling him a virgin. Bayfield takes it with a stiff upper lip but their friendship never fully recovers.
"Creation" is a delightful, intelligent novel about the relative merits of English duty and American flimflam. Anyone familiar with the work of Jean Jacques Audubon will enjoy as will those readers who like the style of Tracey Chevalier.

[Dana Clinton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review: Creation (Katherine Govier) This is a most lyrical book and therefore not a fast read, but I grew to like it more as I went along. Although ostensibly it is a novel built on the famous bird portraitist John James Audubon, I think it was equally built on another amazing man whom I had never heard of, Captain Henry Bayfield of the Royal Navy, whose life was devoted to the chartering of the coasts of major waterways (the Great Lakes early on, and in this novel, the coasts of mainland Canada/Labrador/ Newfoundland. The "story" of Audubon's life is told in flashbacks, mostly when in the company of Bayfield, whom he meets in this novel set in 1833 when Audubon has decided to seek unknown new species of birds to flesh out his enormous life's work detailing the birds of North America. The author knows there are gaps in the knowledge of Audubon's life, as his granddaughter "excised" much material from his journals and letters, thus huge gaps in his true story. The novel takes the license to create that part which happened during those months in the dangerous wilderness of the Eastern seaboard of this part of Canada. In the Epilogue, Govier writes: "Two men, two missions, each a vector of his time and ours. Audubon came to record the creatures and left wishing to preserve them. Bayfield tried to make the waters safe in the only part of the world where north is down and south is up, believing that the wilderness in man and in the world might be measured and brought into our ken. But the passage was fraught with peril. Men and weather have evil moods, and the future was beyond any power to chart." We do learn the backstories of each of these determined men, and the most interesting dialogues between them are philosophical gems. Audubon, in order to paint accurately his birds, went to great lengths to study them in nature, to be able to write of their life characteristics, but he also killed many in order to do his work. He came to understand, during this voyage especially, that man was going to cause the extinction of many species; many of his birds exist now only on paper. What is the proper relationship between humans and the rest of creation? The two men diverge on this. I was left with very mixed feelings about J.J. Audubon as a person, but his artistry is exquisite. And Bayfield, a much more unassuming man, produced invaluable work in the goal of saving men from death in the waters of a dangerous part of the world. A lot of detail in this book, so not a swift read.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read Katherine Govier’s “Creation” when it was first published in 2002. I was quite certain I would enjoy it for two reasons: 1) Govier is one of my favourite novelists 2) As an avid birdwatcher, a novel about John James Audubon, regarded by many in his time as the world’s great living bird artist, is pretty much guaranteed to interest me. I recently returned to “Creation” for a second read and enjoyed it every bit as much as the first time.

In this novel, Katherine Govier explores Audubon’s journey in the summer of 1883 to previously unseen nesting grounds in the perilous passage between Newfoundland and Labrador. As is always the case in Govier’s work, the novel combines meticulous research with her ability to peer inside the mind of a character and draw out what drives their behaviour. In Audubon’s case, she reveals a man obsessively, even destructively, driven to complete his goal to draw and paint from nature every bird in North America – an obsession that envelopes his wife and his sons and binds them to the cause.

“Creation” is in fact two narratives in one. It also tells the story of British Royal Navy Captain Bayfield whose lifelong mission is to chart the coastlines of the Great Lakes, the St Lawrence River, Newfoundland and Labrador. Audubon and Bayfield’s journeys intersect in this fateful summer and they become unlikely friends – each causing the other to examine what drives them to do what they do.

Govier also brings to light that Audubon was among the first to foresee and declare that mankind’s sometimes reckless exploitation of nature was destined to have devastating consequences.

“Creation” is a tour de force both in its detailed depiction of the then untamed east coast of Canada and in its intimate portrayal of a man driven by an all-consuming passion as well as by history, fear and the burning desire an of an artist for expression. It is, in my humble estimation, Govier’s finest work.

[Fiona · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author has a bold idea - to take a gap that exists in the well-chronicled life of John James Audubon, and fill it with her fictional account of what might have happened during this time. She supposes that the missing time period is due to a relative who kept his diaries and writings finding something unseemly that might offend the family reputation, so she creates her story from that premise. But the story, although it is about an unusual man with an uncommon talent and passion, is not quite as I expected. Instead the hardships and brutality of the wilderness of Labrador and life at sea in the early 1800's, and the environmental degradation caused by the arrogance of man at that time are the highlights. It is about the torment of an artist, and what drives him to complete his grand work. It is also a sad lament to the beauty of the birds, and their suffering despite, and sometimes because of, the passion of J. J. Audubon.

[Ellie O'Day · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though I usually prefer the historical part of historical fiction, Creation's inventions and inner and outer dialogue really add to understanding the obsession of a man to attack such a grandiose project when he has no money. This is the story - or the many stories - of John James Audubon and his aliases.

I'm a fan of 18th and 19th century sailing, so that drew me to this story of Audubon's trip up the St. Lawrence into Strait of Belle Isle along the east coast of Labrador in the summer of 1833. It's also about the chance meetings between Audubon and Capt. Henry Bayfield, a government field surveyor of that same coast. Aboard their separate schooners, they run into the same storms, fogs, miserable mosquitoes, treacherous rocks and other barely negotiated situations.

A fine yarn.

[Arlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the voice Govier used in this story. It was delicate and full of detail, focusing on one summer; yet it also managed to be a look at the artist's whole life. One of the things that struck me most was the devastating impact settlers and other Europeans had on nature in the 'new world'. It reminded me of Moby Dick and the descriptions of the whales and their numbers. Seeing land as a commodity from which you can and should take as much as you can has not worked very well for the plants and animals. On whom, in the end, we depend.

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this book, Govier invents the story missing from John J. Audubon's writings about his trip North to Labrador, most of which were destroyed by his granddaughter. We glimpse that he had come to understand that his own work was playing a part in the destruction of the wilderness he loved. It is a very bleak book. How sad that the original journals are gone - I am sure I would have preferred to read them.

[Kathleen McRae · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked how this story started although as I read more it became very meandering. it went into great detail about the drawing and scape but then would go elsewhere in time.It portrayed mr Audubon as a dislikable genius who took responsibility for no-one besides himself even though he wanted all the benefits of a home life

[Sonja · Rating 5 out of 5]

A biography of Audubon; his years around 1833 and his growing insights regarding the future of birds between Newfoundland and Labrador (and in general). Captain Bayfield's story of mapping the coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence ties in beautifully.

[Sybil Lucas · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had to put this book away because it became bogged down in nautical terms and I lost interest in their quest for birds. I had high hopes. They were not met by this work.

[Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel enthralled me. Beautifully written tale that stirred my vision and emotions.

[Laina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my style. Really had to struggle to finish it.

[Jessica Just · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me a while to adjust to the writing style, enjoyed it more about halfway through. Not a book to read quickly!

[Line Dufour · Rating 5 out of 5]

beautifully crafted book, and well researched, surprising me with information I knew nothing about.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

John James Audubon (1785-1851) kept written records documenting his work and life yet his time exploring Labrador in 1833 is missing. Something in his letters and diaries made his granddaughter excise the pages. In her novel Creation, Katherine Govier invites the reader to imagine what occurred during these lost months. As the book progresses the author continues to remind the reader that they are on an imagined journey.

"He did not write these words.
"Or at least we do not know that he did. He may have done, but we do not know. If he did, the letter is gone. Saved, perhaps for years by Maria. Collected on her death or before by Audubon's zealous, curious granddaughter. Lost in the Civil War, or burned, or soaked in a flood of tears, or vinegar.
"This is what happens to letters, especially those with secrets in them.
"Time is a vessel. The past is the stories we fill it with."

Born Jean Jacques Rabin in what is now Haiti, he was the illegitimate son of a French sea captain and plantation owner and his domestic servant Jeanne Rabine. After Jeanne's death he was raised by his father's mulatto mistress along with half-siblings. In 1788 he was sent to his father's legal wife in Nantes, France. He was formally adopted and became Jean-Jacques Foguere Audubon. In 1803 his family wanted him to escape service in the Napoleonic Wars and sent him to America where his family owned property outside of Philadelphia. In America he adopted the name John James Audubon. He had a life long fascination with birds.

After a stint in jail for bankruptcy he hoped to claim fame and financial security by creating the first comprehensive book on Birds of America, printed on 'elephant' sheets so the birds could be shown full size. He left his wife Lucy and their son Victor to handle the logistics while he and son John pursued the birds.

Audubon noted the decline of the birds, preyed upon by men who thought that nature provided an endless bounty. The Great Auk was extinct eleven years after he painted one.

The Esquimaux Curlew was last seen in 1964. On July 29,1833 Audubon witnessed a great flock that was driven inland by a dense fog. They were hunted, considered great delicacies.

Audubon's journey up the bleak coast of Labrador parallels that of British ship captain Henry Bayfield whose assignment is to chart the dangerous and unforgiving coast. The men become friends, their talk both philosophical and personal revealing they are opposites. Audubon has left a wife but also loves the woman who paints the flowers for his birds. Bayfield is a lone traveler with no family ties.

The novel does not have a suspenseful climax, a shattering 'ah-hah' moment, there is no strum and drang. And yet my interest did not flag. The writing is lovely. We learn history and about the production of the artwork. Audubon is complex, part trickster and part genius.

Audubon comes to understand that the act of creating his masterwork necessitates complicity in the destruction of the very birds he loves. But he can do no other. He was a willing slave to his work.

[Magdelanye · Rating 4 out of 5]

He lied, although it did not feel like lying....He told the story
that the moment required. There was no way to stop. p101

Katherine Govier is here referring to her principal subject in this seductive rendering of an expedition made by the painter of birds, JJ Audubon, up the Labrador coastline commencing
in May of 1833, when the painter was still uncertain about the fate of his magnanimous task,
to render life sized portraits of every single species of bird in North America. How true is Govier
account? With her sensuous prose and the exquisite detail with which she embellishes the tale,
one could easily imagine her as a witness, riding one of the large birds that weave through the
story and bring it to such vivid life.

There are a number of themes that emerge early on. Audubon is not alone on the frigid
waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Captain Henry Wolsey Bayfield of the Royal Navy has been commissioned to update the poor and scanty maps available of the treacherous coast. The
two men strike up an uneasy friendship as they try to define questions of moral ambiguity concerning duty, identity, honour , the vagaries of fate and fame, and, with increasing urgency, the implications of their work and the impending extinction of species.

The minor characters are also well defined and what I thought might be a bit of a bleak read turned out to be timely and provocative