Burning Water

by George Bowering

It took George Bowering a few attempts to express adequately his fascination with the explorer George Vancouver. After a book-length poem and an ensuing radio play on the same subject, Bowering decided to write a novel about Vancouver. Burning Water , which won the Governor General's Award for fiction in 1980, recounts Vancouver's last voyage to the Pacific Northwest, an attempt to do a meticulous survey of the coast and find a western entrance to the Northwest Passage. Vancouver's character becomes as important as the story itself, and two of his relationships dominate the his homosexual love affair with the Spanish captain Don Juan Francisco la Bodega y Quadra and his bitter rivalry with his own *'s naturalist, Archibald Menzies. Burning Water tells a straightforward, linear narrative, but it does so from within the trappings of postmodernist fiction. The novel often breaks into authorial asides, abandoning a scene in progress in favour of a sort of third-person author's journal. Many of Bowering's characters are deliberately unrealistic and function as historical puppets. They speak a dialect that is half-antiquated and half-modern. Only Vancouver and Menzies gain any real individuality, and their belligerent personalities chafe against the confines of their duties to history as the Great Explorer and the Great Naturalist, leading, eventually, to a murder. It's not a murder that matches the historical record, however, and readers who are uncomfortable with this type of storytelling would do well to avoid Burning Water . However, those who are comfortable with the self-doubting tactics of postmodern historical writing will find much to enjoy here. --Jack Illingworth

Genres: Canada, Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

George Bowering was born and brought up in the Okanagan Valley, amid sand dunes and sagebrush, but he has lived in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and Alberta — great sources of hockey stars. Along the way he has stopped to write several books on baseball. He has also picked up Governor General’s Awards for his poetry and fiction, and otherwise been rewarded with prizes for his books, except in his home province of British Columbia. His earlier ECW book, His Life, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for 2000. He lives in Vancouver.

Reviews

[Shadowhunter's Library · Rating 2 out of 5]

Actual rating: 2.5/5 stars

Maybe it's because it's a metafiction book (a genre I wasn't at all familar with before reading this for class), maybe it's because this jumps around a lot, but I was not a fan of this book. It was interesting to read about George Vancouver's journey mapping around Canada and the west coasts of the Americas. But, reading this book was often confusing and, especially in the first part, boring at a lot of places.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a truly bizarre book. There were parts I loved and there were parts that just didn't make any sense. The format of the book kept changing, so it was disjointed. I did learn a little about the history of the West coast, so there's that.

[Monique Genton]

I enjoyed the (presumably) historical information, particularly about Menzies and his plant collecting, but the descriptions of coastal indigenous women joyfully performing oral sex on crew members, just ruined it for me.

[Derek Deneau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent historical fiction.

[1.1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let me tell you: this is easily the best metafictional novel about George Vancouver's northwest expedition I've ever read. Absolutely enjoyable, immerses the reader in a story as intricate as the coastline it takes place in, plenty of humor, some fine irony, brilliant characters, intense conflict. It's well done. For instance, the metafiction doesn't get in the way because Bowering is no rank amateur, content to ruin a good narrative with pondering and meandering... it is inconspicuous even if it is not to your taste, but it's effective at that. Good stuff.

[Scott Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Governor General Award Winner makes for a fascinating account of the early history of the West Coast of Canada, where European countries fought and negotiated protracted claims over these distant lands, with only partial reference to those like Vancouver who were actually trying to make those claims good.

[Tg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-reading along with with Bowering's BC - A Swashbucling History. Wonderful.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

One great postmodern novel. The melding of the Georges, Vancouver and Bowering, as high art.