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Tay John
The awesome terrain of the Rocky Mountains is the setting for this extraordinary novel about a heroic man who boldly defies destiny. Tay John, a messianic halfbreed, is fated to lead his people to their Promised Land. In a rebellious act of will, he turns to the mountains to seek his own truths.
This richly populated novel vividly depicts the exotic and rootless people who wound their way to the Canadian Northwest. It is a powerful modern legend that ranges over all aspects of the human heart and mind, incorporating passion and hatred, tragedy and triumph.
From the Paperback edition.
This richly populated novel vividly depicts the exotic and rootless people who wound their way to the Canadian Northwest. It is a powerful modern legend that ranges over all aspects of the human heart and mind, incorporating passion and hatred, tragedy and triumph.
From the Paperback edition.
264 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
September 25, 2013
_Tay John_ is a woefully under-appreciated book that deserves wider attention. Written by Howard O'Hagan, a true son of the Canadian west who was, by turns, a surveyer, a lawyer, and a wilderness guide in addition to being a writer, it stands as a great example of wilderness writing at its best. As the Canadian Encyclopedia says: "O'Hagan has been the quintessential 'mountain man' who knew the wilderness intimately and celebrated it through fiction."
In _Tay John_ we have a story in three parts. The first, Legend, starts out like a creation myth and tells the somewhat cryptic story of the birth and youth of the enigmatic Native half-breed known as Tay John (derived from the french "Tête Jaune" or "Yellowhead" on account of his unique blond hair). We see the circumstances of his birth and his early life among his people, his eventual restlessness, and the beginning of his life of wandering.
In the second part, Hearsay, we focus on the outdoorsman Jack Denham and his tall tales of the heroic Tay John, whose path he crosses several times in the wilderness. We begin to see the wider shape of the world of the Canadian Rockies at the end of the 19th century as the civilization of the white man encroaches upon the wilderness that heretofore held sway. Tay John begins to get entangled in this new world and is torn between the opportunities it offers and the ancient prophecies and expectations of his native tribe.
In the third and final section, Evidence - without a finding, the conflict between the old and new ways of the world comes to a head and Tay John is caught in the middle. The end of his tale proves to be as enigmatic as was its beginning and the reader is left to draw his own conclusions about its meaning.
The most outstanding element of O'Hagan's story is his descriptive prose. It's obvious that the man knew and loved the wilderness of which he writes and we see into the everyday lives and concerns of the men who preferred to live their lives on the outskirts of society, able to plunge into the wilderness when it called to them. His characters are also a colourful bunch, running the gamut of pioneers, explorers, preachers and trappers who peopled the Canadian west. We move from wide panoramic scenes of the mountains and the forests to a close focus on the individual lives of people making their way in this wide world. All in all, I found _Tay John_ to be a compelling and moving story that portrayed its world and characters with vivid detail and wonder.
Also posted at Shelf Inflicted
In _Tay John_ we have a story in three parts. The first, Legend, starts out like a creation myth and tells the somewhat cryptic story of the birth and youth of the enigmatic Native half-breed known as Tay John (derived from the french "Tête Jaune" or "Yellowhead" on account of his unique blond hair). We see the circumstances of his birth and his early life among his people, his eventual restlessness, and the beginning of his life of wandering.
In the second part, Hearsay, we focus on the outdoorsman Jack Denham and his tall tales of the heroic Tay John, whose path he crosses several times in the wilderness. We begin to see the wider shape of the world of the Canadian Rockies at the end of the 19th century as the civilization of the white man encroaches upon the wilderness that heretofore held sway. Tay John begins to get entangled in this new world and is torn between the opportunities it offers and the ancient prophecies and expectations of his native tribe.
In the third and final section, Evidence - without a finding, the conflict between the old and new ways of the world comes to a head and Tay John is caught in the middle. The end of his tale proves to be as enigmatic as was its beginning and the reader is left to draw his own conclusions about its meaning.
The most outstanding element of O'Hagan's story is his descriptive prose. It's obvious that the man knew and loved the wilderness of which he writes and we see into the everyday lives and concerns of the men who preferred to live their lives on the outskirts of society, able to plunge into the wilderness when it called to them. His characters are also a colourful bunch, running the gamut of pioneers, explorers, preachers and trappers who peopled the Canadian west. We move from wide panoramic scenes of the mountains and the forests to a close focus on the individual lives of people making their way in this wide world. All in all, I found _Tay John_ to be a compelling and moving story that portrayed its world and characters with vivid detail and wonder.
Also posted at Shelf Inflicted
September 6, 2017
This is a quintessential Canadian novel. No one from outside Canada could have written it. Probably it also takes having set foot in Western Canadian to fully appreciate it. And if you ever thought Canadian art and literature are second-rate (as I had, idiot that I was), think again.
The narrative is structured after Native American myths and Western settler folklores. The language is stern, spacious, sparce--much like the unforgiving landscape of the Canadian Rockies that it describes. The main character is ostensibly Tay John, the messianic halfbred of the title, but the one true center is the Mountains. Tay John, whose name is but a corrupted version of a mountain pass that still bears that name today, is just a part of the setting, an extension of the alpine character, where snow doesn't fall but flies, where time is measured in seasons but years are measured in the length of railway tracks.
It is a pity that, while magical realism has become very much mainstream, this mythic realism has not caught any momentum outside the occasional Canadian literature class. Those who read Tay John are unlikely to find a large group of readers with whom to share the experience--but the solitary experience itself is sure to be as unforgettable as a solitary hike out into the mountains of Jasper.
The narrative is structured after Native American myths and Western settler folklores. The language is stern, spacious, sparce--much like the unforgiving landscape of the Canadian Rockies that it describes. The main character is ostensibly Tay John, the messianic halfbred of the title, but the one true center is the Mountains. Tay John, whose name is but a corrupted version of a mountain pass that still bears that name today, is just a part of the setting, an extension of the alpine character, where snow doesn't fall but flies, where time is measured in seasons but years are measured in the length of railway tracks.
It is a pity that, while magical realism has become very much mainstream, this mythic realism has not caught any momentum outside the occasional Canadian literature class. Those who read Tay John are unlikely to find a large group of readers with whom to share the experience--but the solitary experience itself is sure to be as unforgettable as a solitary hike out into the mountains of Jasper.
May 24, 2013
Tay John is one of those rare novels that compels us to read it over & over in order to appreciate its layers of complexity, beauty, and truth. Howard O'Hagan has written the most under appreciated novel in Canadian literature.
I loved the story structure & how O'Hagan uses multiple narrative perspectives to paint a tragic and beautiful portrayal of a mythic hero struggling to find his identity amidst the swirling forces of western colonialism.
I loved the story structure & how O'Hagan uses multiple narrative perspectives to paint a tragic and beautiful portrayal of a mythic hero struggling to find his identity amidst the swirling forces of western colonialism.
February 2, 2025
Written in 1939, I'll give the book some grace. But the plot, more an assembly of disjointed short stories loosely involving the same character seems at the end to be rather pointless and ambiguous at best.
February 8, 2023
Read for school! Not a fan.
July 1, 2020
O' Hagan's writing has a very accessible "everyman" sort of style. Nonethless there is a kind of dazzle to his prose, a sort of pure-mountain poetry. Words aren't wasted but nor are they dull: they add up to just what they should, plus a little bit more; a bonus born of genius perhaps.
I am in awe of this novel even while I recognize that it's not perfect. There's something quite breathtaking about the marriage of O Hagan's prose to his story. THAT is perfect at any rate. Over my book-reading life I have read many a book that has passages describing scenery. Few of them adequately convey a scene. Most make me feel like I am missing some abilty to see what the author is trying to paint for me: I glaze over waiting to get back to what I consider the meat of the story. In "Tay John" the rugged scenery of the Rockies, IS the meat of the story. Our central character Tay John the man/legend is part of that scenery the same way a mountain goat or grizzly bear is part of the scenery. But of course he's also more complicated being a man who straddles, as if with three legs, the worlds of the White Man, Nature, and the First Nations (the latter two being simultaneously one, when they meet.)
"Tay John" is a relatively short novel at 264 pages and yet it's ambitious, audacious perhaps. There are scenes, at least two of them, that you'll never forget. This is the second time I have read "Tay John," the first being decades ago. I knew it was time to revisit this book and remember/find out how it all came together in the first place. What a bracing read! Strangely spiritual even while being simultaneously the opposite. Here is just one passage that I bookmarked:
"Every story--the rough-edged chronicle of a personal destiny--having its source in a past we cannot see, and its reverberations in a future still unlived--man, the child of darkness, walking for a few short moments in unaccustomed light--every story only waits, like a mountain in an untravelled land, for someone to come close, to gaze upon its contours, lay a name upon it, and relate it to the known world. Indeed, to tell a story is to leave most of it untold. You mine it, as you take ore from the mountain. You carry the compass around it. You dig down--and when you have finished, the story remains, something beyond your touch, resistant to your siege; unfathomable, like the heart of the mountain. You have the feeling that you have not reached the story itself, merely assaulted the surrounding solitude."
I am in awe of this novel even while I recognize that it's not perfect. There's something quite breathtaking about the marriage of O Hagan's prose to his story. THAT is perfect at any rate. Over my book-reading life I have read many a book that has passages describing scenery. Few of them adequately convey a scene. Most make me feel like I am missing some abilty to see what the author is trying to paint for me: I glaze over waiting to get back to what I consider the meat of the story. In "Tay John" the rugged scenery of the Rockies, IS the meat of the story. Our central character Tay John the man/legend is part of that scenery the same way a mountain goat or grizzly bear is part of the scenery. But of course he's also more complicated being a man who straddles, as if with three legs, the worlds of the White Man, Nature, and the First Nations (the latter two being simultaneously one, when they meet.)
"Tay John" is a relatively short novel at 264 pages and yet it's ambitious, audacious perhaps. There are scenes, at least two of them, that you'll never forget. This is the second time I have read "Tay John," the first being decades ago. I knew it was time to revisit this book and remember/find out how it all came together in the first place. What a bracing read! Strangely spiritual even while being simultaneously the opposite. Here is just one passage that I bookmarked:
"Every story--the rough-edged chronicle of a personal destiny--having its source in a past we cannot see, and its reverberations in a future still unlived--man, the child of darkness, walking for a few short moments in unaccustomed light--every story only waits, like a mountain in an untravelled land, for someone to come close, to gaze upon its contours, lay a name upon it, and relate it to the known world. Indeed, to tell a story is to leave most of it untold. You mine it, as you take ore from the mountain. You carry the compass around it. You dig down--and when you have finished, the story remains, something beyond your touch, resistant to your siege; unfathomable, like the heart of the mountain. You have the feeling that you have not reached the story itself, merely assaulted the surrounding solitude."
August 11, 2016
Despite its short length, this book is quite complex. It's replete with themes and I'm not sure where to even begin with this review. It takes place right at the continental divide, and it's a borderland between the world of the old inhabitants, the Shuswap nation, and the world of the colonised east. It's in a borderland between myth and reality. In this land, there's more land than people. The people blink into then out of existence, leaving only legends if they leave anything at all. Women aren't treated well in this novel. They are raped, exploited, disbelieved, fought over, judged. Even a mother bear just going about her business protecting her cub is slaughtered and the death is cheered as a victory. The religion of the white man is so incongruous with the landscape that it destroys those who cling to it--and destroys in a horrible fashion. But in this new era, the religion of the Shuswap people doesn't do much for them either. They correctly prophesy the coming of their messiah, but he abandons them and their ways to live as a solitary man on the fringes of what passes for civilisation in the mountains around Yellowhead Pass. 7&1/2/10
November 10, 2018
I first read this book twenty years ago in university, and it’s haunted me since. It’s one of the best examples of an early type of Canadian novel—the myth in the scope of the wilderness; the hero told through the eyes of lesser characters—that would influence so many to follow in this country.
It’s a compelling story on its own, but O’Hagan’s prose is spectacular. When following the narrative or on his frequent and delightful asides, he coaxes so much from the language that I find myself regretting he did so little, and that it’s gone forever—like the untouched West.
It’s a compelling story on its own, but O’Hagan’s prose is spectacular. When following the narrative or on his frequent and delightful asides, he coaxes so much from the language that I find myself regretting he did so little, and that it’s gone forever—like the untouched West.
November 28, 2018
A wonderfully crafted Canadian legend. I can see this being a perfect campfire tale. As someone who grew up in the mountains just south of the ones in the book, it was fantastic to read a well written book whose setting is almost a living presence throughout. Not the happiest of books, but worth the time. Tay John is much more like a hero of classical Greek and Roman tales but with an amorphous blending of symbolism and cultures.
April 15, 2024
Only a 3.21 overall rating for this book? That's a crime against literature and art. This book is a masterpiece, through and through. It challenges harmful modes of binary thought in western culture, showing the in-between experience of the half-breed, Tay John. And besides that tweedy literary analysis, it's a product of modernism, with sparse prose and a wicked story!
June 11, 2021
3.5/5 stars. Essential Canadian read. The women in this book are mistreated, raped and misunderstood which opens readers to good discussion. Women whether of indigenous descent or not should not be treated like items. They are human.
August 28, 2017
Loved the Canadian content. Some very rich characters.
October 6, 2020
Someone could pull out a lifetime of thesis topics out of this book. Not kidding, a must read, especially as far as BC and Canadian literature are concerned.
January 13, 2021
It's an okay read. Very 'white man half a century after the fact mythologizing this indigenous historical figure', so be wary of that if that's an issue for you.
February 22, 2023
Making a reservation at Lucerne 7/10
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July 8, 2020It has a detailed atmosphere. It has short descriptive prose with a lot happening in it. It was very well written in a cliched, therefore without much meaning descriptive and complicated style of writing, but cleverly imagined because of the land of Canada melding from the is merged within the natural atmosphere. and clever from the using the ordinary modern landscape with the simple style made it clearly written which made it to the challenge of the mundane made into ominous meaning. At times it was meaningful for the style was about survival in the wilderness and working together in it, and the relationship to humankind and the wilderness. A variety of characters symbolically differed yet not explored although excitingly done in the fighting. I really enjoyed this novel for its writing of an evoked world of charming small done magic in the modern world.
The style is like nature because of it being straightforwardly told Charming has simple religious artistry in it a creative sense of nature fantasy
Tay John a man who is tough and adventurous. He is mysterious, exciting, heroic, and his meaning is of the mountainous nature of Canada
I found it at times complicated. A wonder in its fantasy elements simple prose with the atmosphere. It's of descriptive writing because of its sense of survival in the dangerous Canadian wilderness. A page-turner since it uses a sense of mystery in ponderous deep prose. Later in Tay John, it had profound ideas of religion in a positive meaning of against sin, and big in its prose style in its mountainous atmosphere.
The style is like nature because of it being straightforwardly told Charming has simple religious artistry in it a creative sense of nature fantasy
Tay John a man who is tough and adventurous. He is mysterious, exciting, heroic, and his meaning is of the mountainous nature of Canada
I found it at times complicated. A wonder in its fantasy elements simple prose with the atmosphere. It's of descriptive writing because of its sense of survival in the dangerous Canadian wilderness. A page-turner since it uses a sense of mystery in ponderous deep prose. Later in Tay John, it had profound ideas of religion in a positive meaning of against sin, and big in its prose style in its mountainous atmosphere.
November 12, 2008
It was alright, easy to read for sure. The author has a lot of repetitive language and I dislike how the women seem to lack voice.
October 31, 2011
I read this in University for an English class. It was an easy read about Tay John and how he explored Western Canada. Descriptive and repetitive. Interesting characters and situations take place.
August 29, 2013
I usually enjoy native tall tales, but this one is too dry and one-dimensional for me.
Read
October 7, 2013Pretty interesting. Mythical realism. Lot of symbolism and the story doesn't seem to be about Tay John but in fact about all the narrators telling the story.
October 20, 2012
This book has become one of my favorites. It should be required reading in Can Lit classes.
April 19, 2017
This is a rather complex book which I struggled to read and in the end decided was only worth 2 stars. The descriptive passages of the struggle and wildness of the Canadian region of the Rockies was beautiful and is more deserving of 4 stars but the story itself I found to be disconnected and unrealistic. It was also a sad story.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews