Raccoon by Sean Kane is not easily described. It is an imaginative adventure, a study in the natural world, a social-political commentary, and a tale to delight the reader. There are elements of fantasy and comedy, but also of romance, tragedy, and contemplation. Margaret Atwood points out in the Afterword: “nothing in nature exists in a sealed container, everything is part of a Bell-curved continuum, and Raccoon similarly refuses to be confined to a single category…” Nor should it be categorized. It is a tale that moves us to reflection while making us smile. It is, simply, a Wondertale.
“These raccoons have dreams, hopes, and complex thoughts.”
On a prosaic level, a family of raccoons moves into an old chimney behind a wall in the author’s house and can be heard scrambling, scratching, and muttering among themselves as raccoons do. When winter passes, the young raccoons leave the den to find their own territories. They wander into an overcrowded urban environment, where hordes of raccoons raid food lockers and bins. Territorial struggles ensue. Eventually, the population stabilizes, and each finds an ecological place in life.
This story, though, is not prosaic, for these raccoons have dreams, hopes, and complex thoughts. From his side of the wall, the narrator listens as they argue over philosophy, aesthetics, politics, and cultural values. They reveal intricate myth systems; they hold discussions worthy of Plato. The narrator learns that the embittered mother is hiding from her children’s biological father and striving to raise her young in the ways of Custom, through story and dialogue.
The delivery changes in the next section. Enjoyable as the raccoon dialogues are, this change works well to sustain interest. When the young raccoons leave their chimney den, the narrator relates the journey of each, shifting back and forth between the stories. (It seems he obtains this information by listening to their accounts when they return to the den.)
In the city, the questing raccoons see firsthand the oppressive rule of their father, who enslaves and imprisons the helpless, selling many into a state-sanctioned sex trade. He builds a campaign on deporting migrants from the south (a contemporary echo here); he is cunning and ruthless – and sometimes obtuse. The three young raccoons independently find themselves in the thick of a revolution. They plan coups; they engage in epic battles. They create art; they compose poetry! At times, we forget that they are raccoons. Even Mother becomes involved. The future of the world is being decided, while humans remain unaware.
Perhaps the reader should start with the Afterword, for there Margaret Atwood tells how Sean Kane began this story to entertain Graeme Gibson in his final years. They had been young in the Sixties, friends in that time of cultural and political hope, and the elements are there in this Wondertale – the revolutionary as artist, as visionary. Although this raccoon revolution is at times a dark and violent struggle, those days are recalled in a unique and delightful narrative.
There is such awareness of the natural world. Reflecting on the young ospreys taking flight, the author writes: “Wilderness flows through the heart of a city. In that instant when children launch themselves into the future and turn magically into grown-ups, humans rediscover a fact of life. The meaning of wildness is ourselves.” (169) He describes so well Clutch, the young raccoon, swaying stranded in the treetop, his paw extended, seeking stability – and somehow, it makes sense that this forlorn raccoon would be engaged in an inner existential crisis. Raccoons do look like they are pondering something; maybe, this is what is really going on.
Sean Kane’s Wisdom of the Mythtellers, as I understand it, explores mythopoeic response to the Earth; here we have it in action. The playful attitude he associates with shamanic literature is employed: “Don’t be solemn. This is only a story – we don’t know for sure how the animal people really think. We just know that they can reason and feel as well as you and me. Enjoy the story for the fun of it, and if you pick up some wisdom along the way, that’s good.” (30)
This story, composed by Sean Kane to entertain and bring joy to an old friend, passes into our hands for our astonishment and delight. It is rich in messages, but these are perhaps best learned by relaxing, and letting the story take over. After all, a story is told to educate – and especially to entertain.
Sean Kane writes about weather myths and crisis ecology in oral histories and wondertales of the Pacific and Atlantic Northwest. He is the author of WISDOM OF THE MYTHTELLERS, an exploration of the oral and ecological basis of myth, and of the campus novel VIRTUAL FREEDOM, a finalist for the Leacock Humour Medal.
- Publisher : Guernica Editions (May 1 2023)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 310 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1771837829
- ISBN-13 : 978-1771837828
- Anne Smith-Nochasakhttps://miramichireader.ca/author/annesn/
- Anne Smith-Nochasakhttps://miramichireader.ca/author/annesn/
- Anne Smith-Nochasakhttps://miramichireader.ca/author/annesn/
- Anne Smith-Nochasakhttps://miramichireader.ca/author/annesn/
- Anne Smith-Nochasakhttps://miramichireader.ca/author/annesn/
- Anne Smith-Nochasakhttps://miramichireader.ca/author/annesn/
