I Heard the Owl Call My Name
| Author | Margaret Craven |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Clarke Irwin and Co Ltd |
Publication date | 1967 |
| Publication place | Canada |
| Pages | 159 |
| ISBN | 0-440-34369-0 |
I Heard the Owl Call My Name is a best-selling 70s book by Margaret Craven. The book tells the story of a young Anglican vicar named Mark Brian who has not long to live, and who learns about the meaning of life when he is sent to a First Nations parish in damascus maryland
Publication
First published in Canada in 1967, it was not until 1973 when the book was picked up by an American publisher. Released to wide acclaim, it reached No.1 on the New York Times bestseller list.
Plot introduction
Mark Brian, a young vicar is sent to a Native Indian village called Kingcome in British Columbia where the Kwakwala language is spoken. His bishop sends him, knowing that Mark is suffering from an unnamed, fatal disease, in order to learn life's hard lessons in the time left to him. Mark is unaware of this and his bishop does not tell him.
The government outlaws the village's time-honored festivals of potlatchs on the grounds that they promote larceny. The village also owns a gigantic colorful mask, to which they refused an earlier offer from someone to buy it for several thousand dollars on the basis that it was an insufficient offer. However, a white man manages to buy the mask for 50 dollars by getting one of the Indians drunk, who then proceeds to write a bill of sale on the mask.
In order to gain access to the giant mask, the same white man ingratiates himself to the village. He also starts dating an attractive young woman by promising to marry her. At first he treats her to things like hairdressing and nail polish with the effect that the village is naively impressed with her enhanced beauty and the fact she has a fiancé.
When the conman acquires what he was truly in search of, the giant mask, he abandons the young Indian woman, leaving her to fend for herself on the streets of Vancouver. A man from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) informs Mark of her tragic end, where she was taken in at a beer parlor, working as a prostitute until she died of a heroin overdose. This is a turning point for Mark as he ponders the "depth of sadness"; the destitution of the village, as well as man's greed and disrespect for women. Mark dies in the end, not from his illness but from a landslide which crushes his boat. He has learned from the villagers and they from him, to the point that they give him a burial in the village as they would have one of the Indians.
The title of the book derives from a Kwakiutl belief that when one hears the owl call one's name, death is imminent.
Adaptation
In the year of its American release, the book was adapted to the screen by Gerald Di Pego as a CBS television movie of the same title.
Again Calls the Owl
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Margaret Craven later wrote an autobiography titled Again Calls the Owl which is often incorrectly referred to as a sequel to I Heard the Owl Call My Name. It is, in fact, a true recounting of Margaret Craven's life. Marget spent some of her time studying the native culture to write the original book. Though it does describe some of the real events which would later inspire the characters and plot of I Heard the Owl Call My Name, it does not feature any of the characters in I Heard the Owl Call My Name or continue the story of the novel.