Robert Bringhurst’s A Story as Sharp as a Knife is not only a testament to a monumental labour of love and intellect; it is an astonishing and essential book. But astonishing how, and essential why? Or otherwise put: astonishing and essential to whom? Astonishing and essential to anyone interested in storytelling, and stories, and how they move, and their local and universal nature, and what functions they may fulfil in their society. To anyone interested in myth, and how mythic stories differ from anecdote. To anyone interested in poetry, and how it may be constructed; thus, to anyone interested in structure and form, on which subjects Bringhurst is an expert. To anyone interested in the differences between oral poetry and literature, and written poetry and literature. To anyone interested in our human history and prehistory. To anyone interested in what makes us human, with language at the top of the list: how we think, or rather think-feel; how we express that activity; how we create “meaning”.
And also, to anyone interested in the catastrophic meltdown that took place in societies and nations all over North and South America after 1492, when Columbus made land with his boatload of infectious diseases to which Native Americans had no immunity. The mortality rate is estimated at 80 to 90 per cent: the largest human die-off we know about, much larger than the Black Death. For A Story as Sharp as a Knife is part of that event, as well, as it played out on Haida Gwaii, a once-mighty island nation located on the north-west coast of what is now Canada, in the 19th century.
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