Starting fresh : Moving on from Thomas King

I’ve been wondering lately what it is that we should truly aspire to. I’ve had the privilege of growing up in a middle-income family, though my folks never really left me wanting for anything. That doesn’t mean I’ve lived a life of luxury, but I have been comfortable for quite some time now. Comfort, however, brings along complexities of its own.

It has been two years since I completed my Master’s degree, yet my thesis still remains unfinished. I need to begin working on that again. Beyond it lies another ambition: I want to pursue a PhD, and for that I’ve been planning to move to some foreign land for my degree — preferably Canada. That distant, beautiful, cold place I’ve heard about all my life.

As part of my recent morning reading ritual, I thought it would be best to begin with Canadian authors — the likes of Margaret Atwood, Margaret Laurence, and Thomas King. I decided to start with King and immerse myself in his works, only to find that much of his writing was rooted in his identity as a person of Aboriginal heritage. Postcolonial studies, after all, hold an important place in literature too, which happens to be my field.

But as I began reading King more deeply, I discovered that he had recently written an op-ed admitting that he does not, in fact, possess Aboriginal heritage in his bloodline. Now every page I turn in The Truth About Stories feels strangely unsettled. He admits he never intentionally lied to his readers about being “Indian,” but after learning the truth behind his story, I no longer feel confident enough to write a thesis based on his works.

And so, this morning, I find myself starting fresh — with the Margarets.