The Old People by A. J. Perry (review)

A. J. PERRY’S SECOND NOVEL, The Old People, is about an ancient people on a mythical island. The material needs of this community are sparse, but the cultural responsibilities are all consuming. To maintain the rituals of life and death in their world, the Old People rely on fire, stone, rope, and, most important, knots. Every member of society has a role, and these roles have been twisted into the ropes and knots that bind them together as a people: Wood carvers carve tools with which hole diggers dig holes. Knot makers sit under the knot-making tree, tying the knots that bind the community to its past and future.

Without individualized characters and nearly without plot, it is a short novel that reads like a parable. A. J. Perry has called it “an instruction manual for the resurrection of our humanity.” As a commentary on ancient Indigenous life rhythms as they relate to society today, The Old People has much to say and says it well. As a novel, however, its subversive style fails to present a genuine story.

Previous reviews have focused on issues of Indigenous identity, with Paul Moon pointing out in Te Kaharoa that the novel’s focus on “Old People” in the eternal present successfully conveys an archetype of Indigenous, pre-European cultures. However, Sophia Mitrokostas (Cultural Survival) found there to be something “vaguely troubling” about the Old People’s (read: Indigenous peoples’) static nature. Where Moon sees archetypes, literary critic David Treuer might see ghosts: “[Native people] persist as ghosts persist: as hovering presences that can be evoked and appealed to, linked to life but separate from it” (Native American Fiction: A User’s Manual, 73).

Native American fiction is often visual, neglecting human interaction in favor of presenting an image of an entire Indigenous community. While this approach may have much to teach us on an anthropological level, literature is meant to reflect life and life is shaped by human interaction. The Old People includes fewer than forty instances of speech. When people do communicate, it is in complete, solemn sentences, regardless of age, position, or circumstance. If this stylistic decision is meant to represent an Indigenous voice, are we to assume that individuals did not react emotionally in strained circumstances, or lay claim to a personal cadence?

The Old People is built on summary, imagery, and repetition. Though there is little speech to begin with, women speak only twice. Part of the strength of The Old People is its complete immersion in another time and value system, and it is plausible that women would be less involved in the public realm. The novel is written in third person omniscient, however, and so it is notable that these silent women do not experience thoughts or feelings that could have been shared with the reader. Women are brought up rarely, and only in relation to men: “When the men have returned from the river . . . the women will greet them and share fish with them and soothe their muscles and dress their wounds . . . [and] later, when the fires of their homes have burnt down, these women will open their wombs to the briny waters that stream forth” (Perry, 14). The narrative voice, positioned at a distance in order to provide the reader with an overview of society, fails to create a reality that includes women.

The novel reveals very little movement. Society has functioned in the same way for thousands of years, and when this order is disrupted the entire world deteriorates. A drought begins, and women stop giving birth. This is the only moment of tension in the novel, and it is overcome when the community returns to its old ways. This is treated as a triumph, but were Indigenous nations built in stasis? It is the element of personal choice, on which change occurs and all stories are built, that is missing from The Old People.

Whether a novel or a parable, in order to teach, the story itself must ring true. Perry’s style is...