Tag: Canada

Review 2637: The Manticore

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The Manticore is the second volume in Robertson Davies’ Deptford Trilogy. The trilogy itself is about the ramifications through several people’s lives of one malicious act—a snowball with a rock in it thrown by Boy Staunton at Dunstan Ramsey when they were children.

Davies takes up this story again in The Manticore with the next generation, specifically David Staunton, Boy’s son. At the end of Fifth Business, Boy was found dead, having apparently driven himself off the end of a pier, but oddly found with a stone in his mouth. David is a successful, much-feared criminal attorney, but he realizes he drinks too much when he finds himself shouting during a magic show, “Who killed Boy Staunton?” This scene has all kinds of ramifications that David himself doesn’t know about but we do, because we learned in the previous book that the magician, Magnus Eisengrim, was the self-reinvented baby who was prematurely born after the throwing of that stone and may somehow be responsible for Boy’s death.

Davies uses the device of having David seek therapy to develop the story more, in particular what a horrible father Boy was despite David’s continued regard for him. (In fact, it’s fairly clear that Boy was a horrible person in many respects, despite the general respect for his wealth and accomplishments.) In this way, David is an unreliable narrator because there are so many things he doesn’t understand that others, including the readers, do.

To keep his therapy a secret, David goes to Switzerland and seeks the help of Jungian psychiatrist Dr. Johanna van Hallen. This therapy begins on page 7 and lasts for most of the book, so David tells story after story and Dr. van Hallen talks him through therapy. I have no idea if these discussions truly reflect Jungian therapy or if the therapist would indeed go into discussions of archetypes and so on, but the stories were far more interesting than the revelations of Jungian techniques.

The ending of this book I found a little too symbolic and fantastic—in a mild way. I’m not sure how I feel about this book overall.

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Review 2626: Life Among the Qallunaat

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Life Among the Qallunaat is a memoir by Mini Aodla Freeman, an Inuit woman who became a translator and eventually a playwright, poet, and author, and respected elder of her people. This memoir begins when, at nineteen, she went to work as a translator in Ottawa, but then it returns to the events of her childhood and ends with her departure to Ottawa.

Mini was born on Cape Hope Island on James Bay, in what is now Nunavut. Aside from the nomadic nature of her family’s Inuit life, when she became older, she had many experiences away from her family. She was sent to school after her mother died at such a young age that she was the smallest child and was picked on by the others at the instigation of her cousin. Unlike the other children, she was not picked up by her family at the end of the year, so one of the teachers took her home. Then her father came to get her during the next term, and her family kept her home for the next year. Despite obstacles, she managed to finish eighth grade and did some schoolwork beyond that.

At 15 or 16, she helped out at the infirmary of her school and was encouraged to study nursing, so she did that for a while and later was hospitalized for tuberculosis. Yet after recovering, she stayed at the hospital doing nursing duties. During the stay in the hospital, she was called on to translate, because she spoke her dialect of Inuit as well as Cree, French, and eventually English. She lived with a family as a nanny for about a year but left after that same cousin made trouble for her. Instead, she took a job as a laundress at a school for a while, but she found it mentally unstimulating, so she switched jobs with a school house mistress who found it impossible to control her charges, a situation Mini had no trouble with.

This book is fascinating not only because of the details of Mini’s life but also for her explanations of Inuit customs and the differences between her people’s ways of thinking and behaving and our own. It is simply written, touching at times, and definitely an adventure to read. I believe I put this book on my list after last year’s Nonfiction November.

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Review 2622: The Adversary

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The Adversary is a powerful book, about a 19th century Newfoundland community and the feud that affects everyone. It is a brutal story about brutal people.

The novel begins at a wedding. Abe Strapp, the son of the richest man in town, is due to marry Anna Morels, the daughter of a powerful man from further down the coast. This match was made by Abe’s father in the hopes it would steady Abe, who is a vicious coward and bully. But there is an objection. The Widow Caines brings forward her servant, Imogen Purchase, claiming she is pregnant after being raped by Abe. Mr. Morels removes his daughter, and the Widow suggests Abe marry Imogen instead. Strapp and the Widow clearly hate each other, and it is with surprise that we learn they are brother and sister.

The Widow’s hatred stems from watching her brother being spoiled and given anything he wanted. While she had a head for business and worked for years at her father’s side, the business went to Abe when he died. Before that, he arranged his daughter’s marriage with Caines, a wealthy old man. She married him but split with her father. Upon her husband’s death, she took to wearing men’s clothes and running his business.

Abe has an employee and godfather, Beadle Clinch, who tries to keep him from his worst excesses. He is revolted by the Widow’s daring to dress like a man and run a business. So, even though he is supposed to be a religious man, he connives with Abe to try to bring her down. Despite appearances, he is the adversary. One of the things he does is to get Abe made a magistrate, hoping that will bring him a sense of responsibility. Instead, with two henchmen the Beadle put with him to restrain him, he runs rampant. Almost immediately, he murders a man for having signed a statement against him. Nothing happens to him.

For a long time, I was sympathetic to the Widow, thinking she was being misrepresented because she was different. There are some innocent people in town, but they are pulled into the maelstrom of this feud. And the Widow turns out to be as bad as her brother.

The novel is written more like a chronicle of the town, so that many of the characters are one-sided. The most developed are the two siblings, whose feud affects everyone. But even without the hatred for his sister, Abe is a vile person indeed, and his antics affect a lot of people.

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Review 2608: The Night Ocean

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At first, I thought this novel was going to be about H. P. Lovecraft. Then, I thought it was a sort of homage to 30s and 40s science fiction and horror writers. But having finished it, I don’t know quite how to describe it.

Marina Willett’s husband Charlie is missing or dead. A writer of insightful profiles, Charlie began working on one of H. P. Lovecraft. During his research, he became interested in the story of a book purportedly written by Lovecraft’s much-younger deceased friend Robert Barlow that alleged a homosexual affair. This book was debunked as a fraud perpetrated by Lovecraft fan L. C. Spinks. However, Charlie becomes convinced after visiting Spinks that he is actually Barlow, having faked his own death and taken Spinks’ identity. He publishes a book telling this story and immediately becomes a literary celebrity.

But then, evidence comes out about facts that are incorrect, and Charlie himself is believed to have perpetrated a fraud. After checking himself into a mental hospital, he disappears, his clothes found next to a lake.

Marina is not satisfied. She decides to revisit the research that Charlie conducted, in the hopes of figuring out what happened. Since the last thing he did before checking into the hospital was revisit Spinks, Marina goes to see him.

Most of the rest of the novel becomes a series of stories beginning with Spinks’ first interview with Charlie. These stories name-drop 30s and 40s science fiction and horror writers and other prominent figures like crazy. This technique of the strange tale is one familiar to horror readers and a nod to Lovecraft.

If I were a bigger Lovecraft fan, I’d probably recognize more allusions besides the obvious ones—his fanboy-cum-writers themselves dropping his made-up words into their conversations, for example.

I think that Lovecraft fans will appreciate this novel more than I did, but the novel leaves Lovecraft behind about halfway through, and becomes more about Barlow. Myself, I got a little tired of the structure of story after story.

The novel is ultimately about identity, search for community, and reinvention.

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Review 2546: The Temptations of Big Bear

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I can’t remember whether I found this book when looking for more about native peoples or for filling holes for my A Century of Books project. In any case, it does both.

Readers from the U. S. may not be familiar with the name “Big Bear,” but I’m betting Canadian readers are. He seems to have been their equivalent of Sitting Bull.

In The Temptations of Big Bear, Wiebe tells Big Bear’s story beginning in 1876, when the Cree, of whom Big Bear was a chief, along with other groups of native peoples and the Métis, meet to discuss a treaty with British officials. The treaty calls for the people to “sell” several hundred thousand acres to the government in exchange for small reservations and regular payments as well as assistance when they are hungry. Big Bear does not sign the treaty. He wants to wait to see what happens.

Within a few years, it becomes apparent that the buffalo, upon which the Cree depend, are dying out, so Big Bear signs the treaty. However, he does not select a reservation for his people. Instead, they continue to move among their usual environs.

This novel leads up to events at Frog Lake in 1888, where some of the Cree warriors attack the settlers, kill some, and take others prisoner. These attacks follow years of broken promises and starvation. Although Big Bear tries to stop them, he is disregarded. Of course, he is held responsible by the authorities and tried, despite all the white witnesses but one having testified for him.

This is an eloquently written novel. It is insightful and interesting, and Big Bear’s last speech at his trial made me cry.

Wiebe doesn’t cite sources, and it’s hard to tell whether some of the speeches and writings are verbatim from records or not.

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Review 2544: Island

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Alastair MacLeod is considered a master of the short story. Island collects all 14 of his stories into one volume. Most of them are set on Cape Breton in Nova Scotia, where he was raised. Almost all of the stories are concerned with the lives of the working-class, often Gaelic-speaking descendants of Scots who immigrated to Canada during the 18th century clearances.

The stories are arranged by date from 1968 to 1999. Many of the early ones are about young men dreaming of or actually leaving the island. Later, they become more about older men who stayed.

The difficult and sometimes bleak lives of the islanders were interesting to read about. Since childhood memories would have been set in the 1940s, and some of the stories are about fathers or grandfathers, the life is often fairly primitive.

All of stories are well written and hold the attention, but I found several deeply touching. In “In the Fall,” a man’s wife makes arrangements to sell an old horse behind her husband’s back. The horse had been her husband’s faithful companion and co-worker but is no longer able to work. Of course, he’s being sold to the knackers.

In “The Road to Rankin’s Point,” a young man’s family gathers to try to convince his 90-some grandmother to move from her isolated farmhouse to assisted living. He himself has found out he only has a few months to live.

In “Winter Dog,” a man looks back to when he was a boy, to a dog who saved his life. And another one about a man and his dog, “As Birds Bring Forth the Sun.” And one about the results of a brief love affair, “Island.”

MacLeod only wrote one novel, which I’ll be looking for.

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Review 2533: The Stone Angel

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When I was looking for books to fill a hole in my A Century of Books project, I found this one. I thought I had read a book by Laurence before, but apparently not. The Stone Angel is the first in her Manawaka series.

Hagar Shipley is 90 years old. She is a proud, tough woman who has never expressed any of her gentler feelings. Now she finds that her son Marvin and his wife Doris are thinking she needs to move to a senior home. She understands this idea as greed for her home and possessions, although that is not the case. She is fighting the idea as best she can.

Hagar, though, is prone to falling and has memory lapses. In between the scenes from her current life, she returns in her memory to important events and tragedies in her life.

Hagar is not a pleasant person, but Laurence makes us interested in her and manages to make us understand and even sympathize sometimes with this complex character.

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Review 2526: The Inconvenient Indian

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For some reason when I bought this book, I thought it was fiction. It’s not, nor is it a history of the relationship between native peoples and the various entities that have ruled Canada and the United States. (King repeatedly calls these two countries North America. He doesn’t deal with the inequities and atrocities of Mexico, which of course is also in North America and probably has committed plenty.) It is a series of chapters on such topics as residential schools, government attempts at assimilation and allotment, treaties that have been ignored, and inequities under law.

Thomas King is a writer, speaker, and activist who is part Cherokee. Born in California, he is now a citizen of Canada and has won, among other awards, the Order of Canada.

His writing style is acerbically funny and more personal than you’d expect. He reminds me of Bill Bryson with more sarcasm.

This book is an eye opener for anyone who thinks that our native populations are no longer oppressed. It didn’t make me cry like Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee did when I read it years ago, but it gave me a lot to think about. King’s main message is that all government programs for our natives amount to land grabs.

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Review 2489: #1970Club! Fifth Business

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I have long meant to read something by Robertson Davies, so when I saw that Fifth Business qualified for the 1970 Club, I got hold of a copy. This novel is Davies’ fourth book and the first in his Deptford Trilogy.

In the 1910s, Dunstable (later called Dunstan or Dunny) Ramsey is ten years old when a snowball thrown by Percy Boyd Staunton locks his fate with that of Staunton and two other people. Dunny knows that Staunton, who is rich and a bit of a bully, is planning to hit him with the snowball, so he gets behind Reverend Amasa Dempster and his young, pregnant wife for protection. Staunton throws the snowball anyway and hits Mrs. Dempster in the head. She has a kind of hysterical fit, goes into premature labor, and gives birth to Paul, who has to be tended carefully to keep him from dying. This work is done by Dunny’s mother. Mrs. Dempster is not quite all there after this experience. Dunny’s guilt at having tried to use the Dempsters as a shield leads him to a lifelong connection with Mrs. Dempster and a more sporadic one with Paul.

Dunstan begins with this story in telling his headmaster about his life, because he feels diminished by the speech about him made at his retirement party. He claims to be fifth business, a theater and opera term used of a character who does not seem important but is required for the plot to work.

I found this novel fascinating, because it goes on, telling the events in Dunstan’s life in an interesting and entertaining way, but you wonder where it’s going. Then, in a breathtaking last few pages, Davies ties together all the major events and principal characters. Warning to everyone: the book reflects misogynistic tendencies, not a surprise for the earlier time setting of the book, beginning before World War I and continuing after World War II (or for 1970, for that matter). But what a book!

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Review 2483: In the Upper Country

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In 1850, Lensinda Marten lives in an all-Black town in Canada north of Lake Erie. She is a healer, but she is puzzled when she is summoned to the side of a slave catcher who has come after a group of escaped slaves that are hiding on Simion’s farm. Puzzled because the man is dead. When she hears that an old woman, one of the escapees, has been arrested, she realizes she is wanted to write a story about the woman for the Abolitionist paper.

She goes to visit the old woman in jail and finds that she isn’t ready to tell her story. Instead, she wants to swap stories with Lensinda. In doing so, a history of cruelty is reveealed, and the two women find connections between each other.

Thomas says in the Afterword that he heard and read many stories about Canada’s history of slavery, its treatment of First Nations people, and the War of 1812, but he could find no story that did everything he wanted. So, he chose this method of telling several stories that interface.

Although I found the information interesting and the settings and historical details to be convincing, I’m afraid his approach didn’t work that well for me. Just as I was getting interesting in Lensinda’s story, the novel appeared to move away from her. There were quite a few characters whose connections aren’t immediately clear, and I kept getting them confused as we jumped from story to story. Eventually, the stories connect, but that wasn’t clear for quite a while.

I read this novel for my Walter Scott prize project.

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