Tag: Paul Harding

Review 2258: This Other Eden

~ whatmeread ~ 7 Comments

This Other Eden is based on a true event, when the State of Maine evicted the entire mixed-race community of Malaga Island, people whose forefathers had lived there since the 18th century, and placed 11 of them in a home for the feeble-minded.

It’s no coincidence that a conference on Eugenics takes place just before the committee of the Governor’s Council of the State of Maine begins considering the fate of the occupants of Apple Island, a fate the occupants have no say in. It’s the turn of the 20th century, but Benjamin Honey arrived on the island in 1793 with his pockets full of apple seeds, bringing his wife Patience.

Now four small families live on the island, the Honeys, the McDermotts, the Proverbs, and the Larks, along with the abandoned Sockalexis children, all guilty only of being dirt poor and mixed race. They live by subsistence fishing and gathering the fruits of the forest. The winters are brutal. In the spring, the schoolteacher/preacher Matthew Diamond settles in his house across the bay and rows over daily to teach the children. The mainlanders consider the islanders inbred and sub-intelligent, but Matthew Diamond knows that Esther Honey, the matriarch, can recite Shakespeare from memory, that he has to teach himself algebra to stay ahead of Emily Sockalexis, that Tabitha Honey has a gift for Latin, and Ethan Honey is a talented artist.

The fate of the islanders is already decided when the Governor’s Council arrives and starts measuring their heads with calipers and asking them idiotic “intelligence” questions. Matthew Diamond decides to try to save Ethan, so he writes a letter to his friend Thomas Hale in Enon, Massachusetts, asking him to sponsor Ethan at an art school. Soon, Ethan leaves the island.

Harding’s writing is sometimes poetic, and he likes to pursue extended metaphors. Sometimes I liked this, and other times I didn’t have the patience for it. However, I found this novel less obscure than the other two of his I have read, touching, and ultimately with a more positive ending than was probably the case with the actual inhabitants of Malaga Island.

I read this book for my Booker Prize project.

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Day 1041: Enon

~ whatmeread ~ 2 Comments

Cover for EnonEnon is the second novel by Paul Harding and it follows the story of the same family as in his first novel, Tinkers. That novel was about George Crosby and his memories of his epileptic father. Enon is about George’s grandson, Charlie Crosby, and his life in the village of Enon.

At the beginning of Enon, Charlie’s beloved 13-year-old daughter Kate is killed when her bicycle is hit by a car. Soon after, without much attempt to work anything out, Charlie’s wife Susan returns to her parents’ home and he never hears from her again. Charlie begins a downward spiral into grief, anger, and an addiction to pain killers.

In some respects, Enon is a little more accessible than Tinkers. It is characterized by the same beautiful prose, especially in the descriptions of nature. Further, the setting in the old New England village with its sense of history is fully imagined.

Yet, I wasn’t so interested in watching Charlie fall apart, nor did I enjoy his hallucinogenic dreams about Kate, where she turns to obsidian, for example. I’m starting to realize I don’t enjoy reading about dreams in fiction.

I was also nonplussed by Charlie’s relationship to Susan. No wonder their marriage fell apart. Although they seem to be a happy family at the beginning of the novel, Susan is always somewhere folding clothes while Charlie and Kate go off on adventures. I was surprised when she left just a few days after Kate’s death, but it became clear she wasn’t important to her own family.

So, if this subject matter attracts you, you might enjoy this book more than I did.

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Day 888: Tinkers

~ whatmeread ~ 4 Comments

Cover for TinkersGeorge Crosby lies dying. He is an old man who retired and then became a clock repairman for 30 years. As he dies, he remembers the life of his father, who was a tinker—a traveling salesman of household items in the rural wilds of Maine—and an epileptic. In a way, of course, George also tinkers, with clocks.

This novel’s writing is truly astounding. Harding has a way of examining ideas and objects down to the bone. At other times, musings seem almost hallucinogenic. I wasn’t sure I understood the point of view, though. If all of the novel is from the point of view of George, as most reviews of the book seem to imply, how does he know what happened to Howard, his father—or is he imagining a life for his father?

To me, the novel seems to be about both men, in particular, about the circumstances that led to George being raised without his father. In the hard primitive life of backwoods Maine, George’s mother is resentful and cold. It is his father who is more considering and thoughtful, but a poor provider who might stop to weave pallets of grass instead of selling his goods. After a particularly bad epileptic attack, the only one witnessed by the Crosby children, George’s mother decides to have their father committed.

This novel was difficult for me to read, because I was so interested in some aspects of the plot that I glanced over some of the gorgeous prose or couldn’t concentrate on it (not my usual approach). The prose is the point of this book, however, and the meditations it evokes.

I believe this book is related to another book that also bought. I can’t remember if it is the sequel to the other book, or the other book is a sequel to it. I’ll be interested to see if reading both books enlightens me more.

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