Last night(12/2/08) I finished the novel by Rohinton Mistry entitled Such a Long Journey, winner of the Governor General in 1991. One could say that it is an ironic book title given that the book is less than 350 pages, and could be a more apt title for his perhaps more famous later work, A Fine Balance. It is one of Keren's favorite books, though I have heard from many people over the year about their struggles to finish the well over 500 page tome, and their complaints of it being(despite the fact that Balance was chosen as an Oprah Book Club pick)long and depressing...I thought it was quite good, for several reasons, and in that regard, I was looking forward to reading Long Journey. This book reading has been a long time coming, however, because of all kinds of obstacles, including a long wait for it at the library, and several other bright shiny objects that made it difficult to read more books as of late. Anyway, I finally started reading Journey last week, the day before the terrorist attacks of Mumbai, the renamed city of Bombay, where the novel takes place. All of a sudden, a world that is very very far away from me, one that I know almost nothing about, became very real. The novel takes place well over 30 years ago, in 1971, when India went to war with Pakistan over what was to become Bangladesh. This book is about more than a war, though, with the war only really coming to the forefront of the novel in the last half; this book is about a man, Gustad Noble, and his journey through life, in a particularly trying time. At the start of the novel, Gustad's long-time friend and hero, Major Jimmy Bilmoria, writes Gustad asking him for a favor, a favor that involves a very large amount of money. The money needs to be hidden, and Gustad, a bank teller, is one who is just under the radar enough to do it. Aware of the dangers, but bound by the loyalties of friendship, Gustad is not sure what to do, and the resulting situations involving the money are at the heart of the novel. However, there is much more going on in Gustad's life, which of course compounds his stress level. His daughter, Roshan, becomes deathly ill, and his son Sohrab decides that he does not want to do what his parents want and refuses to go to India Institute of Technology. He secretly wishes to do something with the arts, but does not tell his father this. Gustad obviously has a lot on his plate and at times, this character, a very complex and human man, loses it. But, he is an honest, loyal and good man, who always wants to do the right thing, and faces constant inner conflicts when sometimes that is not entirely possible. This is Mistry's first novel, and it has been on my list of books that I wanted to read since I was in college almost 10 years ago; it shows such promise for a writer who continues to be given many awards for his work. A Fine Balance, the book of his that I read first, won the Giller, one of the other prestigious Canadian book awards, and showed me the power that Mistry has to create brilliant characters. Mistry depicts Indian life with a Dickensian-like detail. Each character in his book, from the entire Noble family(wife Dilnavaz, daughter Roshan, sons Sohrab and Darius)to Dinshawji(Gustad's work colleague and friend and eventual co-conspirator in the money scheme)to the man who sells paan outside the whorehouse, to Tehmul, the neighborhood "idiot", to the street artist who adorns the side of Khodadad building with an amalgamation of religious pictures and icons(Gustad's idea originally, so that people would stop going to the bathroom on the side of the building, attracting large amounts of mosquitos), is described in such detail, you really feel like you're there, laughing and crying along with them. This book also made me realize how completely ignorant I am. As an American growing up in the public school system, there was much that I did not learn about. India is one of those things I did not learn much about. It is only what I have gathered together in my novel reading, watching public television news and listening to the radio, and the occasional Bollywood picture(on an off-note the name Bollywood is a bringing together of "Bombay" and "Hollywood", to describe the blossoming movie business in "Bombay". When the name was changed by right-wing Hindi leaders in 1995 to Mumbai, named after the Hindu goddess Mumbadevi, the city's patron deity, Bombay for many years had been believed to be an English bastardization of the name Mumbai, and hence keeping the name Bombay for the city was seen by these leaders as a legacy of colonial rule), and through my only Indian friend, Samitha. This book made me feel, amongst other things, at once more worldly and totally ignorant, certainly not because of the writing style, as before mentioned, which is wonderful. It makes me think, though, of why Canadians in 1991 picked this book as a winner for the top literary prize in Canada. Was it as simple as jumpstarting the career of a young, up and coming writer, or was it to show Canadians what else is out there? Or is it a contination of Canadian tradition that celebrates Canadian writers who write about topics outside of Canada? What does this mean in terms of the Canadians vs. Americans? Is there a purpose to the selections? Do they look over years and see what has won before and make decisions based on that or do they just pick what they think the best of the year is? I'm still trying to sort that out. I need to go back to the book, though, and mention a couple of things. One is Noble's character. He is amazingly patient with everyone but himself and his family. He is even almost sexually assaulted(by another man no less) on a long train ride to Delhi and he just shrugs it off attributing it to the man's loneliness and/or urges. He is annoyed when his good friend at work Dinshawji gets in trouble because of his inappropriate advances towards a co-worker, but he still does what he can in his own way to make sure the friend doesn't humiliate himself any further and keeps his job. I guess what I liked about this book, and what I seem to like when I read any and all kinds of literature is the everyman aspect of this book. This is about the abject poor in Mumbai, people who are even poorer than we could ever imagine in the West, the land of overabundance. And they are all not so unbelievably miserable as one might imagine, they live their lives as best as they can, they adhere to religious beliefs and they are good people. It's a great book full of great human beings who even when they're not pressed, do great things.:)
My favorite quote from the book is about storytelling. It regards the Paan maker who stands in front of the whorehouse in Noble's neighborhood, who always tells stories to attract people in to buy his wares.

"Outside the House of Cages, a larger than usual crowd had gathered around Peerbhoy Paanwalla, unmindful of the sewer stench that made Gustad cover his nose and mouth with his kerchief. But Peerbhoy was not spinning his time-honoured yarns about the House of Cages: the aphrodisiacal tales for tyros guaranteed to heat the blood, elevate flagging confidence and boost paan sales. No there would be no more of that for a while. In deference to the mood of the country and the threat from without, Peerbhoy Paanwalla had mobilized his talents for the common good, using his skills to weave a tale that defied genre or description. It was not a tragedy, comedy or history; not pastoral, tragical-comical, historical-pastoral or tragical-historical. Nor was it epic or mock-heroic. It was not a ballad or an ode, masque or anti-masque, fable or elegy, parody or threnody. Although a careful analysis may have revealed that it possessed a smattering of all these characteristics. But since things such as literary criticism mattered not one jot to the listeners, they were responding to Peerbhoy's narrative in the only way that made sense: with every fibre of their beings. They could see and smell and taste and feel the words that filled the dusk and conjured the tale; and it was no wonder they were oblivious to the gutter stink" (306).

Here's the truth. The truth is, I am a reader, I have studied literary criticism, and I do read to an extent with a literarily critical eye. First and foremost, though, I am a reader, and enjoy probably more than my work, more than anything else in my life besides my family and my partner, reading books. And I love, beyond measure the books that are like Peerbhoy's narrative. And, the prize reading list has made me search not only for the greatest stories, but also made me question what should be the greatest stories, and therefore the greatest authors. Rohinton Mistry definitely deserves his seat at the table.:) PPs-46, GGs-40.

This is a marathon writing day. I already spent the past three hours(with a half hour break for lunch and some watching of 7th Heaven...I wouldn't normally go so quickly into another posting, but I've wasted so much time writing about stuff anyway and if you read my post from earlier today you'll see that this is part of me becoming better at fulfilling what I feel is my purpose. If I don't document these books, who will? But also, the postings allow me to remember, years later, what I thought and what I felt. This is a necessary journal, since I'm already more than halfway through the project and have only glimpses of recollections about many of the books that I've read. Some of these novels, I NOW feel are nearly impossible for me to forget, books that changed my life, that I constantly remember, even just quotes, but that could also be fleeting, and therefore, as this progresses, I must strive to never forget. So, in that vein, here goes another round of documentation, of remembering, of thinking...After this I am going to be soooo brain tired. So, the other book that I NEEDED to talk about today, so that I can be caught up, and I can once again read Pulitzers and Governor Generals(the finalists for this year's GG winner are going to be announced in exactly a week), is Hugh MacLennan's famous novel of French and English Canada, and the conflicts that ensue; Two Solitudes. I may not be entirely correct when I make this claim, but I have heard that this has been called on more than one occasion, the "Great Canadian Novel." When I hear that something has been given such a title, then I become quite a little bit skeptical. By now, if you were in my position, who wouldn't be? But, before reading this novel, of course I have been keeping constant track of the lists, and Hugh MacLennan won 5 GG's, 3 of which were for the English Language Fiction category. So, he like Alice Munro and of course my PERSONAL FAVORITE, Michael Ondaatje, is up there being the most winningst. In that regard, the books must not totally suck of course, right? There has to be some merit to his work, especially for the one that won the first time, since it was what really put him on the map. That's what I hoped. I also hoped that I would get a lot of history and background too, the novel was supposed to have really broken ground on a kind of taboo topic in Canadian history, that of the extreme differences between French and English Canada and the rifts that even today are hard to mend. It was only a little over 10 years ago that Quebec tried to go for secession for the last time(so far). Well, this book did not disappoint at all. In fact I couldn't believe how tremendously a fait accomplit it was. One of the things that I love about books that I read is when the books seem as if they can be applied to any time or any place and still be applicable. This book is definitely highly applicable to Quebec, most effectively Montreal, but the time could be any, which is perhaps a great quality of it, but also a sad quality of it, showing that struggles, the lack of understanding between two cultures that live amongst each other everyday, still exists. It is existed when I lived there, I lived in an English speaking section of Montreal and I lived in a very French section of Montreal, I went to school at an English-speaking University, I used the MacLennan-Stewart library for my undergraduate needs. I ate dinner in a Chinatown that had fought to keep their signage in their native language and not in French first, as the laws now prescribe, since the French-Canadians have placed a stranglehold on business and homeowners in fear of losing their language and culture to an increasingly Anglophone Quebec. Two Solitudes shows the making of this starting from 1917, and finishing on the eve of the second World War(the book was published and won in 1945). It focuses directly on two families, the Tallard family who originate in Saint-Marc, Quebec(I suppose a town modelled after the number of Saint-Marcs de something in the Laurentians/Eastern Townships area, at least somewhat east of Montreal) and the Methuen family, who live in Montreal and who are of Scottish descent. Athanase Tallard is, at the start of the novel, the richest landowner, almost something of an aristocrat in is small parish town; his family has been the largest landowner for hundreds of years. He is limited in his success by his location and his background, he sees his greater success as being linked to the English and working with them, not against them. He has two sons, one from his first marriage in which he was widowed, and a second, much younger son from his much younger second wife. Athanase and his first son do not get along at all, and ostensibly it is because of the father's politics. Marius, clings to his French-Canadian nature, and is extremely hostile towards the English and everything they stand for, believing that they will be French Canada's destruction, when the father, Athanase, believes that French Canada will of course be its own destruction. Whew. You be the judge, sometimes I believe one way, sometimes I believe the other. Paul, Athanase's other son, who is very young at the start of the novel, is the ultimate in assimilation of the two cultures, he is born to a French Canadian and an Irish immigrant mother, he can speak both English and French fluently, understanding the nuances in each. He can float between both cultures. As he ages, though, this seems to separate him even more. Since he does not fit into one or the other entirely, he does not fit into either at all, and is consistently an outsider. This book is ultimately a family saga of the utmost degree, multi-generational, stretching across two families, with many characters playing all kinds of hands. There is also Huntly McQueen, who is not a member of either family but whose actions dictate the course of both families' outcomes. Huntly McQueen epitomizes the English businessman and the control he has over Canada. It is the trust that Tallard puts in McQueen that leads to his downfall, and it is McQueen's control over the Methuen family that almost knocks a burgeoning romance of its course. Captain Yardley, Athanase and then Paul's closest friend, and the father of Janet Methuen and grandfather of Heather Methuen, is technically a member of the Methuen family but since he is only a sea captain, and she married into English Canadian aristocracy if you will, he is also an outsider, but, he, since he was so often at sea, and has that way about him, doesn't take it too much to heart, as Paul does. Yardley, however, also shapes the course of both families in a more benevolent way. Oh you could go on and on, about the wonders of this novel and how it makes one feel. I think for me it hit close to home because MacLennan did such a wonderful job with descriptions. I could feel the way the wind hits your face during the winters in Quebec, the way the city smells, the way early spring feels in the countryside, even when Paul and Heather Methuen are in Nova Scotia towards the end of the novel, I could feel what that was like, smell the salt air. Perhaps it is because I hold so much of my Montreal memories close to my heart, and I have not been back in so long to show anyone, especially someone I love as much as Keren, the haunts we used to have, the beauty of city, the smell of winter amongst the sparkling lights of the city itself and of course the snow. My God, even as I write this, waves of homesickness for a city that I haven't lived in in over 6 years waft over me, threatening to engulf me. Perhaps that is why this novel touched me so. Even writing about a city and a province over 60 years ago, it still conjures up the same emotions for me, a woman who was only 10 when MacLennan died. This is the story of a struggle of a people, but it is also the story of romance, in a Romeo and Juliet kind of fashion, that survives, despite the odds. This and Gwethalyn Graham's Earth and High Heaven are very reminiscent of each other, in slightly different ways, and they only won a year apart(she in 1944, he in 1945), the judges must have had the combo of social consciousness AND romance on their minds. There are soooooo many quotes that I love so much from this book and many of them are because I think they still very much ring true today:

"'The masses are ruled by their own sense of guilt. Therefore nationalism and sex are the two time-tested mediums through which they can be controlled by small groups. Hammer in absolute patriotism and absolute purity as ideals, and you have the masses where you want them. You can always keep them feeling guilty by proving that they are not patriotic and not pure enough.'"(39)--This excerpt is from a book that Marius discovers his father is writing about religion, but I think it rings true for today even in the US, especially with the current political climate.

Another quote which I thought was particularly applicable to the US today, and it is about the US, from English Canadian Huntly McQueen's point of view:
"McQueen rubbed his hands together as he thought how he was going to prove that Canada was sounder than the United States. In the first place, so far as he could see, the Americans were as excitable as Italians. And look at the way they let their women hound them all over the place! If you let the women get that much hold, why not hand the whole country over to them and let them ruin it? He wouldn't be surprised to see them do that very thing before long. He chuckled. The day they elected a female president it would serve them right.

In a state of dreamy contentment, padding slowly along the upper hall to his bedroom, McQueen thought how sharp a contrast he could make between the United States and Canada, if he went about it skillfully. In Canada, first of all, there were the two races: each could be employed to balance the other. Then there were the churches: they were filled every Sunday, and it was possible for the whole nation to excite itself over a theological dispute. But the real point was this: ten per cent of the college graduates, perhaps not the most brilliant men but certainly the most restless of the lot, found it so difficult to get what they wanted in Canada that you could always count on them drifting south to the States. That made enormously for stability above the border. Down there they could write their books and broadcast their ideas, and compared to the average American they were probably fairly stable citizens. Yes, McQueen thought with satisfaction, we have discovered a great social secret in Canada. We have contrived to solve problems which would ruin other countries merely by ignoring their existence." (257)

Another one in which MacLennan touches on sexism...
"'You're the only preson in the world who doesn't make me feel alone,' she said. Her senses seemed to bruise themselves against his silence. 'You don't have to be a French-Canadian to be born in a strait-jacket. Every girl's born in one, unless you're a girl like Daffy." (303)

"Who'll be left? Huntley McQueen, I suppose. What is it about men like him? Men his age? They seem anaethetized against the world we're living in. In your novel, do you think you can really drive it through their heads how people like us feel? They hold on to the ball and won't pass it to one of us, and yet they don't seem to have the least idea waht goal they're playing for! I don't suppose they think we do either...[]Whenever I get bogged down in despair about the States (isn't it funny how all Canadians do that, as if the Americans cared what we felt about them) I walk down Fifth Avenue and look up at that beautiful shaft and then I know that a country able to build such a structure[R.C.A. building] can do anything..." (314)

"'A human being tries to be herself and you condemn her because she does!'
'But Father--I'm her mother! Please remember the things I must consider.'
'Consider my eye! How do you expect people like Paul and Heather to feel towards people like us? Do you think we've deserved their respect? We've sat on them all our lives. We've managed our affairs so badly thet boys like Paul have had to spend their last eight years wandering like tramps from one end of the country to another looking for work. You talk to me about rebellion! I'm telling you something, Janet--the first word any child in the country hears said to it is 'No,' and the first sentence he hears is 'Be careful.' God only knows how it's happened thet way, for when I was a boy it was certainly different. You and your friends--you go crazy if a girl and a boy make love to each other before they're married. But another twenty million people can get killed because our generation can't manage its own affairs and thet's not even immoral! The way things've been going there's sure to be a bust-up thet'll surprise you. People get sick of hearing 'no' all the time. Don't talk to me about rebellion, Janet, for I can't stand to hear it. If you'd done a little rebelling yourself you'd be a happier woman today!'" (325)

And probably my favorite quote, the one that I think sums up the book so very well, and makes me sad for the state of French and English Canada, and makes me so long to return as well:

"Out of the society which had produced and frutstrated him, which in his own way he had learned to accept, he knew that he was at last beating out a harmony. His fingers seemed to be feeling down through the surface of character and action to the roots of the country itself. In all his life, he had never seen an English-Canadian and a French-Canadian hostile to each other face to face. When they disliked, they disliked entirely in the group. And the result of these two group-legends was a Canada oddly naive, so far without any real villains, without overt cruelty or criminal memories, a country strangely innocent in its groping individual common sense, intent on doing the right thing in the way some children are, tongue-tied because it felt others would not be interested in what it had to say; loyal, skilled and proud, race-memories lonely in great spaces." (352)

This book unleashed so many emotions for me, and I'm not sure what it would do for an American who hasn't lived in Quebec, or for that matter a Canadian who hasn't lived in Quebec(though I think every Canadian in some form or another has had a taste of the French-English Canada conflict)...for me it reminds me of the scents and sights and sounds of a city that I long for since it is where I truly became an adult, where I truly began to make my own decisions and where I also, often, felt truly alone. There are parts of the novel where I felt like someone had cut out my chest I missed the city so much, and MacLennan did an obviously wonderful job of bringing me back there, to the country so close to where I grew up, and to the city which for four years was my home. However, the conflict of two opposing groups is not unique to Canada, and though I'm sure many Americans spend a very miniscule amount of their life thinking about Canada the way the Canadians think about Americans, there is a conflict of the conservatives and the liberals, something which could totally rip us apart, in the upcoming election and the years to come. Canada hasn't made that many strides on their French-English conflict, and our conflict, which is all mired up in race and social class as well, seems to be much more crippling...My God, I have spent so much of the day writing...the sun is going down, the air is cold, fall is definitely here, and as I sit in the half darkness of Keren's living room listening to classical music, I think...I should stop before my brain explodes.:) PPs-46, GGs-39.

I hate writing about books long after I've read them...this seems to be my current trend, which I have pledged to stop. Today, I called out sick from work. I have been extremely sick(my entire "weekend" as it were was spent in bed either sleeping or coughing), but today I am much more on the mend. Keren, however, insisted that I take today off because I never got to do any of my errands that I needed to do this weekend, some of which was an extensive amount of writing, about past GG winners that I have not yet documented. I have not done anything like this since probably college, where I used to skip class all the time to work on homework for other classes, but in a job where I feel like the world will come crashing down if I call out sick(though when others do it, it's kind of sucky but in the long run not usually too big of a deal), it is super rare that I call out sick. However, after this past week's events, if this project is as important to me as I believe that it is, I need to make a pact with myself to keep on top of it more, or the guilt will get to me. It is not too ironic to be writing about Adele Wiseman's The Sacrifice, after having celebrated Yom Kippur less than a week ago. I spent a lot of time during the Days of Awe(the time between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur)thinking about my year and what I would like to do with this coming year to change things for the better, and also spent quite a bit of time thinking about my purpose, which was something Rabbi Jacob talked about a great deal on the Eve of Rosh Hashanah and continued to talk about on the day of Yom Kippur. I firmly believe that one of my purposes in life(I hope that I don't have just one, that would be very singular)is to complete this book project and share with people my findings, and also share with them the books that are rare, out of print, long forgotten on library shelves, in storage areas, that once held such esteem in both American and Canadian literature as to win a nationally recognized prize. Literature tells a story about our cultures whether we want it to or not, and what we choose to recognize or lay aside also demonstrates who we are as a national culture. If something is deemed to be of value to a society, whether as it stands or based upon the impact it will have when read, it is held above, it is awarded a prize. Why so many of these novels have fallen by the wayside even after being so nationally recognized, is a great puzzle to me, and I have been wracking my brain for the answer since this project began. Perhaps, if I am so lucky in the conclusion of this project to interview such people who are on the panels for selection, I may see what they are looking for when they select....Like I've proposed before, is one looking to complete a canon when selecting? To make sure all voices are represented? Or is it just good literature one is seeking? If you're looking to complete a canon, why then are multiple authors selected multiple times? Do they really tell such a different story each time they write? All this aside, I should really talk about Adele Wiseman's book, and why it is so ironic that I am writing about it after all of my reflections during Yom Kippur. Wiseman's book, The Sacrifice, was awarded the Governor General for Fiction in 1956. It is the story of an immigrant family from the Ukraine, who move to the prairies of Midwestern Canada(it is never super clear here where the family settles, but I kind of guess somewhere in Manitoba: Winnipeg has, to this day, one of the largest Jewish communities in Canada[Toronto is #1, Montreal #2, with Vancouver, Ottawa and Calgary being other large Jewish communities], and is also the birthplace of the author)to escape not only a terrible past of sadness and grief but also to find a better life where they are less persecuted and where their only remaining son can find a life and carry on the family name. One of the reasons why this book is so cool and unique is not only because the book writes about a Jewish family and a distinctively Jewish life, but unlike the other truly distinctive book that I've read about a Jewish experience(Philip Roth's book could be considered a book about Jewish life as well, but his, American Pastoral, remarkably reminds me of a Jew trying to assimilate, not celebrating his Jewish life as much), Bernard Malamud's The Fixer, which was remarkable in its story about survival in the face of abuse and discrimination because the main character is a Jew, this story is about a Jewish family living in a Jewish community, where it is quickly assumed that EVERYONE, and I mean EVERYONE that the main characters come in contact with is Jewish. I am trying to rack my brain, but I do not know of any book that I have read in my past that takes place in such a climate. This is amazing to me. At first I was confused, but it is totally different to imagine a world where this is so, and not I suppose, impossible. Keren and I saw a glimpse of this on Friday night, when we went to Rabbi Jacob and his wife Julie's house for dinner. We arrived to find another couple there, a couple we had seen before at synagogue numerous times, and had been introduced, but had never really had the chance to formally talk. In talking with both couples, and they were talking about the people at shul and all of these things Jewish that aren't part of Keren's and my life at all, I came to realize that there is a community, even in Seattle, where assumptions are made about what you know and what you don't as a Jew. And of course, when you are at synagogue it is assumed that you're a Jew, otherwise, why would you be there? What is interesting here as a side note is that Keren, who was born in arguably the most Jewish of all countries, Israel, lacks a lot of this "background" as it were, that these American Jews that we met have. Arguably they have more background because they choose to and also because we were hanging out with a rabbi and his wife, but it also most likely has to do with the fact that both of Keren's parents parents were the survivors of the Holocaust and thus, perhaps because of a loss of faith, did not practice Judaism as much their American Jewry counterparts did. Wow, I am totally digressing.
Back to the book. Wiseman's novel, as previously mentioned, focuses on a uniquely Jewish experience; escape from a pogrom in the Ukraine to living in a distinctly Jewish community most likely somewhere around Winnipeg, Manitoba. It is a basic story, yet a complicated one, based around a father's relationship with his sons. It is the story of Abraham and Isaac, whose names are probably not coincidentally taken from another complicated story from the Old Testament of the relationship between that father and son. Abraham is a butcher who has come to the New World with his wife and son, speaking virtually no English, because they are fleeing persecution in their homeland of the Ukraine. We find out eventually that both of Abraham and Sarah's older sons, Moishe(Moses) and Jacob, were hung by Russian soldiers and left to die after the soldiers had torn through their town, set to exterminate all Jews. Abraham, Sarah and Isaac survive, but only because they are hidden by neighbors which seem good to them, but steal from them while they are hiding...Sarah never seems to recover from the loss of her two sons, and as she ages, her mind only seems to become more feeble. Isaac, therefore, has a lot of expectation resting upon his shoulders, he has everything that was expected of both sons plus his own. He is meant to be a great scholar, religious and otherwise. But, he also has to help his family, since his father's butcher income isn't enough for everything that they need to survive. He is a complicated man, just like his father. Abraham is a man struggling with his memories, his loss, his feelings of guilt for not being a better protector of his sons; he has a wife whom he loves dearly, who is a ghost of what she once was, he has a son whom he wants to give the world, since he is all he has left, but he cannot afford to do what he wants. He is also a man struggling with his God, and how he feels about Him, as he progresses through his life, he is consumed by his relationship with God and his religion and an overpowering amount of guilt. All of this makes for an incredible story, complete with a wealth of secondary characters, including Laiah, the loose woman(for lack of a better term) who will eventually tempt Abraham for the worst; Ruth, Isaac's widow, who in her own anger and frustration drives Abraham to look within himself for his own faults, driving him to madness; Chaim, the wonderful shoichet, who has his own troubles at home, with a wife who constantly finds fault with him and children for whom he has done so much that they have left him behind in their search for wealth, he is a most loyal friend to Abraham even unto the end; there is Polsky, the butcher who gives Abraham a job when he first gets to Canada and is Jewish but with his own strange interpretation of faith. Old Testament stories fill this book, and there are some that are told outright and some of course that are most likely hinted at, but I cannot always know, since my Bible knowledge is not always as strong as I would like. I do know, though, that Isaac is a son who lives in the shadows of the memories of his brothers, and this burden is too much for most people to bear, he is never enough for his father, and when he saves the Torah from the community's burning synagogue, he is a hero, but at his own life's expense; he becomes finally a son that Abraham can be proud of(though arguably Abraham was proud of him all along, he just didn't show it as appropriately), the ultimate preservor of faith, but in living up to this expectation of his father's, it is too much physically for his body to bear. It is this realization, the burden that Abraham placed on his son, via his son's widow Ruth, that eventually drives Abraham to madness and murder, confusing the local strumpet, Laiah, who has become his friend and possible lover, with a sacrificial ram, like in the Abraham and Isaac story in the Bible. Whew. There is a time in the novel, when Abraham is telling his young grandson Moses about the Abraham and Isaac story, and it falls right at the center of the book.

"He named the child Ishmael, and he thought that his son would go in his steps. But he was disappointed again. For Ishmael grew up to be a hunter, and the words of his father went in one of his ears and out the other. He was interested only in roaming through the fields.
"So finally Abraham prayed to God and asked Him what he should do.
"And God said to him, 'Do not worry, for Sarah will yet have a child, and you will name him Itzhok, and he will go in your steps.'
"And it was so. At ninety and nine years Sarah bore a child, and they named him Itzhok."
"I knew," said Moses.
Abraham smiled. "And his father loved him very much, for he grew just as Abraham had wished him to grow."
There was a momentary silence, and Ruth seized the opportunity to empty her basin and splash fresh rinsing water into it.
"But that's not the end," said Moses.
"No," Isaac stirred slightly.
Abraham waited until the tap was turned off again.
"For a while they were happy together. But God had decided that He would test Abraham, to see if he was really as faithful as he should be. So He said to him, 'Go up into the hills; I wish you to make a sacrifice.'
"And Abraham asked Him, 'What shall I sacrifice?'
"And He replied, 'Take with you your son Isaac.'
"When Abraham heard this he said, 'Very well.'"
His grandfather's voice had slowed to a pause again, and Moses leaned forward, his mouth rounded as though to catch the words from his grandfather's lips.
"So he took the boy and went with him to the top of the hills. When they reached the top of the highest hill Isaac said to him, 'What will be your sacrifice, Father?'
"And Abraham said, 'You will, my son.'
"So Isaac looked about him at the blue sky and at the hills and the fields, and at the sun which shone down on him, and he said to Abraham, 'Then bind me tightly lest I struggle and spoil your sacrifice.'
"Then Abraham bound him and laid him down and prepared to do as he had been commanded. And just as he had raised his hand to strike, God called out to him, 'Abraham, look behind you.'
"He looked behind him, and there was a young ram with his horns caught in the bushes.
"'Sacrifice the ram,' God commanded.
"So he sacrificed the ram, and Isaac was saved."
Moses let out his breath slowly. His grandfather was frowning, nodding his head over the words that he had just finished speaking.
"And so," said Isaac, "as a proof of his faith his one God asks him to do the one thing that all his life had seemed most dreadful to him. What had turned him from idol worship? What had he fought against all his life? He finds himself near the end of the circle of his days with his own God asking him if he is willing to make even this surrender. And was he aware of the irony when he said, 'Very well'?"
"What was he not aware of?" said Abraham. "Can you imagine what he felt, with his hand raised to strike? What they all felt? In that moment lay the future of our people, and even more than that. In that moment lay the secrets of life and death, in that closed circle with just the three of them, with Abraham offering the whole of the past and the future, and Isaac lying very still, so as not to spoil the sacrifice, and the glint of the knife and the glare of the sun and the terror of the moment burning into his eyes so that when the time comes many years later when he must in turn bless his sons he is too blind to see that Jacob has again stolen the march on Esau. And God himself is bound at that moment, for it is the point of mutual surrender, the one thing He cannot resist, a faith so absolute. You are right when you say that it is like a circle--the completed circle, when the maker of the sacrifice and the sacrifice himself and the Demander who is the Receiver of the sacrifice are poised together, and life flows into eternity, and for a moment all three are as one.
"That was the moment that even God could not resist, and so He gave us the future."
Isaac shook his head.
"Well, isn't that right?" Abraham laughed, excited, aggressive, as when he was satisfied with the sound and the feel of his words. "He said, 'Kill the ram and let your son live. In him is your future!'"
"Yes," Isaac smiled. "I suppose it's as right as anything else I know." (176-178)

It is the hope and irony all blanketed up in this story that becomes its basis, for I think in part, Abraham does eventually, perhaps subconsciously, sacrifice his own son, making for the title that Adele Wiseman chose. This is another one of those books that ultimately surprises, especially in the end, plot-wise of course, but what really gets me, is the fact that this book is not well read or well known...It's fucking awesome! Instead, I found a used, slightly beat up copy for about a dollar in Jean's church booksale. Now I'm not someone who associates with a ton of big readers, though I have a few friends who are such, NO ONE has heard of this book. Is it because of the religion of the characters? I hope not, the story of a father trying to please his son is universal...and the immigrant experience is also one that is not uncommon, especially to the Canadian/American experience. PPs-46, GGs-38.

As Americans we like to see the spoiled rich kid/person get his comeuppance. We get tired of watching him flaunt his money and not care about the people around him, and we just wish that he would "get what's coming to him." I think this is an especially significant thought given the state of the current economy, which is falling in shambles around us. The "D" word is rearing its ugly head and we're not so sure we're going to be able to put it down...There are people all over the country who are struggling to make ends meet, and there are people who, like Carly Fiorina, have taken millions in "golden parachutes" while thousands went jobless. What's going to happen to all of those corporate executives that lost their jobs, or will lose their jobs due to their being "rendered superfluous" due to the fact that their greed led their company down the path of bankruptcy and being bought out by an even larger bank? Are we, as regular Americans going to cry over them, offer them our pity? No. We're going to be like that character Nelson in the Simpsons and say "Eh-heh!"(or ah-ha! in that "I told you so/you suck" kind of way). Much of what is happening now to the very wealthy, as their financial windfalls go down the proverbial tube, is very reminiscent of Booth Tarkington's The Magnificent Ambersons. Ambersons, the second novel to win a Pulitzer prize(1919) and the first of Tarkington's novels to win the prize(Alice Adams, which I read a while ago won a short three years later in 1922)is a sweeping epic of a wealthy family's demise into deject poverty. It is an excellent book and has been named to the Modern Library's 100 best novels of the 20th century list, and I actually think that it deserves it(at least at this point of my reading career). What I think is important about this novel, as a little background, is it, through the characters lives, shows how the world changed through the turn of the 19th to 20th centuries. This was a big change, the change from horse-drawn carriages to cars, the change from gas lights to electricity, the rise of progress, the rise of the middle class, the rise of pollution. In the midst of all of this is the family the Ambersons, who seem to be at the start of the progress, but get left behind as the progress moves forward. The Ambersons are of old money, the kind that become wealthy due to real estate and then sit on their money forever, reaping the rewards. The grandson, George Amberson Minafer, on whom the book focuses most intently, is the worst kind of spoiled rich kid. His grandfather worked hard to take advantage of real estate market turns, made an insane amount of money, and then went into retirement. Because he was so rich, the rest of the family didn't have to really do shit. They could just live off of grandpa's money, which was what they did; investing in what they thought was good without much business sense, planning on getting richer or, if they didn't, expecting there to be more where it came from. George Amberson Minafer starts out the book as a little boy, who rides his pony and then pony and carriage at a tear through the town(a fictional Midwestern town), not caring who is in his path, and then even laughing if he makes a human fall down or startles another animal. He has the worst kind of attitude, he takes it for granted that his family is the wealthiest in the city and that everyone should be beholden to him, as well as care what he thinks, what he does, he is drunk, even as a young child with a sense of entitlement and of his own power. He is stubborn and pig-headed and is always thinking of what will be best for the family given their "status." You LOVE to hate this guy. Then, George Minafer becomes a young man, and he meets Lucy Morgan at a party. He is instantly enamored, and also possessive. Oftimes one wonders what the hell she sees in him, but they continue to court for a long time. It is during this time that George finds out that Lucy is the daughter of a former beau of his beautiful(and even though she has the VERY unfortunate trait of never seeing any fault with her son, regardless of what anyone says)and still attractive mother. The Morgans(Eugene being the father)have moved back into town after living elsewhere for a long time, and Eugene wants to get in to the car production business. George of course scoffs at the idea, thinking that cars are just a passing fad(HOW WRONG HE IS!), and never takes Eugene and his ever increasing fortune seriously, because of course he is so wrapped up in himself! It is only when gossip starts to amount around him about his now widowed mother and Mr. Morgan that he begins to become upset and take charge, since no one can ruin the Amberson name! So concerned with the possible ruin of the family's good name(and also, though perhaps subconsciously the loss of the total and complete attention of his mother), he refuses to let his mother associate with Eugene(who wants to marry his mother), which even though she complies willingly because for her the sun rises and sets in her son, it is emotionally devastating, and while the wealth of the Ambersons is eclipsed by other families that work for their money, that create wealth through business...during this time George Amberson Minafer goes to college, but doesn't really try to achieve anything because he doesn't feel that he needs to, in his words:
'"Lucy," he said, finally, with cold dignity, "I should like to ask you a few questions." [break] "Yes?" [break] "The first is: Haven't you perfectly well understood that I don't mean to go into business or adopt a profession?"[break]"I wasn't quite sure," she said gently. "I really didn't know--quite."[break] "Then of course it's time I did tell you. I never have been able to see any occasion for a man's going into trade, or being a lawyer, or any of those things if his position and family were such that he didn't need to. You know, yourself, there are a lot of people in the East--in the South, too for that matter--that don't think we've got any particular family or position or culture in this part of the country. I've met plenty of that kind of provincial snobs myself, and they're pretty galling. There were one or two men in my crowd at college, their families had lived on their income for three generations, and they never dreamed there was anybody in their class out here. I had to show them a thing or two, right at the start, and I guess they won't forget it! Well, I think it's time all their sort found out that three generations can mean just as much out here as anywhere else. That's the way I feel about it, and let me tell you I feel it pretty deeply!" [break] "But what are you going to do, George?" she cried.[break] George's earnestness surpassed hers; he had become flushed and his breathing was emotional. As he confessed, with simple genuineness, he did feel what he was saying "pretty deeply"; and in truth his state approached the tremulous. "I expect to live an honourable life," he said. "I expect to contribute my share to charities, and to take part in--in movements." [break] "What kind?" [break] "Whatever appeals to me," he said. [break] Lucy looked at him with grieved wonder. "But you really don't mean to have any regular business or profession at all?" [break] "I certainly do not!" George returned promptly and emphatically.' (131-132). It is at this point that Lucy sincerely starts to distance herself from him. He continues to live off of his family's money and deludes himself into believing that his family has clout, while it is the families like the Morgans that continue to make money in the industrial boom that surpass his family in wealth. When his mother, and then his grandfather die and leave the family penniless...he has to take a job in a plant that makes explosives; it's dangerous work, but he needs it to give his aunt a quality of life that's slightly better than complete poverty. In an ironic twist, while hurrying to work, he is hit by a car(which he poo-poos for most of the books), and it is the Morgans(Eugene, who was devastated by the loss of George's mother, both when she was alive as she was forced to distance herself from Eugene because of George, and of course at her actual death; and Lucy, who never married after her courtship with George)who get over their own feelings and help him out, they forgive. Will the U.S. taxpayers be so kind to those who have fallen due to the economy? I dunno, greed will only get you so far. I think one of the best scenes in the book is when George looks in his boarding house lobby(before his accident) and sees a newly printed book with "the title: "A Civic History" and beneath the title, the rubric, "Biographies of the 500 Most Prominent Citizens and Families in the History of the City." (246) It nags at him to look at it, and wonder...he finally does and when he does, his family's name is not there. "The elevator boy noticed nothing unusual about him and neither did Fanny, when she came in from church with her hat ruined, an hour later. And yet something had happened--a thing which, years ago, had been the eagerest hope of many, many good citizens of the town. They had thought of it, longed for it, hoping acutely that they might live to see the day when it would come to pass. And now it had happened at last: Georgie Minafer had got his come-upance. [break] He had got it three times filled, and running over. The city had rolled over his heart, burying it under, as it rolled over the Major's and buried it under. The city had rolled over the Ambersons and buried them under to the last vestige; and it mattered little that George guessed easily enough that most of the five hundred Most Prominent had paid something substantial "to defray the cost of steel engraving, etc."--the Five Hundred had heaved the final shovelful of soot upon that heap of obscurity wherein the Ambersons were lost forever from sight and history. "Quicksilver in a nest of cracks!" [break] Georgie Minafer had got his come-upance, but the people who had so longed for it were not there to see it, and they never knew it. Those who were still living had forgotten all about it and all about him. (247) The book could have ended here, but of course it doesn't, and the Morgans get to show their forgiveness, amazing in the face of how George treated them. I just wonder how forgiving the American people will be after this economic crisis pans out??? PPs-46, GGs-37.

This is a part 1 of 2. I have read both of the books I need to write about a fairly long time ago(in relation to this post), but I haven't had time to devote to writing a blog about either of them. Now with library fees mounting and mounting, I need to get something down so that I don't forget these books a few years from now when I sit down to write a memoir about reading all of these books. The two books in question are Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson and The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington. I have also read Adele Wiseman's The Sacrifice in the past few weeks, but I own that novel, so I'm not as much on a time crunch as with the other two. Out of those two library stragglers, James Alan McPherson's book is the most recent win in the Pulitzer chain(winner in 1978) and I read that one earlier, about a month ago now. But, time passes and I get busy; it's a book that I also wasn't super into documenting, because I was a little disappointed by it. I wrote a review for amazon.com on the book, but I must admit that I was a little more judicious towards the collection of short stories because all of the other people who reviewed it thought it was AMAZING, or at least very very good. I think it's getting to be important that I don't read reviews of books before I start a book because perhaps it is biasing me towards having expectations that are unrealistic. Well, let's get to what McPherson's book is about, mostly so that I won't forget. Elbow Room is a collection of short stories that mainly focuses on relationships between black and white people and blacks themselves. The concept of the stories is very interesting and the stories themselves are even very good, but they are not, unfortunately, in the same league as some of the other short story collections I've read so far for this project, like Jhumpa Lahiri's work or Robert Olen Butler, or Mavis Gallant...not to mention others, like the ever illustrious Alice Munro or even Greg Hollingshead. I think McPherson's book is important, and as I'm seeing the project unfold, what is interesting is that it contributes to the PP canon sensibly, meaning it fullfills an integral part of the American experience that hasn't been documented in that fashion yet. If you look at the Pulitzer Prize history as a patchwork quilt, which I am starting to feel like I am(same for the Canadian award)then it has it's place, just like the faded t-shirt with the Black power logo on it would in a quilt depicting the history of the American people. There are some stories in the collection that are pretty good:

"The Story of a Scar" is a really interesting story of love and youth and how things can go awry really fast if you don't play your hand in love the best way or you choose the wrong person with which to share your love...A man and woman are sitting in a doctor's office and the man asks the woman how she got the scar on her face and she begins to unfold this story about her relationship with a man who is too possessive and when she decides, in not the best way, to start hanging out with another man who is definitely a "playa" her face meets some unfortunate consequences that will be etched into her literally and figuratively forever. The woman says at one point in the beginning of the story "'I was pretty once,' she began, sniffing heavily. 'When I was about sixteen my mama's preacher was set to leave his wife and his pulpit and run off with me to Deetroit City. Even with this scar and all the weight I done put on, you can still see what I had.' She paused. 'Cain't you?' she asked significantly" (121). You can sense the desperation in this comment even better when you read the complete story and see a woman who is searching for love in all the wrong places...

"A Loaf of Bread" is also a great story about those who have and those who have not...A grocer, Harold Green, is caught selling his groceries for more in the crappy ass poor section of L.A. than in the other more well-off neighboorhoods(he has three stores). His argument is that it is because the neighborhood is so unsafe that he has to spend more to keep the store, with bars on the windows and other security measures. The citizens of this poor neighboorhood organize against him and protest and even get press coverage. Green's wife finally suggests that he have the store open one day and give everything away for free, but Green doesn't want to do it at all, he is stubborn and even somewhat blinds himself to the situation before him with this store. Nelson Reed is a neighborhood man who organizes the people of the neighborhood against the store and Mr. Green, and they even have a public debate on television...The short story juxtaposes between Mr. Green and his wife and their side of the story and Mr. Reed and his wife and their side of the story. The animosity between the two men builds and builds and builds. Finally one Saturday morning, Mr. Green opens his store, having given the two employees he has the day off, and expecting very few customers. His first customer, somehow, with her smile unleashes a wave of goodwill, and Mr. Green tells her that her goods are free. Word spreads and everyone comes into the store from that neighborhood to get the free groceries. They come in and fight over each other to get things and take things out of each other's hands. Mr. Reed is one of the first people into the store, but leaves without buying anything. Finally, Harold Green is standing alone by himself, in the midst of all this destruction, and Nelson Reed comes in.
"The grocer waved his arms about the empty room. Not a display case had a single item standing. 'All gone,' he said again, as if addressing a stupid child. 'There is nothing left to get. You, my friend, have come back too late for a second load. I am cleaned out.' [paragraph break] Nelson Reed stepped into the store and strode toward the counter. He moved through wine-stained flour, lettuce leaves, red, green, and blue labels, bits and pieces of broken glass. He walked toward the counter. [para break] 'All day,' the grocer laughed, not quite hysterically now, 'all day long I have not made a single cent of profit. The entire day was a loss. This store, like the others, is bleeding me.' He waved his arms about the room in a magnificent gesture of uncaring loss. 'Now do you understand?' he said. 'Now will you put yourself in my shoes? I have nothing here. Come, now, Mr. Reed, would it not be so bad a thing to walk in my shoes?' [break] 'Mr. Green,' Nelson Reed said coldly. 'My wife bought a loaf of bread in here this mornin'. She forgot to pay you. I, myself, have come here to pay you your money.' [break] 'Oh,' the grocer said. [break] 'I think it was brown bread. Don't that cost more than white?' [break] The two men looked away from each other, but not at anything in the store.[break] 'In my store, yes,' Harold Green said. He rang the register with the most casual movement of his finger. The register read fifty-five cents. [break] Nelson Reed held out a dollar. [break] 'And two cents tax,' the grocer said. [break] The man held out the dollar. [break] 'After all,' Harold Green said, 'We are all, after all, Mr. Reed, in debt to the government.' [break] He rang the register again. It read fifty-seven cents. [break] Nelson Reed held out a dollar." (210-211) This concludes the story, and it is moving and loaded with meaning.

My favorite story, though, has to be the first one, "Why I Like Country Music." It starts off with this great quote "No one will believe that I like country music. Even my wife scoffs when told such a possibility exists. 'Go on!' Gloria tells me. 'I can see blues, bebop, maybe even a little buckdancing. But not bluegrass.' Gloria says, 'Hillbilly stuff is not just music. It's like the New York Stock Exchange. The minute you see a sharp rise in it, you better watch out.'" The narrator goes on to counter that argument, and describes his childhood in South Carolina, when a beautiful little girl comes into his fourth grade class. She is Northern born, like the narrator's wife, and thus has even more exocitism than just her looks. To South Carolina blacks, the North was this amazingly different yet wonderful place. The narrator says: "You must know that in those days older folks would point to someone and say, 'He's from the North,' and the statement would be sufficient in itself. Mothers made their children behave by advising that, if they led exemplary lives and attended church regularly, when they died they would go to New York. Only someone who understands what London meant to Dick Whittington, or how California and the suburbs function in the national mind, could appreciate the mythical dimensions of this Northlore." (12-13) The story continues to talk about a young boy's love/crush on this little girl and how his only real chance to be close to her is through square dancing. And he does everything he can to be this girl's partner in the square dancing or in the maypole, one of the two activities for the class in their spring activities. His love, Gweneth Larson, is going to maypole, so he wants to maypole too, but he gets picked for square dancing, so he gets his dad involved in making the teacher switch him(there's great descriptions of the teacher too, that remind you of any bossy no-nonsense grade school teacher you've ever had)to maypole. At the last minute Gweneth gets switched over to square dancing and his plans are thwarted. She is to dance with the narrator's arch enemy! But at the last minute, Leon Hugh(the archenemy)has spurs on his shoes(a costume addition given to him by his brother)and the teacher makes him go to take them off. The narrator is given his chance! And of course this dance is never forgotten. And the narrator concludes by saying "I do remember quite well that during the final promenade before the record ended, Gweneth stood beside me and I said to her in a voice much louder than that of the caller, 'When I get up to Brooklyn I hope I see you.' But I do not remember what she said in response. I want to remember that she smiled. [break] I know I smiled, dear Gloria. I smiled with the lemonness of her and the loving of her pressed deep into those saving places of my private self. It was my plan to savor these, and I did savor them. But when I reached New York, many years later, I did not think of Brooklyn. I followed the old, beaten, steady paths into uptown Manhattan. By then I had learned to dance to many other kinds of music. And I had forgotten the savory smell of lemon. But I think sometimes of Gweneth now when I hear country music. And although it is difficult to explain to you, I still maintain that I am no mere arithmetician in the art of the square dance. I am into the calculus of it. [break] 'Go on!' you will tell me, backing into your Northern mythology. 'I can see the hustle, the hump, maybe even the Ibo highlife. But no hillbilly.' [break] These days I am firm about arguing the point, but, as always, quietly, and mostly to myself." (30-31)

Like I said before, there were some great stories in this collection, and now that I'm going through it, perhaps I should rate the collection a bit higher, but it is still not like some of the others I've already mentioned. However, in the quilt it will remain, threaded together with all the other books of American life that came before it and all that have come since.

Perhaps Edna Ferber and Gwethalyn Graham are going to be my two lost sisters of literature. They, so far are the two most underappreciated and undervalued women writers I have come across since I started this project. I just finished, today, Edna Ferber's So Big. It was amazing! It makes me want to read all of her other books right away(however I'm sitting on a James Alan McPherson and a Booth Tarkington that need to go back to the library...). On a tangential note, when I was living in upstate NY, working at that resort in the middle of nowhere, I looked and looked for novels about farm life, since I'm not so shyly obsessed with farm life and books about it. I couldn't find anything while roaming the search engines at the library. Perhaps I just wasn't plugging in the right words...So Big is a farm novel, as well as a novel about the development of the Chicago area around the turn of the 20th century. It is also a novel about people and their expectations of life and then what they do with those expectations when they truly realize how life is going to go...:) Ferber's main character Selina DeJong is a great character. She grows up with a gambling father who manages to keep her in nice clothes and good schools even when his luck is down, and books are her main source of her companionship. Perhaps this leads to too many romantic notions, but when her father unexpectedly dies, leaving her with no real path in the world, she goes off to be a schoolteacher in High Prairie, IL; the country in what was then turn of the 20th C. Chicago...She gets the job through the father of her best friend Julie Hempel, who is of meat-packing fame and fortune(will hit for a little while a skid during the muckracking of which of course The Jungle will feature). She lives out there for a year and in that time meets a local farmer, who is handsome and sweet but thoroughly unimaginative(very unlike Selina, who when she first goes out to High Prairie with Klaus Pool, the patriarch of the family with which she will board while she is still single, comments on the beauty of the cabbages along the way and calls them "chrysoprase and porphyry" and Mr. Pool cannot help laughing, it becomes a joke between the farmers for the rest of the book, the joke will be on them though.). Pervus DeJong is the handsome bachelor of the area, and the most desirable, but he is also the most unimaginative farmer who is clearly not determined to get ahead and takes Selina's ideas to be folly when she suggests "new-fangled notions" about farming. Selina sticks it out, though, and it is clear that she loves him in her way and he worships her; but her romantic notions, though not quashed are put aside in favor of survival on a Midwestern farm. The couple has a son, Dirk, and it is into him that Selina throws all of her romantic ideals and desires; she wishes for him all the best and will get it for him. This becomes much more feasible when, sadly enough, Pervus dies. It is she who has to take over the family farm and make the money. She is determined and like a shrewd businesswoman, takes advantage of a niche market in selling beautiful, perfect vegetables to wholesalers who then go on to sell to hotels. She never ever loses her zest for life, her excitement for it, even when she is on the farm. She wishes to hear all the stories her son can tell of life in the big city at the fancy parties, what people eat, what they wear. She even travels to Chicago occasionally for a vacation where she explores all areas, even the places where the blacks are starting to become more prevalent and in the novel it is hinted that the area is less savory especially to the likes of the people that her son Dirk, now grown up, hangs out with. Dirk goes to an okay university, and does fine, but conforms to societal standards, living within them and has no real passion for anything. It is this that does not make him or even his worshipper, his mother, proud. What is interesting to think about here is what this means, and how this happens all the time even now...A parent works and works to climb their way to the top and give their children the best, wanting them to be like them, but perhaps because they don't HAVE to work so hard for everything and they aren't forced to work to survive, they have no real appreciation or love for anything. Perhaps when you are put in a situation where you are against odds then it begins to create that passion in you...I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA. All I know is that when Dirk finally does fall in love(even though his childhood playmate as it were, Paula Storm, of the Hempel line and he have a very significant non-affair, at least perhaps not in the sexual way, but they hang out together ALL THE TIME...)with an artist, her main argument against being with him is because he never really had to struggle for what he believed in, and lacks passion. She even tells him that if he HAD worked at the crappy architectural firm he started at before he got whisked into opportunity after opportunity with friends)and worked his way up, struggling with crappy pay to finally make a beautiful SOMETHING that improved the skyline of Chicago, she would admire him more. HE DOESN'T GET IT! He tells her that if it would make a difference he would go back!!! She talks in the same conversation though, of how admirable his MOTHER is. The woman who still holds her head high, and still works the field. And, the characteristics he admires in the woman(Dallas O'Mara), are that of a working girl(nails unkempt, etc.) and that she is proud of those features/doesn't care about them as much as the other uppity society women that he hangs out with. The most interesting bit is the end when Roelf Pool, the only bit of artistic genius that High Prairie has ever seen, who left High Prairie after his father remarried to struggle in Paris and become a world-renowned sculptor, returns to his first real mentor, Selina, after years and years and years. It is bittersweet and beautiful. Selina, who never left the farm, makes such an amazing impact on all she comes across. There's more to think about there...but I'm not going to do it today, I'm tired of typing....What is impressive though is this is the same woman who wrote Showboat, Cimarron, and Giant, and no one today has even heard of her. She is, I guess, known for her strong female characters. Well here's one to think about for a long time.:) She was also considered one of the most preeminent authors for about thirty years surrounding her publications...How come we don't read her anymore???There's a lost sisterhood: Gwethalyn Graham, Edna Ferber, Shirley Ann Grau...I'm sure I'll discover others. Maybe some day I'll be lucky enough to do work in women's studies and make a course featuring all of these women...Until then, I'll just keep plugging away and discovering...:) PPs-44, GGs-37.

On a completely random note, I seem to be having a hard time counting the number of books I've read for this project. I keep highlighted lists in a folder(hard copy style) and I have it through here, I guess, but of course I always have my excel sheet to look at. My last entry said I had read 42 Pulitzer Prize winners, but I just counted on Wikipedia, and unless I'm missing someone, even though I just finished Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, this year's winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, I'm still at 42. Very very odd.
Anywho...:) I must say that I'm very glad that I have such a diverse wealth of experience. Perhaps not such a huge wealth of life experience, but let's just say this: I know a little bit about a lot of things, and it definitely helps when reading a book like Oscar Wao. It's about a boy who becomes a man, named Oscar Wao, a Dungeons and Dragons playing, comic book reading Dominican fat kid(do all of these epithets go together when talking about a Dominican boy? The narrator seems to say no, but my experience with people from the DR is limited, I have one friend from culinary school who is from there and who returned to work and live there after she graduated, I'm going to tell her about the book and maybe she'll read it...she was pretty unhappy when she read the depiction of the Mirabel sisters in In the Time of the Butterflies, but I dunno, maybe this is truer to life?)who is obsessed with women. And given his rather robust appearance and his inherited not-so-much looks, he can never get laid. He has all the machismo of the Dominican male without the looks to go along with the "player" attitude. To boot, he throws himself into this world of sci-fi/fantasy, writing his own novels, obsessing over comic books and anime and everything else that that dorky world entails. And let me say this fellas, most girls aren't into that shit. Some like parts of it, some ARE D&D geeks too, but I don't think I've ever met a woman who is so head over heels in love with the gamers/comic book world like some men are. I know a little bit about a lot of that stuff because over the years I've had several male friends that are into that stuff on various levels; comic books and comic book superheroes are the top pick for my two closest guy friends, but since I'm a card-carrying lesbian, I have no problem being friends with people who are into that stuff. They're not trying to get into my pants, and I AM CERTAINLY not trying to get into theirs.:) Most women, though, don't care about that stuff at all, though, they'll go to the new Batman movie, because it's the "it" movie of the summer, but they aren't generally going to sit in the car with a boy afterward and talk about the nuances of the differences between Bruce Wayne in the comic book versus his portrayal in the latest Hollywood release. So, if you're morbidly obese, not super attractive, and are constantly spouting gamer lingo, and you're heterosexual, odds are, you're NOT screwed. That's the point. However, Oscar's constant searching for love is endearing, if not depressing as the book progresses. You want him to be in love so badly, which he is constantly, but you want him to be loved back...which he isn't. His propensity for love is so great...The book is not only about Oscar though, it is about the term "fuku"(with an accent aigu over the last u) or "curse" and what that does to a family, if there really is one...and it's about the fuku on the Dominican people and their history with Trujillo, something that I knew very little about until I read this book. In order to make the reader realize how the idea of fuku translates into Oscar's love life, or lack thereof, the narrator, presumably an ex-boyfriend of Oscar's sister, Lola, goes back in time to show how FUCKED the Wao family has been. He travels back to the Dominican Republic in time, to show what it was like during the Trujillo realm for Oscar's mother, whose entire immediate family got annihilated by Trujillo, mainly because her father refused to submit to the dictator's will regarding the virginity of his eldest daughter...Some references are in footnotes, to different people in the Trujillo regime, etc...but a large chunk of the novel is told through flashback to La Inca(Oscar's mother's cousin cum mother)'s life and Oscar's mother's life before she moved to the United States. The book shows us all the time how everyone's life is a spinoff of someone else's life and how interconnected we all are, and how like dominoes, we can be propelled forward by a chain of events that are sometimes out of our control. I loved this book. I love Hispanic culture and how the heat in some of these areas creates tempers that are just as hot? hmm...All I know is that I have a little bit of a thing for the literature from Hispanic cultures, especially that of the Dominican/Haitian/South American bent. There's something about the creativity that comes out when you've been kicked in the head so long by dictators that's really inspiring. More of this book takes place in the DR than you would think, but that's cool too. I think that part of what makes someone "American"(since after all, the Pulitzer is supposed to award people who depict some aspect of American life) is the fact that you're constantly reconciling your past to your present. I loved all the references, the phrases in Spanish, Oscar's obsession with The Watchmen. I felt like I was sharing in this part of a culture that I know nothing about. However, when I was talking to people at work about this book, one co-worker in particular didn't like the book because of all of the references. She felt like it was a secret handshake that she just didn't get or something. She thought the book dragged and was boring as well as hard to follow with all the narrators. I didn't really get that it was hard to follow in terms of narrators, but then again, my love for modernism has compelled me to read many a stream of consciousness novel. I didn't find this to be confusing like that. Though, I thought about this after the fact quite a bit: I started it and almost finished it(was shy by about 60 pages)in one weekend, devoting hour after hour to this book. I think that I had the time to sit with it and enjoy the experience. I'm not so sure this is a good book in the spurts that usually come when you're taking your reading stints where you can get them. I don't know that I would have even heard of this book had it not won the Pulitzer, which is sad, for it is very good...I'm, for some reason, much more with it when it comes to new Canadian literature. It doesn't help, either, that the Pulitzer nominees aren't advertised in advance. I think that would be cool to help hype it up. What I do like is this book may have its uppity characteristics(you can tell the author/speaker is educated), it's about poor people who are of immigrant background of one of the not so desirable racial classes. The Pulitzer is at least, with this book and others, showing that the "American life" that is written about and can win awards is not necessarily the "White Man"'s American life.:) PPs-43??, GG's-37.

Reconciling why something wins a prestigious literary award is one thing, figuring out why some books, in the years that pass, get chucked to the wayside and others get put on high school/college level reading lists for eternity, is an entirely different ball of wax.:) We've all read tons of books for classes that some higher authority, whether it be a high school curriculum or a university English Department, has deemed noteworthy that winds up being a boring piece of shit, or not nearly as interesting as The Da Vinci Code(and with this statement I'm not offering up The Da Vinci Code as the prime example of great American literature, it's just fuel for my fire), or irrelevant to our generation or any other generation's lives.
When I got ready to do this project I was prepared to read several books like the ones I've just described, boring pieces of irrelevant crap. I must say I've been pleasantly surprised. Sure, there have been some duds, books that definitely weren't my favorites, but there's been something of merit almost every novel I've read so far for these lists(and I'm more than halfway now), and an overwhelming majority of them I never would have read unless it was on these lists, books that I had never heard of otherwise or didn't really hold any outward interest for me. In the midst of not really being disappointed by anything I've read so far, I've found some amazing gems, books that are hidden from the general public due to their out-of-date/out-of-print status. I know I've gone crazy over the Gwethalyn Graham novels that won the GG in the late 30's and mid 40's and others from that era that have been sitting in some library's storage facility for the past 30-40 years, but I've got another one that was quite, quite good. This one is G. Herbert Sallans' Little Man. It won the Governor General in 1942. I could find nothing on this book before I began to read it, except, after I scrolled through Google Search Results page after page, I finally found two sentences about the plot, and now that I go look for it again, I'm sure it won't be there...:) The two sentence description said something about the fact that it was about a father and son's experience with war...but it is so much more than that. It is a 420 page tome about a man's life and experience as he lives through one of the most tumultous periods in history. George Battle, the protagonist, starts off in Chapter 1 as a gunner in the trenches in France in WWI, a young guy who has idolized war all his life but has no real clue about what to do once he gets there. Then Chapter 2 shows his son visiting George's brother's grave, his namesake, Hal, who died in France during the first war. Then the book goes back to the very beginning as it were, to George when he is a little kid growing up at the turn of the 20th century. His mother has died and his father leaves him and his older brother and sister with relatives to make money and then returns to claim them and start a new life out West with their Uncle Jim and Aunt Sadie in Saskatchewan. We watch George all through his growing up, and his interactions with Jim and Sadie's daughter Pitch, who will dog George until the end of the novel, she who wants him but pursues him utterly wrong, then when she loses him, she sets herself on trying to destroy his marriage however she can, but it only serves to make her look bitter and pathetic. George goes to Winnipeg to attend university and follow his dreams of becoming a writer, meets his soon-to-become lifelong friend Bo, and then eventually goes off to WWI, following in the footsteps of his brother Hal. George does this while there is a boom in farming and speculation that then comes crashing down like a house of cards in the early part of the 20th century, and the book's background always sets up the other worldly events that came to shape up the first half of last century...George goes to war only to find out that his brother is already dead, ends up running into Bo, and through him meets the woman of his dreams, Josephine Olive Yorke(Joy), an Englishwoman, living in London, who he will briefly court and then marry and who is his lifelong rock and partner. She is amazing, almost like a Melanie from Gone With the Wind...George comes back to Canada after the war, moves to Vancouver and works for a newspaper, writing about the little man and his struggles, for freedom, for equality, for financial security, for the little man to be heard. For, George is the epitome of the little man, one realizes as the book progresses. He can write, surely, but he is not loaded with old family money, he is not rich due to his own career path, he is pretty much an average guy who gets lucky by the situations he falls into. But, he too is not unfamiliar with tragedy, and he too saves his best friend from a shell attack in France, and he too has to watch his family members fall either to old age, illness or accidents. Sallans creates in George Battle not only the Little Man, but the Everyman...which is why I found this book engaging possibly, as well as the style is pretty easy to read and the characters are interesting...:) The other thing that I like about this book is it was written about a time that is so proximate to the publication date. The book ends with the start of World War II, and the book was published in 1942. There is not this long distance hindsight that comes from novels written even after the war and to the present day. When Sallans wrote about the Depression, it was only a few short years behind him. The first World War had ended less than three decades prior. Sallans, like my favorite, Gwethalyn Graham, is writing about the time in which he was living, a tumultous time, a scary and strange time, but with the wisdom of someone who has lived beyond it and since. To me, this book seems timeless and true, and yet the only way I got a copy of it was through interlibrary loan from the Tulsa City-County Library in Tulsa, OK, a far cry from Seattle, WA. It was another book that was sitting in storage before I requested it. And now it is almost two weeks overdue...Yikes! Wanna read a cool, all encompassing book about the first half of the 20th C. spanning all kinds of provinces and countries? This would be a great choice.
There are two quotes I particularly like...One is almost an entire page, 248, in the first edition copy I have from the library:
'"But who would ever write a book about us? And why?' 'Because we're commonplace, George. If you were prominent, you wouldn't be worth mentioning. Neither would I. But we're typical of the herd, so we're good book material.' 'But you've got to give people inspiration. That's all most of them have to live for. What's the use of telling them about themselves?' 'Because you can never lift your little man into the stars by making him feel like a palooka. He may be the poorest heel on earth, but there comes a time when he parts his hair and wants to stand before the crowd as a peer. Do I make myself clear?' 'As clear as mud,' George confessed. 'What I mean is this. We have no national literature worth reading for the same reason that we have no national culture of any value, and no national traditions. We try to ape other people. Outside a few things on forests and streams, and bits about Indians who were here before us, the rest of our stuff is the same old slavish worship of the aristocracy, of which we have none, and of success, which we measure by the length of time it takes the hero to get rich.' 'If you're right, Bo, Shakespeare was wrong.' 'With just this difference, my old one. Shakespeare was the Gilbert and Sullivan of his times. He dragged out his tinhorn dukes and fake top-hats and exposed them for the cheap farces they were. We haven't conceded that yet. That's why any literature we have on this soil can't tolerate the little man, and anyone with perspicacity, like yourself, knows that no worthwhile literature can get along without him. We're too self-conscious. We're so afraid we'll be recognized for what we really are, that we either dress up our little fellow like a god or we clown him and make him a boor.'"

The other quote I liked was much shorter, though also interesting. "'Here is my life,' he whispered to himself, 'reaching another chapter, another clean break-away from the past. Always breaking. Is there anyone whose life has been connected all of a piece, who can look back down the little lane of his years and say, 'This is my life.'--No, that is not so. Our lives are fashioned out of separate links, all foreign to one another, and only memory and sentiment can weld them together. There is no other welding.'" (266)

These kinds of books make me excited, like I'm on this archeological dig of literature and that I now found this super-valuable rare work that no one else knows about...But like I said, it also makes me sad, because if that's true and I AM the only one to know about it, then everyone else is missing out! and what else am I missing out on by having been a student of structured English programs? Well, I'm sure I'll have more opportunities to delve into this idea as I keep on trucking...GG's-38, PP's-42.

So, it's been a while since I've blogged, but it's also been a while since I've finished a book, which will be especially evident when I return this one, The Champlain Road by Franklin D. McDowell. It won the GG in 1939, and this copy that I just finished last night(finally!) was from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. It was due June 13th, and what is the date today? July 1. I am charged 25 cents a day for overdue fines. I'm not excited about getting the final tally.:( The Champlain Road ended up being not too bad, although it was certainly boring for a lot of the time, until about the last 100 pages. Although that could have been because I was compelled to finish it on my days off this week so that I could return it. I'm in library hell right now! I have another book that I just started called Little Man which won the GG in 1942, and it's due TODAY at the library. It is from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I have my first book club meeting next Monday(in 6 days!) and I haven't read that book either. Not to mention the scads of other books taking up space in Keren's closet that have various due dates. All of this put wicked pressure on me to finish The Champlain Road. I was actually a bit dismayed, too, because my parents decided to come, for the first time in over 3 years, to visit and I'm so inundated with the books that I really just wanted to spend the weekend reading. But, I finished it...And now another one is crossed off the list. The Champlain Road is one of the books on the GG list that I had a really hard time finding out anything about it. There are quite a few of the early winners that there is NO information about at all, except that they won the award in a particular year. I finally found something on the book buried in someone's thesis on someone else. I hit Ctrl+F to get at it in the University of New Brunswick student's paper. I think it's interesting, and also somewhat sad that there are so many of these books that just get forgotten. The Champlain Road was kind of on the boring side, but it made some interesting points, and referenced a time in history that we definitely don't talk about much. The book takes place for the most part in between the years of 1648 and 1650, when the Iroquois extermination of the Hurons was at its peak to final conclusion. I know nothing about any of the Native Americans and their relations at this time and any time we spent on this in history class growing up was focused on the U.S. relations with the Native Americans, not the Canadian. The title of the book, The Champlain Road comes from the name of a "road" about 700 miles long of waterways and portages that Samuel de Champlain used to go from New France to Huronia in 1615. It was the northernmost passage of three routes and by the time the book opens, it has been all but closed off by the Iroquois. The back story on the fight between the Iroquois and the Hurons is that the Hurons used to be part of the Iroquois nation(what is now New York State is for the most part where the Iroquois lived, the Hurons lived up by Georgian bay in what is now Simcoe County, Ontario.), but they chose to ally with the French who came as missionaries to their land and trade with them. The French began to convert them to Catholicism and the Hurons also became wealthier because of the lucrativeness of the fur trade that the French were engaging with them. The Iroquois were pissed off and thus started war on the Iroquois. The book takes place long after this war has begun and focuses on the Frenchmen, for the most part priests, but also one or two soldiers or traders, who are trying to preserve the Huron people and their way of life, in the face of almost certain extermination. What amazed me were these missionary priests who came from France to the New World completely sold on the fact that they would become martyrs for the cause, several of course did. It is their passion for God and their passion towards the safety and health of the Natives that is heartbreaking in this book, as they systematically are slaughtered or burned at the stake or tortured and then meeting these fates, all the while praying to God for the salvation of the Huron people. Then there are the civilians, Godfrey Bethune, a soldier in New France who is stationed with troops in Huronia(Ouendake)to defend Fort Ste. Marie against Iroquois invasion. He is looking for a seigneury, but he befriends the priests and the Hurons and lives amongst them. Diana Woodville is the clear heroine, named Hinonaia, by the Hurons, or Little Thunder, she was captured by the Iroquois as a young child and they, believing she was the descendant of one of their gods, would never trade her back to white people, no matter what the price offered. It is her defect to the Huron people, to live with Godfrey at Fort Ste. Marie, that eventually gives them some victory. She escapes to no longer be part of that Iroquois world, to no longer be the goddess behind battle, but creates much dissension in the Huron camp because of Arakoua, a Native princess who sees Diana as stealing her man Godfrey's heart after Diana rescued him from the Iroquois camp and ran away with him. Diana has to go to war against the Iroquois herself to prove where her loyalties lie, and as well, she provides the true insight into the minds of the Iroquois warriors that hitherto the Hurons and French have not had. It finally, though it is the evening of war, rapidly approaching the end, gives them a leg up in battle. Diana and Godfrey fall in love because of or in spite of all of this too, which is sweet as it is condoned by the priests who witness their passion for the people that they all share. A couple of really great quotes from the end stood out: "Diana looked at the grey faces. 'Ahouendoe is behind us, Father. It is a day that is gone.' 'The past is that which is part of us. It is something peculiarly our own. It makes us what we are,' Father Ragueneau admonished her. 'And what we shall be in the days to come,' Father Le Mercier added. 'If there were no living past, my daughter, there could be no true religion.'" (309) The other quote from the book that I thought was interesting, may be an explanation for why there is a cross sitting on top of Mount Royal in the city of Montreal...:) "The voyageurs skirted the Island of Montreal to sight a low group of buildings on the flatlands by the river, with Mount Royal rising majestically in the background, its tree-clad heights surmounted by a great white cross. Godfrey pointed it out to Diana. 'That was carried up by Maisonneuve[governor of New France] less than a year ago. The river overflowed and threatened to sweep away the fort. He vowed that if the waters receded without doing further damage he would carry that cross himself up the mountain and plant it there. The river fell back and he carried out his vow.'" (316) There is still a cross(an electric one) on top of Mount Royal in Montreal to this day. This book was interesting in that it filled in some gaps in history that I knew nothing about, and the author in this "Huronian edition" which was published in 1949 talks about what has been excavated in terms of old Forts from this era, especially since the book was published and created interest in this area of Western Ontario. This is an era of history that should not have been forgotten(as no history should be forgotten)and it is a pity nothing can be found about this book. It wasn't always super interesting, but it values a part of history that made a huge difference in the making of the Canadian nation. GGs-37, PPs-42.

The Pied Piper of Dipper Creek by Thomas H. Raddall, winner of the GG in 1943, is the first interlibrary loan I've gotten in a really long time. I was feeling the itch to get a book from elsewhere, just because it's fun to see where books come from when an interlibrary loan. This one didn't come from that far at all, Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA. (just about an hour away), but the interesting thing is PLU is where Hilary Clinton spoke when she came to the Seattle area, so that's why I'm familiar with the school, the only reason why I'm familiar with the school. The book was in crappy shape, binding was totally shot, and the last few pages kept falling out every time I opened the thing. Oh well. Another interesting tidbit is John Buchan, aka Lord Tweedsmuir, the first Governor General of Canada, absolutely loved this book. John Buchan himself was an author, of The Thirty-Nine Steps(a novel), which later became the basis for a film by Alfred Hitchcock.
All this to say that Lord Tweedsmuir is supposed to be a pretty good judge of writing abilities. He didn't make a bad choice with Raddall's book. It's a collection of short stories, which focuses predominantly on the people and countryside of rural Nova Scotia. Like with many of the short story collections I have read thus far, there are good stories and "meh" stories in this collection, but it wasn't an unenjoyable read. I particularly liked the title story, about a guy who is so obsessed with the Scottish Prime Minister of England coming to Nova Scotia having an awesome bagpipe performance to welcome him that he resurrects the bagpipes himself(even though he's not that great at it)and ends up doing a bagpipe version of The Pied Piper of Hamelin with the children at the local school. It is funny and witty and makes you smile a lot. "North" was the story I liked the least, it was about travelling in the arctic circle and the exposure that one doctor had with the Inuit up there. It was okay, but it just wasn't that exciting. "The Taming of Mordecai Mimms" was great. It was all about a guy who decides to play nature-man, in a very destructive non-caring kind of way. He hurts trees by cutting away all their bark, shoots animals for pure sport just to leave them there with no respect for their lives. He's basically a huge dumb-ass, who is the thorn in the side of the local park ranger. Well, the ranger goes away for the day and Mordecai goes deer hunting, leaving his son in the canoe they used to get to this remote place, and ends up getting lost in the dark and scaring himself shitless. It's really harrowing for him, but it's definitely KARMA. The park ranger ends up saving his ass, and Mordecai moves to the city.:) "The Courtship of Jupe M'Quayle" was also a good story, about a guy who for 25 years has been unhappily single, searching and searching for a "help-mate", or a wife. He finally lands a woman, he thinks, through wooing her with chocolate and sweets and then the town, in their desire to welcome this new bride(who mind you has lived in the backwoods of rural Nova Scotia all her life, in a lot of respects as untamed as a wild animal), scares the bride off. It is then that Jupe realizes(Jupiter is his real name)that he's gotten along this far without, he's really going to be okay, and won't push his new wife into marriage..."Lady Lands Leviathan" was also good about a man who is searching and searching for the biggest tuna to catch(he is a sport fisherman), so that he can keep up his social status and live off of people's parties and attentions, and in the end, it is his wife, who only fishes to be with him, who catches the big one. Also very good. There are only 12 stories in this collection, but each is pretty long. It's a different look at a small province, a rural province, a province that has daily interaction with Natives and Scottish heritage. I wonder if I'm the only person in this country to have read this book this year????

Sometimes I find it hard to write about the books that win the prizes. It's not that they aren't good, they just aren't, I don't know, spectacular or something. What has been nice is that the past two books I've read, Ringuet's Thirty Acres(GG 1940) and Alison Lurie's Foreign Affairs(PP 1985) were both great, engaging reads, books that I wouldn't have read otherwise most likely, just, like I said they weren't awe-inspiring or anything like, say, All the King's Men or something. At this point I'm going to write about both of them so that I can remember them later on.
One of the best parts of Ringuet's novel Thirty Acres is the fact that it takes place in the Laurentians area of Quebec, a little north of Montreal. It is a bit further up the province than I have been, but in Quebec, farmland is farmland. When you drive to Montreal from Vermont, you go through quite a bit of farming communities before you get to the "big city." While I was reading this novel, I could envision this man's farm, at the turn of the century into the 20th century. I could imagine the parish church and the people who lived and worked in that community. Perhaps that's what made me enjoy this book all the more, or maybe it's because I'm really into farming novels. This book is about farming, sure, but it's also about progress. It's about what happens when you try to get in the way of progress, sticking your head in the sand and ignoring it as it comes towards you. It will MOW YOU DOWN. In Thirty Acres that exactly what happens to Euchariste Moisan. Through the metaphor of seasons, (the book starts in Spring and works its way through)Euchariste moves through the seasons of his life. First, his "spring" in which he gets the farm from his aging uncle and marries and starts his family, continuing through Summer, the prime of his life in terms of wealth of his farm and growth of his family, but there is eventually a Fall or Autumn, in which his wife dies and his sons begin to take charge of the farm and value his opinion less. At the end of the novel, he is portrayed by fellow townspeople and others as a doddering, crazy old man, who is not really of use to anyone. In that regard, the novel is rather tragic; a depiction of what it can be like when you age. You think you're invincible until it's way too late. Euchariste is the most powerful layperson(the parish priest is always the most important person in a village like that)in the village and then his senility(suing his neighbor over land, losing his money to a notary that is a thief because he favors the "old way")gets the better of him. The book reminds me of Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth in which another farmer(this time in China)rises to wealth and fame also to become shameful in his old age. What is interesting, is Ringuet's commentary on the US, whether intentional or not. One of Euchariste's sons moves to the US to work in a factory after meeting Euchariste's long lost cousin who moved down to Lowell, MA(big mill town, been there through National Parks)and seeing his success. Euchariste spurns this decision and does not like the U.S., is distrustful of this vast country. A quote that I particularly liked is when Euchariste's cousin comes to visit and tells why he changed his name, because people couldn't pronounce it. "He made this declaration in an amused tone of voice, as if to show his cousins from the back country of Quebec that he belonged now to the American nation, to that terrifically vital race which is composed of the overflow from all the other nations, like those colourful patchwork quilts made up from scraps sewn together anyhow."(116) It is this country, which Euchariste has disdain for, which is not as pure as French Quebec, though, that he is forced to live in when his second eldest son(his first son Oguinaste died of consumption after being a parish priest in a small, impoverished parish)takes over the farm. And he finds some renewed friendships as he discovers other families who have left Quebec for better things. Of course then, this doddering old man becomes a major breadwinner for his son's family when he becomes a security guard in the start of the Depression. He is not so useless anymore. But this is the end of winter...According to the introduction, this is the last of the great farm novels...But, as we can see in the book with the birth of the modernization of the family farm, the farm was in the beginning of decline as well. Sad, but interesting. The final paragraph/section of the book sums up the point of this book quite well, methinks. "Euchariste Moisan-old man Moisan-sat smoking and coughing in his garage at White Falls.[para] His sight had been getting worse for some time now, and his hearing too. But it was his legs that had begun to fail him more than anything. So now he could no longer go to visit the little wood right down at the end of Jefferson Street. [para] He hadn't given up hope of going back home to Saint-Jacques; giving up hope would mean he had made up his mind about it and that was something he hadn't done and probably never would do, would never have to do. [para] Circumstances had decided matters for him, that and people ruled by circumstance. [para] With November the rains came again and he lit a fire in the stove. [para] Every year brought spring...[para]...and every year the valley of the St. Lawrence, which had lain asleep under the snow for four months, offered men its fields to plough and harrow and fertilize and seed and harvest...; [para]...different men...[para]...but always the same land." (Ringuet 249)
Alison Lurie's Foreign Affairs was a really great read, though even when I finished it, I didn't feel like I had enough to write an entire entry about it(same with Peter Taylor's A Summons to Memphis), interesting fact about Lurie's novel, though, is that it won the Pulitzer Prize the same year that Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale won the Governor General, only the third time in both prizes' history that two women won in the same year. What a difference in subject matter, tone, everything. Lurie's book is a great look at university professors abroad, and it is at once tragicomic. It has the backbiting wit of Jane Austen combined with a great storytelling. I loved every page and couldn't stop reading it, it just didn't end up MOVING me. It was very enjoyable, though, and I highly recommend it.:)