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.:)