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.