Still Life

by Louise Penny

Many of you have read this book over the years. It was your enthusiastic reviews that encouraged me to pick this up. I loved it!

Still Life is the 1st of four in the Inspector Armand Gamache mystery series. This one is set in a village south of Montreal. I don't know if any of the others will continue with this same group of people or if Gamache will be tracking down the killer in another area. I can see that he may have to move to a different area if that's were the murder occurs, but I would love to come back to the same people in this book.

Penny does such a wonderful job of fleshing out the characters and making them real-life people. I felt like I wanted to move into the neighborhood and get together with those characters as they celebrate life. I wish I could have seen inside Jane's house. Don't you? (those of you that have read this) And didn't you really like Inspector Gamache? I wish I knew how to pronounce his name.

Last summer we visited Montreal and a cute little village southeast of Montreal named Knowlton. It was such a beautiful area and I pictured the little village in the book looking something like it. And there were some mention of 'Canadian' icons that I wouldn't have known about if I hadn't visited. I don't know how many Canadian Tires we passed on our trip before we learned it was an eating establishment and not a car hardware store. And when Ruth stood up at the funeral and started singing, "What do you do with a drunken sailor" I really enjoyed a good laugh. We listened to that and many other shantys as we drove for weeks through Canada. This book helped to rekindle those good memories I have of my visit to Canada.

I thought the mystery was a good tale and I didn't figure it out until it was obvious who the murderer was. In addition, the writing was superb. I used quite a few book darts to mark passages that I really liked. This passage about a mother of a troubled teenage boy brought me to tears:

"She'd tried praying, but had forgotten the words. Instead she kept repeating the only thing she could remember: Little Boy blue, come blow your horn, the sheep's in the meadow, the cow's in the corn. She's recited it over and over to Philippe when he was little but now she couldn't remember the rest. It seemed to matter, even though it wasn't itself a prayer. it was more than that. It was proof she'd been a good mother. Proof she'd loved her children. Proof, whispered the little girl's voice inside her head, that it isn't your fault. But she couldn't remember the rest of the nursery rhyme. So maybe it was her fault."

This passage reminded me of the feelings I had when my father died:

"All Quiet of the western front, thought Gamache, listening to this gentle life. His magical thinking allowed him to be surprised that when such a good soul dies it isn't remarked. The bells of the church didn't set themselves off. The mice and deer didn't cry out. The earth didn't shudder. It should have."

I thought I had book 2 sitting on my shelf, but since I couldn't find it and didn't have it entered in Library Thing* I got online and ordered it. It's so fun to have it to look forward to.

*neither of these things guarantees it's not somewhere in my house since it's hit and miss with me.

The Colony of Unrequited Dreams

by Wayne Johnston

I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did. The novel is about Newfoundland and centers on Joseph Smallwood, the real-life political figure who ushers the country through confederation with Canada and then becomes the first premier.

In writing a work of the imagination in part inspired by historical events, Johnston wanted “to fashion out of the formless infinitude of ‘facts’…a work of art that would express a felt, emotional truth... Adherence to the ‘facts’ will not lead you safely through the labyrinthine pathways of the human heart.” Johnston was 19 when he met the real Joe Smallwood; he was just starting out as a journalist, and Smallwood was less than complimentary about Johnston’s reporting. Although the politician died only in 1991, little was written about his life before the age of fifty, allowing Johnston some license to imagine his formative influences.

“I wanted to write a big book about Newfoundland in scope and in vision. I couldn't think of a bigger character whose life touched on more themes, involved the whole of Newfoundland more completely than Smallwood did.” Smallwood saw Newfoundland in terms of “unrealized talent and unfulfilled ambition”; his life was somehow emblematic of the land. Moreover, says Johnston, “He was so prone to making mistakes and so fallible, and he combines so many contradictions in his personality. His quest, like that of many great literary figures of the past century, is to overcome these divisions.” The completely invented character of Fielding, meanwhile, “is like me”, says Johnston. “I share her view of Newfoundland.”

The title of the book, Johnston says, evokes “the nostalgia Newfoundlanders have felt for the possibilities of the island, and that they still have for the future. Joe is always searching for something commensurate with the greatness of the land itself, but he can't find it, and it's driving him mad…Newfoundland is that kind of place. It makes you want to live up to the landscape, but on the other hand it offers you no resources to do so. There's always this constant yearning that at least for my part helped me to start writing.”

You can read more of Johnston's essay about Unrequited Dreams by clicking on the link.

Johnston creates a larger-than-life character in Sheilagh Fielding who counterbalances Smallwood's smaller-than-life personality. It was their relationship that most engaged my interest. I was happy to discover that Johnston has written a whole novel about Fielding, titled The Custodian of Paradise. Next to Newfoundland itself, Fielding was the most complex character. She had depth, mystique, struggles and strength. Whereas Smallwood lacked all those traits. And yet, on the surface he appears to be an upstanding citizen and she a retrobait.

Most of the book is told in the1st person narrative with sprinklings of personal letters, Newfoundland history, and newspaper articles written by Fielding. I thought this was a very effective way of helping the reader understand Newfoundland better and to provide other views of events and people than just Smallwoods.

I would love to sit in on book discussion groups all across Newfoundland when they are discussing this book. The treats would definitely take a back seat to the lively and emotional discussion. To many in Newfoundland Smallwood is a hero and to the rest he is a traitor. I can understand both sides. Actually, I would welcome a good discussion of this book with any bookclub.

I would like to have had a map of Newfoundland with major areas and cities highlighted and also a map of St. John's included in the book. I lived in St John's when I was little and visited there this summer, but was unfamiliar with the area called the brow. I am assuming it's the peninsula of land where Ft Amherst Lighthouse is located.

I highly recommend this book. If you have any connection to Newfoundland it's a must. If you don't, I think you'd still be immensely satisfied.

Yellowknife

by Steve Zipp

Thank-you to Steve Zipp for sending me a copy of his book for the Canadian Reading Challenge. This book was a bit unsettling for me because it left me with so many questions when it ended, but it also stimulated a search for a few answers. I found myself looking at Yellowknife on Google Earth, discovering that it's bigger than I originally thought. I was awed at how far Yellowknife is from the U.S. and wondering if my husband and I would ever find ourselves in that neck of the woods.

I also read a few other reviews. I found one from the Danforth Review that helped me understand the book a bit better: "It would be impossible to try and summarize the plot of this book. Set in YK just before Y2K, part of the story is about disposing of a missile found in a tree; part is about love and broken love; part is about the corrupting influence of diamond mine speculators; part is about hockey; part is about Franklin’s legacy of getting lost; part is about scientists and the dumb government bureaucrats who stifle them. And there’s a lake monster and some talking animals near the end." --by Amy Reiswig

The book has several main characters, some of which never come in contact with the others. And there are many different story lines. There's Danny who comes to Yellowknife in search of a new life, who winds up living in the dump for a while where he meets Freddy. Danny also does some house-sitting for a couple. While house-sitting he discovers an underground tunnel that's part of a gold mine.

Nora is engaged to Hugo, but they have a big fight and Hugo leaves and never returns. Nora's office is moved to the basement of the building and she ends up sleeping there - under her desk. One night the wall crumbles and she wanders into the underground tunnel where she meets a dentist and his wife.

Hugo is saved from a near drowning, but he never goes back into Yellowknife or to Nora. At first he has amnesia, but even after he's memory returns he doesn't return to Yellowknife

When we next meet up with Freddy he is with his 4-yr-old son, Tyrone, who doesn't speak, but just plays his game boy.

I enjoyed this book even though I didn't always know what was going on. As I read over the discussion questions provided on Steve's website, I realized I missed a lot of innuendo and hidden meaning. Some days I wished I'd have majored in English instead of Science.

Some fun passages:

"Government had a way of warping thought and twisting speech."

"Her predilection for travelling had a whiff of obsession about it, and her inquisitiveness was undermined by an earnest desire to lead others to improvement."

"At length he decided they (stories) were a way of offering advice without being confrontational. Harmony was essential for people who lived in isolated close-knit groups. Instead of issuing orders, they told stories."

Anne of Avonlea

by L.M. Montgomery

What a delightful book. I was a bit worried that after Anne finished school (in Anne of Green Gables) the series would loose some of its magic. Not so. Although I missed Matthew, the addition of the twins was fun. Davy is definitely a kindred spirit for Anne.

I used lots of bookdarts in this book. I'll probably use a dozen more when I reread it. Here are some of the ones I marked:

"We make our own lives wherever we are, after all. They are broad or narrow according to what we put into them, not what we get out." --Mrs. Allan

"I wish you could think first and do things afterwards, 'cause then you wouldn't do them." --Davy

"I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string." --Anne

"That is one good thing about this world . . . there are always sure to be more springs." --Anne

Charlotta the Fourth admired Anne wholeheartedly. It was not that she though her so very handsom. Diana Barry's beauty of crimson cheek and black curls was much more to Charlotta the Fourth's taste than moonshine charm of luminous gray eyes and the pale, ever changing roses of her cheeks.
"But I'd rather look like you than be pretty," she told Anne sincerely.
Anne laughed, sipped the honey from the tribute and cast away the sting. She was used to taking her compliments mixed. . . . Anne herself would never believe that she had any claim to beauty. When she looked in the glass all she saw was a little pale face with seven freckles on the nose thereof. Her mirror never revealed to her the elusive, ever-varying play of feeling that came and went over her features like a rosy illuminating flame, or the charm of dream and laughter alternating in her big eyes.

"Now where is the romance in all that?" asked Marilla.
"Oh, there isn't any, when you put it that way," gasped Anne, rather as if somebody had thrown cold water over her. "I suppose that's how it looks in prose. But it's very different if you look at it through poetry . . . and I think it's nicer."
Marilla glanced at the radiant young face and refrained from further sarcastic comments. Perhaps some realization came to her that after all it was better to have, like Anne, "the vision and the faculty divine" . . . that gift which the world cannot bestow or take away, of looking at life through some transfiguring . . . or revealing? . . . medium, whereby everything seemed appareled in celestial light, wearing a glory and a freshness not visible to those who, like herself and Charlotta the Fourth, looked at things only through prose.

Anne of Avonlea was published in 1909 - the year my grandmother would have turned ten, almost 100 years ago! It's story is still as fresh and mood-altering today.

A big THANK-YOU to Raidergirl3 who presented me with my copy of Anne of Avonlea when we visited last summer in the PEI. Every I picked up or laid the book down I would be flooded by those memories in the Pub, our good visit, and the bagpipes marching by. Delightful evening!

Far North

by Will Hobbs

Another audio book listened to on our Arizona trip. We really felt the juxtaposition of settings: the book setting was the Northwest Territories during the winter with temperatures as cold as -40 degrees; the trip setting was southern Utah, northern Arizona and the Grand Canyon with temps between 60 and 75 degrees. Add to that the great contrast in scenery. It may have been more in keeping with the drive to listen to a Tony Hillerman, but I have no regrets. Far North is full of adventure, action and drama. We enjoyed every stop along the way, but when we got back in the car we couldn't wait to turn the audio on.

This description is from the author's website:

From the window of a small float plane, 15-year-old Gabe Rogers is getting his first look at Canada's magnificent Northwest Territories with Raymond Providence, his roommate from boarding school. Below is the spectacular Nahanni River: wall-to-wall whitewater racing between sheer cliffs and plunging over Virginia Falls. The pilot sets the plane down on the lake-like surface of the upper river for a closer look at the thundering falls. Suddenly the engine quits. The only sound is a dull roar downstream, as the Cessna drifts helplessly toward the falls. . . . With the brutal subarctic winter fast approaching, Gabe and Raymond soon find themselves stranded in Deadmen Valley. Trapped in a frozen world of moose, wolves, and bears, two boys from vastly different cultures come to depend on each other for their very survival.

A book for grades 6 and up that will grab the interest of young men (and old men and women, too).

*An aside: The boys in Far North attended a school in Yellowknife. I have a book from author Steve Zipp that's titled Yellowknife which I'm looking forward to reading. I learned that Yellowknife is the capital of the Norwest Territories.

Wild Wood

by Charles de Lint

I read this for the Canadian Challenge and because I've really enjoyed the 3 or 4 books I've read by deLint. I wish I could say I enjoyed this one, but I didn't.

A young artist returns to her cabin in the deep woods of Canada to concentrate on her illustrations. But somehow, strange and beautiful creatures are slipping into her drawings and sketches. The world of Faerie is reaching out to her for help—and she may be its last chance for survival. --from the book cover

I did get a sense of the wooded area near Ottawa and, surprisingly, a good feel for the dry desert of Arizona when the main character visits friends to get away from her 'haunted woods' for awhile. I hoping that some day I get to see those giant saguaros that she described.

Random Passage

by Bernice Morgan

Random Passage is the story of 2 families from very different backgrounds who come to settle on Cape Random, Newfoundland in the early 1800s. Living on the cape when the families arrive is Thomas Hutchings who came to Newfoundland the year before to escape his past in Europe.

Spanning 15 years in the lives of this small community, this is a story of survival, relationships, personalities, unspoken memories and unspoken love. The focus is on Lavinia Andrews who was 17-years-old when her family left England because of legal problems involving her brother.

Thomas Hutchings is person of intrigue. Happily, the last few chapters of the book tell his story. I was a bit worried that I would never learn his story.

I liked this book a lot and think it provided an honest look at life on the shore of Newfoundland in that time period. I was struck with the isolation and dependence on each other for life. I am kicking myself that I didn't buy Morgan's sequel, Waiting for Time, from the ferry's book store on our ride to or back from Newfoundland. I had Random Passage on my bookshelf at home, but didn't want to buy the next book until I knew I liked the first.

M and I did drive out to see the sight created for the TV mini-series (We did a LOT of driving while in Newfoundland - loved it!) Anyway the spot is very remote even with the help of paved roads. It was very beautiful in the summer, but I can't even imagine living there in the winter. in the conditions they had.

Lavinia's thoughts/feelings after her first winter. "Despite all, things break, crumble, rust, disintegrate, fade, lose their shine, until it seems to Lavinia that life itself has turned grey. She longs to see colour, to smell green, to taste green, is in a rage of impatience for spring."

Thomas and Ned became best friends even though they were so different. This is something Thomas thought about Ned, "His mind was amazing. Ned could encompass a new thought, grasp it, examine it, twist and turn it and hold it up to the light until you saw what a wonderful shining thing it was."

I like this decription of Mary. I think it may be a local colloquialism." Mary is not a subtle woman, and her anger is frightening, but when she hwas achieved what she wants, she reverts to silence and good sense. As Meg has often said, Mary has no side doors."

The Word for Home

by Joan Clark

I could have read this for the 2nds Challenge because this is my second book by Joan Clark, the first was Latitudes of Melt, which I enjoyed immensely.

The Word for Home is a young adult novel set in pre-Confederation Newfoundland. It's the story of 2 sisters who used to live in Canada, but after their mother died, their father decided to try his luck prospecting for gold in the interior of Newfoundland. With no home of their own, Sadie and flora must stay in a cold, grim boarding house in St. John's.

I liked this book and it got better with each page. I enjoyed getting a feel for the time period and St. John's.

Sadie's description of the headmistress and of her father showed great insight: "She had a man's way of seeming to occupy most of the available space. That is, most men except Sadie's father. Russ Morin was a spindly-legged, narrow-chested man who moved like a dancer, never occupying a solid block of space for long, instead searching for openings he could easily duck through."

Birds in Fall

by Brad Kessler

It was a bit of coincidence to read Birds in Fall right after reading Bel Canto. The books had such similar feelings. The mood that was created had to do with isolation from the real world and, too, the loss of normal time patterns. Both deal with a disaster that puts the main characters in a type of limbo. I talked about that mood that was described so well in Bel Canto in the review just before this one.

The encapsulation into a temporary existence in Bel Canto was the result of members at a party for dignitaries being held hostage at the hands of terrorists. In Birds in Fall a different type of catastrophe produces a similar situation for a group of people who lost loved ones in a plane crash off the coast of Nova Scotia. The airlines arrange for families of the crash victims to fly and stay in Nova Scotia for a brief period of time. Some of those family members stay at a little inn very near the site of the crash. Each person is dealing with his or her own trauma that insulates them from the others. As the days go by little shared moments cause the cocoon to open and include the other's. Instead of disappearing the cocoon grows to surround the group and keep them in a time warp as they deal with the losses they are suffering.

Bel Canto was told by a woman author and Birds in Fall by a male author. The stories are different and both are wonderfully told. But reading them so close together I couldn't help but be aware of how each author skillfully depicted a feeling, a mood, of life being placed on hold. People going through the motions of life, but cut off from the normal work-a-day life they had so recently been involved in.

There was a lot of symbolism involving the migration of birds. Here's one example:

"How is a story like a bird?"
"It keeps us aloft. It flies. It goes from one place and lands at another, seemingly at random. But its movements are carefully choreographed, and if you look closely, you'll know exactly where it will next perch."

Latitudes of Melt

by Joan Clark

I read Shipping News earlier this year while we were traveling in Newfoundland. It didn't fill me with a sense of Newfoundland the way that Latitudes of Melt did. Shipping News could have taken place anywhere in a small, cold, coastal community whereas Latitudes evoked a strong sense of Newfoundland.

"There amid the cushioning green, millions of bakeapples shown like orange stars, spreading inland as far as the eye could see, past the blue pond water to the infinite rise beyond. They were a galaxy whose constellations changed as handfulls of berries tumbled into pails. No matter how far the women walked inland, they were never out of sight of the sea. . . the berries grew best in boggy ground, the same bogs where purple iris grew."

Newfoundland is in the middle of the latitudes of melt, between 46 and 51 degrees north, a region where icebergs calved in Greenland drift down the Labrador Current to dwindle in the coves before disappearing altogether below the 43rd parallel. For this reason alone the title was appropriate for the story. Clark carries the theme of icebergs and melting beyond the setting and into the characters themselves and their relationships. There are times when the current of circumstance melts the frost in a person's and other times when the cold hardens into an iceberg. And like an iceberg only a small portion of the thing is visible.

Latitudes of Melt starts out when the main character, Aurora, is found bundled into a basket and floating on a flat piece of ice. The book is about her life and those she is closely associated with. It covers nearly the whole of the 20th century.

I really liked this book - the story, the writing, the characters were all captivating. It was a treat to read about some things I had learned about earlier in the year, such as growlers, bakeapples, bogs, the Christmas tradition of mummering and confederation. This is a book I look forward to reading again.

The Canadian Book Challenge, Eh?

John from The Book Mine Set is hosting this challenge which runs from NOW until July 1 (Canada Day). The goal is to read 13 books (because there are 13 Canadian provinces, mate). He has lists of books from each of the provinces, but is allowing us to choose our own method for selecting the books we want to read.

My method: Read from the books I already own. I did an inventory and I have about 16 Canadian books by Canadian authors that I have NOT read. At least, that I KNOW are Canadian authors. There may be others, but for now, I have 13 books.
1. I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven (British Columbia)
2. Wildwood by Charles de Lint (Ottawa, Ontario)
3. Yarrow by Charles de Lint (Ottawa, Ontario)
4. Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery (Prince Edward Island)
5. Birth House by Ami McKay (Nova Scotia)
6. Birds in Fall by Brad Kessler (Nova Scotia)
7. Pelagie: The Return to Acadie by Antonine Maillet and Philip Stratford (Nova Scotia)
8. Kit's Law by Donna Morrissey (Newfoundland)
9. Random Passage (Newfoundland)
10. Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston (Newfoundland)
11. The Day the World Came to Town by Jim Defede (Newfoundland)
12. Latitudes of Melt by Joan Clark (Newfoundland)
13. A Word for Home by Joan Clark (Newfoundland)

I'm heavy on the maritime provinces, aren't I? If I get all these read I'll be ready for a trip to some of the provinces I've never visited. Trips always spark a purchase of new, indigenous reading material.