Book 31, Roughing It in the Bush (1852) - Susanna Moodie
From the back cover:
“When Roughing It in the Bush was published in 1852, it created an international sensation, not only for Susanna Moodie’s “glowing narrative of personal incident,” but also for her firm determination to puncture the illusions European land-agents were circulating about life in Canada. This frank and fascinating chronicle details her harsh – and humorous – experiences in homesteading with her family in the woods of Upper Canada.

Part documentary, part psychological parable, Roughing It in the Bush is, above all, an honest account of how one woman coped not only in a new world, but, more importantly, with herself.”

Other useful links:
the Wikipedia entry for Susanna Moodie

My thoughts:
I’m past the halfway point. I’m finding this book very engaging, especially since I’m now living just a short distance away from where Ms Moodie was living when she first arrived and where she settled in what was then bush country near the small settlement of Peterborough, Ontario. One thing that strikes me is the re-emphasis of the impression made in my readings of Traill and Jameson: how integrated with and integral to life in the non-urban areas of Upper Canada were the First Nations peoples. There’s a real sense that there were three founding “nations” of Canada: the aboriginal, the British (including the Scots and Irish of course), and the French.

Another thing that stands out is the difference between the two sisters. Catharine was excited, optimistic, and took a lot of joy in her circumstances, whereas Susanna dreads her future in Canada, finds displeasure in almost everything she encounters, and, though better than some whom she discusses, seems to look down on both the aboriginal people (frequently calling them ugly and unpleasant) and those Europeans of the lower classes. She also puts down the “Yankee settlers” as a whole. However, it is true that she seems to be (what might be considered) progressive in her attitudes toward blacks.

(More later when I’m finished.)

Book 30, As For Me and My House (1941) - Sinclair Ross
From the back cover:
“‘It’s an immense night out there, wheeling and windy. The lights on the street and in the houses against the black wetness, little unilluminating glints that might be painted on it. The town seems huddled together, cowering on a high tiny perch, afraid to move lest it topple into the wind.’

The town is Horizon, the setting of Sinclair Ross’ brilliant classic study of life in the Depression era. Hailed by critics as one of Canada’s great novels, As For Me and My House takes the form of a journal. The unnamed diarist, one of the most complex and arresting characters in contemporary fiction, explores the bittersweet nature of human relationships, of the unspoken bonds that tie people together, and the undercurrents of feeling that often tear them apart. Her chronicle creates an intense atmosphere, rich with observed detail and natural imagery.

As For Me and My House is a landmark work. It is essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand the scope and power of the Canadian novel.”

Other useful links:
the Wikipedia entry for Sinclair Ross
the Wikipedia entry for As For Me and My House
An essay by Paul Denham: “Narrative Technique in Sinclair Ross’s As For Me and My House”
BookCrosser cellomerl’s review of the novel

My thoughts:
I really am trying to catch up so that I’m not writing these things months after I’ve actually read them! It’s very hard to recapture one’s feelings upon finishing a book, but I’ll give it a shot.

I did enjoy this book, especially its evocation of the prairies — and the small prairie town — during the Great Depression. In fact, the landscape is the only ‘character’ of the book that is unambiguous and stark in its reality. But even in that there is a possibility that the reader is being shown a facade (just like the “false-fronted towns” Mrs Bentley refers to); after all, the town is called Horizon — a place that can never be reached no matter how far one travels. There’s just so much to think about and discuss with this novel: how reliable is Mrs Bentley’s narration? is she or is Philip the main character? what is going on in the weeks that are omitted? There’s the role that art plays in the novel, the lost son, the replacement son in Steve, and the half-son Philip at the end of the book. There’s the theme of religion and lack of religious feeling. And a lot of hypocrisy on many levels to analyse. It’s a very short book and the whole thing takes place in only about a year, but there’s so much crammed in here. An excellent book by Sinclair Ross.

From the dust jacket:
“In the 1970s in northern California, near Gold Rush country, a father and his teenage daughters, Anna and Claire, work their farm with the help of Coop, an enigmatic young man who makes his home with them. Theirs is a makeshift family, until it is riven by an incident of violence — of both hand and heart — that sets fire to the rest of their lives.

Divisadero takes us from the city of San Francisco to the raucous backrooms of Nevada’s casinos, and eventually to the landscape of south central France. It is here, outside a small rural village, that Anna becomes immersed in the life and the world of a writer from an earlier time — Lucien Segura. His compelling story, which has its beginnings at the turn of the century, circles around “the raw truth” of Anna’s own life, the one she’s left behind but can never truly leave. And as the narrative moves back and forth in time and place, we discover each of the characters managing to find some foothold in a present rough-hewn from the past.”

Other useful links:
the not-so-useful Wikipedia article on Divisadero
the Wikipedia article on Michael Ondaatje

My thoughts:
I was looking forward to reading this because it was my first Ondaatje book. I also thought the sound of the title was intriguing - a kind of combination of division and desidero (that’s “I desire” in Latin). Only later did I discover that is is the name of a street in San Francisco.

It’s been a while since I finished this book (I’m catching up, I promise!) so my memory of it is a little fragmented. In fact, this book is itself fragmented: various points of view, two completely different sets of characters, unresolved conflicts… All of which left me unsatisfied. I didn’t really connect with any of the characters of the first story, and the whole ‘professional gambler’ thing didn’t grab me. I liked the second story much better and I think I’d have liked a book just about that much much better.

I did enjoy Ondaatje’s writing though, and look forward to reading more of his books.

From the dust jacket:
“Harry Boyd, a hard-bitten refugee from failure in Toronto television, has returned to a small radio station in the Canadian North. There, in Yellowknife, in the summer of 1975, he falls in love with a voice on air, though he discovers that the real woman, Dido Paris, is even more than he imagined.

Dido and Harry are part of a cast of eccentric, utterly beguiling characters. all transplants from elsewhere, who form an unlikely group at the station. Their loves and longings, their rivalries and entanglements, the stories of their pasts and what brought each of them to the North, form the centre. Then, one summer, four of them embark on a canoe trip that takes them into the Arctic wilderness, following the route taken by the legendary Englishman John Hornby, who, along with his small party, starved to death.”

Other useful links:
the not-so-useful Wikipedia article on Late Nights on Air
the Wikipedia article on Yellowknife, NWT
the Wikipedia article on Great Slave Lake
the Wikipedia article on Elizabeth Hay
the Wikipedia article on barren-ground caribou
Elizabeth Hay’s website

My thoughts:
I met Elizabeth Hay when she did a reading from this (as yet unpublished) novel. I enjoyed it so much I bought another book of hers (as yet unread) & put Late Nights on my mental To Be Read stack. So when it won the Giller, I knew I just had to read it for real and luckily enough, received a copy for Christmas (2007).

I’ve had a fascination with the North (and what born n’ bred Canadian doesn’t?) since I read Laura Beatrice Berton’s I Married the Klondike, so I was looking forward to going back North of 60.

At first I had a difficult time sorting out who was who, with two women from outside trying to make it into radio (in fact, I actually had to start reading over again after about 30 pp). I found the backdrop of the Berger inquiry very interesting, and I loved the whole middle act of the book—the journey across the Barrens retracing John Hornby’s 1927 expedition. I didn’t really warm up to Harry, Gwen or Dido so much & I couldn’t stand Eddy. Also, the ‘epilogue’ was really, quite disappointing.