Book 18, The Fire-Dwellers (1969) – Margaret Laurence
From the back cover:
“Stacey MacAindra burns – to burst through the shadows of her existence to a richer life, to recover some of the passion she can only dimly remember from her past.

The Fire-Dwellers is an extraordinary novel about a woman who has four children, a hard-working but uncommunicative husband, a spinster sister, and an abiding conviction that life has more to offer her than the tedious routine of her days.

Margaret Laurence has given us another unforgettable heroine – human, compelling, full of poetry, irony and humour. In the telling of her life, Stacey rediscovers for us all the richness of the commonplace, the pain and beauty in being alive, and the secret music that dances in everyone’s soul.”

Other useful links:
the Wikipedia article on Margaret Laurence
the Wikipedia article on Neepawa, Ontario (model for Manawaka)

My thoughts:
I remember feeling rather annoyed with Stacey at the beginning—reading about someone else’s depression and desperation is not exactly fun. But by the time I got to the Superware party I had changed my attitude. I got to really like the rebellious spirit that Stacey was still holding on to. I ended up reading from the Richalife party straight through to the end.

This book is as topical today as in 1969, despite the advances of feminism. This would make a good book for a book club to read.

Book 16, The Tomorrow-Tamer (1963) – Margaret Laurence
From the back cover:
“The ten stories gathered together in The Tomorrow-Tamer are Margaret Laurence’s first published fiction. Set in raucous and often terrifying Ghana, where shiny Jaguars and modern jazz jostle for eminence against fetish figures, tribal rites, and the unchanging beat of jungle drums, the stories tell of individuals, European and African, trying to come to terms with the frightening world brought about by the country’s new freedom.

With the same compassion and understanding she would bring to her later fiction set in Canada, Laurence succeeds brilliantly in capturing the atmosphere of a continent and of individual men and women struggling for survival under the impact of the wind of change.”

Other useful links:
the Wikipedia article on Margaret Laurence
the Wikipedia article on Ghana

My thoughts:
I really enjoyed these stories of West Africa at the twilight of European colonialism. They are filled with ambivalence as old beliefs and traditions die away as the modern world invades/is embraced. It’s a very difficult situation (and we see it everywhere, not just in the colonies of Europe). With modern science and the global monoculture, we are all in a continual process of loss, as languages, stories, beliefs, habitat, tribal (or rural) lifestyle are replaced with what’s new, modern, clean, intelligible, monolithic, American (often). This is a theme that Alistair MacLeod explored in his books, though his focus was on the Gaelic culture of Cape Breton.

I’m looking forward to reading more of Margaret Laurence (coming soon to my CanLit Challenge).