Category: Bookends

Once in a while, and particularly this day of thunder and the first real rain in more than 7 weeks, I chose an easy book, one that doesn’t tax my spirit yet holds my interest. I read it almost in one sitting.

Carpenter sets this mystery in the fictional town of Saybrookmin Prince Edward County and uses recognizable sites and local family names to give the story a genuine ‘feel.’ The characters resemble folks you might run into on Picton’s Main Street, and the tension between those ‘from away’ and those born to the County provides a realistic undercurrent to a somewhat farfetched set of 4 murders, initially ruled suicides or accidents.

Some fine LOL moments and a few endearing characters add further enjoyment. For the escape it offers:                    8/10

There are lines in this account of a 16 year-old girl’s odyssey I wish I’d written: the language/the dialogue so fine; the connection with the title character forged so skillfully. I couldn’t put the book down, in spite of scenes of appalling brutality, gory details about suicides, and the inevitability of “Little Bee’s” failure to break free of her past, even when she muses that in multi-racial London she “could disappear into the human race… as simply as a bee vanishes into the hive.” But the journalist in Cleave outweighs the novelist when he puts showing how badly Western states treat asylum seekers and refugees ahead of credible character and plot development. A second narrator doesn’t help. Nor do the inevitable capture of the girl, Udo, and her faith in a white child’s future satisfy.                                                                                 7/10

I borrowed the book because it promised to revisit characters (particularly Teddy) and situations (privileged country life) I’d appreciated in Atkinson’s Life after Life.

This novel is not a sequel or prequel. It flows in a parallel kind of way, taking detours and making inroads, which often are unexpected but drew me in.

Where Life after Life frustrated me because of the multiple lives characters were allowed to live/relive, A God in Ruins annoyed me with cute little direct comments about what only would happen later. Still, the focus on Teddy largely satisfied, though it was a challenge to accept that someone so courageous would be reduced to passivity over time. Plus his daughter Viola was overdrawn, too much a diva, so that her redemption at the end of the book was hardly credible.                                    6.5/10

76 pages of straight talk—Merasty’s first-hand account of physical and sexual abuse by Catholic nuns and priests at St. Therese School— cannot fail to move the reader, even after so much of the criminal treatment of aboriginal children has already been exposed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Augie’s ‘voice,’ as captured by ‘editor,’ academic David Carpenter, rings true, though Carpenter’s tone in the introduction feels both too-much-in-your-face and condescending.

Augie doesn’t exaggerate as he recounts in a straightforward and compelling way what horrors he and others suffered. Having shared his story in the book and with the Commission, this courageous man, now in his 70’s, lives and drinks ‘on the street.’ He also now faces prostate cancer, an irony surely when he was able to survive the cancerous experiences of his youth.                                                                                                            Introduction: 2/10; text 7/10

Extraordinary Canadians Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont           Joseph Boyden, 2010

Louis: The Heretic Poems             Gregory Scofield, 2011

Having tried to immerse myself in Joseph Boyden’s take on Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont, I came away disappointed that so much ‘telling’ was jammed into one slim volume. For me, the book missed the chance to make that tragic era of broken promises, rebellion and downfall (of Riel, Dumont, and the Métis) come alive, though the well-presented facts scream for justice denied then and to this day.       6.5/10

On the other hand, poet and artist Gregory Scofield’s collection of poems speaks convincingly in Riel’s voice and shows the man as sexual being, intellectual, politician, visionary, religious zealot, and martyr. For a while, I thought the poems could have been written by Riel himself.          9/10

In both cases, the authors provide links to source documents every Canadian should read to understand how the history of our country influences current events relating to indigenous peoples.

I am embarrassed that I read this magnum opus 13 years after it was published, since science and technology have advanced at such rates as to date some of what Bryson covers. Even so, this accessible, often amusing and very satisfying ramble through prehistory, from how and what the cosmos to the components of matter, from the formation of the earth to the miracle of life in such an inhospitable universe, and from the evolution of homo sapiens, the species to the precarious future, is still so worth reading. Every one of its 478 pages provides so much information, it’s best to read a chapter at a time. Even savouring the text this way leaves far too much to absorb. But I know now to where I can go to check for facts, as needed.                         8/10

King draws in the white reader with humour and bits of dark history, so that this reader feels ashamed/ uncomfortable but unable to put the book down. Labelling an “account” allows King to avoid the discipline of the historian and helped me accept the heavy-handed (though deserved) guilt trip for settler and Christian oppression of native first peoples with few words paid to failings within and of aboriginal communities, themselves.

Mixing US and CDN experience plays to the sovereignty of aboriginals and their relationship to the land, but I would have preferred an all-Canadian book. King ends on upbeats re: the courts recognizing aboriginal rights and effective community leadership. Plus: “The fact of native existence is we live modern lives, informed by traditional values and contemporary realities, and that we wish to live those lives on our terms.” Amen.                                                          7.5/10

A very personal, yet highly political, account by journalist, broadcaster, and musician Anishinaabe Chief Kinew of his own growth and learning in the light of /the shadow of his evolving relationship with his father, educator and political force, Tobasonakwut/Ndede.

While the writing style can be inconsistent, this work of non-fiction benefits from relentless purity and heart. To the non-aboriginal reader, it reveals, usually without false trappings, much about indigenous history, culture and belief systems.

Best of all, it respects Ndede’s teachings and faith and shares his legacy about the importance of reconciliation, forgiveness and love.

The title? From the Creator: “I created you, therefore, you walk.” ”I am your motivation.” “I am the spark …love which animates you.” “I am the destination at the end of your life…” “Miigwech aapichii. Mii’e. (That’s it.)”  8.5/10

The title from Chomsky, Frutkin’s 110-page book offers an unusual and surprising collection of mini-essays which cover his philosophies and musings on writing/being a writer and poetry, on dreaming and dying, on the origins of the alphabet and possibilities in and of light, on society, culture and religion, and on myth, chaos and story.

An eclectic mixture, both magnetic and hypnotic, that drew me in, perhaps took me in a little, too. I’ll admit I underlined bits that resonated most, e.g., his commentaries about silence and about being a writer, but I dismissed a few other entries. Still, I did buy additional books, which I’ve sent to colleagues and friends. And I’ll keep my copy and likely reread sections from time to time.                                                           8/10

Once I spent the summer reading the first 9 in this series and fell for Chief Inspector (retired?) Armand Gamache—his intelligence, acuity, integrity, courage, humanity, warmth, and elegance. Rarely disappointed by plot or setting, I’m impatient for each new story about him, his cohorts and family, and the village of Three Pines in Quebec’s l’Estrie, idyllic except for the violence it attracts. This 11^th book draws on myths surrounding real-life artillery merchant of death, Gerald Bull. While the yarn is a good one with familiar characters and new villains, it’s a bit of stretch at times to: Accept the invisibility of constructing a huge cannon so near the village; link Gamache’s trauma with a Bernardo-like serial killer to staging a play by that murderer in the village and to his role in the whole Bull affair.  8.5/10