FUGITIVE PIECES

Anne Michaels. FUGITIVE PIECES. McClelland & Stewart, 1996.

In my memory, I have tried unsuccessfully at least three times to read this, Anne Michaels' first novel. My reasons included: I could not locate a setting. Two place names, B, a town or city, & Z, an island. Names I could not pronounce nor locate. And then the heavy burden of words again which I could neither pronounce nor define. And beginning from a child's POV, Jakob. I remember saying that even after seeing the movie, I could not follow the story. But after reading her Giller winning HELD, I determined to try again. Success. And, to my surprise, a note at the end, a date in 1998, when I completed a first reading. What?

Okay. So I think I've sorted out the plot and characters. Boy Jakob hides underground from the uniforms. Poland. Parents and beloved sister Bella dead. Rescued by Athos, taken to a Greek island, Z.., where they hide out through the Italian and then the Nazi occupation, reading and learning. After the war they move to Athens. Then Athos accepts a job in Toronto where Jakob grows up. Athos dies. Jakob maintains friendship with Maurice and wife and marries Alex. She leaves after 7 years. Jakob publishes Athos' writing and his own poetry, Groundwork. He goes to Greece to take Athos' ashes. Back in TO, Maurice tries to set him up until finally he meets Michaela. They live in Greece. Jakob is a celebrity in TO. At one of Maurice's parties, Ben and Naomi attend. Ben is doing his thesis on Jakob. Ben's parents are Holocaust survivors too. Ben is jealous of how close Naomi is to his parents. His father has always been critical. Ben travels to Greece seeking Jakob's journals. Lives with Petra for a while while searching unsuccessfully. She messes things up and he kicks her out. Then he finds the journals, and a scarf reminding him of Naomi, and flies home hoping to reconcile.

It seems to me that the book is about the intergenerational trauma experienced by victims of the Holocaust and children of Holocaust survivors. Anxiety, hunger, and fear of loving because what you love dies. Told using images and figures of speech of travel, geography, geology, climatology, and poetry. 

INTO the UNCUT GRASS

Trevor Noah. INTO the UNCUT GRASS. Penguin/Random, 2024.

Loaned from a book-club friend, after the success of his Born a Crime memoir. This book is hardcover. It looks like a children's book but is labeled a fable about choosing adventure. The illustrations evoke Winnie-the-Pooh, a boy and his bear, experiencing choices and having adventures as they learn life lessons. 

In one main section, I feared pages were missing. A loud growl (from a stomach that left without breakfast?) morphs into a perceived battle with an unseen foe. This would probably work if the story is being read aloud to a child as it offers an opportunity for the reader to imagine what happens. And it leaves danger/fear unspecified.

The idea of levels of moral reasoning is not explored. Decisions are about a flip of a coin and an acceptance of chance as the determinant.Again, would provide opportunities for discussion with readers of different ages. This nod to fate appears to contradict what Noah says in his memoir, how his mother taught him, through Bible study, to learn to think for himself.

THE TROUBLE WITH POETRY

Billy Collins. THE TROUBLE WITH POETRY and Other Poems. Random, 2005.

Another find from my used bookseller Wish List. I love getting these phone calls: Do you still want this?  Yes!

RECONCILING HISTORY

Jody Wilson-Raybould with Roshan Danesh, RECONCILING HISTORY: A Story of Canada. McClelland & Stewart, 2024.

See my review on www.onelonelywriter.substack.com.

GOING-to-the-SUN

Rose Houk, with Pat O'Hara & Danny On. GOING-TO-THE-SUN: The Story of the Highway Across Glacier National Park. Robert White & Associates, 1984.

It's a slow start to 2025 as I'm reading a history text, so finding this booklet and another soup recipe book at the thrift store was a godsend. 

I have travelled this highway at least three times. The first time my father was the driver and even he was scared. One of the first poems I wrote, "Montana High", was about the second crossing. 

This brief history of the visioning, funding, and construction of this high mountain road is impressive. Black powder was used to blast the mountains. The "sappers" placing the powder worked in their sock feet, because the hobnails on their workboots could spark and ignite everything. There were only 3 deaths of workers reported, but many many more resignations, bowing out while they still could.

The opening celebrations, on July 15,1933, included a "burying of the hatchet" peace pipe ceremony involving three First Nations.