That Just Happened!

Ondaatje, Michael.  Divisadero.  Vintage Canada (2008). Originally published in 2007.

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.

Divisaderotakes 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.

Breathtakingly evoked and with unforgettable characters, Divisadero is a multi-layered novel about passion, loss, and the unshakable past, about the often discordant demands of family, love, and memory. It is Michael Ondaatje’s most intimate and beautiful novel to date.

From RandomHouse.ca

I expected big things after having read Anil’s Ghost, but I felt that this novel just fell short of my expectations.  The book was split into three parts and it switches between Anna, Claire and Coop’s lives at first.  Anna is in France researching an author, Coop is getting involved in and then leaving the gambling scene, Claire is trying to reconcile the past with the present.  The first to parts of the book follow these three characters and explores how their lives have been affected by a traumatic incident in their past.  All of a sudden the third part of the book shifts and is about the author that Anna is researching.  It felt like a completely different book.

At the end, the original characters are not really revisited and the author’s end is inferred. I was disappointed that we didn’t get back into Anna, Claire and Coop’s lives as I found that was slightly more interesting.  I kept trying to look for parallels between the author’s story and the three character’s lives to try to determine why his story was the third part of the book, but I didn’t get it.   I feel like I was missing something that would make me go “Aha! Now it makes sense!”  Perhaps I was, or perhaps it just isn’t there.

I read this for my personal Governor General Award Winner for Fiction Challenge.  Because I found the first two parts interesting, and I am not sure I fully understood the book, I am giving this book…

Graham, Gwethalyn. Earth and High Heaven.  Cormorant Books Inc. (2003). Originally won the GG in 1944.

After an absence of almost twenty years, Earth and High Heaven is back in print.  This classic novel, published in 1944, was very timely; it spoke of the prejudices of its time, when Gentiles and Jews did not mix in society.  When Erica Drake, of the Westmount Drakes, met and fell in love with Marc Reiser, a Jew from northern Ontario, their respective worlds were turned upside down.  Set against the backdrop of the first three years of the Second World War, Earth and High Heaven captured the hearts and minds of its generation and helped to shape the more diverse and inclusive culture we have today.

From the back cover

I feel like I have read this one before. Star-crossed lovers whose families do not approve. Will they lose their families or each other?  Not just Romeo and Juliet, but a lot of other characters.  I think it is such a relevant story because it represents generational differences as well as family dynamics.  It is about a new generation rebelling against the prejudices and customs of the former.  In this novel times are changing but, as one of the character’s father points out, “it isn’t just a question of conventions; it’s five thousand years which have made you and he hopelessly different.” (301) 

What I did like about these characters is that they were not overly dramatic. There were no hysterics or love letters sent surreptitiously through the wall.  They were very true to the social customs that dictated their respective class in the 1930s and 1940s.  Unfortunately, without a little bit more conflict, this book was boring in some parts.  I found I picked it up to start it, put it down, and read two other books in between.  The story seemed to follow a formula that is over-done.  In addition, the conversations about the war and the class divisions got a bit lengthy and it was difficult to stay interested in that.

Graham explored the class distinction in Canada, politics of the family, relationships between family members and French-English tension about involvement of the war.

What saved this book from being completely predictable is the ending. 

Ricci, Nino.  The Origin of the Species. (2008).

Set in Montreal in the 1980s, The Origin of the Species tells the story of thirty-something Alex Fratarcangeli (“I can’t even pronounce it myself,” he admits to an acquaintance), plagued by a gnawing sense of being a fraud in all aspects of his life, from his professional ambitions to his search for love.  Underlying his malaise is a haunting experience in the Galapagos Islands whose after-effects threaten to undo him.  Then fate casts Esther in his path, a disarmingly vibrant and wilful young woman who may, however, be dying before his eyes.

- Hardcover Jacket Excerpt

This novel seems to touch on many different themes.  The political climate of Canada is contrasted against the countries of the immigrants Alex comes to know.  The  father-son bond is examined as Alex labours under the knowledge he has a son in Sweden.  There exists sexual tension between Alex and the women he encounters (some very briefly) as he looks to fill an emptiness.

I found this book to be a bit confusing as the time line seems to jump a bit, or perhaps the time line did not jump, but the story abruptly cuts off and jumps to a new one.  Although the novel only covers a time span of just over one year in Alex’s life, it seems as though a lot happens in that time and it is difficult to place the events in order.  This is especially true when Alex is at his therapist’s and seems to go off on tangents in his mind that add to this uncertainty.

There also seemed to be some parts of Alex’s life that are not discussed throughout the book, but show up at the end.  His relationship with his family is one example.  It almost seemed that in order for the Reader to understand the character there were just a few things we needed to know and, oh yeah, here they are, I forgot to mention them before. 

It took a while for me to really get into the book and there continued to be parts I struggled through.  The main character seemed a bit stagnant and failed to develop much over the course of the book.  I suppose that is more true-to-life, but I enjoy novels more when I can follow the character on a journey.  Alex remained weak-willed and depressed almost the entire book.

I liked the references to Canadian locales and ideologies, but overall I found the book to be just ‘okay’. 3 Canadian “eh’s” out of 5.