Born in 1930 in a small town outside Winnipeg, beautiful Hope Koop appears destined to have a conventional life. Church, marriage to a steady young man, children-her fortunes are already laid out for her, as are the shiny modern appliances in her new home. All she has to do is stay with Roy, who loves her. But as the decades unfold, what seems to be a safe, predictable existence overwhelms Hope. Where-among the demands of her children, the expectations of her husband and the challenges of her best friend, Emily, who has just read The Feminine Mystique-is there room for her? And just who is she anyway? A wife, a mother, a woman whose life is somehow unrealized? This beautifully crafted and perceptive work of fiction spans some fifty years of Hope Koop's life in the second half of the 20th century, from traditionalism to feminism and beyond. David Bergen has created an indelible portrait of a seemingly ordinary woman who struggles to accept herself as she is, and in so doing becomes unique.
Hope is a woman living through years of the Women's Liberation movement in Manitoba. She questions herself, as a woman, a daughter, wife and a mother. She wonders if there's more to life than what she experiences everyday. She loves her children, even though at times she doesn't recognize them (especially during the teenage years), she loves her husband, but is that enough.
I was pleasantly surprised on how much I enjoyed this book. For some reason I was expecting something darker. Yes, there are turmoils in Hope's life, depression, there's a breakdown that leaves her hospitalized, a bankruptcy and a run in with a religious cult. I found it understandable her envious feelings towards her teenage daughters, the freedom they had in comparison to her...she just couldn't pick up and leave. I found those emotions believable and real. I guess you can call this book, a real life novel. I enjoyed how well the book flowed, it didn't have any plot hiccups in my opinion.
I'm looking forward to reading more books by David Bergen.
The Age of Hope by David Bergen (4/5) General Fiction; Published: Phyllis Bruce Book (2012); New Author; Canada Reads 2013 (3); Library; Books 2013 (3)
A stunning, evocative novel set in Ireland and Canada, Away traces a family’s complex and layered past. The narrative unfolds with shimmering clarity, and takes us from the harsh northern Irish coast in the 1840s to the quarantine stations at Grosse Isle and the barely hospitable land of the Canadian Shield; from the flourishing town of Port Hope to the flooded streets of Montreal; from Ottawa at the time of Confederation to a large-windowed house at the edge of a Great Lake during the present day. Graceful and moving, Away unites the personal and the political as it explores the most private, often darkest corners of our emotions where the things that root us to ourselves endure. Powerful, intricate, lyrical, Away is an unforgettable novel.
I started reading this book a few days ago, and whenever I sat down to read I lost track of time. It's a beautifully written book, and I cannot understand why I haven't read this book before. I have read books by the author before, but not this one.
The story starts in Ireland in a fictional island. A young girl is "taken away" by the spirit of a dead young man. She comes back, but she is not the same girl as before, gone is Mary and now she is Moira. The inhabitants of the island are both scared and enthralled by Mary/Moira. The priest is concerned about the turmoil that she is causing the men so he asks a young friend, Brian, to marry her. Brian and Mary seem to hit it off, he's kind and understanding and she feels a connection to him. The potato famine hits and Brian and Mary leave for Canada. And so the myth continues with the women of Mary's family. I don't want to give too much of the story, you need to read it for yourself. The pain and the sorrow is there in the story but also the hope in the New World. But the most significant part of this book is the mystical feeling to it. The magic is all throughout the book.
Away by Jane Urquhart (4.5/5) Historical Fiction; Published: McClelland & Stewart (1993); Canada Reads 2013 (2); Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2013 (2); Library; Books 2013 (2);
Saul Indian Horse is dying. Tucked away in a hospice high above the clash and clang of a big city, he embarks on a marvellous journey of imagination back through the life he led as a northern Ojibway, with all its sorrows and joys. With compassion and insight, author Richard Wagamese traces through his fictional characters the decline of a culture and a cultural way. For Saul, taken forcibly from the land and his family when he's sent to residential school, salvation comes for a while through his incredible gifts as a hockey player. But in the harsh realities of 1960s Canada, he battles obdurate racism and the spirit-destroying effects of cultural alienation and displacement. Indian Horse unfolds against the bleak loveliness of northern Ontario, all rock, marsh, bog and cedar. Wagamese writes with a spare beauty, penetrating the heart of a remarkable Ojibway man.
I love this book! Like the blurb says it deals with the harsh realities of the 1960s Canada, the racism, cultural alienation. What we learn in school does not cover this, yes we knew they took children from their parents. Tried to take their beliefs from them, tried to take their spirit, and in many cases their innocence and our schools don't teach us this. This book gave me some insight, on how bad it really was. I know alot of people don't want to talk about this, many deem this to be still very sensitive, but it needs to be done. It was wrong, very wrong. I want to thank Mr Wagamese for letting me experience it with his beautiful words.
Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese (5/5) Fiction; Published: Douglas & McIntyre (2012); New Author; New Release; Favorite Read 2012; Canada Reads; Canada Reads 2013; Library; Books 2012 (57);
We finally have the names of the panelists and their chosen books:
Olympic gold-medal wrestler Carol Huynh (B.C. and Yukon), Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese.
Saul Indian Horse is dying. Tucked away in a hospice high above the clash and clang of a big city, he embarks on a marvellous journey of imagination back through the life he led as a northern Ojibway, with all its sorrows and joys.
With compassion and insight, author Richard Wagamese traces through his fictional characters the decline of a culture and a cultural way. For Saul, taken forcibly from the land and his family when he's sent to residential school, salvation comes for a while through his incredible gifts as a hockey player. But in the harsh realities of 1960s Canada, he battles obdurate racism and the spirit-destroying effects of cultural alienation and displacement.
Indian Horse unfolds against the bleak loveliness of northern Ontario, all rock, marsh, bog and cedar. Wagamese writes with a spare beauty, penetrating the heart of a remarkable Ojibway man.
Ron MacLean, sportscaster (Prairies & the North), The Age of Hope by David Bergen.
Born in 1930 in a small town outside Winnipeg, beautiful Hope Koop appears destined to have a conventional life. Church, marriage to a steady young man, children-her fortunes are already laid out for her, as are the shiny modern appliances in her new home. All she has to do is stay with Roy, who loves her. But as the decades unfold, what seems to be a safe, predictable existence overwhelms Hope. Where-among the demands of her children, the expectations of her husband and the challenges of her best friend, Emily, who has just read The Feminine Mystique-is there room for her? And just who is she anyway? A wife, a mother, a woman whose life is somehow unrealized? This beautifully crafted and perceptive work of fiction spans some fifty years of Hope Koop's life in the second half of the 20th century, from traditionalism to feminism and beyond. David Bergen has created an indelible portrait of a seemingly ordinary woman who struggles to accept herself as she is, and in so doing becomes unique.
Charlotte Gray, historian and biographer (Ontario), Away by Jane Urquhart.
A stunning, evocative novel set in Ireland and Canada, Away traces a family’s complex and layered past. The narrative unfolds with shimmering clarity, and takes us from the harsh northern Irish coast in the 1840s to the quarantine stations at Grosse Isle and the barely hospitable land of the Canadian Shield; from the flourishing town of Port Hope to the flooded streets of Montreal; from Ottawa at the time of Confederation to a large-windowed house at the edge of a Great Lake during the present day. Graceful and moving, Away unites the personal and the political as it explores the most private, often darkest corners of our emotions where the things that root us to ourselves endure. Powerful, intricate, lyrical, Away is an unforgettable novel.
Actor and filmmaker Jay Baruchel (Quebec) Two Solitudes by Hugh MacLennan.
Hugh MacLennan's iconic 1945 novel Two Solitudes instantly became a symbol for one of Canada's most challenging dichotomies: the divide between French and English. The Tallard family stands in for the entirety of Canada: Athanase Tallard is born of an aristocratic French-Canadian tradition, while his beautiful wife Kathleen is of Irish heritage. Their son Paul, meanwhile, must reconcile the conflicting interests in his blood — he is at home speaking both French and English, but feels alienated from both cultures...and he is struggling to write a novel that will help define his Canadian identity.
Two Solitudes won the Governor General's Award for fiction when it was published in 1945, and went on to become a classic work about Canadian identity.
Comedian Trent McClellan (Atlantic provinces), February by Lisa Moore.
In 1982, the oil rig Ocean Ranger sank off the coast of Newfoundland during a Valentine's Day storm. All eighty-four men aboard died. February is the story of Helen O'Mara, one of those left behind when her husband, Cal, drowns on the rig. It begins in the present-day, more than twenty-five years later, but spirals back again and again to the "February" that persists in Helen's mind and heart. Writing at the peak of her form, her steadfast refusal to sentimentalize coupled with an almost shocking ability to render the precise details of her characters' physical and emotional worlds, Lisa Moore gives us her strongest work yet. Here is a novel about complex love and cauterizing grief, about past and present and how memory knits them together, about a fiercely close community and its universal struggles, and finally about our need to imagine a future, no matter how fragile, before we truly come home. This is a profound, gorgeous, heart-stopping work from one of our best writers.
I can't wait to get started! I'm somewhat ashamed to say I haven't read any of these books, but I'm looking forward to getting my hands on them very soon.
If you want more info on the books or the panelists visit here.
We're almost getting there. The top five books of each region has just been released. Now each of the panelists will represent a region and pick one of those five books to defend.
The Atlantic Top 5:
Annabel by Kathleen Winter
Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
February by Lucy Moore
No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod
The Town That Drowned by Riel Nason
The Quebec Top 5:
The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny
Ru by Kim Thuy
Solomon Gursky Was Here by Mordecai Richler
The Tin Flute by Gabrielle Roi
Two Solitudes by Hugh MacLennan
The Ontario Top 5:
Away by Jane Urquhart
The Day The Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
Far To Go by Alison Pick
Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
The Prairies and North Top 5:
The Age of Hope by David Bergen
The Diviners by Margaret Laurence
The Garneau Block by Todd Babiak
Late Nights of Air by Elizabeth Hay
The Trade by Fred Stenson
The British Columbia and Yukon Top 5:
Bow Grip by Ivan E. Coyote
Everything was Good-bye by Gurjinder Basran
Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese
Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson
Obasan by Joy Kowaga
The panelists and their chosen titles will be announced on November 29. It's getting exciting!
Canada Reads 2013 is just around the corner, February of 2013...Yesterday the CBC, released the titles of the books. This year (actually next year) there will be one book that represents a region of Canada: British Columbia and Yukon, Prairies and North, Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. Each province/region has narrowed down their lists to ten titles; not sure when the voting will begin, but I will definitely tune in soon to get more info. The list includes a few Canadian classics.
Here are the books nominated by region/or province:
Atlantic Provinces:
Annabel by Kathleen Winter
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery - one of my favourite books, ever!
The Bay of Love and Sorrows by David Adams Richards
Come Thou Tortoise by Jessica Grant
February by Lisa Moore
Galore by Michael Crummey
Glass Boys by Nicole Lundrigan
No Great Mischief by Alistair McLeod
Ragged Islands by Don Hannah
The Town that Drowned by Riel Nason
Prairies and North:
Stolen by Annette Lapointe
Cool Water by Dianne Warren
Fall from Grace by Wayne Arthurson
The Garneau Block by Todd Babiak
Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay
The Trade by Fred Stenson
The Age of Hope by David Bergen
The Diviners by Margaret Laurence - I love Margaret Mitchell, although my favourite is The Stone Angel, The Diviners is not too shabby either.
Who Has Seen the Wind by W.O. Mitchell - I'm sure I read this book in school, but for the life of me I do not remember it. It may be time for a re-read.
The Englishman’s Boy by Guy Vanderhaeghe
Ontario:
The Amazing Absorbing Boy by Rabindranath Maharaj - I have this book in my TBR pit
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood - One of my favourite authors. I have read the majority of her books, but I haven't read Alias Grace. Shame!
Away by Jane Urquhart - I have read this author, but not this book.
Clara Callan by Richard B. Wright
The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Buchanan
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje - I read this book ages ago...I remember loving it but not the movie.
Far to Go by Alison Pick
Fifth Business by Robertson Davies - I read this book in high school. I remember loving it back then, and I somewhat remember the plot. Another re-read.
Helpless by Barbara Gowdy
Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb
Quebec:
The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny - I love Louise Penny's Armand Gamamche series, I haven't read this book yet, but I'm definitely looking forward to it.
The Darling of Kandahar by Felicia Mihali
De Niro's Game by Rawi Hage
How to make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired by Dany Laferrière
Illustrado by Miguel Syjuco
Inside by Alix Ohlin
Ru by Kim Thuy
Solomon Gursky Was Here by Mordecai Richler - I have read Richler, but not this one.
The Tin Flute by Gabrielle Roy
Two Solitudes by Hugh McLennan
British Columbia and Yukon:
The Canterbury Trail by Angie Abdou
The Cure for Death by Lightning by Gail Anderson-Dargatz
Bow Grip by Ivan E. Coyote
Everything Was Good-bye by Gurjinder Basran
The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon
Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese
Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson
Obasan by Joy Kogawa - Another book read during school. Another re-read.
One Good Hustle by Billie Livingston
Swamp Angel by Ethel Wilson
I'm ashamed to say that the majority of these books are all new to me. I guess I will be having some fun looking them up at the library.
