Monkey droppings - The Republic of Nothing, by Lesley Choyce

Monkey likes this book.

'nuff said.




The Republic of Nothing
Lesley Choyce (1994)

My father declared the independence of Whalebone Island on March 21, 1951, the day I was born. It was a heady political time even on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia. New, pint-sized nations were emerging all over forgotten corners of the globe and my old man decided that the flowering of independence should not pass us by.

Ever loved a book? I mean, really loved a book? Loved it so much that your passion overwhelms your common sense, and you'd punch another human being rather than hear a negative word said about it? You know, reading that over, it occurs to me that I might be overstating my case a wee tad, inadvertently lumping myself in with Twi-hards and religious fanatics (don't ask me which is worse).
So, scale it back, and start again.

The Republic of Nothing is a masterpiece.

There, that about covers it, short, sweet, to the point, and leaves no room for contrary opinion. Perfect.

Again, I'm pushing it, I know. Blame Lesley Choyce. He's the one who wrote the damnable thing. He's the one who overwhelmed my senses and actually made me shed a tear or two in between honest-to-Buddha guffaws. It's his fault, I'm just an innocent literary bystander.

The Republic of Nothing is hardly an unknown book, being taught in universities and even claiming the #32 spot on Atlantic Canada's 100 Greatest Books. Clearly the novel has its fans, and I'm late to the party. But still, I had never even heard of it until I was taking a brief visual accounting of the shelves of Goose Lane Editions (where I am now publicist, thank you very much). It looked interesting, so I began to peruse the pages.

300 and some odd pages later, I was reeling.

Republic is the bildungsroman of Ian MacQuade, born on the Nova Scotia island of Whalebone. Upon his birth, his father Everett declares the island a sovereign nation, "The Republic of Nothing," which seems to go over fairly well with the locals. Ian's father is not the only dreamer in his family; his mother, found adrift by his father on the open ocean, bedraggled and memory wiped clean, is in tune with various invisible powers, and is gifted with a mild telepathy. Whalebone seems a land predetermined to attract the odd, the lost, the freewheeling, and the strange. It is an island where the bones of Vikings intermingle with those of mammoths, where liars find themselves, and where a man who helped invent the atomic bomb might find solace in the stars.

There is a whole sub-genre of Canadian novels that celebrate lovable eccentrics (see: Wayne Johnston's The Divine Ryans, Lynn Coady's Strange Heaven, Miriam Toews' A Complicated Kindness), and while Choyce certainly embraces the form, Republic quickly expands as the story crosses years and decades, transforming from the tale of a young man into the chronicle of an age. The upbeat fifties give way to the turbulent sixties as Choyce brings the world to Whalebone's shore and broadens the narrative with Dickensian twists of plot that delight and astonish. Ian's father becomes swept up in the power of politics, becoming a major play in the Nova Scotia conservative party. The Vietnam War makes itself felt, threatening to destroy Ian's romance with Gwen, the daughter of the atomic physicist. Republic has at its heart a deeply personal story, but its mixture of tiny moments and personal triumphs with grand themes and the expanse of time make it the equal of the best of John Irving.

I realize I have not gone into a lot of detail on Choyce's prowess with prose, his effortless achievements at character and nuance. It's been a few months since I completed Republic, and I wasn't taking notes at the time, more than content to simply have the story told to me. I've read quite a few books in my time, many of which I admire, fewer I will profess to love, and even fewer I will love without reservation, reading over and over again every few years to reacquaint myself with characters and places I haven't visited in awhile, but which made an enormous impact on me. It's a short list, but The Republic of Nothing belongs on it.

If that isn't a masterpiece, I don't know what is.

VERDICT: MONKEY LOVES (duh)

Monkey droppings - Two for a Chilly September Morn

The shelf monkey has been very, very lax on blog updates and reviews of late.

The monkey apologizes.

The monkey has good reasons, however; some selfish, some not.

The monkey will remain mum on that for the time being.

But in the meantime, the monkey throws you a couple of quickies, to mask his abject shame.

Bad monkey. BAD MONKEY! BAD MONKEY!

Seven Good Reasons Not to be Good
John Gould (2010)

What if Zane isn't actually good at all? What if he's just clever - clever enough to give his compulsion a purpose? You got a big ugly sweater from your mother-in-law for Christmas. It's yellow, the yellow of a smoker's fingers, and festooned with quasi-floral patters in lime green and salmon. It's stippled like a plucked chicken. You wear the hideous thing to your mother-in-law's once and then you donate it to the Sally Ann. Sure, it'll keep some poor soul warm on a winter's night, but that isn't going to get you into heaven, is it? You're just ditching the damn thing.

In 2003, John Gould published kilter: 55 fictions, a lovely collection of micro-stories that went on to become a surprise nominee for the Giller Prize. It was a sterling set of tales, and I'm not saying that because I was the only reviewer in mainstream media to review it, for the Winnipeg Free Press. I liked the spasm of attention I garnered for such a selfless act (got my heartily sideburned mug on the teevee and everything), but the stories certainly stand up to closer scrutiny.

Now, seven years later, Gould finally resurfaces with his debut novel Seven Good Reasons Not to be Good. Does it fulfill the promise of kilter? Well, that depends. Anyone searching for a direct repeat of his incisively concise narratives will be sorely disappointed. Anyone who enjoys a good story well-told will be well-satisfied.

Seven Good Reasons concerns Matt, a film critic (or "kritik" - "way cooler, way kooler than your average hack") on the horns of several dilemmas. His wife is cuckolding him with a female barista. His father (the Dadinator) is on his merry way to dementia, obsessed with crop circles and alien visitations. And his best friend Zane, the one constant he could always depend on, has decided to stop fighting and let his AIDs-related death overtake him. Matt has decided, now that he's newly-fired (no spoilers here, but the reasons are delicious), to visit Zane and stop him from embracing death. So he hops a flight to Toronto, starts up a hotel affair with a comely elevator companion, and decidedly does his best not to confront his problems.

There is a lot going on in Seven Good Reasons; novels about the travails of the mid-life crisis often do. There is an abundance of the hopeful fool in Matt, a man not nearly as smart as he thinks he is, and a character firmly in the mold of the mid-life heroes of Saul Bellow and Philip Roth. Such novels are about the search for self, and possibly of meaning in a meaningless world, and Gould manoeuvres the oft-traversed paths with wit and grace. The humour is at once broad yet subtle, combined with a gentle depth of character that recalls Miriam Toews at her best.

Seven Good Reasons Not to be Good is not a game-changer; there are no elaborate flourishes of poetic license, none of that standard 'CanLit that is good for you' falderal. Rather, it is an insightful and humourous examination of human foibles, placed within a plot that always entertains and oftentimes zigs where a zag was expected.

VERDICT: MONKEY LIKES

The World More Full of Weeping
Robert J. Wiersema (2009)

For breakfast on the morning of the day he disappeared, Brian Page ate most of two scrambled eggs, three pieces of bacon, and almost two slices of multigrain toast. After he was gone, his father, Jeff Page, kept remembering the remaining triangle of hardening bread on its plate on the kitchen counter, the outline of Brian's bite sharp, a bright curve against the right angle.

I am not previously acquainted with Robert Wiersema's novel Before I Wake, despite suffering many people's admonishment for this oversight. After reading his sterling novella The World More Full of Weeping, I plan to rectify this horrific mistake posthaste.

Weeping is a tiny, almost perfect pearl of a story - a story of family loss tinged with elements of magic realism Stephen King might have written in his prime.

Brian Page has gone missing. The locals are not concerned, not at first; boys do have a habit of disappearing, especially when there is an inviting forest just adjunct to the backyard. But his father Jeff is not so sure; there are hints that he once disappeared himself, memories that refuse to surface, something to do with the woods and its mysteries. And if Brian has fallen prey to the same lure, he may never return.

I don't want to give too much away; the story is short, precise, and nary a word wasted with an economy of prose that should be taught in schools (I should take the course, definitely, oh yes indeedy do). Wiersema crafts an evocative yarn of tragedy and magic, very similiar in tone to the recent Tim Lebbon piece The Thief of Broken Toys (also great, and also a ChiZine release, my new favourite publisher). Wiersema also proves himself an expert creator of place, erecting a whole town from very few pieces (the process chronicled in the companion piece Places & Names).

The World More Full of Weeping is a gem, a mood piece for a cold autumn's eve that will make you shiver even as you smile, and lament even as you wish it were true.

VERDICT: MONKEY LOVES