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 - The Dead Republic by Roddy Doyle

The Monkey leisurely finishes an epic trilogy.

And speeds through a review.

The monkey enjoys contrast.

The Dead Republic
by Roddy Doyle (2010)

I'd cycled every inch of every lane of this country. I'd lobbed bombs from most of the ditches. Bullets had slowed me down, but nothing had ever stopped me. Thirty years ago. Only thirty years. It wasn't a lifetime. I looked at my hand, at yellow, knuckled bone. The hand had once held guns and women. I closed my fingers and felt nothing.
I used to be heard. My eyes used to kill.

Roddy Doyle's A Star Called Henry is a masterpiece, plain and simple. Following young Henry Smart as he becomes a key player in the Irish Citizen Army in the early 20th century, Doyle's novel was a key departure from his until-then usual, more intimate style, and was a literary triumph in every respect.

Its follow-up, Oh, Play that Thing, followed the wisened Henry to America, on the run and completely alone. Doyle had some great fun leaving Ireland and playing with the glories of the Jazz Age, especially when he somehow joined up Henry to Louis Armstrong. At the finale, Henry was older, very tired, and short one leg. His wife, the estimable Miss O'Shea (no name ever supplied nor needed), had been trapped on a train with his children as they rode the rails, and Henry had slipped beneath the wheels and was left behind. Oh, Play that Thing is deeply enjoyable, a romp and a half, but somehow doesn't linger nearly as long in the mind as Star. And its emphasis on Henry's acquaintance with various famous figures in history sometimes gave the book the air of a highbrow Forrest Gump.

The Dead Republic, Doyle's final volume, splits the difference. Doyle completes his Last Roundup trilogy by reuniting Henry with Ireland, and brings to a close Henry Smart's literary bildungsroman in often high style.

The book opens with Henry on the set of John Ford's classic motion picture The Quiet Man. Ford has somehow become convinced that Henry's story should be filmed; Henry sees it as another thing to do, and only goes along with the scheme when it becomes apparent that he could possibly return to the land he fled in fear for his life. Anyone who has actually seen The Quiet Man can attest that the end result is hardly the story of Henry, fictional character or not.

The opening third, much as the whole of Oh, Play that Thing, is the weakest element of The Dead Republic. Henry's exploits among the famous are inherently fun, but never truly memorable. It's only when Henry travels back to Ireland, to witness and again become a part of the political strife decades later, that the novel begins to soar to Star's heights.

To be sure, it's hardly a perfect novel, even at its best. Henry's irascibility as he gets older is wonderfully done, but the plot often appears too slight to support his heft. Henry feels shoehorned into the political machinations of the time, whereas in Star the plot and Henry were organically connected. Perhaps this is intentional on Doyle's part; Henry has no desire to rejoin with elements of his past, and goes along with the plans of others rather unwillingly. But even so, Republic sputters when Henry meets up with his past, especially at one crucial point; frankly, Henry's reunion with one particular character completely beggars disbelief, even topping the desperately loopy reunion in Oh, Play that Thing.

But it's Henry Smart that's the driving force, and on that sole element, The Dead Republic delivers in spades. Doyle's main strength as a writer has always been his ability to breathe life into his characters (I offer as proof the absolutely wonderful Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and The Woman Who Walked into Doors), and Republic spectacularly captures a man who is eternally on the fringes of history, both as active participant and passive tool.

Bottom line: when Doyle works with the plot, rather than the character, The Dead Republic suffers. But when it's simply Henry Smart, older, grimmer, and bursting with life, well, it's grand stuff, that.

VERDICT: MONKEY LIKES