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The Resurrection of Joseph Bourne or a Word or Two on Those Port Annie Miracles by Hodgins, Jack (2013) Paperback
When an unknown woman steps off a beached Peruvian freighter and walks into the Vancouver Island town of Port Annie, nothing can ever be quite the same. Stalwart citizens, tired of their milltown routine, grasp at a fresh subject for gossip. Others are suddenly prepared to make momentous decisions. But eccentric old Joseph Bourne, who knows that the endless rain is going to bring a landslide down on the town, is certain that the mysterious woman has come looking for him.Jack Hodgins’ comic masterpiece is filled with social satire, and it is also filled with love, which permits this ordinary town to recollect the past with affection, and to begin its history again.First published in 1979, The Resurrection of Joseph Bourne won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
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About the author
Jack Hodgins
35 books21 followersNovelist and short story writer Jack Hodgins lives on Vancouver Island where until recently he taught fiction writing at the University of Victoria. Raised in the small rural community of Merville in the Comox Valley, he graduated with a B.Ed from the University of British Columbia, and taught high school in Nanaimo between 1961 and 1981. He was a Visiting Professor at the University of Ottawa between 1981 and 1983. Between 1983 and 2002 he taught in the Department of Writing at the University of Victoria, and was a full professor at the time of his retiring. He occasionally conducts fiction-writing workshops, including an annual workshop in Mallorca, Spain. He and his wife Dianne, a former teacher, live in Cadboro Bay within easy visiting distance of their three adult children and their grandchildren.
Jack Hodgins's fiction has won the Governor General's Award, the President's Medal from the University of Western Ontario, the Gibson's First Novel Award, the Eaton's B.C. Book Award, the Commonwealth Literature Prize (regional), the CNIB Torgi award, the Canada-Australia Prize, the Drummer General's Award, and the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and has twice been long-listed for the IMPAC/Dublin award. He is the 2006 recipient of the Terasen Lifetime Achievement Award "for an outstanding literary career in British Columbia" and the "Lieutenant Governor's Award for Literary Excellence."
His books include: Spit Delaney's Island (stories), The Invention of the World (novel), The Resurrection of Joseph Bourne (novel), The Barclay Family Theatre (stories), Left Behind in Squabble Bay (children's novel), The Honorary Patron (novel), Innocent Cities (novel), Over Forty in Broken Hill (travel), A Passion for Narrative (a guide to writing fiction), The Macken Charm, (novel), Broken Ground (novel), Distance (novel), and Damage Done by the Storm (stories). Short stories and articles have been published in several magazines in Canada, France, Australia, and the US.
Jack Hodgins has given readings or talks at international literary festivals and other events in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the US. Some of the short stories have been televised or adapted for radio and the stage. A few of the stories and novels have been translated into other languages, including Dutch, Hungarian, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Russian, Italian, Polish, and Norwegian. In 1985 a film of the story "The Concert Stages of Europe," directed by Giles Walker, was produced by Atlantis Films and the National Film Board of Canada. In 2001 the Victoria Conversatory of Music produced a commissioned opera Eyes on the Mountain by composer Christopher Donason, based upon three of Hodgins's short stories intertwined. A screenplay based upon the title character in Spit Delaney's Island has been optioned by a Vancouver film maker.
A number of scholars in Canada and Europe have published critical studies on his work. He has been the subject of a National Film Board film, Jack Hodgins' Island, and a book, Jack Hodgins and His Work, by David Jeffrey. In 1996, Oolichan Press published a collection of essays on his work, titled On Coasts of Eternity, edited by J. R. (Tim) Struthers. A book of essays on Hodgins's work, edited by Annika Hannan, has been published by Guernica Press, Toronto. His manuscripts, papers, letters and other materials are held in the literary manuscripts archives at the National Library of Canada
In 1990, as part of its 75th anniversary celebration, the University of British Columbia's Alumni Society included him amongst the "75 most distinguished graduates" to be honoured with a plaque. In June of 1995, the University of B.C. awarded him an honorary D.Litt for - according to the UBC Chronicle - bringing "renown to the university and the province as one of Canada's finest fiction writers and as an innovative stylist and distinguished academic." In the spring of 1998 he recei
Jack Hodgins's fiction has won the Governor General's Award, the President's Medal from the University of Western Ontario, the Gibson's First Novel Award, the Eaton's B.C. Book Award, the Commonwealth Literature Prize (regional), the CNIB Torgi award, the Canada-Australia Prize, the Drummer General's Award, and the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and has twice been long-listed for the IMPAC/Dublin award. He is the 2006 recipient of the Terasen Lifetime Achievement Award "for an outstanding literary career in British Columbia" and the "Lieutenant Governor's Award for Literary Excellence."
His books include: Spit Delaney's Island (stories), The Invention of the World (novel), The Resurrection of Joseph Bourne (novel), The Barclay Family Theatre (stories), Left Behind in Squabble Bay (children's novel), The Honorary Patron (novel), Innocent Cities (novel), Over Forty in Broken Hill (travel), A Passion for Narrative (a guide to writing fiction), The Macken Charm, (novel), Broken Ground (novel), Distance (novel), and Damage Done by the Storm (stories). Short stories and articles have been published in several magazines in Canada, France, Australia, and the US.
Jack Hodgins has given readings or talks at international literary festivals and other events in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the US. Some of the short stories have been televised or adapted for radio and the stage. A few of the stories and novels have been translated into other languages, including Dutch, Hungarian, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Russian, Italian, Polish, and Norwegian. In 1985 a film of the story "The Concert Stages of Europe," directed by Giles Walker, was produced by Atlantis Films and the National Film Board of Canada. In 2001 the Victoria Conversatory of Music produced a commissioned opera Eyes on the Mountain by composer Christopher Donason, based upon three of Hodgins's short stories intertwined. A screenplay based upon the title character in Spit Delaney's Island has been optioned by a Vancouver film maker.
A number of scholars in Canada and Europe have published critical studies on his work. He has been the subject of a National Film Board film, Jack Hodgins' Island, and a book, Jack Hodgins and His Work, by David Jeffrey. In 1996, Oolichan Press published a collection of essays on his work, titled On Coasts of Eternity, edited by J. R. (Tim) Struthers. A book of essays on Hodgins's work, edited by Annika Hannan, has been published by Guernica Press, Toronto. His manuscripts, papers, letters and other materials are held in the literary manuscripts archives at the National Library of Canada
In 1990, as part of its 75th anniversary celebration, the University of British Columbia's Alumni Society included him amongst the "75 most distinguished graduates" to be honoured with a plaque. In June of 1995, the University of B.C. awarded him an honorary D.Litt for - according to the UBC Chronicle - bringing "renown to the university and the province as one of Canada's finest fiction writers and as an innovative stylist and distinguished academic." In the spring of 1998 he recei
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 23, 2014
So many stories, I was unable to connect
December 21, 2017
Winner of the GG in 1979 this story recounts how Joseph Bourne comes back from the dead a couple of times in the town of Port Annie on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, and in doing so is the salvation of a whole number of people.
He is saved by the most beautiful pair of legs that come off a freighter and walk the main street looking for him—apparently on a mission from his wife who lives in the tropics and is too ill to travel. She is dark and beautiful just as is the woman who comes to be his salvation.
The town is not faring well, in spite of the best efforts of the mayor to attract tourists with the worlds largest cactus sitting on a barge in the harbor which dies because of too much rain and various other schemes to attract business.
The ending is weak. Bourne leaves the community and the mountain sends the town into the ocean. Could read lots into it but I tried and it didn’t happen for me.
He is saved by the most beautiful pair of legs that come off a freighter and walk the main street looking for him—apparently on a mission from his wife who lives in the tropics and is too ill to travel. She is dark and beautiful just as is the woman who comes to be his salvation.
The town is not faring well, in spite of the best efforts of the mayor to attract tourists with the worlds largest cactus sitting on a barge in the harbor which dies because of too much rain and various other schemes to attract business.
The ending is weak. Bourne leaves the community and the mountain sends the town into the ocean. Could read lots into it but I tried and it didn’t happen for me.
August 31, 2022
✨Read for the 2022 Summer Reading Challenge: Read a book set on Vancouver Island. ✨
This book had a lot of humour and heart and an interesting cast of characters. I found the narration a little difficult to follow at first (free indirect speech that changes perspective every couple of paragraphs) but once I got the hang of it I really enjoyed it.
This book had a lot of humour and heart and an interesting cast of characters. I found the narration a little difficult to follow at first (free indirect speech that changes perspective every couple of paragraphs) but once I got the hang of it I really enjoyed it.
June 18, 2019
I first discovered Jack Hodgins when my library book club read Broken Ground. It has been some time since that book, and I am just sorry I waited as long as I did to read this novel for which he is better known, and which won a Governor General Award.
November 10, 2019
Sunshine Sketches on the West Coast with a grittier cast of characters and a touch of magic. I read this on the train as we crossed Canada from Toronto to Vancouver with our destination being Vancouver Island. It was perfect.
August 1, 2013
The first ten pages of this one threw me a bit as I found it hard to get used to Hodgins voice and the intonations of his sentences. Once, however, I was past that, I really enjoyed this strange and mysterious book that leaves so many puzzles along the way to be picked up later. Unlike other novels though, he drops the answers to those puzzles rather casually. The big plot line is present but there is so many stories sliding together that it is almost dizzying. Perfect small Canadian resource town reflections.
July 31, 2011
I was fascinated at how the story intertwines blends mythology with contemporary life. The setting is a rain-sodden BC coastal town, which has more than the usual share of eccentric characters. I was expecting their interaction with regular townsfolk to generate a lot of robust comedy, and was a bit disappointed to find no laugh-aloud funny scenes.
The book does have plenty of satirical elements, however, with would-be culture vultures and crooked businessmen as the main targets.
The book does have plenty of satirical elements, however, with would-be culture vultures and crooked businessmen as the main targets.
November 28, 2011
This is actually an older paperback, published in 1979. I read this years ago (possibly this same paperback, who knows?), and just finished reading it again just as Mount Meager made its big slide. Port Annie is sort of a Toontown on the WetCoast; Hodgins' caricatures are larger than life yet he treats them with surprising affection. It won the Governor-General's award, yet I'm not convinced it's his best work.
May 14, 2016
The narrative style of switching back and forth between characters with no warning may make you crazy. But, if like me, and already a fan of Hodgins, you are likely already there. Lots of soggy BC fun.
Want to read
August 3, 2010NCL.2006-10-01
June 14, 2019
I found this hard going. It had all the elements of an interesting novel, but somehow the prose creaked along painfully.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews