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.

Genres: Fiction, Canada, Historical Fiction, Ireland, Book Club, Historical, Canadian Literature

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

She is the author of seven internationally acclaimed novels entitled, The Whirlpool, Changing Heaven, Away, The Underpainter, The Stone Carvers, A Map of Glass, and Sanctuary Line.

The Whirlpool received the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger (Best Foreign Book Award). Away was winner of the Trillium Book Award and a finalist for the prestigious International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The Underpainter won the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction and was a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.

The Stone Carvers was a finalist for the Giller Prize and the Governor General's Award, and was longlisted for the Booker Prize. A Map of Glass was a finalist for a regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book.

She is also the author of a collection of short fiction, Storm Glass, and four books of poetry, I Am Walking in the Garden of His Imaginary Palace, False Shuffles, The Little Flowers of Madame de Montespan, and Some Other Garden. Her work has been translated into numerous foreign languages.
Urquhart has received the Marian Engel Award, Calgary's Bob Edwards Award and the Harbourfront Festival Prize, and is a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France. In 2005 she was named an Officer of the Order of Canada.
Recently, she was named the 2007 Banff Distinguished Writer.

Urquhart has received numerous honorary doctorates from Canadian universities and has been writer-in-residence at the University of Ottawa and at Memorial University of Newfoundland, the University of Toronto, and the University of Guelph.

She has also given readings and lectures in Canada, Britain, Europe, the U.S.A., and Australia.
In 2007 she edited and published The Penguin Book of Canadian Short Stories, and in 2009 she published a biography of

Lucy Maud Montgomery as part of Penguin’s “Extraordinary Canadians” series.

Urquhart lives in Northumberland County, Ontario, Canada, and occasionally in Ireland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Urq...

Reviews

[Kate]

Not a bad novel but in the end, I got annoyed with how she wouldn't write a simple sentence. No kettles boil; it's always symphonies of misty steam, swirling and dancing, up, past the kitchen window, obscuring her view like the hot version of the frost on this January morning, reminding her of the way the sprites danced, also elusive to view, also form-changing, also obstructing the clarity of sight, but of the mind's sight instead of the eye's. Beautiful for awhile, but bloody annoying soon enough.

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

Speaking as a Canadian of mixed heritage, it's always a bit annoying when our official policy of Multiculturalism forces us to answer the question, "What's your nationality?" Many times over their school years, my kids were told to bring in a dish from or write a report on their nation of origin, and as my husband is also of mixed heritage, there's something rather pointless, to me, about them self-identifying as any single one of the many cultures that went into their makeup. After I don't even know how many generations here, we're Canadians. Nothing hyphenated, just Canadians. But…if I were forced to self-identify, I would have to say that with hair as coppery as Mary/Moira's and my mother's side being of pure Irish extraction, I'm more Irish than anything else. Having had Irish-Canadian friends, and also having visited the Emerald Isle as a teenager, I do have an emotional pull in that direction as well. I've read some Irish fiction over the years, some James Joyce and Maeve Binchy et al, but this was the first Ireland to Canada immigrant story I can remember reading and it had an effect on me that very likely has everything to do with this notion of self-identification.

In Away, Jane Urquhart starts her story in Ireland (poetically evoking its landscape, culture and mythology), introduces the Potato Famine (and its attendant death and devastation as well as emigration aboard the "coffin ships" for the lucky few), leading to pioneering in the harsh Canadian wilderness, and ends with a glimpse into the nascent politics of the young Dominion. Interspersed are scenes from the modern day life of an aged descendant of the O'Malley line as she tells the story of her family, giving voice to it even though she's alone, carrying on the tradition of oral history as related to her by her own elderly grandmother. In many ways this felt like a substitute for the immigration story of my own family that I'll never know, and as such, I made a connection with this book that might make me rate it higher than others who don't feel this connection.

Urquhart, in addition to being a novelist, has also published books of poetry and this lyrical sensibility is displayed throughout the book.

In describing a forest: Leaf and leaf and shadow, shadow and sunlight scattered there, and over here, by the wind.

In describing love: This is what love is like, one is asleep and the other is awake but you never know which one is dreaming.

This is also a political book, making commentary on the British Landlords in Ireland (even though the Sedgewick brothers are treated as oblivious and benign), the treatment of the Irish immigrants in Canada (from the fever sheds in Grosse Ile to the impoverished Griffintown neighbourhood of Montreal), the Fenian Rising, and the Fathers of Confederation (in particular D'Arcy McGee).

As a nation of (predominantly) immigrants, Mary's epiphany on being forced to leave Ireland is a shared part of our Canadian heritage:

She saw the world's great leave-takings, invasions and migrations, landscapes torn from beneath the feet of tribes, the Danae pushed out by the Celts, the Celts eventually smothered by the English, warriors in the night depopulating villages, boatloads of groaning African slaves. Lost forests. The children of the mountain on the plain, the children of the plain adrift on the sea. And all the mourning for abandoned geographies.

And this exchange between the mysterious Algonquin named Exodus and Mary's husband notes an equivalence between the experience of the Irish and the Native Canadians:

Exodus leaned across the table and looked steadily at the Irishman. "And so I told her," he said, "that some white men had seized my people's land and killed many animals for sport and abused our women."

The hands of the two men lay flat upon the table but their eyes never left the other's face. "What did she say then?" asked Brian.

When Exodus replied there was a break in his voice. "She embraced me and said that the same troubles stayed in the hearts of both our peoples."

This exchange has further personal relevance for me since the only other heritage I know of is Mi'kmaq on my father's side. It may also explain why I am open to stories that involve the unseen behind the seen; whether faerie-folk or manitou.

After having read the nonfiction Roughing it in the Bush earlier this year, Away reads like a realistic and well-researched account of the early pioneers to Canada. These two books also highlight the differences in experience that was awaiting the poor Irish (even those privileged enough to have had land awaiting them as in Away, which I can't imagine was a common situation) and the moneyed English who were better able to negotiate and navigate the British culture of Upper Canada. Here's another personal story: As a Canadian of mixed heritage, I honestly don't have either superficial or bone-bred prejudices against other people, no matter where they or their ancestors came from. Over the years, I've heard many of the immigration stories from my husband's family, and as a result, have been amused to watch each of my red-haired girls go off to school with a proudly researched paper on their Italian roots. But it floored me when my mother-in-law once informed me that although she always knew her grandfather came from Tipperary, she had just learned that he wasn't Irish-- he was a Brit who had bought land in Ireland in the mid-1800's, sold it at a profit, and then made his way to Canada. I couldn't help but at that point feel a kind of sleeping with the enemy internal conflict: Was he one of these notorious landlords? Did he somehow profit off the Irish during the Potato Famine? I have no clue, but reading Away brought this time alive for me.

I enjoyed everything about Away, from the fates of the drowned sailor and the Latin-teaching Brian to the beautiful and frenetic step-dancing Aidan. But this was really a story about the women: In this family all young girls are the same young girl and all old ladies are the same old lady. This book connected with me in a way that made me feel like this same young girl, this same old lady, if only because no one has ever taken the time to tell me what my own story is. As much as I proclaim myself Canadian first, maintain my impatience with the official need for hyphenated identities, I will concede that I likely have a need to know what path led me to where I find myself now; perhaps I can even be indulged in mourning for abandoned geographies I never knew.

[April Kennedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An evocative story. I loved how Irish mythology was weaved into Canadian history.

[Shane · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the opening line suggests, this is a story about women, four generations of them, and their migratory journey from Ireland to Canada. These are mystical women, in touch with the spiritual world, whose men appear in mirages, out of the water or while converting their sorrows into dance. Water is another key player in the novel, whether it be the sea surrounding Rathlin Island in Northern Ireland or the lakes of Ontario, for water circumscribes worlds, separating them from others that are “away.” The concept of “away” is the hardest to wrap our heads around in this novel for it connotes a multiplicity of meanings: possessed, foreign, non-believer, immigrant, emigrant, revolutionary, the other side, the other person. The line of women in this book are “away” while their men are practical, grounded, hard working, hard done-by by the ruling elites, betrayed or deserted by their women.

The plot pivots around two key events in history: the potato famine in Ireland circa 1845-46 and the assassination of D’Arcy McGee in 1868. The fourth-generation woman, Esther, herself now an octogenarian, is recalling the family story from the confines of the family home in Colborne, Ontario; a story of grinding poverty in Ireland leading to forced migration to Canada, to a hard scrabble existence on the Canadian Shield, to the bounty of gold discovery, to the building of wealth, and to its decay due to the march of nature and progress. After a shaky start, where we don’t quite know what is happening, we connect with great-grandmother Mary on Rathlin Island, the first person in the line of women who is “away,” and who sees her dream man, a dying sailor, emerge from the sea, the result of a shipwreck that is never called out but referred to as “a sea of floating cabbages and bottles of whiskey.” The potato famine drives her, her schoolmaster husband Brian, and their young family to Canada. But Mary abandons the family to go to another lake in the interior and spend out the rest of her life there, for she believes this is what her spirit guide, the dead sailor, had predicted for her. Daughter Eileen is another “away” person, spending her time in a tree and talking to birds who are her guides. Her brother Liam is the practical one who pulls the family out of the Canadian Shield and builds his fortune in farming down by Lake Ontario, thanks to guilt money paid by his father’s former British landlord in Ireland; Liam even transports the Seaman’s Inn (the first white building he sees upon arriving in Canada that he feels destined to live in) from Port Hope to Colborne by floating it down the lake to make it the family residence. Eileen then meets her dream man, Aidan, who dances into her life and whisks her away into a plot to kill Darcy McGee. At this point the novel hinges on whether the narrow nationalism of the impoverished Irish or the liberal federalism of a nascent Canada will win out, and with its conclusion the author stakes her position, making this book a Canada Reads contender.

Some of the characters are wonderfully drawn—Mary and Eileen in particular, Brian, Liam and Aidan, the eccentric British landlords the Sedgwick brothers—while others are hard to get a fix on: Esther, for instance. The plot is a bit contrived: inserting Eileen and Aidan into D’Arcy McGee’s murder could have been done better, I thought, and the inclusion of Esther’s mother (the third in the line of four women) who has no part in the story other then the mention of her name (which I have forgotten) is one only to fill in the time gap. Autobiographical references to family-owned hotels either swallowed by sand or struck by lightning are not elaborated on—they became the stuff of later Urquhart novels. That this is an early novel by the author is obvious in the dialogue and the melodramatic foreshadowing. And yet, the writing is lyrical and a pleasure to read, the descriptions original: “the smell of celibacy was like mildewed oilskin, milk going sour by the sink.”

The wealth of Canadian and Irish lore in this story interested me, especially as I am a resident of Northumberland County in which Port Hope and Colborne are located. I looked up the gold rush in Madoc, the flood in Griffintown (brilliantly described), and I found reference to a Seaman’s Inn in Port Hope that had been subsequently named Canada House in the mid-nineteenth century and run by a retired sea captain. And I walked out in my garden, sniffing, glad there weren’t as many skunks anymore- I’ll thank progress for that!

I have read stronger novels written by Urquhart, her later ones, but I can appreciate how this book propelled her out of the ranks of the many and into the hallowed circle of the chosen few.

[Tina · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book felt like a book you would be forced to read in high school - a Canadian high school specifically. It was somewhat engaging but about halfway through I was nearing boredom. The beginning was very interesting with the hint of the supernatural, but the whole fact that Mary's "away-ness" permeated the text made it lose realism for me and made me scoff at times. The parts I liked were about the men; they were so level-headed and interesting whereas the women were flighty and powerless - I didn't empathize with them at all, which may have been why I grew bored. I'm not a fan of magical realism - the neither-here-nor-there aspect of Mary and Eileen's... whatever it was .... made the woman seem kind of stupid, almost juvenile. The men don't believe in it and the women confound them, and with good reason. Urquart's works are not high on my list after this.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would say this is Jane Urquhart at her best, but then I say that about every one of her books. This is also a book I re-read every couple of years when I want to center myself -- a book where my point of convergence places me firmly in time, and out of time. There is something that is sheer poetry about every word she writes. This one in particular, feels like reading a lovely, elegiac poem to Canada, and to Ireland.

Through Urquhart's poetic vision we are introduced to 4 generations of Irish, following them from pre-famine Ireland through emigration and eventual settlement on the shores of Lake Ontario. The story begins with a love affair and ends with heartbreak: a perfect circle of life painted with an artist's eye for vision. The story is rich with history and mythology of both the Irish and the Canadian landscapes: landscapes of fact, of heart, and of mind.

[Rebecka · Rating 2 out of 5]

The women in this book are so vague and poetic and otherworldly and romantic that by the end I couldn't stand it anymore. I thought I'd like it at first, but it was just too much with the "awayness ". It doesn't help that everything they say is gibberish either.

[Irene · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am often caught between giving 3 or 4 stars to a book, and wish half stars were an option. In my universe (pun intended) 5 stars is reserved for books that are not only well written and creative but that catch me up emotionally and transport me someplace else while I'm immersed in them. 4 stars are for books that are almost there -- I usually appreciate the writing but don't feel connected enough into the book's world. Three stars are for books that are above average in terms of writing but basically run of the mill -- I put most mysteries and thrillers in this category. Two stars are seriously flawed in my opinion (as a reader) -- I may or may not finish them depending on how interesting I find the subject matter. And I would be unlikely to finish anything I'd rate with 1 star -- life is too short and there are too many other GOOD boos to read.

That said, I would give Away 3.5 stars if I could. Good writing, interesting plot, but I found myself drifting away from the page and having to keep pulling myself back to the story. There were a few chapters that kept my interest and had me hoping I'd end up giving it 4 stars, but in the end they were too few and far between.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

A saga featuring four generations of women, this illuminates the distress of the Irish peasantry during the 1840s Potato Famine and their settlement in Canada and political activism (Fenianism) in the two decades that followed. That summary may sound dry, but the novel is anything but dull thanks to its focus on a few intriguing characters and their stories.

I was enraptured from the very first line: “The women of this family leaned towards extremes” – starting with Mary, who falls in love with a sailor who washes up on the Irish coast amid the cabbages, silver teapots and whiskey barrels of a shipwreck and dies in her arms. Due to her continued communion with the dead man, people speak of her being “away with the fairies,” even after she marries the local schoolteacher, Brian O’Malley. “I am here but I am not here. I will be your wife but I will not be your wife,” she warns him.

With their young son, Liam, they join a first wave of emigration to Canada funded by the showy magnanimity of their landlords, the Sedgewick brothers of Puffin Court (amateur naturalist Osbert and poet Granville). But no sooner have the O’Malleys settled and had their second child, Eileen, than Mary disappears. As she grows up, Eileen takes after her mother: she’s mystically attuned to portents and prone to flightiness, while Liam is happily rooted as a land-owning Great Lakes farmer. Like Mary, Eileen has her own forbidden romance: with a political revolutionary who dances like a dream.

All of this is the story Eileen recounted to her 12-year-old granddaughter, Esther. Now an old woman, Esther relives 140-year-old history that has passed into myth. “Try to understand, but try not to interpret. Any interpretation is a misinterpretation,” Eileen had cautioned her. “The place where you stand is the centre of the world” was another of Old Eileen’s aphorisms. These seem to be the book’s central lessons: don’t assume you already know the history and all that it means, and quench the urge to get “away” by being present where you are.

I’ve been underwhelmed by other Urquhart novels, Sanctuary Line and The Whirlpool, but here she gets it just right, wrapping her unfailingly gorgeous language around an absorbing plot – which is what I felt was lacking in the others. I was considering a 5-star rating for much of the length of the novel but arrived at 4 because of the slightly frustrating pattern of dropping one major character (usually because they die or leave) and moving on to another. Although I initially thought this was something of a cheat for Reading Ireland Month, it ended up being perfect. The Ireland and Canada settings are equally strong, and the spirit of Ireland – the people, the stories, the folk music – is kept alive abroad. I would recommend this highly to readers of historical fiction by Margaret Atwood, A.S. Byatt and Hannah Kent.

Favorite lines:

Osbert says of Mary: “There’s this light in her, you see, and it must not be put out. … [and to Liam] Your mother was the only one of them that had the real poetry…because she was ‘away.’”

“When summer was finished the family was visited by a series of overstated seasons. In September, they awakened after night frosts to a woods awash with floating gold leaves and a sky frantic with migrating birds – sometimes so great in number that they covered completely with their shadows the acre of light and air that Brian had managed to create.”

Liam vs. Eileen: “His father’s stories, which had entertained him as a child while wolverines yodelled beyond the cabin walls on sharp winter nights, had left his centre untouched. But his sister, he knew, had ingested the stories, their darkness – the twist in the voice of the song, the sadness of the broken country – and had therefore carried, in her body and her brain, some of that country’s clay. She who was born into a raw, bright new world would always look back towards lost landscapes and inward towards inherited souvenirs, while he sought the forward momentum of change and growth, the axe in the flesh of the tree, the blade breaking open new soil.”

“There are five hundred and forty different kinds of weather out there, and I respect every one of them. White squalls, green fogs, black ice, and the dreaded yellow cyclone, just to mention a few.”


Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Lianne Burwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Away is the second of the Canada Reads 2013 books to arrive from the library, and after being somewhat disappointed by Lisa Moore's February, I was a little worried when I cracked this one open.

I needn't have worried. This book sucked me in from the first page. On the one had we have Esther, an elderly woman living on the edge of the Great Lakes in a home that is apparently going to be overrun by an expanding quarry. And at the same time, we have the story of her great-grandmother, Mary, who changed completely after finding a beautiful dying sailor, washed ashore from a shipwreck that cast cabagges, silver teapots, and caskets of whiskey up on the shore of the island she lives on in Ireland. That story follows Mary as she marries, and how she and her family emigrate to the colony of Canada during the Irish potato famine (a time period where a number of my own ancestors came to Canada from Ireland for the same reason). From there, it goes on to Eileen, Mary's daughter, who gets pulled into events that end with the assassination of Irish-Canadian politician, D'Arcy McGee.

The writing is almost poetry, and the story has aspects of pure whimsy, and I didn't want it to end. I also wanted to know more about the peripheral characters, like Exodus Crow and the Captains Shaunessy. If the book had been twice the length, I still would have been immersed.

[Maryia Stoeva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Обичам, когато случайно ми попадне книга, от която не очаквам много, а четенето й, в крайна сметка, се окаже истинско удоволствие. Това се случи с „Далече” на Джейн Ъркхарт – корицата не привличаше вниманието ми, заглавието също не примамваше, авторката ми бе непозната. До момента, в който посегнах към нея и за пореден път се убедих, че за книгите, както и за хората, не бива да съдим по външния вид.
Една от най-обичаните и четени канадски писателки, Джейн Ъркхарт, е автор на осем романа, три от които – „Далече”, „Художникът” и „Душата на скулптора”са преведени и издадени на български език от издателство ЖАР-Жанет Аргирова. Романите й са спечелили редица международни литературни награди, у нас обаче, като че ли, остават някак недооценени. Ъркхарт е потомка на ирландски емигранти и историята и съдбата на Ирландия намират отражение на страниците на романите й. В „Далече” тя се връща към две ключови събития от историята на Ирландия – големият картофен глад в средата на 19 век, когато над един милион души намират смъртта си, последвалата вълна от емиграция в Северна Америка и политическото убийство на „бащата наканадската конфедерация” Томас Макгий през 1868 година.
Смесвайки минало и настояще, реалност и легенди, история и политика, поезия и проза Ъркхарт разказва историята на четири поколения жени и тяхното пътешествие от бреговете на ирландския остров Ратлин до Канада.

“Жените в това семейство бяха изключителни…Обитаваха северните части близо до замръзналите езера. Връхлитаха ги призраци. Мъжете, пейзажът и душевните състояния идваха и си отиваха. И така години наред, десетилетия наред. Но винаги имаше вода, твърде много младост или твърде много възраст. И после липса…Това бе част от съдбата им.”

Така започва историята, която старата Айлин разказва на своята внучка Естер на брега на езерото Онтарио. Мери е объркана, когато през един ветровит ден намира полумъртъв моряк на брега на океана, който умира в ръцете й. И това я променя завинаги. Въпреки че впоследствие се омъжва за местния учител и той я отвежда в Канада, спомените за мъртвия моряк не спират да я преследват. Мери придобива дарба, която предава на жените след себе си – да виждат „далече”, да се пренасят в друг, неземен свят и да се влюбят безнадеждно в първия мъж, докоснал сърцата им.

Харесаха ми красивите поетични пасажи, живите описания на пустинния ирландски остров и затънтените канадски гори, които почти създават визуално усещане за мястото. Краят обаче съвсем не е обнадеждаващ. Старата Айлин седи в празната къща на брега на Голямото езеро и слуша безжалостния писък на машините, работещи на кариерата, от които “самата земя се разпада…вкаменените разкази за древни преселения биват стрити на прах”.

[Lindahobbs64 Hobbs · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’ve ever been haunted by the memory of an unrequited crush – you’ve been “away.” Obviously, Urquhart draws this out into a splendid family saga, but I found myself able to relate to the sentiment, and that’s what kept me reading. I know that haunted feeling. I’ve gazed out the window, as these characters did, hoping to catch a glimpse of that object of desire that never comes. I know that electric shock from the simple brush of a hand in passing, a shock you foolishly cherish and never forget. This is NOT a novel to read when you’re in a hurry. This is a book to sit with and pass the hours when you have the time and patience to enjoy the rambling prose. That said, great book!

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lyrical does not begin to describe Urquhart's writing. There were so many passages that I reread to truly appreciate their beauty that you could say I read this book one and a half times. She has a way of creating a scene that entirely surrounds you, all of the senses are involved, such that the novel stays with you long after you set it down. Remarkable. Captivating. I am not doing it justice. Read it. You'll see.

[Heidi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jane Urquhart has such a way with words. A very interesting book about the potato famine and immigration to Canada. Lead me to read The Stonecarvers.

[Lindsay · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was well-written with lyrical prose that was beautiful at points, but I found the plot lacking, and that it often focused on characters and events I was less interested in. In addition, I struggle to connect to books with elements of magical/mystical realism, and found that it took me out of the story.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ug. Let me start by saying that I really loved Jane Urquhart's The Stone Carvers. So when I was browsing recently for something short to read (in English, not exactly easy in my neighborhood), I came across a few of her other novels. This is the story of Irish immigrants who move to Canada during the famine. Haunting and lyrical! Sounds great! I'm game!
But once you add in the magical realism aspect of "away", I got lost. Not just lost, but annoyed. And because so much time is spent on the concept of away, the pacing is crap and the characterization is really hard to grasp. I don't get it, and maybe that makes me a lazy reader or not smart enough to make comparisons to Irish lore, but I can't continue. I am about 1/4 of the way into this and I am not going to read anymore. You can't make me finish this book!
On the plus side, the landowning brothers, Osbert and Granville Sedgwick are excellent and I would read a whole book about them.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I loved the historical backdrop both in Ireland and Canada. The introduction of the landlords was wonderful and added a lightness to what was otherwise potentially very dark. Especially since they were so oblivious and blind.

The away bits were believable for me if you compare them to depression - which I have been told feels like you are away from yourself, your family and your surroundings. An interesting take and makes the whole story believable.

Wonderfully written and a very good read. Dragged a bit here and there for me therefore no 5 stars from me (very few ever get the 5 star standard). This was however, very close for me and I would have given it 4.5.

[Joann Mccann]

I loved this book and liked the symmetry between Celtic beliefs and Aboriginal spirituality.

[Деница Райкова]

Джейн Ъркхарт - "Далече", изд. "ЖАР-Жанет Аргирова",2008, прев. Албена Черелова Желева

Завърнах се от "Далече".
И, честно казано, не съм съвсем сигурна какво точно ми се случи с тази книга, нито как точно да я приемам. Знам защо посегнах към нея - тя беше част от моята "ирландска вълна", от поредицата ирландски автори, които чета напоследък. Това, и малкото, което ми бе казано за нея, беше достатъчно да поискам да я прочета.
Но... ирландското в нея не ми беше достатъчно. А би трябвало, да, би трябвало да бъде. Защото в нея са вмъкнати всички онези теми и неща, които за мен са неразривно свързани с Ирландия - времето на Големия картофен глад, борбата за независимост, поезията, легендите, онази типична ирландска приказност. И въпреки това не почувствах никоя от тези теми като централна. Всяка една от тях е причина или следствие на дадени събития в книгата, но не толкова, че читателят да я почувства с пълната си сила.
Може би най-силната част от историята беше тази на Брайън и Мери - защото именно с Мери започва линията на онези необикновени жени, които винаги по някакъв начин и в известен смисъл са "далече". Именно там я имаше наистина онази зловеща на моменти приказност. А колкото до онова, което написах по-горе - може би просто причината е в мен. Защото вече от много време чета за Ирландия. И смея да кажа, че опознах донякъде историята й - затова, какквото и да прочета сега, ми се струва недостатъчно.
Имаше навярно и една друга причина да не почувствам тази книга достатъчно "ирландка" - защото голяма част от историята в нея не се развива в самата Ирландия, въпреки произхода на персонажите.
И въпреки ввсичко това... Джейн Ъркхарт пише красиво. Увличащо. Бих казала дори поетично. И ми беше много лесно да си представя необикновените жени, които описва. И дзори да повярвам, че такива жени има и днес, макар от описаните събития да са минали близо два века. Жени като Мери. Жени като Айлийн. А защо не и като Естер - защото докато четях за нея, имах чувството, че и тя, макар и най-младата от рода, също носи някъде в себе си късче от магията, от онова "далече".
"Далече" е красива и тъжна книига. За изгубените и намерените възможности. За силата на танца и поезията. За необикновената любов - да, не вявах, че ще харесам любовен роман, но е факт. И сякаш онзи тайнствен удавник, с който започва историята на Мери, докрай шества по страниците на книгата, приемйки уж различни образи, но все със същите зелени очи и тъмни къдрици - той е безименният удавник, той е Брайън, той е Лиъм, той е Ейдън Ланиган.
Съзнавам, че пиша объркано. Но тази книга наистина ме обърка и почти до края се питах какво всъщност чета. Сега мога да го кажа: една красива и тъжна история, която може би не дава ценни знания, но ни кара да се вгледаме в себе си и да си припомним, че винаги трябва да намираме време и място за поезията и красотата.

[Harry Maier · Rating 1 out of 5]

What to say about this book other than, Oh dear. This book seriously annoyed me. It piles up stereotype upon stereotype as it traces the four generations of an Irish family from the period of the Great Potato Famine through to settlement in Canada and ending in contemporary SW Ontario on the family homestead. We know these Irish: they are mystics, poets, alcoholics, bad tempered, skinflints, political agitators, lord-of-the-dancers, etc etc etc. We also know this Canada they settle: bad winters, honking Canadian geese, spring floods, friendly "Indians", anti-Catholicism, etc etc etc. In one excruciatingly bad sequence we have the love interest, a pro-Irish politico, persuading opponents not by his gift of speech but by his gift of dance! And then there is all the political correctness improbably foisted upon the 19th century protagonist who draws quick analogies between the expropriation of Irish land and the Irish taking the land of First Nations peoples, the female character who is every bit entitled to political agitation as her Fenian male counterparts, and so on and so on Oy.... At point I was so embarrassed by this book that I almost decided it wasn't worth my time. Only at the end of the story did I understand why this book should have been short-listed for any prize, when the plot turns to a discussion of Thomas D'Arcy Magee, a politician who was assassinated in 1867, and who was agitating for a Confederation that would show equity to disenfranchised Irish settlers. In the final eighth of the novel Urquhart manages to move beyond an unbearable harlequin narrative to do some very interesting things with narrative time and point of view. These pages show why this author is a justifiably celebrated author. Unfortunately the rest of the book doesn't.

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this immediately after "No Country," both books on the topic of Irish emigration during the famine years, and "Away" drew me in from the first, whereas "No Country" left me cold. "Away" had just the right touch of spiritualism (ok, maybe that went overboard occasionally); the characters were more deeply detailed and the writing was beautiful. I'll be reading "The great hunger: Ireland 1845-1849" next.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 2 out of 5]

Away est un roman très anglo-canadien. On y trouve la vie difficile des pioniers, des fées irlandaises et l'assassinat d'un des pères de confédération (à savoir Thomas D'Arcy McGee). Je trouve qu'Urquhart force la note mais c'est peut-etre nécessaire si on veut créer une litérature canadienne.

[Chrystal Unruh · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not really enjoy reading this book, mainly because it’s not a genre I like, but I do recognize and appreciate that she wrote it well. I found it to be slow, and had a hard time connecting with the female characters. I preferred Liam’s POV and liked learning more about the history of the Irish who came to Canada and their early years here.

[Paula · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Urquhart.

[Juniper · Rating 3 out of 5]

for me, the strength of this novel was in the middle section of the story. during this part, i was fully engaged and fell into the flow of the writing. the first and final thirds of the book, though, were just so-so for me. too many times during these sections i felt like ideas were being floated at the reader or moments of 'aren't i clever?' (through the use of language or how certain sentences were structured) were happening and it distracted me. i also didn't really feel there was a good flow in these sections and i remained detached from the story. when i read this book, back when it first came out...i was only so-so about it at that time, though more specifics are lost to me as it's been so long. i wasn't very excited to pick it back up as a re-read for the canada reads debates on cbc, but i was hopeful that i would like it more this time around - as with age sometimes comes broader perspectives.

given that i was reading away in context of the canada reads debates...i wonder what my re-read experience would have been like were this not the case? out of the five books in contention...this is my least favourite and pales in comparison to my favoured novel, Indian Horse. as with the other books, there are shared themes but i think they are addressed better in the other books. (the ideas of loneliness, solitude, love, religion, historical moments in canada, etc...). i also think the appeal of away will be to a smaller audience. my top three books - indian horse, Two Solitudes and February - i highly recommend to all readers. this novel and The Age of Hope i would only recommend to certain readers.


that's a lot of rambling...sorry.

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was given to me by my French professor because of it's connection to Grosse-Ile, which I toured while in Quebec. It began interestingly enough with a view of life during the potato famine in Ireland, something my own Irish ancestors endured. Beyond that, I found the book a struggle to finish. One of the reviewers said it felt like a book you were required to read for a class and I couldn't agree more. The author writes in an extremely descriptive manner which is beautiful, but it's definitely not a style I appreciate because I continually found myself saying enough is enough, get to the point. As for the Grosse-Ile connection, this was not an area that was developed at all. In fact, it was barely mentioned - 3 times if I counted correctly and no more than one sentence each. In fact, these were probably the ONLY portions of the book which were not written in the descriptive manner.
I also found, like another reviewer on this site, that I enjoyed the portions of the book which related to the "supporting characters" - Liam, Molly, Mr. O'Malley, the landlords, etc. Although I found Mary's story and the concept of being "away" intriguing, I found it a bit of a stretch that two more females were dealing with similar feelings. The book implies that it's the story of 4 generations, Mary, Eileen, an unknown whose name we finally learn in the last few pages, and Esther. But the characters in the 3rd and 4th generations are barely (if at all as in the case of the third) developed so any continuity is lost.
I would have rated the book at one star had it not been for the initial section on Mary.

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had forgotten how lovely this book was. I read it awhile ago, but decided to reread it when I saw it was a finalist for Canada Reads.. The language in this book is mesmerizing and you can feel the emotions of each character weighted in the words used to construct this book. There is constant reference to the poetry in the souls of the Irish people and that poetry is reflected in the style of the novel itself. I also love how Urqhart weaves the narratives of multiple generations together, but at the same time lets the predominate narrative of Mary followed by Liam, followed by Eileen take centre stage. I often find that when author's use multiple narratives it either comes off as clunky, forced o confusing, but this is not the case with this book as each narrative flows into the next, but still stands distinctly on its own. I am glad I choose to read this book again and I know it is one I will return to often.

[Murielle Cyr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jane Urquhart’s enchanting novel, Away, is a touching tale of love and abandonment that spans through four generations and covers two continents. Esther, an elderly woman narrates her great-grandmother Mary’s poor beginnings on the northern Irish coastline and her desperate move across the Atlantic to the unforgiving shores of the Canadian Great Lakes.
Her description of the suffering and terrible injustices experienced by the victims of the Irish potato famine was heart wrenching, as was the crude and poor conditions of the Irish settlers living in Montreal’s Griffintown. Not much, unfortunately was mentioned of the horrors of Grosse-Ile where so many Irish immigrants perished
The writing is lyrical and well-crafted, blending the magical and the political with the stark realism of each generation.

[Sheila · Rating 3 out of 5]

A young woman finds a man clinging to a barrel on the shore of Ireland in the 1830-40 time period. He dies soon after. She becomes distant and imagines herself belonging to the sea. A young schoolteacher falls in love with her and marries her realizing she will never 'belong to him'. At first they seem happy, and their son is born. Then the potato famine strikes and one of the landlord brothers arranges for them to emigrate to Canada. They settle on land in Upper Canada and try to farm. They story switches back and forth between current time when Ester is an old woman back to the Mary and her husband. I found it confusing as we don't learn who Ester is until the end. We learn more about the potato famine and the Irish landlord system and the Canadian politics and D'Arcy McGee. I will have to ponder this book to figure out the real message, if there is one.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Urquhart’s writing. Most of this book was captivating. The last section of the book, Eileen’s “away” time, just didn’t work for me. While being enchanted by a mysterious dead stranger had a mystical quality (in Mary’s case), Eileen being obsessed with a living person was just unappealing. Also, I didn’t care for Aidan, and his dancing. I did, ultimately, like his political viewpoint though. I appreciated the character of Liam, a pragmatic down to earth soul, born into a family of otherworldly types. And Osbert was a worthy Victorian-era character. Finally, I truly enjoyed Urquhart’s vision of what it was like to forge a life in the new world.