A View from the Roof: Stories

by Helen Weinzweig

A collection from one of Canada's most original writers of fiction.

193 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Helen Weinzweig (1915–2010) was a Canadian writer. The author of two novels and a short story collection, her novel Basic Black with Pearls won the Toronto Book Award in 1981, and her short story collection A View from the Roof was a shortlisted nominee for the Governor General's Award for English language fiction in 1989.

Born in Poland in 1915, she emigrated to Canada at age 10 with her mother, and married composer John Weinzweig on July 12, 1940. She published her first short story, "Surprise!", in Canadian Forum in 1967, and her debut novel Passing Ceremony was published in 1973. She came to be regarded as one of Canada's first important feminist writers. Her style was marked by experimental forms with some aspects of metafiction; in her short story "Journey to Porquis", a writer on a train trip realizes that all of his fellow passengers are characters in his novel.

Weinzweig also wrote and produced a one-act play, My Mother's Luck, and several of her short stories in A View from the Roof were adapted for stage and CBC Radio broadcast by playwright Dave Carley.

Weinzweig died in 2010, aged 96.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Kady · Rating 4 out of 5]

A compelling, dream-like collection of short stories on the themes of heritage (particularly Polish-Canadian heritage, which Weinzweig herself hails from), exploring one's past, finding oneself through travel, confronting 20th century gender roles, and extramarital affairs. *Lots* of extramarital affairs.

There's something fractured about these stories, as if you're looking at them through a kind of tilted lens. Sentences directly contradict with each other in the same paragraph, giving you two distinctly different pictures, even while they both happen to be simultaneously true. It's why it feels so much like a dream; dream logic prevails, even when 'real' logic doesn't. I found these little thought experiments deeply chilling and narratively powerful. These are all characters who have, in some way, lost themselves; to see them struggle to visually take in what's happening around them only adds to that feeling of untethering.

I loved the way each story seems to follow after one another, picking up themes from the one preceding, even though each were written years apart. It felt like I was finding these well-placed clues for keen readers to find, and made the collection very cohesive.

My favourite stories of the bunch were 'The Means', about a woman who travels to Arles, tracing the path of Vincent van Gogh; 'Causation', about a piano tuner who slowly seeps his way into every facet of an opera singer's life; 'Hold That Tiger', about an employee writing an extremely personal job performance exam; and 'What Happened to Ravel's Bolero', a surreal story about a woman processing that her lover is moving away.

It's hard to get a copy of this one, but I'd recommend it if you can. Definitely an interesting read.

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of stories both challenging and intriguing. Mid to late 20th century ennui, guilt, imagination. The life of the writer, the impositions of structure on daily life. The escape into something never quite satisfactory. Stories of couples, couples of all sorts. A mix of urban 20th century Toronto and the blurry suburbs and beyond. The author's sense of "place" is acute; she uses it to great effect to create a sense of loss, frustration, dissatisfaction. These stories are worth more than one reread. Helen Weinzweig is a master of blending reality with distraction.

[Sherry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and well written stories.