Pandora

by Sylvia Fraser

Pandora is the trailblazing pre-quel to Sylvia Fraser’s internationally acclaimed My Father’s a Memoir of Incest and Healing. It is the sexually loaded psychological bestseller that helped the author become aware that she had a multiple personality, resulting from her father’s sexual abuse of her. For fans of “My Father’s House;” for those who have suffered amnesia as the result of trauma; for therapists and others interested in the power of the unconscious, Pandora is must reading. A new and original AUTHOR’S NOTE decodes the sexual secrets, hidden even from the author, in the text. Pandora is the classic story of a feisty young girl growing up in a working-class home played out against the distant yet ever-pervasive drama of World War II. Unlike most novels featuring children, Pandora is not an innocent observer of the foibles of the adults around her. Whether at home, on the street, at school, she is a full participant in the struggle for love, success, recognition, status, survival in a high-stakes society in which the decision over who gets to play skipping or who has the most colored pencils is as intense as any deal brokered in any boardroom. Here is a mirror - sometimes distorted, sometimes all too true - of the conflicts in the adult world, with the rows of seats in a classroom standing in for the houses on a street. Especially engaging is Pandora’s sly awareness, often acted out with ironic humor, of the exercise of power, its attractions and its pitfalls. PRAISE FOR PANDORA “I have read this book twice. It is about to circulate among some friends, and when it returns I want to read it again” - Victoria Daily Colonist “Just as J.D. Salinger was acclaimed for his then unique portrayal of adolescence, so should Fraser be lauded for her professional rendition of childhood” - Alberta Red Deer Advocate “It is a beautiful piece of writing and a brilliant portrait of almost any small girl. . . luminous” - Gainesville Florida Sun " . . . a stunner. . .innovative in its technique, precise to one-thousandth of a gesture in its characterization. . . Irrefutably humorous" - Saturday Night “A modern reworking of the Pandora myth. . . a domestic Lord of the Flies in a small-town setting ” - David Staines, Harvard University “Major talent indeed! Exceptional insight plus a wholly refreshing style “ - Montreal Star “As rich and complex as anything I have read. . . . It is everything we knew - the brazen exclusion of the playground, the agony of valentine distribution” - Pittsburgh Press “Pandora is the sort of novel that makes you hold your breath while you’re reading It doesn’t seem possible that it’s going to keep on being as good as it has been so far. . .You watch the writer doing harder and harder tricks . . .and hope she doesn’t slip. She doesn’t - Winnipeg Free Press “The best novel about children to come along since Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. . . enchanting” - Books in Canada “Sylvia Fraser has broken new ground, and done it with the panache and expertise of a high professional order. Here is the truth of what happens to all of us in childhood, beautifully told, unflinchingly honest” - Farley Mowat, author “This is a novel about much more than childhood for it touches upon the whole human dilemma” - Margaret Laurence, author “Pandora can stand beside British and American masterworks portraying life from the child’s perspective” - City and Country “Writing like quicksilver, and in the present tense, the author lights up Pandora from all angles. . .

Genres: Fiction, Canada

261 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Sylvia Fraser (born 8 March 1935 in Hamilton, Ontario) was a Canadian novelist, journalist and travel writer. Fraser was educated at the University of Western Ontario. In her fifty year career as a journalist, she has written hundreds of articles, beginning as a Feature Writer for The Toronto Star Weekly (1957-68), and continuing with articles for many other magazines and newspapers including the Globe & Mail, Saturday Night, Chatelaine, the Walrus and Toronto Life. She taught creative writing for many years at Banff Centre and at various university workshops. She has participated in extensive media tours, given lectures and readings throughout Canada, the United States, Britain and Sweden. She served on the Arts Advisory Panel to Canada Council and was a member of Canada Council's 1985 Cultural Delegation to China. She was a founding member of The Writers’ Union of Canada and for many years was on the executive of The Writers' Trust, a charitable organization for the support of Canadian authors and literature. Fraser lived in Toronto, Ontario.

Reviews

[Orla Hegarty · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the book about childhood that everyone should read. I was transported.

[Christina Barber · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Pandora", Sylvia Fraser's debut novel (1972), is an exquisite composition of moments in the life of Pandora Gothic, a tenacious and precocious child growing up in WWII Canada. Poetic in its delivery, Pandora's perspectives of life as a 5-7 year old are told in rich metaphor. Fraser's ability to bring to life the classroom life of Laura Secord Public School is vivid and sometimes shocking in its representation of the brutalities of childhood exhibited in their own attempts to create societal structures and hierarchies. The birthday invitation scene evokes a particular pathos for anyone who has stood on the outside looking in.

“Pandora” is less a coming-of-age story and more an enigmatic journey into the realization of self. Confined by the expectations of parents, family members and her peers, Pandora holds her ground in often dramatic and elaborate refusals to change simply to satisfy the desires of others.

As a portrait of wartime Canada, “Pandora” is a tableau of society working together: Collectors of recyclables, users of ration tickets, and organizers of social teas for the creation of comfort boxes to send to soldiers. The paradoxes and hypocrisies of the class differences are laid bare, with posturing for social capital evident, though Pandora’s mother, Adelaide, remains a paragon of moral rectitude throughout. Fraser also explores the patriarchal nature of Pandora’s experiences and highlights the often subtle ways in which women pushed against rigid expectations. With the end of the war, the cracks in the veneer of imposed gender roles widen, showing the possibilities for a child who always wants more than life is willing to give her.

[Lucas]

Very difficult to produce a writing that captures the essence of childhood thought, in an adult text, which is what this novel achieves. The child is indeed the ancestor of the adult.

Another novel that falls through the crack of time, because of its 70s feminist tone(not that there is anything at all wrong with 70s feminism, just that it is a different tone and is not as contemporaneous to modern issues.). I like a lot of the woman writers in the New Canadian Library, a shame they seem to only be read nowadays when thrust unwillingly into the hands of 2nd year university English students.

[Johannes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This pertains to "Pandora: Eine Geschichte von Zufall, Glück und dem Finden der Lebensfreude", not the book described in the paragraph

[Kaleb Purdy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the GREATEST books I’ve ever read. This book needs to be on lists. It should make appearances on ATLEAST great Canadian novel lists, if not greatest book of all time lists.

[Emilia Grujic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Felt like I was playing with Pandora the whole time. Loved this book to bits

[Ibis3]

NCL.2006-10-01