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Mirror on the Floor
Fiction. Reissued as part of Anvil Press's Lost BC Literature series. BC Books for Everybody. Gift book selection, Quill & Quire . Most Anticipated Fiction, 49th Shelf . MIRROR ON THE FLOOR was first published in 1967 by McClelland and Stewart, the first novel from a young writer named George Bowering. Now with over 100 publications to his credit, we are proud to be reissuing Bowering's debut novel.
Set in Vancouver, the novel focuses on one summer in the life of UBC graduate student Bob Small and his roommate, George Delsing, as they study, smoke cigarettes, endure tedious summer jobs, joust one another with philosophical banter and literary repartee, and strike out on near nightly adventures in Small's "poor old over- traveled yellow Morris Minor" to the pubs and late-night diners of East Hastings and Main Street.
They spend much of their time carousing and engaging in conversation with the old-timers, retired seamen, dockworkers, and unemployed loggers. And it is on one such night that Bob Small encounters a mysterious and troubled young woman outside the city lock-up. Her name is Andrea and he can't seem to shake—or understand—the inexplicable attraction he feels for her; and from this night on, like an apparition, Andrea appears the library, the coffee houses, the bars, the street, and Bob Small is slowly and inevitably pulled into her orbit, an orbit that spins on a tragic and ever- tightening inward coil.
MIRROR ON THE FLOOR vividly evokes the Vancouver of the mid-to- late 60s, a Vancouver where neon signs still shimmered on the rain- soaked streets of the Downtown Eastside and Granville Street bustled with movie-goers.
"It's a damn fine story... MIRROR ON THE WALL reflects the American influences on west coast writing, which included the Black Mountain School's influence on coastal poetry... Auto(biographical) fiction is now much talked about, but it wasn't even fresh in 1967, though the label may be new in this century. What would have been considered novel when the book was first published would have been the use of language, its grit, and the successful representation and retelling of the Elecktra story..."—Victor Enns, The Winnipeg Review
"I have never read a novel which evoked the flavour of a Canadian city so successfully. Vancouver, the smell and feel of its fog, the beaches, the bridges, Stanley Park, the sleazy bars of the dock area are all absolutely there in a way that has been curiously difficult for other novelists to capture."—Phyllis Grosskurth, Saturday Night
"His prose has a lilt and swing to it—here is a man who listens to the sounds of the words he writes."—Lorne Parton, Vancouver Province "...MIRROR ON THE FLOOR is a novel about a place. A decade ago in France, Alain Robbe- Grillet, Michel Butor and other choseistes created a small revolution in fiction by transferring attention from the character to the environment. The human beings in their novels became, as it were, membranes to receive impressions of objects in the outer world; the objects and not the people were given solidity. The choseistes too were over-deliberate, and it is hard now to read a novel by Robbe- Grillet as anything but an intellectual exercise. What Bowering has achieved is a humanization of the choseiste approach. The principal presence in MIRROR ON THE FLOOR is undoubtedly Vancouver, a living growth like coral, in and out of whose chambers the characters move like reef fish. But, like the fish, they live on equal terms with the environment, not originating their destinies, but, as we all do, assisting in their un-folding."—George Woodcock, Canadian Literature
Set in Vancouver, the novel focuses on one summer in the life of UBC graduate student Bob Small and his roommate, George Delsing, as they study, smoke cigarettes, endure tedious summer jobs, joust one another with philosophical banter and literary repartee, and strike out on near nightly adventures in Small's "poor old over- traveled yellow Morris Minor" to the pubs and late-night diners of East Hastings and Main Street.
They spend much of their time carousing and engaging in conversation with the old-timers, retired seamen, dockworkers, and unemployed loggers. And it is on one such night that Bob Small encounters a mysterious and troubled young woman outside the city lock-up. Her name is Andrea and he can't seem to shake—or understand—the inexplicable attraction he feels for her; and from this night on, like an apparition, Andrea appears the library, the coffee houses, the bars, the street, and Bob Small is slowly and inevitably pulled into her orbit, an orbit that spins on a tragic and ever- tightening inward coil.
MIRROR ON THE FLOOR vividly evokes the Vancouver of the mid-to- late 60s, a Vancouver where neon signs still shimmered on the rain- soaked streets of the Downtown Eastside and Granville Street bustled with movie-goers.
"It's a damn fine story... MIRROR ON THE WALL reflects the American influences on west coast writing, which included the Black Mountain School's influence on coastal poetry... Auto(biographical) fiction is now much talked about, but it wasn't even fresh in 1967, though the label may be new in this century. What would have been considered novel when the book was first published would have been the use of language, its grit, and the successful representation and retelling of the Elecktra story..."—Victor Enns, The Winnipeg Review
"I have never read a novel which evoked the flavour of a Canadian city so successfully. Vancouver, the smell and feel of its fog, the beaches, the bridges, Stanley Park, the sleazy bars of the dock area are all absolutely there in a way that has been curiously difficult for other novelists to capture."—Phyllis Grosskurth, Saturday Night
"His prose has a lilt and swing to it—here is a man who listens to the sounds of the words he writes."—Lorne Parton, Vancouver Province "...MIRROR ON THE FLOOR is a novel about a place. A decade ago in France, Alain Robbe- Grillet, Michel Butor and other choseistes created a small revolution in fiction by transferring attention from the character to the environment. The human beings in their novels became, as it were, membranes to receive impressions of objects in the outer world; the objects and not the people were given solidity. The choseistes too were over-deliberate, and it is hard now to read a novel by Robbe- Grillet as anything but an intellectual exercise. What Bowering has achieved is a humanization of the choseiste approach. The principal presence in MIRROR ON THE FLOOR is undoubtedly Vancouver, a living growth like coral, in and out of whose chambers the characters move like reef fish. But, like the fish, they live on equal terms with the environment, not originating their destinies, but, as we all do, assisting in their un-folding."—George Woodcock, Canadian Literature
160 pages, Paperback
First published June 30, 2014
10 people want to read
About the author
George Bowering
144 books23 followersGeorge Bowering was born and brought up in the Okanagan Valley, amid sand dunes and sagebrush, but he has lived in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and Alberta — great sources of hockey stars. Along the way he has stopped to write several books on baseball. He has also picked up Governor General’s Awards for his poetry and fiction, and otherwise been rewarded with prizes for his books, except in his home province of British Columbia. His earlier ECW book, His Life, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for 2000. He lives in Vancouver.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 20, 2014
Solid three-and-three-quarters. A mix of writing styles, interesting story, a plot of natural living and occasional circumstances.
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