Since Daisy Creek

by W.O. Mitchell

Colin Dobbs, a salty-tongued professor, is recovering in a hospital bed. In a review of his past, we learn about the grizzly hunt that went wrong – and how his life has changed since the incident at Daisy Creek. But the really central issues of his life emerge as Dobbs is prodded back to health by his estranged daughter. Gradually, as he learns to face the world – and his students – again, we come to see the deep disappointments that led him on his strange quest up Daisy Creek, where Archie Nicotine saved his life.

Genres: Fiction, Canada

344 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

William Ormond Mitchell was an author of novels, short stories, and plays. He is best known for his 1947 novel Who Has Seen the Wind, which has sold close to a million copies in North America, and a collection of short stories, Jake and the Kid, which subsequently won the Stephen Leacock Award. Both of these portray life on the Canadian prairies where he grew up in the early part of the 20th century. He has often been called the Mark Twain of Canada for his vivid tales of young boys' adventures.

In 1973, Mitchell was made an officer of the Order of Canada.

Reviews

[Elsa DeGelder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sure, it's immaterial to the success of this book that it was--for me--a garage sale acquisition. That seeing Mitchell named as author on the cover was enough for me to add it to my armload of other treasures I'd found there. Some garage sales are just good like that, and the only thing you're left with is a perplexed--with undertones of gratitude--how could you bear to part with these?
I loved this book--in case the five stars didn't give it away--and appreciated the way Colin would unreasonably grow crusty and mean-tempered and then be rational and decent. It is, I've heard, often a part of grappling with the seismic shocks of survival. Sure, that doesn't make the way he acts right, but for me, Honesty in fiction is a far more valuable commodity than rightness of character behaviour.
Especially meaningful to me as a writer were the scenes where Colin's teaching his Writing class; the help he gives them, steering them around, reining his own thoughts in and getting his students to discover their own questions and answers was the work of a master teacher. Even, too, the deliciously scathing criticism where it was so dreadfully necessary.

Colin Dobbs: Cantankerous, but oh, what talent beneath all that. More surprisingly still, what heart.

[P · Rating 1 out of 5]

The central narrative here is one of a bitter old misogynist who is made, by the mystical, last-minute power of his horribly stereotyped Indian hunting guide and the patience of his utterly uninteresting daughter, to finally stop caring that a bear mauled him, and to move on with his life. To reach this point, you have to go through several pages of gratuitous academic parody - boy aren't those academics so silly and so petty! - and an utterly unexpected courtroom scene wherein the old man sues the taxidermists who delivered him the wrong bear skin, loses, and learns to live with that. Then, voila, his daughter tells him he's a good teacher, and makes him promise to get back to writing. He cries, names two people as inspirations, and the novel finally ends.

For a good book about a bear mauling and a man searching for redemption and successfully questioning his values, read The Revenant. For a weird, confused story that doesn't seem to be about anything other than a prick who doesn't stop being a prick until he's hurt a lot of people, read this.

[Andree]

DNFing early on. I don't think it's bad, and there could be something interesting in it, but 30 pages in and the writing style (which is clearly very deliberate, and I think well done), is irritating me. So I think I'm cutting my losses with this one.

[Deb Mohr · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have never read a Mitchell book that I didn't enjoy, this one being no exception. #1400.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very dry. The continually use of the words Poppa and hey-up was very annoying.

[Wren · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly, this was not a good book. It really, really wasn't. It could have been the first draft of a moderately good book, maybe.

I actually found the protagonist fairly entertaining, for the most part, which was part of the problem really. You're supposed to want him to stop being such an asshole, but I liked him much better that way. All of the characters that I was supposed to like were intolerably uninteresting.

On top of that, the writing is just tragically bad. It is awkwardly arranged and difficult to follow. Quite a lot of the book consists of barely comprehensible dialogue that is annoying to read even when it does manage to make sense.

I'm giving this book two stars, but at least one of them is out of pity.

[Laura Curbishley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Less about nature and a bear like I thought it was, and very well written. Just ok for me.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a Canadian, I was happy to read this book. I was a bit surprised to find so few reviews. The style was a little challenging, but the themes were important and delivered with humour.