The Invention of the World

by Jack Hodgins, George McWhirter (Afterword)

Then, Donal Keneally, an Irish giant who thought he could invent the world, led a band of faithful followers from rural Ireland to Vancouver Island in search of Eden. In the course of his search, he founded the Revelations Colony of Truth.

Now, Maggie Kyle runs an extraordinary boarding house on the original site of the Colony, and she and her irrepressible boarders search out Keneally’s story as a key to their own roots and even the possibility of love.

Originally published in 1977, The Invention of the World is Jack Hodgins’ first novel.

Genres: Fiction, Canada, Canadian Literature, 20th Century, Magical Realism

464 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Novelist and short story writer Jack Hodgins lives on Vancouver Island where until recently he taught fiction writing at the University of Victoria. Raised in the small rural community of Merville in the Comox Valley, he graduated with a B.Ed from the University of British Columbia, and taught high school in Nanaimo between 1961 and 1981. He was a Visiting Professor at the University of Ottawa between 1981 and 1983. Between 1983 and 2002 he taught in the Department of Writing at the University of Victoria, and was a full professor at the time of his retiring. He occasionally conducts fiction-writing workshops, including an annual workshop in Mallorca, Spain. He and his wife Dianne, a former teacher, live in Cadboro Bay within easy visiting distance of their three adult children and their grandchildren.

Jack Hodgins's fiction has won the Governor General's Award, the President's Medal from the University of Western Ontario, the Gibson's First Novel Award, the Eaton's B.C. Book Award, the Commonwealth Literature Prize (regional), the CNIB Torgi award, the Canada-Australia Prize, the Drummer General's Award, and the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and has twice been long-listed for the IMPAC/Dublin award. He is the 2006 recipient of the Terasen Lifetime Achievement Award "for an outstanding literary career in British Columbia" and the "Lieutenant Governor's Award for Literary Excellence."

His books include: Spit Delaney's Island (stories), The Invention of the World (novel), The Resurrection of Joseph Bourne (novel), The Barclay Family Theatre (stories), Left Behind in Squabble Bay (children's novel), The Honorary Patron (novel), Innocent Cities (novel), Over Forty in Broken Hill (travel), A Passion for Narrative (a guide to writing fiction), The Macken Charm, (novel), Broken Ground (novel), Distance (novel), and Damage Done by the Storm (stories). Short stories and articles have been published in several magazines in Canada, France, Australia, and the US.

Jack Hodgins has given readings or talks at international literary festivals and other events in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the US. Some of the short stories have been televised or adapted for radio and the stage. A few of the stories and novels have been translated into other languages, including Dutch, Hungarian, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Russian, Italian, Polish, and Norwegian. In 1985 a film of the story "The Concert Stages of Europe," directed by Giles Walker, was produced by Atlantis Films and the National Film Board of Canada. In 2001 the Victoria Conversatory of Music produced a commissioned opera Eyes on the Mountain by composer Christopher Donason, based upon three of Hodgins's short stories intertwined. A screenplay based upon the title character in Spit Delaney's Island has been optioned by a Vancouver film maker.

A number of scholars in Canada and Europe have published critical studies on his work. He has been the subject of a National Film Board film, Jack Hodgins' Island, and a book, Jack Hodgins and His Work, by David Jeffrey. In 1996, Oolichan Press published a collection of essays on his work, titled On Coasts of Eternity, edited by J. R. (Tim) Struthers. A book of essays on Hodgins's work, edited by Annika Hannan, has been published by Guernica Press, Toronto. His manuscripts, papers, letters and other materials are held in the literary manuscripts archives at the National Library of Canada

In 1990, as part of its 75th anniversary celebration, the University of British Columbia's Alumni Society included him amongst the "75 most distinguished graduates" to be honoured with a plaque. In June of 1995, the University of B.C. awarded him an honorary D.Litt for - according to the UBC Chronicle - bringing "renown to the university and the province as one of Canada's finest fiction writers and as an innovative stylist and distinguished academic." In the spring of 1998 he recei

Reviews

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Invention of the World by Jack Hodgins

A James Mitchner-like romp that crosses generations and continents. There are two main characters and one of them is dead when the book begins.

Maggie, the living main character, is a stereotypical strong, independent woman living on the fringe of modern civilization on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. This is lumber-jack timber country and the prototypical male here is Paul Bunyan. Maggie has married some of these guys and had kids by others. She’s on her own now living in an old historic house she bought that shelters a gang of social misfits, men and women, young and old. The house was the home and headquarters of a utopian-type settlement, the “Revelations Colony of Truth” built by a now-deceased leader Donal Kenealy.

Deceased Donal is our other main character. He was an evil religious huckster born in a forsaken dirt-poor Irish village. When young he had migrated to Canada to work. He went back to Ireland, stole money to pay for everyone’s passage and to buy land, and persuaded the whole village to follow him back to Canada. He killed his own mother when she objected to his scheme. He had learned some magic tricks as a kid so he fooled and semi-terrorized these uneducated starving peasants into following him back to the Canadian wilderness where he set himself up as a Jim Jones type leader.

Unlike a chronological Mitchner story, the modern and the historical are blended in chapters throughout the book, aided by reflections of the misfits, and articles and interviews of the original inhabitants collected by the town historian. Another misfit is the former wife of the religious leader who provides details like “right by that kitchen door is where he strangled the dog.” Another crazy character is Madmother Thomas who drives a backhoe around town and lives in it.

We are treated to occasional very good writing such as: “The long island which protected the harbor from the rougher movements of the strait looked like a floating tray of firs, a jagged-topped green platter that you wouldn’t be surprised to see glide closer, or warp and roll if something should disturb the water.”

The book is quite fascinating; a blend of history, humor, noir and magical realism. There’s a story-book romantic ending – a wedding with a Keystone cops finish that seems out of place with the rest of the novel. But it’s still a good read that kept my interest all the way through.

[Donald Schopflocher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A big sprawling rollicking mess of a novel told in almost separate stories in almost separate styles suffused with humor, magic, myth and tall-taleness. Perhaps it is emblematic of Vancouver Island in all its contrariness and contradiction.

[Rosemarie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a very confusing book to read. I didn't know if it was a farce or a serious book, since some parts were very dark, but others were very silly.

[Cherop · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book by a Canadian author made such a positive impression on me despite the fact that I read it many years ago whilst in university. Since then I've recommended it to so many people.

It is soon time for me to read this book again and see if I still like it.

[Maddie Frame · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 - I know now that I’m not a lit fic type of person because it took me too long to figure out who each character was & by then I couldn’t keep track of their development throughout the story. It was probably good though?

[Carlos Sámano · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is an excellent essay by Stephen Slemon where he analyses this book from the perspective of Magic Realism as a Post-Colonial Discourse.

I highly recommend it.

Here is the link

https://web.archive.org/web/201804252...

[Tracey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't finish this book. The first part was ok but then the second part put me off finishing the book. A long and convoluted tale of Donal Keneally and how he came to be a god...did not impress me.

[Barth Siemens · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel contains a prose style (e.g. directionless, disjointed, gracefully flowing) to which I am not normally drawn; however many are. For all that, I enjoyed it enough.

[Rowan Watts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not always enjoyable but still very good. Except for that part where Hodgins writes "the sun's rays were like horizontal bands of light" ???

[Jess Legacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Invention of the World is the type of book I dream about writing. But if I never write anything similar I can't be disappointed, because Jack Hodgins did it perfectly.
Trying to imagine how Hodgins created this world is humbling. These characters are incomplete, complicated, and confused, just like the rest of us. This book starts out as a story full of action. It then becomes a comedy, a mystery, and suddenly somewhere along the way you realize that you're learning something about humanity that will change your perception of the world. Towards the end this book becomes quite sad—the sort of comfortable sadness that comes with knowing all life must end—a beautiful sadness. Then, the final moments culminate in a great scene of reunion, music, dancing, and of course a little violence. The Invention of the World is life and magic summarized in just over 350 pages. I loved this book.

[Fiona · Rating 2 out of 5]

There was a fair amount I liked in this book—I love a good larger than life folktale in the making, and the communes that popped up along the BC west coast in the 60s and 70s is something I’m always interested in, but I still found this to be a largely disjointed and tonally odd book. I think there’s definitely something to be said about this novel as a present examination of individuals pushed out by colonization who then participate in colonization elsewhere, but I also think there have been more successful (and in my feeling, intentional) attempts done at that theme elsewhere.

[Fraser Coltman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This an odd story, a sort of creation myth, that centers around a cult-like group of Irish folk who followed their brutish yet charismatic leader to build a new life on Vancouver Island. The characters are comical and story unfolds in a variety of different forms: narrative, flashback and interviews among them.
As a newcomer to life on Vancouver Island, I especially loved the occasional commentaries on peculiarities of those living here, some of which are still true in the 21st century.

[Nancy Gillies · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed by this novel. The main characters were promising, Donal Keneally with his mythical qualities and Maggie Kyle with her headstrong independence, but I never really came to care for or understand either of them. There seemed to be a lot of plot threads that were left hanging.

[Guy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more than I did. Good, but not great.

[Ibis3]

NCL.2006-10-01

[Okmama · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this many years ago, but have wonderful memories of the joyous jumble of characters. This book really captures Vancouver Island as I remember it from childhood visits.

[prescribed · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm taking a break from this book. I am about 1/3 through and am not invested enough to continue. Might be my state of mind, and so I hope to return. For now, I need something to disappear into.

[Mila · Rating 2 out of 5]

Started out good but got to be tedious.

[Talie · Rating 5 out of 5]

notes to expand on

pairs and contrasts

Outliving stereotypes

diversity / salt of the land / immigration

strong practical women