Read Across Canada: A 2013 Challenge discussion

I pressed for this blog-by-province so I thought I would go ahead and get something started with Questions to Consider...mainly for my own reflections while I am reading :)

How and why was location important to the story? Lasting impressions?
Do you think the timeframe/historical era in which the story was set influenced the authors expression of the location?
How did the protagonist/narrator influence the impression of the location? Would this have been different if told from another point of view?
What do you think motivated the author to use this setting?
Would this story unfold in the same way in a different setting?

I like this format, so I might steal it for the rest of the blogging threads. Of course, people don't have to use this format, but if you don't know where to start, this will be a great place to begin.

Fishing Up the Moon

Considering space for Hines' novel...well this feels like a bit of a cheat because our protagonist, Dorie, lives in Toronto and takes a trip to Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, so the reader can really see the difference that place makes for Dorie, how she relates to herself and understands herself. In Toronto, we read that a tree wonders if it is the last of it's kind, while a native of Cape Breton shares how the Island helped him to hear the ocean in people's voices.

When I think about Dorie- and my own- experience living in Toronto, I think she has really captured the city. Would her city-life look the same if she was in any other Canadian city? I'm not so sure that Halifax, Ottawa, Montreal feel so city as Toronto. Actually I'm not sure those three cities have any towers at all (Dorie works in one of the Dominion Towers, a quintessential part of the skyline of TO). Toronto is unique as a Canadian city in it's height and breadth and concrete.

When we meet the folks living in Nova Scotia, specifically Cape Breton, at first Dorie gets the impression that they are a bit...roughneck. We see this through her own naivete in thinking that caring- offering a ride or a glass of screech- might result in her kidnapping or death, that this is what her rational brain tells her to fear. In short time the people she befriends on Cape Breton ask her a myriad of questions about Toronto, about places and spaces she knows nothing about, and that helps her challenge and expand her ideas about place.

I love Dorie's influence on the impression of location because of this. She is living a very stereotypical city life, seemingly city-cultured and well-rounded, and yet at the same time she does not know where Cape Breton Island is, nor do her co-workers, who at first believe it to be in the Caribbean. In contrast, she meets a dozen people on the Island that have experiences in Toronto and ask her about restaurants and shops that she has never been to.

In Hines' novel, location helped Dorie to evaluate her beliefs about herself that were reinforced because of physical space and the people that she spent the most time with, and to challenge those ideas. It's interesting to read that Anne Hines did her studies at U of T, the city-within-the-city in TO, and that now she is living in Saskatchewan. Her reflections on Maritimers are pretty accurate- what you see is what you get, and if your shoes are uncomfortable best to just go barefoot. I wonder if this story had been rewritten and the setting was the Prairies would we be reading similar ideas.

Looking forward to 1982, my second Ontario read, as Jian Ghomeshi is practically the poster child for southern Ontario, and does play a huge role in the voice of our nation with his CBC broadcast. How will his expression of Ontario- specifically of Toronto- look different from Dorie's, who is in obvious need of an escape?

Long Hot Summoning, which for the most part is set in Kingston, Ontario, is the third book in Tanya Huff’s Keeper Chronicles. While I suggest people read the other two books in the series to get an overview of Tanya Huff’s world and to clear up any confusion about certain characters or aspects of the world, namely Sam and the hole in the basement of Claire’s hotel, it’s not necessary.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, but it might be for everyone, such as Christian conservatives. There’s a bit of lesbianism in it, more than I remember in the other two books in the series.
The thing I loved about this book was how funny it was. It had me laughing hysterically.
1) How and why was location important to the story? The location was important because it was set in the Kingston mall and the Elysian Fields Guest House. If they changed the mall setting to a hair stylist, it wouldn't be the same, because (view spoiler)[the mall elves were changed by the food in the food court and they needed stuff from sporting goods and large appliances that they just couldn't get in Walmart. (hide spoiler)]
2) Lasting impressions? It was hilarious. I was laughing hysterically, to the point that I almost cried.
3) What do you think motivated the author to use this setting? I guess she thought it would make a good story. Also, there was a character that was introduced in The Second Summoning, she probably wanted to show readers how he'd interact with the other characters.
4)Would this story unfold in the same way in a different setting? No. I think the plot, if it wasn't completely nonexistent, would be a lot less interesting if it took place in, say, a suburban strip mall instead of in a regular mall.
5) Do you think the timeframe/historical era in which the story was set influenced the authors expression of the location? A little bit. They did use cars and fridges, after all.

It's been a long time since I laughed histerically at something I've read in a book. You have to love that feeling.