Canada question

I think it was overrated too, it started out with a promising premise, lost its way in the middle and ended with a convenient but unsatisfying wrap up. I wouldn't recommend it.

Part of what might be this novel's appeal is its simplicity. There is just the narrator and a slow spiral of events within the family that lead to their demise. The novel sort of just is what it is, kind of like life, yet with a faint touch of magic realism, too.

The scenes in Canada have an 'out of time' quality to them, as if the period could be a previous century, almost. And the narrator is constantly rejected, by his sister, by his family, by his country, even by that girl's school. He's sort of been thrown away and forced to navigate without a rudder.

I think it's that sense of isolation, a feeling we all get sometimes when we realize that we are, in fact, all alone, that speaks to some readers. However, it's uncomfortable and might not necessarily make for the most gripping narrative (though the voice is unforgettably strong).

I would never claim Ford's novel is a great classic of modern literature, but it does speak to the times we live in where each day we are set a little more adrift because of technology, global society, and faceless economies; a small world that is also very, very large and wonderfully strange.

Hi Ann,
Hard to say what you missed. That's one of those 'unknown unknowns' isn't it.
So if you gave some idea of what you had expected and what you then didn't enjoy others could comment in a useful way.
It's the only one of his books I've so far read and while I did enjoy it, it is admittedly a bit quirky. That's both in the story and the way it's structured. I think I just relaxed, went with it and accepted that it's ambiguities were, at least in some part, the point.

I really enjoyed it, especially the part taking place in Canada. Such strange people he encountered there. At points, it dragged a bit but wanted to see what happened so kept reading. At the end when he & his sister become reacquainted seemed a little forced. Think this book isn't for everyone.

I found 'The Sportswriter' series to be brilliant. Was wanting very much to like 'Canada'.

Having just forced myself to finish it, all I can say is that my definition of hell would be continuous readings of this book, in combination with forced viewings of 'Amour': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amour_(2...

I have read just about all of Ford's novels, and have come to view him as one of my favorite authors. There is more than one kind of Ford novel. I like him most when he creates a narrative voice like that in Walker Percy's "The Moviegoer." You see this in the trilogy that began with "The Sportswriter"(continuing with "Independence Day" and concluding with "The Lay of the Land"). I came to "Canada" with high expectations, which were not fully realized, and I might not have continued had I not had such a high opinion of Ford. But the writing is terrific in a subtle kind of way. And I was ultimately satisfied.

I recently read and reviewed this book but decided not to rate it until I read it again. Having highly rated Ford's Bascombe trilogy, Canada was not what I expected. I'm not sure why the title is Canada; key action takes place here, and the protagonist becomes Canadian although initially a US citizen. The theme of normal is explored through what I'd guess most of us would consider quite abnormal circumstance, in effect orphan hood because his parents were bank robbers who got caught. This traumatic experience happened to him in adolescence (the protagonist is 15 at the time of the fateful robbery). Ford writes from the perspective of the older (60ish) man looking back on this period of his life. We know that he has gone on to live what appears to be a good life, long-married, happy so we hear an account of the immediate consequences of this defining incident of his life from his perspective. I can't rate Canada yet, but I got enough from the first read to make me keep it on my to-read list.

I thought the novel was highly overrated. I had to force myself to finish it.

This is the best novel I have read in some time.
The prose is beautiful,carefully crafted, managing to be both plain and direct at the same time it is haunting and elegiac. It is worth reading for the writing along.
While the story does not move with the whip cracking suspense of a thriller, the plot draws you in and makes you keep reading. This despite the author having revealed some key facts in the first lines of the book and in other parts telling the reader what happens "in advance".

THe book is about loss and redemption, life's choices and their consequences, lonliness, isolation, community and the lack of it and of course it is about Canada and her neighbor to the south.