New Canadian Library and other Canadian Lit Challenge discussion

Discussion to be lead by Rosemarie.

I will post some background information on the book and the author by the end of this week.

Here is a brief biography of Ernest Buckler:
He was born in 1908 in Nova Scotia. After graduating from university he worked as an actuarial mathematician in Toronto for five years. He moved back to Nova Scotia due to ill health and that is where he began his writing career.
He started his career by writing essays and short stories for magazines.
In 1952, the novel we are reading was published in the U.S., where it became popular.
In 1963 the novel The Cruelest Month was released, followed by a "fictional memoir" called Ox Bells and Fireflies.
He wrote numerous other works and died in Nova Scotia in 1984.

Reading Schedule:
Week 1: Prologue and Part 1
Week 2: Parts 2 and 3
Week 3: Parts 4 and 5
Week 4: Part 6 and Epilogue

Rosemarie wrote: "Reading Schedule:
Week 1: Prologue and Part 1
Week 2: Parts 2 and 3
Week 3: Parts 4 and 5
Week 4: Part 6 and Epilogue"

I have my book and have started reading and already like the way the author expresses himself and his 'sensitivity to his rural surroundings and inhabitants.'
Have you read any other books by this author?
Interesting how adversity caused a change of careers and brought out the artistic side of him. Often the case.

I have read Ox Bells and Fireflies, which is a lyrical look at his childhood. I will read it again sometime soon.

Please feel free to read the book at your own pace. The schedule is just a suggestion to help plan the discussion.

I will not set up a separate thread for this discussion until week 3, so please post all your comments for weeks one and two here.
I have finished the prologue and am halfway through the first section.
I really like David and his family. I don't like how his mother is influenced by the gossip about Bess and decides not to visit her the way she said she would.
There are certainly some gossips in that town.
I really like Butler's description of nature.

The first part of chapter 7 in the section called "The Play" is a wonderful description of the change of seasons on the farm in the valley. Truly a portrait of a vanished world.

At the front of the book it says: The following dedication appeared in the original edition.
To my family,
who did not model for this book'
but whose faith sustained it.

I feel that this dedication says a lot about the man and about the essence of the book. It is about family and their faith in one another as a sustaining force. It feels like that from the small part I have read.

Already, right at the prologue, I love the ways Buckler uses words. An example:
'the afternoon stillness simmered soundlessly in the kitchen.'

David's sensitivity and perception is noted from the first. He longs for the log road that leads up the mountain. Being there revives him and settles him.

Ellen the grandmother has dementia. She sits weaving a rug and she remembers things from long ago. Is the rug symbolic of something? The weaving of different rags from the family members cast off clothes seemed to me to be her understanding the family is woven together; tight knit but yet each one distinct in their uniqueness.

The valley is enclosed by the mountains. Again this seems symbolic of an enclosed community sufficient unto it's own self.

Loving this sensitive book already.

I love the memories that the grandma finds in each garment she uses to make the rug. The rug binds the stories together.

David is different from most of the othet children in his school. He feels things very deeply and is aware of the little, special details of things, especially in nature. He and his twin sister have a heart-warming attachment to each other.
I do feel sorry for Effie's mother. The women in the town are cruel.

Rosemarie wrote: "David is different from most of the othet children in his school. He feels things very deeply and is aware of the little, special details of things, especially in nature. He and his twin sister hav..."

Was the drowning an accident or a murder? Did Peter think that Spurge was having relations with his wife (Bess)? The men seemed to ponder that it seemed too shallow for men who are good swimmers to drown. There seems to be this question hanging in the air.
Bess is shunned because of gossip and even Martha, who is less of a gossiper shuns her at times, maybe because Joseph supports her.
I liked the way the author describes the feelings people felt. Martha is having a good day when alone getting on with her work, then Rachel comes along and she feels her day 'sag' and it is 'tarnished' by the things Rachel says. Great perception and description.

I never thought of that aspect of the drowning. I still think it was an accident, but I will have to think about that some more.
I really feel sorry for Charlotte, with a mother like Rachel. Effie and her mother have a loving relationship which makes up for a lot. The women in the town are certainly judgemental in regards to Bess, who needs their sympathy as much as Rachel does.

At the end of part one, Martha reflects on her sensitive son David:

When the other children hurt themselves or were sick, she'd hold them and look into their faces. Strangely enough then, despite the pity or the fear, she'd feel how awful it must be for people who had no children at all. But with David, those were the only times she seemed to lose him.

I have finished the section called "The Letter". David and his brother are teenagers now. We also notice the first sign of the grandmother's dementia.
David's mother is still suspicious about her husband's relationship with the widowed Bess. I don't think she has any reason to feel that way, even though he buys Bess's pie at the social.

In the first chapter of Part 3, Butler describes the perfect October day in the valley.
The Canaans now have a new and larger house and are settling in, but the grand mother "missed the face of the old kitchen."
Bultler manages to describe a host of feelings in those few simple words.

I recognised the feelings David had about the meeting of Toby and his family. I also come from a working class family and had a hard time at the meeting of my two selves.
The description of what happened to Effie made my heart ache and I felt the way David treated her, in his own agony of discovering himself, would haunt him his whole life.

The saddest aspect of the death of Effie is the fact that she was the only girl in the valley who would have been able to share his life. The other girls in the valley were not a good match for him.

Rosemarie wrote: "The saddest aspect of the death of Effie is the fact that she was the only girl in the valley who would have been able to share his life. The other girls in the valley were not a good match for him."

True. She knew him and accepted him and by losing her he lost his other half and seemed to be always trying to make up for the loss within himself.