Saturday, December 29, 2012

Chief Theresa Spence

If you are concerned that Prime Minister Harper has not yet met with Chief Theresa Spence, and if you have not already contacted his office to urge him to meet with her, you might want to send him an email at pm@pm.gc.ca

For more information on Idle No More you can look at their website, http://idlenomore1.blogspot.ca

Thursday, December 27, 2012

My review of "Trapper Boy" in "Canadian Materials"

I reviewed Hugh R. MacDonald's young adult novel, Trapper Boy (Sydney, NS, Cape Breton University Press, 2012, $14.95 ISBN 978-1-897009-73-4  in the Dec. 21, 1012 issue of Canadian Materials (http://www.umanitoba.ca/cm/vol19/no16/Trapperboy.html   The review is below:


Trapper Boy covers four months in the life of 14 year old John Wallace Donaldson, known  as "J.W." The year is 1926,and J.W., who lives in Sydney Mines, NS, is graduating from  Grade Eight. He wins two silver dollars for coming first in two subjects, but his friend, Beth, who ties with him for the best marks in English, gets the award he covets, a collection of classic novels.

The beginning, which shows Beth and J.W. preoccupied with typical teenage concerns, foreshadows their future, for it is Beth who continues in the world of books and J.W. who must enter the world of wage earning. Author Hugh. R.MacDonald drops a further hint of what lies in store for J.W. when he and Bth note that they don't see much of their pal, Mickey, any more. Ever since he went into the mine as a trapper boy,  he's always sleeping.

MacDonald tells his story in the third person, mostly from J.W.'s point of view, but occasionally from that of his parents. Through them, readers soon learn that to survive, the household needs two wage earners. The family is resourceful, growing a garden, picking wild berries, fishing and snaring rabbits.

MacDonald uses vivid, carefully selected, symbolic detail in presenting the underground world. On J.W.'s first shift, a rat runs up his leg. He throws it agains the wall, injuring its leg. Almost immediately, he feels sorry,and, in the days to come, he makes sure it gets its share of oats from the pit horses' feed. Although  some of the miners kill rats, J.W. believes they serve a purpose, like canaries in a mine. When they rush out of an area, they warn the miners of danger. J. W. names his pet rat "Tennyson" and eventually sets it free.

In Emile Zola's Germinal, the blint pit ponies whose entire lives are spent underground, symbolize the miners, but in this novel, the symbolism is more cheerful. Tennyson's liberation foreshadows J.W.'s release from work to which he is not suited. The rat sections reminded me of a scene in D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers where the coal miner father tells his young children about his pet mice underground.

Throughout the novel, the author presents the miners as strong, cooperative, capable and daring. He also shows that they are more than just their jobs. Red, the shift boss, is a wise and helpful mentor for new workers; Smitty, from Barbadoes, quotes poetry from memory, and Andrew Donaldson demonstrates skill and precision in his drawings of life underground which explain the mine to his son.

The black and white illustrations, supposedly drawn by the fictitious Andrew Donaldson, are by the real life artist Michael G. MacDonald. They appear singly throughout the novel, then all together in a mosaic, and are crucial to the plot. From looking at them, and from exploring the mine with his friend, Mickey, J.W. knkows of an abandoned tunnel only about three or four feet from Tunnel Seven. Eventually he uses this knowledge in a timely and brave way. Subsequently, he uses his father's drawing in another bold move that improves the family's finances.

Among the great novels abouat coal miners is Richard Llewellyn's How Green Was My Valley, in which a strike is central to the plot. Perhaps Hugh R. MacDonald will write another novel which focuses on union activities and labour actions in Cape Breton mines. J.B. McLachlan, a real life famous trade union leader, is mentioned but does not appear in the action of Trapper Boy; however, an internet search suggests that the struggles he led could provide material for several novels.

While reading Trapper Boy, I remembered my father's first cousin, the late William George Bott, of Linton, Staffordshier, England, who went into the mines at age 14,like the fictional J.W., and who had intersting tales to tell when I met him in his old age. Hugh R. MacDonald manages to educate without being didactic, and his upbeat ending has a bittersweet element which makes it realistic. Trapper Boy is excellent literature and ought to win prizes. Congratulations to the author and to Cape Breton University Press for bringing this novel into being.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Prose and poetry for the festive season

Two texts always spring to my mind at Christmas.

The first is a prayer (a grace, actually) written by J.S. Woodsworth, one of the founders of the CCF party, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (forerunner of the New Democratic Party.)

"We are thankful for these and all the good things in life. We recognize that they are a part of our common heritage and come to us through the efforts of our brothers and sisters the world over. What we desire for ourselves, we wish for all. To this end, may we take our share in the world's work and the world's struggles."

The second is a poem by Thomas Hardy, written in 1915.  Hardy refers to a folk belief that farm animals kneel at midnight on Christmas Eve. I must admit that, as a child growing up on a farm with cattle, I was always tucked in my bed at midnight so never checked to see if they did.


THE OXEN

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
"Now they are all on their knees."
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek, mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen.
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet I feel
If someone said on Christmas Eve
"Come, see the oxen kneel,

"In the lonely barton by younder coomb
Our childhood used to know",
I should go with him in the gloom
Hoping it might be so.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

My review of TIME WILL TELLl by Donald Grieg

My review of Time Will Tell, by Donald Grieg, published by Thames River Press, appears in Compulsive Reader at http://www.compulsivereader.com/html/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3216

START A NOVEL

In January/February and April/May 2013, I hope to be teaching my course, START A NOVEL at St. Pius X High School. Whether or not the course runs depends on enrollment.  The information is below:

Start a Novel

Begin a book length work of fiction. Ruth Latta, local author of seven novels, will provide information and exercises to help you "grow a novel". Learn about "The Hero's Journey", Point of View, the novelist's promises to the reader, and more.

Winter 2013
4 weeks, 10 a.m. to 12 noon  $58 plus HST
St. Pius. Saturdays  Starting January 26 (18005)

Spring 2013
4 weeks, 10 a.m. to 12 noon, $58 plus HST
St. Pius, Saturdays, Starting April 20 (28005)

To register, contact Kristie Vanbergen, General Interest Clerk, Continuing and Communithy Education Department, Ottawa Catholic School Board
Tel. 613-224-4455 ext. 2337
www.fallconnections.com
www.ocsb.ca

Kristie.Vanbergen@ocsb.ca