- Paperback: 160 pages
- Publisher: Pottersfield Press (Sep 1 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1895900751
- ISBN-13: 978-1895900750
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #987,223 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Product Description
Six months after the attacks of September 11, 2001, Steven Laffoley stood at the edge of Ground Zero in New York City. Having emigrated from America 20 years earlier, he had travelled to New York in an effort to find meaning in the terrible event. However. Rather than finding meaning, , he found the absebce of meaning. In the months to follow he watched as the American government created its own meaning for the event and used it to usher in a new age-The Age of Unreason. As he bagan to write and publish his thoughts oin the political and cultural events of this Dark Age, he also began an unexpected journey; a journey to undertand his own relationship to America and Canada. To find answers, Steven travelled to New York, Boston and throughout New England; to Paris, London, Verdun, and along the roads of Northern Europe; to Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, and deep into the boreal forest at the heart of Canada.
About the Author
Born near Boston, Steven Edwin Laffoley moved to Nova Scotia in 1982 where he worked as a curriculum writer, a university professor and a school principal. He has written dozens of articles and essays for magazines and newspapers and appears regularly on CBC radio. He lives with his wife and daughter in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Book Review from Atlantic Books Today, Spring 2006,
By Shirley de Kock Gueller, writer and editor (Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Mr. Bush, Angus and Me: Notes of an American-Canadian in the Age of Unreason (Paperback)
A watershed for the west, 9/11 was a wakeup call for Haligonian teacher Steven Edwin Laffoley to reflect on the Zero that Ground Zero signified: an absolute nothing; an absence of meaning; rather the ushering in, as he put it, of the Dark Age of Unreason. For him, the halogen lights on Manhattan site illuminated an emotional void and not the image of good and evil that television drummed out minute by minute. So he embarked on a journey of reflection. In the process, he looked at how he was shaped by American values wrought by birth and upbringing, twinned with Canadian values adopted over 20 years. His journey takes him from the American undemocracy of dissent to the calmness of Canada, through the territory of the supersized where less is not more, and along the way he tweaks a number of nerves in his personal and personable anecdotal style. Laffoley meanders delightfully from Plymouth Rock and Champlain through places and people to art, poetry and teaching typing without a typewriter in a reserve in northern Ontario. He goes right back to William the Conqueror, who he pairs most gloriously with his current counterpart, George Bush, and the selective truth of the Bayeux Tapestry plundering and what he says will be the Baghdad one. He writes of bridging the 20th-century abyss which crossed from Verdun and Vietnam, pogroms and Auschwitz to reach 9/11; and says, chillingly, that it is dark in America. Canada, a better option by far, is not left untarnished... the fact that more children exist now in poverty than they did in 1989 or the consequences of Canada's third-highest ecological footprint are targeted. His easy style is seductive, but you know he has counted every word when he tells you the new wide-screen television screen on which he has been watching images of killings in Iraq cost an arm and a leg. Laffoley's arresting and penetrative observations are often searing, but for all the darkness of his topic this is an entertaining and enlightening read. While Bush appears often (have you ever thought of the choice between Bush and Kerry as that between Bush and Bush Light?), don't hold your breath waiting for Angus. He only appears at the end, as the person who epitomizes the Canadian moment-the ability to disagree about something and still be civil.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Moving Experience,
By A Customer
This review is from: Mr. Bush, Angus and Me: Notes of an American-Canadian in the Age of Unreason (Paperback)
This snapshot of one man's experience in the US and in Canada provides a refreshing and honest, if troubling take on how strange the world can be, especially in the time of G.W. Bush. The prose is crisp and the thoughts provoking. The stories lead the reader from US cities scarred by Sept 11 and subsequent war to remote Canadian aboriginal communities. The anguish and hope found in both reminds the reader that we are all just looking for a little peace. Well worth buying!
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Fascinating Book,
By A Customer
This review is from: Mr. Bush, Angus and Me: Notes of an American-Canadian in the Age of Unreason (Paperback)
Weaving together interesting observations, amusing stories, and intriguing ideas, the author offers both a fascinating study of post-9/11 politics and culture, and a revealing personal journey that explores what it is to be both an American and a Canadian -- in an age of unreason. A great read!
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