Customer Reviews

Canoe Lake

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4 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

I liked this book a lot. The author has a style of writing that befits the small town mindset of those years so long ago, when life was simpler without the glut of worldwide information that current technology foists upon us, whether we like it or not, speeding up time in a way that has us running just to keep up. The simplicity of life at that time and in that place MacGregor managed to create effectively, taking us into the stillness of virginal north country that we must now travel much farther to find if it still exists at all.
Approaching the story through Eleanor's quest kept the suspense sustained throughout, tracing lost information step by intriguing step with the final clarified resolution still appropriately obtuse. We can know what we think happened, but proof can never be possible. So be it. Younger readers may be impatient with the slowness of the story, but it accurately reflects those times, those values, when one's life was contained in a much smaller sphere, enlarging the impact of everything in it. Older readers know the reality of that.
The tragedy is not only the story of these intertwined lives, but the loss to the world of the talents of this remarkable artist. This is a fascinating book.

The author of this book worked very hard to create an interesting story around a real life mystery. Mostly, he succeeded, I like the characterisation, people rarely change and these characters are consistent. The pain and confusion they express is written excellently. I guess the disappointing thing is I wanted Tom to be a heroic figure...sadly, like all of us, he was far too human.

Ontario newspaper columnist Roy MacGregor weaves a fictional account of the life and death of Canada's most famous painter, who died by drowning in Ontario's Algonquin Park in 1917. Originally published as Shorelines to which MacGregor added an afterward suggesting that his story was based on certain crucial facts about his romance with Winnie Trainor. The latter edition admits that he is actually Winnie Trainor's great nephew -- her sister, Marie, married his uncle. MacGregor explains that the orginal book destroyed relations with that side of his family. This makes the book all the more interesting. Highly recommended.

A rule of thumb in lit studies is that all novels are about change. In general, you can explore the novel by the growth experienced by its characters.

The only character in this novel who might undergo change is the heroine. Does she change? Hmm. Her "quest" is to discover who her parents were. She ends up with a strong suspicion that her parents were Tom Thomson and his northern ontario girl, jenny. Even after meeting Jenny however, the heroine does not get confirmation that Jenny and Tom were her parents.

Such an anti-climatic book filled with dull characters. And the "climax" comes when the heroine and an elderly man named russell are in a canoe on = wait for it = canoe lake. Russell sees our heroine leaning out over the water and decides to try and kill her by rocking the canoe and spilling her into the water.

It's just absurd.

In 1980, when this book was originally published as "Shorelines," McClelland & Stewart must have BEGGED Atwood and Findley to provide complimentary quotes for the cover of this book. It's actually one of the worst books you'll ever read should you bother to open the cover.

In theory, this is a fictionalization of the death of Tom Thomson - Canada's most infamous painter.

In actuality, this is the story of a middle aged woman trying to figure out who her birth parents were. The search for her birth parents takes this woman to a small town in central Ontario where she slowly comes into contact with two of the town's "old timers" - an eccentric man named Russell, and a spinsterish recluse named Jenny.

Jenny may or may not have had a child with Tom Thomson. And that child may or may not be our heroine.

Here are some of the problems:

a) None of the characters are whatsoever interesting.

b) Tom Thomson is barely a character in this story. And when he does appear, he's a raging maniac who throws people's pets into outhouse waste pits.

c) There is NO exploration of Thomson's art.

d) The writing is amateurish. MacGregor tries to do so many things to bring some intrigue to his characters, but then immediately drops it and the character remains flat on the page.

I couldn't help but wish that Michael Ondaatje had written this book. Ondaatje would have dived into Thomson, given us a treatise on the artistic sensibility, drawn us into a physical love affair between Thomson and Jenny, and made the heroine's search for her past someone vital to us as readers.

MacGregor didn't do any of this. Never ever ever ever ever ever purchase this book.