Customer Reviews

Canada

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's been almost six years since the world has heard from Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Ford (Independence Day), but it has been very much worth the wait for Canada is a powerful, keenly wrought coming-of-age tale fraught with mistakes, misdemeanors and hard learned lessons.

For starters, the opening is a grabber: "First, I'll tell you about the robbery our parents committed, Then about the murders, which happened later. The robbery is the mist important part..." These are the words of Dell Parsons now a 66-year-old high school English teacher remembering 1960 when his life along with his twin sister's were thrown into turmoil.

Their parents were an unlikely couple. Father, Bev, was outgoing, garrulous, optimistic, given to a series of poor judgments. Their mother, Neeva, was Jewish, an academician, whose hopes of becoming a poet were thwarted by an early marriage and the birth of twins very soon thereafter. Bev had been in the Air Force and the family now lived in Great Falls, Montana where Dell hoped to attend high school The teenagers had never had friends as Neeva hadn't welcomed people into any of their homes and disdainfully viewed the other Air Force families.

Now, finding his Air Force pension and Neeva's school teaching salary inadequate Bev sets out to earn extra money, first selling cars then used cars and finally becoming in a meat scam with local Indians. When that goes awry he and Neeva decide to rob a bank. When they are captured and imprisoned Dell and sister Berner are left high and dry. Berner opts to run away to California and Dell is smuggled across the border into Canada by a friend of his mother. Not just to Canada, mind you, but to the far northern reaches of Saskatchewan where he is given work in a rundown hotel owned by Arthur Remlinger, an American with a Harvard education and a tainted background. Dell is relegated to living in a shack, and disappointed in other areas as well. None of what occurs in his life to date is due to anything he has or has not done.

Canada is a powerhouse of a novel, richly imagined and fully realized. So worth the wait - thank you, Richard Ford.

Une narration parcimonieuse qui ne révèle que petit à petit les éléments-clés de l'intrigue. Il faut faire preuve de patience et progresser au rythme imposé par l'auteur. Or, la persévérance est récompensée : un magnifique récit sur les effets des décisions des autres sur nos vies, sur la possibilité d'être soi-même, sur le fait d'être forcé à être « un autre », sur la capacité à tromper autrui et comment toute la différence entre deux mondes possibles peut au final résider dans de petits détails sur lesquels nous exerçons peu de contrôle.

A parsimonious narrative that reveals only gradually key elements of the plot. The reader must be patient and advance at the pace set by the author. But perseverance is rewarded: a magnificent story about the effects of others' decisions on our lives, the possibility of being oneself, of being forced to be "another", the ability to deceive, and mostly, how the difference between possible worlds can ultimately reside in small details on which one has little control.

I read this book based on reviews I had read in newspapers and wasn't disappointed. Having lived in Saskatchewan and been to a lot of the smaller "ghost towns", I found the book intriguing. Ford's descriptions of the two small towns that Dell lived in are so accurate and I could easily picture them. His descriptions give a sense of aloneness and desolation that I experienced when visitng these towns. I always found it fascinating to imagine what the towns were like when they were inhabited (their history) - much like Dell did. Ford does a great job of taking a quiet lonely life and describing it so that you feel you are right there sharing in it.

Many reviews indicate that the first part of the book was the best with the last part (Dell in Saskatchewan) not keeping pace. But I felt the second part was the best of the two. The story leading up to his parents robbing the bank dragged in places but I couldn't put down the part in Saskatchewan. I often wondered if the second part could have stood on its own - it was that good. How the two parts tie together becomes clear at the end as Dell shares his thoughts about how events in our life come together to have - or not have - meaning and significance - which I think is the point of the book.

I highly recommend Canada, especially if you are from the Prairies. I couldn't stop thinking about this book for days after finishing it.

The first half, until the author gets to Saskatchewan, is very good. The final killing is not very believable and the book declines from there

Really, the first paragraph of the book was the only interesting part. I read the first half of the book and skimmed the second half. Would recommend this book for people who have insomnia. I will put you right to sleep

I just finished reading the book Canada by Richard Ford. I first read the review in McLeans magazine and I was intrigued. I ordered the book immediately and loved every bit of it. A truly good read.

Richard Ford is a writer who I've admired for decades. And, who wouldn't be an admirer of this fabulous opening sentence?

"First, I'll tell you about the robbery our parents committed. Then about the murders, which happened later."

Unlike in The Sportswriter, the first novel I read of Ford's, each moment isn't imbued with significance. Some things just happen and other things happen with meaning. The writing is more mature, but it's also a slower pace.

Stylistically it's wonderful, there is a culmination of strength to this novel, which mirrors the narrator's growth from adolescences to adulthood. Overall, it's a different Richard Ford than I was expecting, but wonderful nonetheless.