Island: The Complete Stories, by Alistair MacLeod

The words of the narrator in “The Closing Down of Summer”:

“[I]n the introduction to the literature text that my eldest daughter brings home from university it states that ‘the private experience, if articulated with skill, may communicate an appeal that is universal beyond the limitations of time or landscape.’ I have read that over several times and thought about its meaning in relation to myself. . . . I would like somehow to show and tell the nature of my work and perhaps some of my entombed feelings to those that I would love, if they would care to listen.”

And what follows is the narrator’s explanation of leaving university and the reading of literature to embrace the life of a deep shaft miner, traveling the world, abandoning his family at the end of each summer in a caravan of big cars full of large, strong, brave men, and going to places like Haiti, Chile, the Congo. Bolivia, Guatemala, Mexico, Jamaica. Drinking moonshine as they drive non-stop, hard through the night.

MacLeod is brilliant in showing and telling the nature of their dangerous work and the fullness of their hearts in their isolation from the rest of the world. We can feel their physicality and courage. We can know them.

Like the narrator in “The Closing Down of Summer,” MacLeod wants us to understand and care and know about his corner of the world, his people, his roots. So he writes about the people who came to Cape Breton as part of The Clearances (the forced migration of people from the Highlands and western islands of Scotland in the mid-to-late 18th Century). Most of his stories are set on Cape Breton, where the old Gaelic language, music, and myths are still part of life.

MacLeod uses his amazing skills as a describer to make us feel how beautiful and compelling, but inhospitable and dangerous, Cape Breton is. How proud people are to be miners, fishermen, and farmers. How arduous such work is on the body and spirit. What pride the people take in their work.

There are sixteen stories in Island, the first published when MacLeod was thirty-one, the last when he was sixty-three. And the tenor of the stories, as they progress from 1968 to 1999 generally embrace the aging of the human spirit and psyche.

Characters in the earlier stories are more innocent and aspirational (boys like Jesse in “The Golden Gift of Grey” who drifts into the pool hall, and like James in “The Vastness of the Dark” who believes leaving home will be simple).  With the middle stories like “The Closing Down of Summer,” narrators are in their prime, but mindful of the cycle of life. And with the last stories like “Vision,” “Island,” and “Clearances,” there’s disillusion, madness, German tourists, and pit bulls.

Stories are populated by children, young people, men, women, old people–and, of almost equal importance, by cattle, horses, sheep, dogs, and chickens.  The breeding of people and the breeding of animals is serious business in this world.

Most of the stories have a male narrator – thus the collection overall has a masculine perspective. In many ways, the stories are a study of masculinity. But we see women. And they are strong. The fierce mother in “The Boat” and the woman with the coral combs in “In the Fall.” The resolute grandmother in “The Road to Rankin’s Point.” The brave, lonely, ultimately mad woman in “Island.”

The skill of MacLeod’s writing makes Cape Breton and its people real. We know them. And by knowing them, we know ourselves. We know that life is ultimately a story of loss, but that loss can be faced with kinship, love, and courage.

My favorite anecdote about MacLeod is that when a writing student asked him how long a good story should be, MacLeod answered, “Just make your story as long as a piece of string, and it will work out just fine.”

And it does.

—Sharelle Moranville

Educated, by Tara Westover

Educated is a multi-dimensional memoir in which Tara Westover traces her voyage from an isolated and troubling childhood to the highest levels of academia.  She grew up in a religiously conservative Mormon family in remote surroundings in the Idaho mountains.  The family outlook is more than conservative – as Westover describes it, the ethic is survivalist, isolationist, and distrustful of outside influences, even those from mainstream Mormon sources.  Telling are her father’s extensive preparations for Y2K and his ultimate disappointment when those preparations were proved unnecessary. The isolation grew, such that the older children attended community schools for a few years, but Tara never attended school, and her home schooling included little beyond the Bible and the Book of Mormon.    

The dominant themes of her youth are dangerous work in the family junkyard and controlling and abusive behavior by an older brother.  The picture is more nuanced, however, as she was exposed to outside forces in several ways. One set of grandparents lived in town and provided some contact with the larger world.  She developed a singing talent and participated in church music and community theater.  She occasionally held jobs in town and developed some trusting friendships with other young people.  An older brother went to Brigham Young University and ultimately opened an awareness of that avenue to Tara.    

These conflicting forces built Westover’s growing awareness of her talents and opportunities.  This section of the memoir left some of our group unsatisfied; some readers would have liked more description, for instance, of how she prepared herself for college admission without the benefit (or burden?) of any formal scholastic training.  Other themes were just as important as academic preparation, however. Westover covers how leaving for college allowed her to deal with mental instability and abusive relationships, her own sense of integrity, and the values of family relationships compared to academic work.  Ultimately that is unfinished work and she is still wrestling with being part of family without being trapped by it.  She deals very honestly with the reality that some of her observations and memories differ substantially from those of other members of the family.    

Our group had an interesting discussion of memoir writing.  Westover writes from the perspective of the age of about thirty. This gives her an advantage of proximity to the events she writes about, but limits the perspective that may come with more distance and maturity.  We expect that the bulk of Westover’s professional and personal development still lies ahead of her and might lead to new reflections of her forming experiences. The etymology of “educated” suggests a drawing out.  Usually this implies drawing lessons from the past or work of others or drawing the best out of oneself.  This tale also evokes Westover drawing herself away from the complexities of her birth family into the world of higher academia as she studies at Cambridge and Harvard.  As education should never end, we await what will fuel Westover’s future memoirs.   

— Bill Smith

In A Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson

“And so once more to the wandering Road,” declares Bryson in his 2000 book In a Sunburned Country. His previous excursions were along the Appalachian Trial in the national bestseller A Walk in the Woods, and rambles through Britain in Notes from a Small Island, and now to his visits to Australia, the country that doubles as a continent, the hottest, driest weather, and the most lethal wildlife found on the planet (the ten most poisonous snakes, sharks and crocodiles in abundance, cassowary’s with razor claws, venomous seashells, spiders galore, even fluffy caterpillars and knife-like plants).

To travel with Bryson is not to simply experience a locale, but rather to enjoy his special visions and his humor – self-deprecating, but with a well-developed sense of the ridiculous, the outlandish and sublime. I lost track of how many times I laughed until there were tears running down my cheeks.  He doesn’t try to be funny at all costs, it’s just the way he is. For example, he says: “Cricket is the only sport that shares its name with an insect”, and “the following are all real places: Wee Waa, Poowon, Burrumbuttock, Suggan Buggan, Jiggalong, and the supremely satisfying Tittybong.”

Australia is fascinating, and Bryson has done an excellent job of telling us why – touching on a little bit of everything – history, politics, people, geology, biology, flora and fauna. Wherever he goes, he finds Australians who are cheerful, extroverted, obliging, and quirky. He says that Aussies spend half of any conversation insisting that the country’s dangers are vastly overrated and there is nothing to worry about, and the other half telling you how a snake bit Uncle Bob on his groin, but it’s okay now as he’s off the life support machine. Clearly, Bryson’s fascination and affection for Australia shines through.

On the other hand, Bryson tries to set the record straight about Australia\’s original people, pointing out that the Aborigines are the world\’s oldest continuously maintained culture and they were sophisticated enough to get to Australia from Asia by boat, long before Europeans even figured out how to sail. But he also writes about white Australians\’ racism and tragic treatment of the Aborigines, but acknowledges that, like most white Australians, he has had virtually no contact with the Aborigine population.

The result is a deliciously funny, fact-filled and adventurous performance by Bryson, who combines humor, wonder and unflagging curiosity. My only negative criticism is that the book would have benefited with the addition of better, more extensive maps.  Since Bryson was constantly on the move, I found myself frequently going back to the four maps at the beginning of the book. Pictures would have helped too. For example, here’s a panorama of Uluru (Ayers Rock), the world’s largest monolith. Words alone don’t convey the beauty one of Australia’s most recognizable natural landmarks around sunset, showing its distinctive red coloration. 

I highly recommend this enjoyable and delightful book. Bryson did a considerable amount of research before heading Down Under and his writing shows it. As the Aussies would put it, he’s done a fair dinkum job.

— Ken Johnson