by Lee White
The Morning Star
by Nick Bantock
Images that hold the imagination for hours and lover's letters that
could kindle the organic romantic in stone statues. Nick Bantock is still mixing
his alchemical magic with recently released The Morning Star, concluding the second
trilogy involving Griffin and Sabine, following The Gryphon and Alexandria.
"The Morning Star signals the way to a passage between the separate
halves of our own being. It is one thing to locate the passage and quite another
to pass through it." Sabine writes to Matthew as she provides guidance
in both love and the synchronic journey they share. The eternal battle between
light and darkness parallel both Isabella and Matthew's awakening
to love without holding back in fear.
As a visual artist, Bantock suspends time and enchants space. His words are ripe
with metaphysical intrigue
that begs pages to turn and letters to open. Like its predecessors, The Morning
Star reaches through the heart and touches the soul.
It is a perfect primer before raising your own pen and scribing a letter to anyone
you truly love.
Raincoast Books, 2003
Hey Nostradamus!
by Douglas Coupland
High school massacre, teenage sex and God. A literary litmus test for how deep
into doom we already are. Vancouver's very own prince of chic wit,
Douglas Coupland handles many hot rocks with his latest work of fiction, Hey Nostradamus!
Set in Vancouver, the story weaves through touchy topics relevant to most of our
minds at this time. Coupland blazed into the literary world with Generation X,
wherein he displayed his genius for summing up a society in a sentence. This same
perceptive savvy runs through each page of Hey Nostradamus! with clever clauses
compressing vast concepts, but there is something more, something deeper emerging
in Coupland's more recent work00 a smoother brand of subtlety.
Weighty ideas are managed through the craft of words and Coupland achieves the
crowning accomplishment of all writers: to say a thing without actually
saying a thing.
The first person narrative, told from four interrelated voices, allows the reader
to know the characters well through their thoughts and internal dialogue. Coupland
deserves serious kudos for being bold enough to transport himself into the hormonally
confused mind of a teenage girl, and he does so convincingly. The narrative reads
fluidly, invoking a gripping curiosity for what's to come. His words
are refined and precise, crafting consistent jewels of enduring insight.
In a world where art has been nearly swallowed by advertising, Coupland uses his
artist's eye and talent to convey a world beyond the shopping mall
facades and hip homogenous labels. To follow the subtlety of story around full
circle to the conclusion leaves a lingering line of insightful ideas about the
world and our place in it for the reader to digest.
Random House, 2003
Whispering in Shadows
by Jeanette Armstrong
I stood on frost in the dim light of dawn, ready to wrap the light of the new
day around me, knowing that the shadows of night can stick with us if we forget.
Certain books have a lingering impact influencing how we look at the world. Whispering
in the Shadows is one. Jeanette Armstrong, in her second novel, brings to life
the landscape, illuminating what is sacred to indigenous peoples around the world.
Raw land, wilderness not exploited for economic gain.
The story centers around the life of Penny Jackson an Okanagan Native woman confronting
her place in a world with little place for her. Healing the past of an injured
culture deeply disrupted by colonization, Penny is faced with the challenges of
what it means to be both Native and a woman in the modern world. An artist with
a gift for seeing beyond the material, Penny blossoms into an activist for both
indigenous rights and the environment, seeing little separation between them.
It's a great book to inspire activists.
The narrative flips back and forth between first and third person with journal
entries, letters and poems allowing us to get to know Penny in an intimate way.
In reading what she thinks and dreams and remembers from her elders we are given
a vivid picture of Native relationship with landscape which in itself illuminates
many rising concerns in this modern technological world. "The communities
which are still connected to the land in a healthy way are an opposing force to
that system (globalization). A true natural sustainability."
Ultimately, Armstrong tackles the imminent issues of globalization and its destructive
impacts. And still within the scope of Whispering in Shadows are reflections on
grass roots means to improve the world from your home.
It is more than a novel, it's a blueprint for integrating traditional
wisdom and values of First Nations into the modern world.
Book reviewer and Lee White Lee White lives near Pemberton. His website is
www.worldbliss.com
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