A Bird in the House, Margaret Laurence

I was surprised to encounter a child narrator reminiscent of Scout Finch when I began this book. Vanessa MacLeod is precocious and defiant. She is also a budding writer. The book opens with a description of a brick house, "an ancestral home" in a small-town world, dominated by striking female characters. I was reminded of Margaret Laurence's statement that "all Canadian women's fiction began with L. M. Montgomery" - for of course, Vanessa is an attic-cat Emily, a shrewd observer, perceptive and calculating like the girls in Munro's stories, and sensitive to the tenor of human tragedy like Gabrielle Roy's Christine. Grandmother MacLeod has precedent in Montgomery's stiff, starched grandmothers of a bygone generation whom the young cannot relate to, and Aunt Edna has all the fire and spunk of a Montgomery heroine. In a typical Montgomery twist, Grandmother Connor shows unexpected strength, meanwhile, domestic tyranny and clash of (female) wills reoccur.

I have no doubt that the writing is autobiographical. The theme is no more than the web of family relationships and a portrait of Canadian life, but the writing is erudite and the dialogue captures the atmosphere easily, without pretense. When I read something like this the images that have been engraved in our own minds and heart require much skill to be told with great subtlety. Even telling a story that is based on one's own childhood is an art.

There is something to be said for the short story format. Montgomery knew it well, and Anne of Windy Poplars and Anne of Ingleside (as well as her journals) are particularly full of "other women's stories" and gossip, for this is the pre-WW2 female perspective. The stories deal with external incidents and have psychological meaning. Munro and Gabrielle Roy are notable short story writers, too (Munro, of course, becoming arguably the world's best short story writer). Even Mockingbird was originally a chain of short stories: each chapter is poignant and complete unto itself, each tells its own finished story and advances the plot. That is the beauty of the short story format, versus conventional chapter-books where the ending is no more than a section break, and cliffhangers are desirable. I think the short story format is very effective in conveying life lessons.

The chapter that moved me most of The Half Husky. What a cruel story!

Well, one of these days I need to read the rest of the Manawaka books. I really enjoy Laurence's writing: it is less stylized than Munro's and Atwood's, but very readable. Again, great "representational art."