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I asked Melanie if we could read this one first because I wanted to revisit it. I read this when it first came, out in 1995 or 1996. I would have been about 22 or 23.

The first time I read it, I was struck by the beauty of Wayson Choy’s writing, and the delicate way that he can turn a phrase. I’ve read three of his books and have always been struck by the elegant, graceful way he writes.

This book affected me in a very strong way. I don’t remember being that affected the first time I read it, but I know a lot more about the history and environment of this story and I can’t really divorce that and my personal feelings from my appreciation of the book. Read more

Gwethalyn Graham’s 1944 book Earth and High Heaven was the first Canadian book to reach Number One on the New York Times Bestseller list. She won the Governor General’s Award twice; for 1938’s Swiss Sonata and for Earth and High Heaven. She was born in Toronto to wealthy parents and was originally named Gwethalyn Graham Erichsen-Brown. Her father was a prominent Toronto lawyer and her mother agitated for Canadian women’s suffrage. Gwethalyn grew up in a house that was passionate about civil liberties and human rights.

She attended Smith College in Massachusetts but dropped out and eloped with her father’s business partner (Scandal!) They eventually divorced and she moved to Westmount in Montreal, where she hung out with Hugh MacLennan and Pierre Trudeau. She got married and divorced a second time. She was a passionate activist and championed against anti-semitism and anti-French Canadian sentiment.

She also wrote a few others things including a non-fiction book about French-English relations with Solange Chaput Rolland, articles for the now defunct Saturday night, Chatelaine and scripts for CBC television.

She died of a brain tumour at the age of 52.

Alexis

This week it is the real #5 update! (I was getting a little ahead of myself last week.)

I am pleased to announce there is now a second gentleman who has entered the Canada Reads Challenge and our recent current total is 32.

I’m still working my way through Fall On Your Knees. It is even bleaker than I remember and I find it interesting to see how my reaction to it has changed now that I have a daughter of my own.

Some of you have been busy blogging about the books on your own blogs:

Buried in Print talks pudding skins (among other things) in Good To A Fault.

Sara at Read And Bead discusses no longer hating Douglas Coupland after reading Generation X.

Monica over at Monniblog gives her thoughts on The Jade Peony.

Just over a month until the debates start - where do you stand?

Gwethalyn Graham’s Earth & High Heaven (book #13), Canada Reads Challenge update #5 and a review of The Jade Peony.

I started Fall On Your Knees last night which means I am now on my final book! It is just as depressing and engrossing as I remember it being and that is all I am going to say about it for now.

We now have 27 people signed up for our Challenge which should make debate week quite interesting. Twenty six ladies and still only 1 dude though. Dudes? Where are you?

I’m still undecided about who my favourite is - the books are all so different. Unlike some of you, I don’t have a real hate on for any one book. Fall on Your Knees and Generation X seem to be the books everyone loves to hate - is anyone out there planning on defending either of them as their favourite?

Anyone afraid they aren’t going to get all five read in time? (Remember - you still get to play along for prizes even if you don’t.)

Edited to add: Thomas, our only male participant, suggested that maybe I was scaring guys away by calling them ‘dudes.’ So from here on out I will ask “where are all the gentlemen?” Gentlemen works with the term ‘ladies’ better than ‘dudes’ does so it seems more appropriate. Sorry to all the guys - whatever you like to be referred to - if I was offending.

There was a line in Thirty Acres that I couldn’t get out of my head - and it took me over a week to find it again because it wasn’t one of the pages I had earmarked to come back to but in the end it was the one I most wanted to talk about:

The family had grown. Every woman must bear her allotted number and Alphonsine did not fail to do so. After Qguinase, and Helena, who died, and Etienne, came Ephrem; then a little girl who only lived long enough to be baptized; then Malvina; then another child who died before it was many months old; then Eva; and finally Lucinda, still in her cradle. A tenth child was expected. These births occurred regularly, so regularly that they could almost be used to reckon the years. (p. 75-76)

It is that one sentence: Every woman must bear her allotted number… that really had me thinking. I’m pretty sure it was mentioned more than once in the book too . And yes, I know WHY people had so many children back then. But even in Ringuet makes it clear that having that many children is more a burden than anything else - the farm can’t feed that many and certainly can’t provide enough work for all the male children who do live which I suspect caused a lot of bitterness in families. So while not the most exciting book in the world I did enjoy it and it gave me a lot to think about. There is a lot you can learn from Thirty Acres about the way of life for the French farmer and how things don’t really change from one generation to the next - this is made obvious by how each generation thinks: when they are young, that they know better than the next how to farm if only the older generation would get out of the way (I’m sure this is true for every generation no matter what their occupation), then once they are the older generation they have no time to listen to the younger generation because they don’t know anything and things were different back then. Read more

Hello to everyone who found us through the interview Julie Wilson (a.k.a. Book Madam) did with me over at the CBC Book Club. I like to think of that as recognition from the mothership. There is still lots of time to sign-up and read the books if you are interested. Also, because of that interview we now have TWO people from the Maritimes, another person from a small town and someone from Spain. Pretty exciting! Still, Quebec and the Great White North need to step up and represent.

As for myself: I sped through Nikolski this week - a super quick and fun read but one with a lot of depth that I suspect will only get better upon second reading. I only have one more book to go (Fall On Your Knees) and Alexis and I will be posting reviews of the books starting at the beginning of February so we can get our own discussions going before debate week.

Now it is your turn: where are you? Have you fallen in love with one book yet or are you still undecided? Was there one you decided you hate so much you cannot possibly finish?

~Melanie

Thirty acres is a book that does the job. It’s not a bad book, but it’s not an amazing one either. It tells the simple story of a French Canadian farmer and the trials and tribulations he endures. The farmer in question, Euchariste Moisan, takes a wife named Alphonsine and they proceed to have about 10 children. Some of the children die, while others grow up and cause happiness or unhappiness for their parents. Euchariste’s family fights with the neighbours, they go to town and visit their rich relatives, and eventually one of the children becomes a priest. The farm and the family are affected by the Second World War, which gets mentioned several times, even though no one runs off to fight in the war. This book is pretty straight forward, but it does manage to capture the details of French Canadian life and farming. The four sections of the book are divided into the four seasons, which adds a nice cyclical factor to the book. The writing is good, but doesn’t really stand out. This wasn’t a chore to read, but I wasn’t riveted either. Like I said, it’s just a perfunctory book that serves to teach about French Canadian life. A few things happen, but not too much. It’s sort of like an average day on the farm.

Death Toll: About six? Many children die when they are quite young.

Taken from my copy of Thirty Acres because there isn’t that much information about him out there - at least not in English (italicized notes in brackets are my doing):

Philippe Panneton, who writes under the name of Ringuet (his mother’s maiden name - ed), was born in Three Rivers, Quebec in 1895, and educated at Laval University and the University of Montreal. During his college years, he was connected with a group of young French-Canadian intellectuals know as the Nigog. After he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1920, Panneton spent several years in Paris doing post-graduate work. He then returned to Montreal where he opened a practice and later joined the staff of the University of Montreal as a professor of Medicine. He continued his interest in literature and writing and was one of the founders and sometime president of the French Canadian Academy. In 1956, Panneton was appointed Canadian ambassador to Portugal (where he died in 1960 - ed).
Panneton is perhaps best known for his novel Trent Arpents, freely translated Thirty Acres, which was first published in Paris in 1938. The novel won the Grand Prix du Roman of the French Academy in 1939, and the Governor General’s Award in Canada in 1940.

He went on to write at least four other novels/short story collections.

~Melanie

I know I’m supposed to be doing this every week but if you read my other blog you will know that I have a very good excuse. But no more excuses - on to the challenge!

How is everyone doing? I’ve gotten a number of e-mails lately and it seems as though some of you are just plowing through the books. So far I have read three (The Jade Peony, Good To A Fault & Generation X) and I have taken a little break to get some other reading done. I’m looking forward to reading the last two - even Fall On Your Knees which I know isn’t for everyone but I’ve read it before and am looking forward to revisiting it.

A couple of you have been posting reviews on your blogs and I thought I would share a few:

JK revisits Fall On Your Knees.

Mojgan thought Clara just needed to bake some cookies in Good To A Fault.

And I’m pretty sure I read a review about The Jade Peony but can’t find it for the life of me - if that was you please leave a comment.

Laurie has decided to read Nikolski in french which is what she did with The Fat Lady Next Door is Pregnant last year. Is anyone else doing that? (I’m not, my french is atrocious.)

Edited to add: I forgot to mention that after my last post we now have a dude on our list and someone from small town B.C. - but no Maritimers yet and really, only having one dude is kind of sad. Any takers?

~Melanie

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