Island: Collected Stories
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Alistair Macleod's Island: The Complete Stories begins "Once there was a family with a Highland name who lived beside the sea." The 1985 entry continues, "And the man had a dog of which he was very fond." And there you have the basic elements of an Alistair MacLeod story: Dog, Family, and Sea. The author--whose 2000 novel No Great Mischief won him a measure of long-overdue acclaim--shuffles these elements into a surprisingly infinite variety of configurations, always with the same precise, confident, quiet language.
His big theme is the abandonment of the rural. Though his characters live in the fishing communities of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, the seaside isn't a place where they dwell contentedly. In half the stories, young men and boys feel a pull toward academe and the centre of the country. In the other half, academically successful middle-aged men return to the wild eastern coast of Canada to try to reclaim the life they left behind. Both dilemmas are impossible to resolve--no one can be both a city mouse and a country mouse--and MacLeod wisely doesn't offer easy solutions.
What makes the writing sing, though, is the specificity of his descriptions of rural life. He tells you how things work, exactly: "The sheep move in and out of their lean-to shelter, restlessly stamping their feet or huddling together in tightly packed groups. A conspiracy of wool against the cold." The people here are ultimately defined by the physical world, and MacLeod has a farmer's visceral feel for geography. As he writes in "The Lost Salt Gift of Blood": "Even farther out, somewhere beyond Cape Spear lies Dublin and the Irish coast; far away but still the nearest land, and closer now than is Toronto or Detroit, to say nothing of North America's more western cities; seeming almost hazily visible now in imagination's mist." This is regional fiction in the best sense: it belongs to one perfectly evoked place. --Claire Dederer, Amazon.com --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
'Beautifully crafted stories: elegiac, honest, proud, and both eloquent and taciturn, like their subjects...a wonderfully talented writer' Margaret Atwood; 'It is hard to think of anyone who can cast a spell the way Alistair MacLeod can' Alice Munro; 'Rarely does a great writer offer himself to us with an oeuvre so complete' New York Times Book Review
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First Sentence
There are times even now, when I awake at four o'clock in the morning with the terrible fear that I have overslept; when I imagine that my father is waiting for me in the room below the darkened stairs or that the shorebound men are tossing pebbles against my window while blowing their hands and stomping their feet impatiently on the frozen steadfast earth. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
There are times even now, when I awake at four o'clock in the morning with the terrible fear that I have overslept; when I imagine that my father is waiting for me in the room below the darkened stairs or that the shorebound men are tossing pebbles against my window while blowing their hands and stomping their feet impatiently on the frozen steadfast earth. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a priceless collection of ageless stories,
This review is from: Island: Collected Stories (Hardcover)
After the novel 'No Great Mischief' comes MacLeod's true masterpieces: this small but superb collection of 16 stories, comprising three decades of writing. Many of these will be familiar to British readers but others from 'As Birds Bring Forth the Sun'- never published in the UK - and two new ones make this a must-buy volume, the only one to hold all his published shorter fiction. It is hard to pick out the best: even the superficially slighter ones have words and images which haunt you long after the book has been put down. I defy anyone to find a better volume of modern short stories.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A collection of short stories benefiting from an original voice, clear style, and obvious love for the subject matter,
By Retired (London, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Island: Collected Stories (Paperback)
I very much enjoyed this book. While I am against short stories in principle -- once you get involved enough to care about the characters, the tale abruptly ends -- Mr. Macleod's original voice, clear style, and obvious love for his subject matter made up for what I consider the usual failings of the short story. The bleak landscape of Cape Breton, the harsh lives of its inhabitants and the quiet despair of the people and animals who work there is painted with a very sure hand in each story.
I must admit that, looking back, most of the stories have meshed together in my mind. They all seem to contain the same elements: the son of a poor fisherman/dock worker/coal miner with a tough-as-nails mother struggles to better himself and leave Cape Breton behind, but finds that he is inexplicably tied to the place and its fate and is destined to repeat the failings of his father. Of course, there are exceptions such as the story of the Montreal lawyer visiting his parents, but the theme of inherited misery and pre-destination is always there. Regardless, I liked the book a lot and vote it a solid "buy".
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Probably the best writer I have ever read,
By Jack Russell "Jack Russell" (Borehamwood, Herts.) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Island: Collected Stories (Paperback)
Alistair MacLeod writes evocatively of family life, work and play, birth and death. The Cape Breton people have a master storyteller who depicts their community as well as Dickens depicts London but with greater humane insight. It lies before you, life's tragedy and joy. If another writer has portrayed the meaning of life better than MacLeod then I'm a Monkey's uncle.
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