No Great Mischief: Amazon.co.uk: Alistair MacLeod: Books

Amazon.co.uk Review

For the MacDonalds, the past is not a foreign country. This Cape Breton clan may have lived in the New World since 1779, when Calum Ruadh ("the red Calum") and his wife, 12 children and dog landed. Scotland, however, remains their true home. So profound is their connection to their lost land that on brief visits they find themselves welcomed by strangers. When one descendent tells a Scotswoman that she's from Canada, she is offered a gentle rejoinder: "That may be. But you are really from here. You have just been away for a while." In some ways this is unsurprising, since the MacDonalds either have deep black hair or their ancestor's colouring. And those with the latter have "eyes that were so dark as to be beyond brown and almost in the region of glowing black. Such individuals would manifest themselves as strikingly unfamiliar to some, and as eerily familiar to others". Another sport of nature? Many are fraternal twins, including Alistair MacLeod's narrator, Alexander, and his sister.

But No Great Mischief is far more than the straightforward saga of one family over the generations. Instead, the author has created a painfully beautiful myth in which the long-ago is in many ways more present than modern existence. Even in the last decades of the 20th century, the MacDonalds fall into Gaelic--its inflections, rhythms and song--with deep nostalgia. This is a family that is used to composing itself in the face of disaster. They often assure one another, "My hope is constant in thee," and in the light of their many losses, the clan must cling to its motto.

No Great Mischief begins with Alexander's visit to Toronto, where his eldest brother now subsists on a diet of drink and memories. The narrator, a successful orthodontist, doesn't have much to do with the former but is unable (or unwilling) to escape the latter. As the novel proceeds, Alexander fills in his family history, including such key episodes as his great-great-grandfather's self-exile from Scotland. Though Calum Ruadh had intended to leave his dog behind, it broke away and tried to catch up with him. MacLeod piercingly captures the animal's struggle as her master first tries to make her head for shore and then--realising she won't desert him--spurs her on. Throughout No Great Mischief various people recall this incident, an emblem of intensity, hope and dependence. A descendant of the bitch is also on hand when Alexander's parents and one of his brothers disappear under the ice on a cold spring night. She persists in searching for her people and tries to protect their lighthouse from the new keeper, receiving in return "four bullets into her loyal waiting heart". When Alexander's grandfather hears of her death, he uses a phrase that becomes one of the book's litanies, "It was in those dogs to care too much and to try too hard."

This is a MacDonald characteristic as well. A good deal of No Great Mischief's strength stems from scenes of longing and despair--for those who die for a lost cause, whether in 1692 when one leader is killed ("the redness of his hair dyed forever brighter by the crimson of his blood") or in an Ontario uranium mine where one brother is decapitated. MacLeod evokes his clan, and the elemental beauty of their landscape, in quiet, precise language that gains power with each repetition. (A sentence such as "All of us are better when we're loved" comes to acquire a near proverbial ring.) If he occasionally tips his hand too much, pressing home his point that present-day prosperity isn't all it's cracked up to be, no matter. There is no doubt that this inspired and elegiac novel will ever leave those who are lucky enough to read it--proving after all the persistence of the clann Chalum Ruaidh. --Kerry Fried

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This year No Great Mischief made Alistair MacLeod's position as a master of prose even more firmly assured. This is a work of true lyricism, emotional intelligence and breathtakingly acute observation --Observer

The genius of his stories is to render his financial world as timeless --Irish Times

A lesson in the art of storytelling
--Times Literary Supplement

`Close to being a masterpiece, this intensely poignant 1999 novel stays in the mind for days...Quite simply, a wonderful, wonderful book' --Daily Mail

`hauntingly elegiac novel' --Daily Mail --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

Extraordinary. 28 Sep 2003

By Mary Whipple HALL OF FAME TOP 100 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

Alexander MacDonald, the narrator of this warm and ennobling family saga, comments to his brother that "Talking about history is not like living it...Some people have more choice than others." And there, in a nutshell, is the essence of this tender generational novel. The MacDonalds are, in many ways, an "ordinary" family on Cape Breton, but MacLeod creates a history for them so alive that the reader experiences it, too, feeling their sorrow and joy, admiring their pluck and independence, and celebrating their loyalty and bravery as they make the hard choices their lives require. They become heroes to us not because they have performed unusual feats but because they have achieved nobility within the collective memory of their own family.

Alexander MacDonald, the speaker, no longer lives on Cape Breton. An orthodontist, he travels weekly to Toronto to visit his alcoholic brother Calum, named for the family patriarch who came to the island in 1779 from Scotland. As he travels back and forth and reminisces, sometimes in Gaelic, with his much less fortunate brother, many generations of MacDonalds come to life, and we see how these forbears have shaped the two brothers and influenced their different, but shared, destinies.

MacLeod is very lyrical. Like a musician, he repeats certain themes. Gaelic phrases echo throughout, almost like a refrain. First names continue in different generations to remind the reader of historical resemblances and differences. And always, in every generation, he celebrates the dominance of the original Calum MacDonald and of Cape Breton in shaping their lives. MacLeod never stoops to sentimentality, however. His main characters are all macho males living macho lives, and he includes no romantic love story to soften the harshness of life. Still, he has created a warm, loving, and enduring family story that pulses with heart and resonates in memory. Mary Whipple

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

Family ties 15 Jan 2006

By Friederike Knabe

It is amazing how many stories one can pack into a day. Alistair McLeod let’s his protagonist’s mind wander through the lifetime of several generations in just a few hours. What emerges is the absorbing family history and much more.

At one level this novel is the story of Alexander MacDonald, his twin sister and their older brothers, belonging to a family of tremendous loyalty and commitment, steeped in tradition and history. We follow them from early childhood when tragedy befalls them, leaving them orphans, through their adolescent years and to adulthood.

At a deeper level, it is a testament to ‘blood is thicker than water’. The MacDonald trace their roots back to the legendary Calum Ruadh ("the red Calum") and his brood of 12 children who arrived in the New World in the 1770s as one of the early settler families in Cape Breton.

The descendents of the founding father, Alexander and his siblings, remain cocooned in the close-knit family, protected by the strength of family ties and values which help them through the sometimes painful dramas in their lives. The past stays vividly in the minds of all its members; the grandparents reminding the younger generation constantly through stories of lives lived. Time seems "to compress and expand almost simultaneously"; events are repeated to allow the author to present them from different perspectives. Convictions are expressed almost like mottos throughout the novel: “Always look after your own blood” or “We are all better when we're loved”.

While Alexander and his sister, living in the relative comfort of their grandparents’ home, are encouraged and financially supported in their academic ambitions, the older brothers have to fend for themselves. Poverty is their primary school as they struggle to keep themselves and the farm alive. For the young twins a visit to the brothers is always an adventure where no grown-ups rules apply. McLeod portrays the different characters well - reflecting the particular affection that Alexander has for the grandparents. Most intriguing is the other grandfather, a quiet and withdrawn man, who lives by himself having lost wife and only daughter through tragedies. Despite his doubts about himself stemming also from the stigma of being a single mother’s child whose father died before he was born, he exudes strength and compassion and plays an increasingly important balancing role in the life of the family.

To escape increasing financial difficulties, the older brothers leave the island for the uranium mines of Ontario and elsewhere. However, the location of home is never in doubt and it draws them back forcefully. After one of the MacDonald team is killed in the mine, Alexander, having progressed well in his academic studies, drops everything to join the brothers to make up the required number. His action manifests the strong loyalty to the family while allowing McLeod to continue the narration from Alexander’s perspective. Life in the mining community is well drawn in its crudeness and harshness. While there, the MacDonalds are pitched against a group of francophone Quebeckers. Tension and outright hatred between the two leaders add another layer of complexity and provide in the end an explanation for another major story line - the here and now of the day in the life of…

McLeod’s enthralls the reader with his portrayal of the land of Cape Breton, its history and mores. It would be difficult to find a more hauntingly beautiful description of the landscape, of the impact that the seasons have on the surroundings and the ever-present power of the sea. This is a book to treasure and to read more than once. [Friederike Knabe]

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

Completely, devastatingly brilliant 28 Mar 2008

By Flibertigibbit

MacLeod is a Nova Scotian Canadian. All of his work centres on the Highland Scottish exile experience in Cape Breton (and to a lesser extent, that of the Irish both there and in Newfoundland). This is a beautiful, elegy about being in exile and the longing for one's old country. The exile is not merely geographic, but spiritual and temporal. The clan of Calum Ruaidh is out of time and anachronistic, whilst its struggle for survival and the force of its courage and spirit is utterly timeless. Always in MacLeod's work there is an unsentimental presentation of what people need to do to survive, heightened of course by the cruel and harsh environment of the coast of Cape Breton. The tensions between past and present, tradition and modernity are always at the surface but the spirit of the highlanders is unbreakable. There are parts of this book that will send a shiver down your spine or make your eyes well up with tears, it is that moving. After reading MacLeod's collected stories, Island and now this you almost believe there is no point in reading anyone else. I pray that MacLeod will write another novel and more short stories before long. It will be a cause for celebration when he does.