"Great-Grandmother Morrison, I accept that the fault is largely mine, but I do hold you partly to blame. It is you, with your love of learning, who set the standard against which I have judged everyone around me, all of my life. I have pursued your dream single-mindedly. I have become familiar with books and ideas you never even imagined, and somehow, in the process of acquiring all that knowledge, I have managed to learn nothing at all."
The story is set in a fictitious rural farming town in Northern Ontario called Crow Lake. The story is told from the point of view of Kate Morrison, who is seven at the start of the novel. The death of their parents sets the tone of the story.
When their parents died in an accident, it spelled the end of the children's dream to have a college education. Luke, the eldest son had to give up his tuition at teacher's college in order to look after his two younger sisters, Kate and Bo who was still a toddler, so that Matt, who was academically gifted, could take the scholarship instead. Kate idolized Matt. However, when Matt got her girlfriend Marie Pye pregnant, he gave up his scholarships to marry her. Kate thought that it was too much of a sacrifice and had not been able to come to terms with Matt and Marie. Kate finished university and lived far away from her family. When she was invited to Matt and Marie's son's eighteenth birthday party, Kate realized that it was her sense of Matt's loss as tragedy that destroyed her close relationship with her brother.
"The mixture of perspectives involved in Kate's story allows the author to relate violent events and highly charged emotions in a smooth and elegant style, a quality for which the book has been widely praised by reviewers." (wikipedia.org)
Also, the writing style of the author gives you a sense of being in the scene as she "shows" as opposed to "telling" what is happening at the moment thus making it a very compelling read.
-o0o-
intermittent rain, at times heavy, at times just a slight drizzle, in toronto today. just came back from dropping off the grandsons and we were caught in a thirty-second deluge complete with dark heavy clouds, at the end of which the sun was shining brightly.
Very pretty- Wish I still sat at my sons activities so I could read some of your novels. Actually I would probably wander around taking photo's. Someday I will read again.
@bkbinthecity - thank you. @cscecil - thank you, CS. the photo was taken at a small lake outside of toronto. @steeler - thank you, howard. @altadc - thank you, alta. very kind of you.
fabulous photograph...and I think I read Crow Lake :-) if I remember correctly, somewhere in the first couple of pages, the lead character, recalling the past, says something like "in our house there was an eleventh commandment: thou shalt not emote" I enjoyed the book...thanks for the reminder
@patticake - yes, you're right about the eleventh commandment. that's the thing that attracted me to this novel - in our home we grew up under that unspoken commandment. thank you, patti.
@summerfield - in our house, the parents could emote (often inappropriately) all over the place and about almost anything...but they had no tolerance for our childish emotions at all...no wonder I was a nightmare teen!
@patticake - haha! talk about nightmare teen. i wasn't one, and now at this age, the old man acknowledges that i wasn't the problem child. he used to call me 'the prodigal daughter' but i wasn't the one who ran away and gave shame to the family. i was the "nightmare" only because i was very outspoken and he didn't like that.
August 20th, 2011
Leave a Comment
Sign up for a free account or Sign in to post a comment.
@pamfromcalgary - thank you, pam. i don't think i'm doing justice to the book, it is actually an excellent read.
@cscecil - thank you, CS. the photo was taken at a small lake outside of toronto.
@steeler - thank you, howard.
@altadc - thank you, alta. very kind of you.