The Bone Sharps

The Bone Sharps by Tim Bowling (Gaspereau Press 2007)

Tim Bowling is best known as a poet, perhaps even one of the country’s greatest. And those talents are in evidence in The Bone Sharps, his third novel.

There are essentially three stories operating within this volume, concentrating on three different characters and several different time periods. We meet Charles Sternberg in 1876 at the outset of his career as a palaeontologist, scouring the chalk lands of Montana for fossils. We track his progress into 1896, through the death of his only daughter, and that of his benefactor and mentor Professor Cope. And we see him again in 1916, still bent over the badlands, searching – this time in Alberta – haunted by his past and grievously ill.

We also follow the story of Scott, Sternberg’s one-time protégé – now locked in the trenches of Europe burrowing for survival rather than discovery – and Lily, labouring with Sternberg in 1916, writing to Scott and loving him from a distance. We also follow Lily toward the end of her own life in 1975, on a strange personal journey.

Few writers can wield language with the facility and acuity of Bowling. With him, even the most mundane and trivial become surprising and new. In Banff, the "mountains were black, inlaid with blue-green, and surrounded the town like the sides of a tea-cup." Sitting in a restaurant, Lily thinks "the men’s voices buzzed like flies, and she waved quickly at her ears to rid herself of the sound."

The landscapes, whether they be the blasted, incandescent badlands of Alberta, or the muddy, treacherous trenches of France come to life here.

However, this same power of observation can work to Bowling’s detriment as well. Certain passages carry the weight of their descriptions. Paragraphs stretch on ponderously for several pages. As well, the reader cannot help but feel that Bowling is balancing a little too much in this novel. Timelines become confusing, stories bleed into one another.

Oddly, Bowling may even have wanted this effect, for surely one of the novel’s themes is the palimpsest – how the same landscapes are worked and reworked and the past is never far from the surface.

To be sure, The Bone Sharps requires your full attention, but is, in the end, a rewarding read.

Helpless

Helpless by Barbara Gowdy (Harper Collins 2007)

Barbara Gowdy rarely disappoints. Her novels appear on bestseller lists around the world, and she no doubt has a loyal fan base. Helpless, Gowdy’s sixth book, contains everything her readers have come to expect from her work – intelligence, sympathy, perception, and solid writing.

Helpless details the abduction of Rachel, the nine-year-old daughter of Celia Fox. The young girl – considered an uncommon beauty by everyone that meets her – becomes the object of one man’s dark obsession, which in many ways is simply a grosser extension of the way the rest of the male world has come to regard her. Rachel and her mother, for instance, are stopped in the street one afternoon, out-of-the-blue, by a modelling agent promising riches.

The abduction by Ron, a pedophile in denial, occurs during a massive city-wide power outage, understandably plunging the lives of those around the girl into chaos. The novel balances the story of Rachel and her captors with that of Celia, her frantic mother. There is a brief flirtation with the Stockholm Syndrome, and an uncomfortable rapprochement between Rachel and Ron.

The strength of this novel is clearly in the character of Ron, and to a lesser extent, Jenny – Ron’s mislead and frantic accomplice. The rest of the novel’s myriad contributors pale in comparison. Even Celia, the novel’s supposed protagonist appears two-dimensional in Ron’s shadow. Rather than portray him as a dark unknown entity, Gowdy skirts the dangerous territory of creating sympathy – if not acceptance – for a man struggling with his own monstrous desires, not wishing to do harm but deluding himself and those closest to him.

That being said, Helpless smolders with anticipation, but never truly ignites. It dallies with the dark undercurrents of pedophilia but pulls away to safety before anyone gets burned. The plot and language are competent but without risk. The character of Ron is fascinating in his sickness, but it is difficult to believe that Rachel’s life and welfare are ever indeed at risk.

Helpless offers its readers a glimpse of possible evil, but then allows them to retreat, and ultimately sleep soundly.

The Culprits

The Culprits by Robert Hough (Random House Canada 2007)

I want to say that this book was entertaining, because I could hardly set it down – but I fear that this description might only belittle Hough’s accomplishment. A book can be measured in many ways: its craft (how the story is told), and its purpose (what is being told), are chief among them. But sometimes there is also an unidentifiable quality derived from the perfect combination of these other elements. This is the case with The Culprits.

Hank Wallins, a former merchant sailor cum lonely computer operator, lives through a near-death experience. Does his life flash before his eyes? Does he realize the futility of his existence? Does this realization send him packing to the Himalayas to tackle Everest? To the Amazon? No. But he does begin searching www.FromRussiaWithLove.com hoping against all odds to find that certain special someone to fill the perceived hole in his life gaping.

When he discovers Anna Verkoskova née Mikhailovna, a near-pretty student from St. Petersburg with a wandering eye, Hank is hooked. The resulting story draws both he and "Anya" into a baffling and complicated tale of love, loss, and ... international terrorism.

Woven by one of the most ingenious and fascinating narrators in recent history, this novel juggles the madcap with the sober, the tragic with the comic. It flirts with the melodramatic as often as it plays with the improbable, without ever actually crossing either line. Its humour and wit give weight to its eventual calamity, and its voice – full of the sing-song qualities of Slavic constructions – is as endearing as a Dr. Seuss fable. In short, it is a fine balance.

"Life is a deception," we are told in the novel’s opening paragraph. "If we could scrub away the lichen and peer at life with clear vision ...its entirety would overwhelm us." Indeed, we are almost overwhelmed by the lives and events in The Culprits. However, with Hough, we are in good hands. After leading us through the fray by the nose, he delivers us safely on the other side where "there are watermelons, everywhere....juicy and sweet and through black soil sprouting."