A Student of Weather is a car without brakes. No. A Student of Weather is a car without brakes set at the top of a very tall hill. No. A Student of Weather is a car without brakes set at the top of a very tall hill...and someone gives it a push. This is what is was like to read Elizabeth Hay's first novel. It started off easy enough, slow enough, gentle enough, harmless enough. Then, without any warning at all it is careening crazily almost out of control. Impossible to stop. Stopping the read proved impossible, too. I seriously couldn't put it down.

As mentioned before, the story starts out simply. Maurice Dove is a researcher, come to study the weather of Saskatchewan. He stays with the Hardy family - Ernest and his two daughters Lucinda and Norma-Joyce. Both daughters, despite being very young, fall in love with Mr. Dove. From there, simplicity comes to a halt. A Student of Weather is a novel full of contrasting themes. While Lucinda is fair-haired, beautiful and virtuous Norma-Joyce is dark-haired, impulsive and outspoken. While both sisters find ways to fall in love with their visitor, both also find ways to hate each other. Even the landscapes within the story are contrasting. Norma-Joyce's childhood prairie home cannot compare to the bustling city of her adulthood, New York City. As time progresses and Norma-Jean grows to be a woman with a child of her own, even her child is a conflicted in personality - both shy and loud simultaneously.

On the surface this seems like a love story - two sisters vying for the affections of a traveling man who loves neither of them. Digging deeper it is a story of betrayal and survival. It is the story of pain and loss and the idea that not every broken heart gets mended. ( )

A young student of meterology, Maurice Dove, visits the Hardy family in western Saskatchewan during the 1930s Depression. The novel follows the youngest Hardy, Norma Joyce, and her lifelong obsession with Maurice.
Employing a number of plot devices which seem too convenient, Hays has crafted Norma Joyce's obsession to coincide with Maurice's own obsession very readily, which happens to be Norma Joyce's sister, Lucinda. She is the one Maurice falls in love with, but is too hesitant and shy to reciprocate. The novel's language is beautiful and Hays' writing is full of description and vitality. Saskatchewan, Ontario and New York all come vividly to life.
Even Norma Joyce's character is expertly written. The reader is pulled into her desire and obsession through carefully written dialogue and descriptive passages. We can feel the full weight of her feeling for Maurice by the words and her actions. One clear instance is Norma Joyce's theft of Lucinda's mail. Norma Joyce keeps an eye out for Maurice's letters and manages to steal two crucial letters he sends to Lucinda during the summer he has gone back to Ontario. The two letters contained vital information about Maurice's next visit to the Hardys' home. She is sneaky and often described as a weasel, but we love this character, this vibrant girl who charms her way into Maurice's affections. Not by being beautiful, but by being clever and smart. In the end though, it is Lucinda who ultimately wins when Maurice will not claim the child that Norma Joyce bears him. The boy is a pawn Norma Joyce will eventually use to win Maurice back, and although it backfires, she still does not give up hope.
The novel is well-written, albeit slow and plodding in the beginning. I kept hoping it would speed up and show some action. Hays also jumps back and forth between characters and this was sometimes confusing.
However, a creatively and beautifully written novel about obsessive love, highly recommended for those who love literary fiction.
(Read February 2002) ( )

It didn't hold my interest enough for me to finish the book

By the end of this book I felt as if I had spent many seasons on the Canadian prairies and endured much harsh weather; as the book covers more than 30 years the passage of time is marked by a multitude of dust storms, droughts and freezing winters. Brrr! Not only does the weather keep changing but the action keeps moving backwards and forwards between Saskatchewan, Ottawa and New York. A bit hard to keep track of at times.

But don’t get me wrong, I liked the book very much and enjoyed my trip to Canada.
The descriptions of the natural environment (the weather, seasons, flora, landscape) are excellent.

"Here you find almost every extreme. The coldest winters and the hottest summers, the longest days and the shortest, the richest soil and the poorest, the biggest views of the simplest skies, the least rain, the most wind, the best light and the worst dust in this best and worst of all worlds."

Set in Saskatchewan in the 1930’s the story focuses on two strongly contrasted sisters and their rivalry to win the attentions of a handsome visiting weather expert, Maurice Dove, aged 23. The younger sister, Norma Joyce Hardy is no angel – at times she’s selfish, willful and ruthless, but she has an appealing directness, resourcefulness, a passionate curiosity about the natural world, and a thirst for knowledge, experience - and love. She’s only 8 years old but she becomes ‘imprinted’ on Maurice and spends the next 30 years hoping the love will be reciprocated, but it is not.

"A child falls in love with a man, and the man is seduced by the intensity he has generated. Then his attention shifts to someone else. End of story."

By the end of the novel Norma has outlived her mother, father, sister and brother. She’s glad to have survived, but she’s also gained some insight into her own deficiencies.

Hay writes with intelligence, deft humour and the imagery is often superb. ( )

One widowed cold father with two daughters one odd and unattractive the other beautiful and industrious put together with one handsome stranger with questionable intentions. Their lives go back and forth to New York and Canada covering some 30 plus years. The pages slip by easily as various secrets are revealed but have to say was disappointed in the ending as I expected some grand change of events and it was rather flat for the last chapter or so. ( )