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Loading... No Great Mischief (original 1999; edition 2006)by Alistair Macleod
Work detailsNo Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod (1999)
 velvetink | Mar 31, 2013 |  I very much wanted to love this novel about the MacDonald's family from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia which, many generations after leaving Scotland is still strongly attached to it's Highlander Scottish roots and the original MacDonald, Calum Ruadh ("the red Calum"), who in 1779 crossed the pond with a wife and twelve children. The wife didn't make the passage alive, but the children did, as did a dog the elder MacDonald had wanted to leave behind in the old country, though she tossed herself at sea and followed the boat until they had no choice but to take her aboard at the risk of seeing her drown, so intent was she to prove her love and undying loyalty. At the beginning of the book, the narrator visits his older brother, a sadly worn out alcoholic all but incapacitated by his addiction. Throughout the novel, the narrator recounts their family history, both of recent and ancient past, and we learn of the special bond shared by the brothers and the whole MacDonald clan. In retrospect, as I write these lines now I see I actually did appreciate this novel on a deep level, but it was a difficult reading experience, for the tale it tells is far from cheerful and filled with much drama and pain. (  ) Smiler69 | Nov 25, 2012 | I debated whether to rate this 4.5 stars or 5 stars, since I had just read a 5-star book and couldn't believe I could be so lucky as to read two such books in a row. But the truth is, this is a book I want to own and reread and savour, so five stars it is. The story is told by Alexander MacDonald, the "gille bhig ruaidh" or "little red-haired boy" of Clann Chalum Ruaidh, a branch of the MacDonald family that left Scotland for Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, in the 1700s. From the present day, when he is a successful orthodontist, he tells the story of his family's past and how his now alcoholic eldest brother Calum came to be the way he is. Along the way we hear about their parents and grandparents and the contrast between the old ways of life and the modern day. The story is very episodic, with flashbacks and shifts between past and present, so it's somewhat difficult to accurately summarize everything that goes on. But "family history" suffices. I picked this book up because it was one of the longlisted books for the Atlantic segment of the 2013 edition of Canada Reads, and boy were the multitudes right in nominating this one. I was utterly charmed by the first page. Alexander's narrative voice is engaging and fluid, switching easily from a funny story about his Grandpa to a beautiful description of the Cape Breton landscape to a Gaelic song and back again. He and his relatives came alive within the pages, telling jokes, sticking together and preserving the past while moving forward into the present. I particularly liked his Grandpa, who was the epitome of fun grandpas, and the contrast between him and Grandfather, who was much more studious and serious but still a much-loved member of the family. And I LOVED the extensive use of Gaelic, having briefly taken a class in it (should really get back to it sometime). This is a book that would reward rereads and those who enjoy analyzing literature, as there's a lot to talk about: the struggle between the old ways and the new, how the past continues to have an impact on the present, the importance of family and helping those you love. There's also one heck of a lot of duality in this novel: Grandpa and Grandfather are two sides of the same coin, Alexander has a twin sister, there are at least two Alexander MacDonalds in their family, and the French Canadians and Highlanders working in the mines of Elliot Lake are also set up as being similar. I will definitely be picking up a copy for myself to reread and enjoy. If only there were an audiobook version available -- that's the only thing that could make this story even better. (  ) rabbitprincess | Nov 12, 2012 | While I won't deny it was well written in the literary sense, I felt like I waited the entire book for the story to start. They way the character spoke, it's like he started to tell us a story, recalled something as he did, and then went on a tangent. I was bored, urging in my head for the narrator to get to the point of the ramblings and on with what was going on in the present day. (  ) Megan_Trennett | Aug 24, 2012 | Alistair MacLeod's prose is so assured, so evocative, so masterful. Just a page of it is enough to gently spin you into his world, where his simple, enduring Cape Breton characters strive. And strive to what? Well, to live in some cases, to apportion meaning where it belongs, to swim with the tide of history or break free from its powerful suck. No Great Mischief is the story of Clann Calum Ruaigh, a Scots family that migrate to Canada after the disastrous battle of Culloden. Like all his stories, MacLeod's characters and the worlds they inhabit are permeated, soaked, in history and context. Every relationship, house, and farm animal possesses its own complex history of joy, sorrow, triumph and disaster. This sounds melodramatic, but through the prosaic, yet thoughtful, eyes of his characters it never overwhelms. Indeed, it's understood the weight of these context-riddled ruminations can suffocate as often as they sustain. And yet all this history essentially resolves into a simple quest: the quest for meaning. Like a beachcomber on those wild shores, deciding what to pick up and what to leave behind is a difficult decision. These universal elements of love & loss, coupled to the removed, slightly alienated, observations of his protagonist give the book's drama a universal, relate-able nucleus. The strong cultural connection to the land and nature that underpins everything resonated with this former country boy even more strongly - but it's not a prerequisite for enjoying the novel. A unique - out-of-time if not timeless - writer offers up a labour of love in what is quite likely the only book he ever writes. Well worth the investment for the quality of prose alone; the almost ethnographical cultural history that invests it with something profound is a bonus. An embarrassment of riches, and likely be something still read - and still - relevant in fifty years or more. (  ) patrickgarson | Jun 18, 2012 |
He does not take readers to as many different places and psyches as his country's very best writer, Alice Munro, but he indelibly renders a Cape Breton we are never likely to visit -- a terrain where the ''dog days'' are the coldest, not the muggiest, and where the ocean wind has forced enough sand into the trees that ''when the saw passed through them in the early darkness of the fall and winter evenings, streaks of blue and orange flame shot from them.''
References to this work on external resources.
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1 of 25 books bought today for $10 (the lot). (