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Loading... February (original 2010; edition 2010)by Lisa Moore
Work detailsFebruary by Lisa Moore (2010)
I love how Moore has drawn the characters in this novel--sympathetic, changing and very human. (  ) crosbyc | Apr 24, 2013 |  February is Lisa Moore’s second novel and one that has garnered a lot of attention in 2009 as a Globe and Mail Best Book and Quill and Quire Book of the Year, in 2011 as a 2010 Booker Prize Longlist and as a Commonwealth Writers Prize Shortlist and more recently in 2013 February won CBC’s annual book debate Canada Reads. High time I found out what this book is all about for myself. Using the Ocean Ranger disaster – the mobile offshore drilling unit that sank in Canadian waters on February 15, 1982, killing all 84 crew members on board at the time – as a focal point, Moore has written a slow, reflective novel that grew on me as I read it. Character perspective books, and in particular ones that employ multiple time, place and narration shifts, can take some time to warm up to. February was no exception to this rule as I found I had to pay close attention to the section headings to ensure I knew where in the timeline the narration was as I was reading. Thankfully, Moore restricted her shifts in narration to Helen, her son John and his female acquaintance Jane. If you prefer plot-driven books, this one will drive you to some level of frustration as the focus is on fleshing out the emotional landscape of our main character, Helen and the impact that fateful night when her husband Cal dies and her life suddenly becomes that of a single mom raising four kids in Newfoundland. It is a poignant portrayal of aching loss and overpowering loneliness spanning some 25 years, all shrouded in a brave front to persevere and care for her family as best she can. What I really liked about this one is Moore’s ability to create real characters.... characters you may recognize from your own community or would not be surprised to encounter on the street. Characters that reach an emotional cliff and wonder if they should just jump off or turn back towards land and continue on with life. The writing is stunning - fluid, evocative, and yet plainly written in a manner that speaks to the masses as its intended audience. She has also captured a Canadian perspective/point of view that is hard to explain but one that I can recognize and relate to. Grief is an anchor that can drag us down and change lives irreparably, if we let it. Some favorite quotes: "The act of being dead, if you could call it an act, made them very hard to love. They'd lost the capacity to surprise. You needed a strong memory to love the dead, and it was not her fault that she was failing. She was trying. But no memory was that strong. This was what she knew: no memory was that strong." "We are alone in death. Of course we are alone. It is a solitude so refined we cannot experience it while we are alive; it is too rarefied, too potent. It is a drug, that solitude, an immediate addiction. A profound selfishness, so full of self it is an immolation of all that came before. Cal was alone in that cold. Utterly alone, and that was death. That, finally, was death." A book I am very glad I have finally made the time to pick up and read! ( )6  lkernagh | Apr 15, 2013 | lisa moore's style is very distinct and evocative. there is something almost magical about newfoundland storytellers. they seem to have this ability to burrow into your heart and take up residence. even though i really liked the book a lot - it wasn't quite a 5-star (for me) because of a few wobbles with flow and what i guess i am going to call continuity. there's a staccato rhythm to the prose and at moments it served as an unwelcome interruption, rather than carrying me along. i was also left, at the end, feeling like it wasn't quite the end. it didn't feel over. still -- this is a wonderful book and i do recommend the novel. it's an amazing (fictional) perspective on the 1982 collapse of the ocean ranger - an offshore drilling platform, from one left behind. ( ) BookishJoJo | Apr 5, 2013 | Sorry, I really don't get all the hype about this book. (  ) KarenAJeff | Mar 20, 2013 | This was a story of a women who lost her husband in a tragedy on a sinking ship off the shore of Newfoundland. While I enjoyed the writing and story that the author wove about a real life event, I found the flow very difficult to follow. It jumped back and forth between present time and the past and also between different characters very frequently. It follows the woman through the years and her interactions with her children as she tries to cope with her grief. Loved the Canadian reference such as fries with vinegar and street hockey. :) (  ) tinkerbellkk | Feb 27, 2013 |
 Is Lisa Moore a Buddhist? The tragic subject matter of her latest novel fits...I must pause here to confess that I usually find this kind of writing irritating. Novels constructed of luminous images make me feel like a dump truck is slowly tipping a load of rose petals over me. Where's the narrative? Like these other novels, February disregards conventional plot. Its present-time story line is minimal...Moore offers us, elegantly, exultantly, the very consciousness of her characters. In this way, she does more than make us feel for them. She makes us feel what they feel, which is, I think, the point of literature and maybe even the point of being human. For these 308 pages, I was Helen, grief-struck and in love with my husband, furious with him.  The novel's only real weakness is that this symbolic richness doesn't extend into the lives of its second-tier characters; Helen's three daughters, in particular, are only lightly sketched...The novel's ending, too, in which Helen finally slips the knot of her grief, seems suspiciously neat from afar. But these faults can be forgiven in the context of what Moore manages to pull off: a novel which takes a moment of catastrophe and focuses not on the moment itself but on all the moments that surround it; that are altered, subtly or dramatically, by it.  February is not plot-driven: the back-and-forth chronology is meant to flesh out emotional landscapes and fill in historical details. Although Moore writes with an almost brash economy, she cannot prevent February from coming off as an overly sentimental love story....Cal was the great and only love of Helen’s life, and she spends the 25 years after his death rather tediously reliving their time together and speculating about his final moments....would have worked as a short story – a genre at which Moore excels – but its impact is ultimately diluted by the novel’s amplitude. With February, she has created an incredibly empathetic character in Helen, whose protective shell is always on the brink of cracking, even if her words and actions belie her vulnerability. There’s an economy in Moore’s style that shows us how a once vibrant life can be whittled down by pain and loneliness. But, by grounding her writing in the physical world, Moore shows how life’s everyday tasks and encounters create a comforting continuity that allows forward movement. Moore has great strengths as a writer, chiefly in her powers of description. She gives us the cold, steep streets of St. John’s in its many wintry incarnations and well-observed scenes of Iceland and Tasmania, where John travels, as well as glimpses of his business meetings and chance encounters in New York...But there are difficulties, in part with the novel’s pacing and in part with Cal himself. Moore is adept at conveying the emptiness that followed the accident, but not what had filled it....Moore is better at describing Cal’s physical rather than his emotional presence, which finally makes Helen’s protracted grief, although noble, hard to share.
No descriptions found. "...Propelled by a local tragedy, in which an oil rig sinks in a violent storm off the coast of Newfoundland, 'February' follows the life of Helen O'Mara, widowed by the accident, as she continuously spirals from the present day back to that devastating and transformative winter that persists in her mind and heart..."--Front flap.… (more) (summary from another edition) |
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