Nowick Gray

This novel skewers the funniest and saddest aspects of the baby-boomer intellectual experience. Dreaming of building his own utopia, Charlie almost does. He builds his own house, lives in it, and sells it. He homesteads, teaches, has a business, travels with a band. He makes money, loses it, makes more. He seems to get into as many beds as he really wants to get into. Yet most of the scenes in this novel show Charlie alone, reflecting on what he's done and feeling vaguely dissatisfied--because he only reflects on Charlie.

He has satisfied customers and neighbors, and some woman or other usually seems satisfied by his performance in bed; he has no friends, and doesn't know any of the women well enough for readers to keep track of them. He provides for his daughter but barely seems to know her. He has no religion. He hopes his left-wing politics will appease the envy of people who have less, because he doesn't actually get to know any of them either.

For all baby-boomers who read it, this novel should be a delicious nostalgia trip or a wake-up call, or maybe even both.… (more)

We read "Charlie Utopia" published in 2022, whose story transports us to the mountains of British Columbia, labeled "family life fiction".

The author, Mr. Nowick Gray, ecologist and fervent defender of nature, exercises talents in a plurality of genres: in turn a specialist in West African rhythms for three decades, he is also a drummer and is passionate about the African polyrhythms infused with oratorical art.

His most remarkable book is "Hunter's daughter" published in 2015, where he works to describe the Inuit cultures located in the Arctic, through a criminal investigation that involves them, as well as the Shamans and the Canadian gendarmerie.

2022 introduces us to the latest of a Canadian expedition to two different eras: one today, and the other at the time of the emergence of the hyppie movement in the 1960s in the US.
We immerse ourselves body and soul in the skin of Charlie, nicknamed Utopia because of his crazy dreams, and the disproportionate extent of his desires, eternally unsatisfied.

The 1st chapter begins with the overwhelming observation of the failure of his two marriages. A recursion in his past, makes us discover the real Charlie, his secret desires and the engine that animates him, as well as his disillusions.

He, who however had almost succeeded in recreating the Garden of Eden, by building with his hands the ideal and ecological house, is forced to admit that his marriage is breaking up, once again.

This cryptic visionary who aspires so much to free his psyche from his recurring anxieties of perfection, is paralyzed as soon as he has to open up to others and admit his fears. He confides in his diary rather than his wife, and therefore becomes inaccessible to her.
He sticks to a harassing and useless daily schedule, so as not to have time to think!
His whole life is reduced to doing chores, worthless habits, compulsively, just to convince himself that he will succeed.
He even identifies with the cougar, who only satisfies his own instincts, so terrified is he of failing!

His retrospective leads him to deeply analyze his first marriage with Jan, in the 1960s. Their need to return to their roots and reconnect with the Earth, leads them to join a group of hippies, apparently self-sufficient and claiming to be free...
From this experience, Charlie will lose his wife, his money and all his illusions!

A powerful book, which I advise you to read!
He taught me a lot!
The writing is fluid, the tone empathetic, the theme of the breakup of its two couples, constructed with great sensitivity.
From this man, drowned in a sprawling network of doubts, we are forced to reflect on our mistakes that we all make in matters of affectivity.… (more)

I received this book via the LibraryThing Early Reviewers Programme - thank you to the author for the opportunity to read this book.

This short book introduces basic fingering for the flute and for penny whistles, and theory based on scales and modes, designed to encourage the novice musician to be able to improvise along with other musicians. I was keen to read this, as a classically trained musician with a music degree, I'm always really aware of how self-conscious and basically clueless I am when I try to improvise. I have to be honest though, I really struggled with this book - if I didn't have a music degree I'd have been even further lost, the discussions of modes in particular soon had me more and more baffled. His system of visually representing scales and modes I think should have appealed to my nerdy side, but I found them hard to follow and visualise (they looked more like sudoku grids to me). I would have appreciated some suggestions for tunes, songs etc in the particular modes that would have worked with each of the scales and modes he was talking about, as it would have felt less abstract. I was grateful at the end that he included links to his YouTube channel, as I suspect I will get on a lot better when I see and hear the points demonstrated. On its own I found this book a bit baffling, even though there's clearly lots of thought and practice gone into it.… (more)