The Northern Lights
by Howard Norman
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Description
Here is that special first novel that touches the heart, that gets discovered by one person and passed on from friend to friend. . . . an original, entertaining account of a boy's coming of age . . . an impossible novel to dislike.--The Washington Post.Tags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
Just as in THE BIRD ARTIST, the book's essential tragedy is revealed in the first paragraphs.
I chose this book thinking it would reveal new perspectives on The Northern Lights;
instead, it centered on a movie theatre with the same name.
While the spare and descriptive sentences, notably about Lake Piwese, New Year's Eve,
and the making of quill baskets, was welcome, the story unfolded improbably.
I chose this book thinking it would reveal new perspectives on The Northern Lights;
instead, it centered on a movie theatre with the same name.
While the spare and descriptive sentences, notably about Lake Piwese, New Year's Eve,
and the making of quill baskets, was welcome, the story unfolded improbably.
I picked this Canadian novel up sometime last year, but didn’t get round to reading it before my holiday there last autumn. It's the story of a boy growing up in an isolated part of Manitoba in the 1950s, living with his mother and younger cousin. His father is rarely at home as he spends most of the year on trips to survey and map the interior of Canada. Noah spends his summers staying with his friend Pelly in the small village of Quill about 90 miles from his home and this part of the story was extremely enjoyable.
The part set in Toronto wasn't so interesting, and the story just seemed to stop dead rather than being finished properly. Why go on so much about Mina's obsession with Noah's Ark when that thread of the story goes show more precisely nowhere? show less
The part set in Toronto wasn't so interesting, and the story just seemed to stop dead rather than being finished properly. Why go on so much about Mina's obsession with Noah's Ark when that thread of the story goes show more precisely nowhere? show less
Ratings
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Lists
National Book Award Finalists - Fiction
377 works; 12 members
Best Books set in Manitoba
85 works; 2 members
Author Information
31+ Works 3,854 Members
Howard Norman was born in Toledo, Ohio, in 1949 and grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He attended Western Michigan University, the Folklore Institute of Indiana University, and the University of Michigan. His work with the Cree Indians created an interest and he then got a job as a translator of Native American poems and folktales. He put show more together a collection of his translations in the book, The Wishing Bone Cycle: Narrative Poems of the Swampy Cree Indians, which was named the co-winner of the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award by the Academy of American Poets. With the Help of a Whiting Award, he has also written The Northern Lights as well as Kiss in the Hotel, Joseph Conrad and Other Stories, and The Bird Artist, which was named one of Time Magazine's Best Five Books of 1994 and won the New England Booksellers Association Prize in Fiction. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Awards and Honors
Awards
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Northern Lights
- Original publication date
- 1987
- Important places
- Manitoba, Canada
- Epigraph
- "Will you paint a beautiful picture of me floating in the water? - Not in any pain you understand - but floating easily and peacefully in my eternal rest."
"What?"
"Aha! That startled you. Go on, admit it. T... (show all)hat startled you, didn't it?"
- Natsume Soseki The Three Cornered World - Dedication
- For Jane Hannah
- First words
- My father brought home a radio.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)I heard my lone applause echo against the domed, star-filled sky above Quill.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 167
- Popularity
- 195,350
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.73)
- Languages
- English, Finnish, German
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 7
- ASINs
- 3
