A Bird in the House

Strong characters both female and male, with broadly different perspectives throughout. Particular attention of course is paid to the protagonist, young Vanessa, but although perhaps the female characters are the focus, Laurence is fair and generous to the male species as well. The language is also descriptive but not so much that there is a surfeit of verbiage. One feels the indolent breezes of summer and smells the dust, the loneliness of the spinster aunt, and the sorrow of the mother. A wonderful collection of connected stories (so that it's all but a novel).

Ooh yes, this is a goodie! I've never been overly fond of short stories because I felt that I didn't get to know the characters well enough. This series of stories, however, features the same main characters throughout. The result is that we do get to really understand the context of the narrator's life and to know her well. (It's really very close to being a novel...perhaps it is!)
I bless the day Elizabeth Hay referred to Margaret Laurence and led to me reading Laurence's complete set of novels.

This is a small book of short stories. But, like The Stone Angel and A Jest of God, they all take place in the fictional town of Manawaka which is a thinly disguised Neepawa, MB where Laurence grew up. According to a Winnipeg Free Press article published at the time of her death in 1987 some people in Neepawa resented the way Laurence portrayed the town. This article says that only a few dozen people attended the memorial service in Neepawa "in sharp contrast to a standing-room-only tribute Friday in Toronto." I am indebted to the person who included a copy of this article in this book. I only found it as I finished the first story so it was a complete surprise to me.

Vanessa McLeod is the central character of the stories. Isabel Huggan, show more in the afterward to the book, confirms what I suspected i.e. that these stories are autobiographical. Thus, I know quite a bit more about Peggy Wemyss than I did before. Vanessa and Peggy both lost their fathers at a young age. They both tried writing stories from a young age, honing their craft. They both could hardly wait to get out of their small town. Obviously, though, while Peggy while waiting to escape she was also observing all the people, tucking away things that emerged almost 25 years later when this book was written.

It's hard to pick a favourite story because they were all great. I think that the one that affected me the most was probably "The Half-Husky". It's the story of a dog that Vanessa was given by the man who brought birch firewood for the family. Vanessa called him Nanuk in honour of his Husky lineage. Unfortunately Nanuk became the brunt of cruelty perpetrated by the newspaper boy. He became aggressive with anyone outside of the family and had to be euthanized. All these years later I can still feel the outrage Vanessa/Peggy felt. show less

A series of related stories that combined together equal a novel take place in 1930's Canada. They are told from the point of view of 6 year old Vanessa who describes herself as a "professional listener". She narrates the lives of her parents, aunts, uncles & grandparents during the years of the Great Depression leading up to WW2. Ther is little sentiment here, only the facts of day-to-day lives & the cumulative effect of what we are told can break the heart.

I recommend this book: I really enjoyed this book. We studied it in school this year and at first I found it a bit slow but after a few pages I started to really get into it. It was easy to identify with the main character Vanessa and I really liked the way the rest of the characters were described, especially the grandfather. Here's a little example; "Well, Peter, you've brought the wood." It was his habit to begin conversations with a statement of the obvious, so that nothing except agreement was possible." I like this because it sums up the grandfather' character in two sentences, even though it's being developped throughout the entire novel. I can't really explain exactly why I enjoyed this book so much, I guess it's because of the show more subtle humor and the emotion involved. The sad parts are quite moving, and that's difficult to do without making the whole book depressing. show less

Interspersed with the depressing stories are some vivid depictions of nature.

My favorite characters were Aunt Edna, Ewen, and Chris.

None of the stories are favorites and I skipped the "Half Husky,"
knowing that with all the human deaths, a cruel dog one was likely to follow,

Loved it.