Name: Canada
ISBN: 9780061692048

Richard Ford

The distinguished modern American master and Pulitzer Prize-winning author returns with this haunting and elemental novel about a young man forced by catastrophic circumstance to reconcile himself to a world that has been rendered unrecognizable.

Canada

Robert Hinchcliffe

Loved it from start to finish. The first Richard Ford thing I read was the Sportswriter and I loved that too, went out and bought Independence Day... and didn't click with it at all. Felt a bit let down with it (maybe because it's such a highly-praised book), and it put me off picking up any more Ford books.

But then this got such great reviews that i couldn't resist, and i'm glad I didn't, because it's magnificent. He manages to paint a very poetic picture of the characters and the landscape they exist in, as well as their inner lives - all using his very sparse and clipped prose that just bounces along carrying you from one moment to the next effortlessly.

It's not flawless - he seems to have a bit of trouble balancing the view point of a 11 year old boy along with the viewpoint of the older man who's actually supposed to be relating that boy's story - and I think that felt a bit muddles at times, and there's some plot points which jar ( I won't mention to avoid spoilers), but overall it's a fantastic book that you can just fall into and enjoy for its own sake.

Tracey O’Rourke

This books simply failed to hold my interest at all. I didn't care. I didn't care about the character or his adventures. Another case of a strongly reviewed book holding no interest for me.

Leafling

So. Canada. This is a book about a 15-year-old boy named Dell whose parents decide to rob a bank, which completely disrupts his and his twin sister's lives. The story is told by an older Dell looking back on the whole experience, but he manages to keep his younger self's perspective.

It's a very quiet book. All of the strange events (bank robbery, crossing the border to run from the law, etc.) are presented very calmly. Most of the time, they're even sort of spoiled by the narrator before they even take place. But the point doesn't really seem to be to thrill the reader with the events, it's too look more closely at them and the people doing such things. That's my issue with the book, though. I don't think that it can't have both aspects.

Almost the entire first half of the book is set up for the bank robbery that is mentioned in the first line. I wouldn't normally have that much of an issue with that (probably), but it was a lot of the narrator explaining how his parents, the robbers, are rather than showing us through their actions. Then, the second half, after the robbery actually occurs. I think I would've liked it better if it was a bit less subdued and a bit more consequential. But I can't deny that the adult characters Dell got thrown into the lives of were interesting. And I did love how Ford represented small, dying off towns. His writing isn't embellished (normally a con for me), but his descriptions of these places still left a very strong impression on me.

So. Canada. Maybe I went in with too high of expectations. I liked the characters, I liked most of the points about people/events that the narrator made (though he didn't necessarily need to say all of them outright to us). But I found myself excited to be finished so I could go on to read something else. Not the best sign.

Full review: http://outlandishlit.blogspot.com/201...