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Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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George and Catherine Stewart share the worry of Catherine's illness, which could cause her death at any time, and the memory of Jerome Martell, Catherine's first husband and George's closest friend. Martel, a brilliant doctor passionately concerned with social justice, is presumed to have died in a Nazi prison camp. His sudden return to Montreal precipitates the central crisis of this novel. Hugh MacLennan takes the reader into the lives of his three characters and back into the world of Montreal in the thirties, when politics could send an idealist across the world to Spain, France, Auschwitz, Russian, China, and back, finally, to his old home. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Montreal in the Thirties
This is a very interesting book on two main counts, it describes the political climate amongst the intelligentsia in ther 1930's and it also offers a glimpse of what Montreal was like during the great depression.
Hugh Mclennon was a Montreal author, originally from Nova Scotia whoe was also a distinguished classics teacher teaching in Mcgill University.
The story is basically the relationship between Jerome Martell, a Monreal surgeon and his alter ego. George. Both are in love with the same women Catherine. Catherine is George's childhood friend who eventually marries Jerome then a successful surgeon. Jerome is someone from a modest background who had fought in WW1 and was notably damaged by his experience. He is a somewhat heroic charecter loosely based on Dr. Norman Bethune. At first he is happy with Catherine who is barely clinging to life with a damaged heart. However when Jerome becomes politically active, the relationship deteriorates and he abandons Catherine and their daughter Sally and goes off to fight on the Republican side in thr Spanish Civil War. He eventually disappears and is presumed dead. Catherine then turns to her old friend George and they marry. Jerome reappears twelve years later at the height of the Korean War and Catherine nearly dies of shock when she meets her ex husband.
The stregnth of the book is the descrition of St.Catherine Street, the main Montreal thoroughfare during the thirties with its unemployed crowds shuffling aimlessly. It is also good in the social ferment, in particular between the commuunistand the right wing French Canadians. Mclennon tries to use Jerome as a political everyman showing how devotion to a cause though well intentionedleads only to misery all around. He does this very well. In style the book sometimes reminds me of a Canadian Hemingway with occasional touches of A.J. Cronin. The weakness of the book is the sometimes unconvincing dialogue and the sketchy portraits of the female charecters. In summary this is a very informed and entertaining novel.

Good book - A must read for Tragically Hip fans
Very interesting book. Takes you back to the time when the "in" thing to do was to go off and fight for a noble cause. Contains the piece of the Tragically Hip sound "Courage" in it.A bit difficult toget into but once you do, you're captured.

It was a good book, but slightly over-detailed.
I found this a very good book.Hugh Maclennan described each character very well to the point where i felt that i was part of the characters' lives. It was enjoyable to read what Montreal was like then and compare it to Montreal today, and read about the same streets that i walk on almost every day (I live in Montreal). In all, a good book. ... Read more

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First published in 1980 to high acclaim, Burning Water won a Governor General's Award for fiction that year. A rollicking chronicle of Captain Vancouver's search for the Northwest Passage, the book has over its career been mentioned in recommended lists of postmodern fiction, BC historical fiction, gay fiction and humour. This gives you some idea of the scope of what has been called Bowering's best novel.

"I have sometimes said, kidding but not really kidding," writes its author, "that I attended to the spirit of the west coast, and told the story about the rivals for our land as an instance in which the commanders decided to make love, not war."

As an accurate account of Vancouver's exploration of our coastline, Burning Water conveys the exact length–99 feet–of the explorer's ship, and contains citations from his journals. As a work of fanciful fiction, things usually thought to be impossible transpire, without compromising the realism of the text. Bowering recalls that his free hand with history particularly incensed the founder of the National Archives, who had written a biography of George Vancouver and complained in print that Burning Water differed too much from other, similar books in its field. ... Read more

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European Invaders
Burning Water is a book for readers who like their history leavened with imagination. The basic story is of the mapping of the Inside Passage and Puget Sound by George Vancouver, but this book is much more than that. The character ofVancouver himself is interesting and quite believable: Competent and tormented, autocratic and lovelorn, he worms his way into your heart almost despite himself. Residents of the Pacific Northwest will never think of Peter Puget and sundry other characters who have leant their names to various Northwestern geographical features in the same way again. This is the rare book that mixes the story of the European explorers with that of the Indigenous peoples who occupied these lands long before they were "discovered" by Europeans. This book is often funny and irreverent, but it can also be heart-rending and tragic. I think most people interested in the Pacific Northwest and/or Canadian History will find it a good reading experience. On the other hand I suspect that readers of British Naval history might be offended. this is not Master and Commander, but neither is it a Flashman adventure. ... Read more

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'from a collection of angry groans to unfilled witness waiting to hold the troubled heart's understanding in a different way'. During the Second World War, bells throughout Europe were taken from their towers and used to make munitions. At the end of the war, many of the bells were recast and restored to their heights. In "Cast from Bells", Suzanne Hancock dramatizes how the same substance in one form gathers a crowd with its ringing, but in another shape scatters people and creates disorder. Balancing the bells of the past with the personal life of the present, these poems offer an intimate look at a woman leaving her husband. Against the backdrop of history, honest glimpses of a relationship's ruin reveal surprising connections between the exalted and mundane. "Cast from Bells" tells a story about people and things dividing and uniting, and the sounds and spaces between bells and bullets. ... Read more

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These studies of Canadian authors fulfill a real need in the study of Canadian literature. Each monograph is a separately bound study of about 55 pages. Each contains a biography of the author, a description of the tradition and milieu that influenced the author, a survey of the criticism on the author, a comprehensive essay on all the author's key works, and a detailed bibliography of primary and secondary works. ... Read more

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Up to now, there has been no substantial application of theological criticismto the works of Hugh MacLennan and Morley Callaghan, the two most importantCanadian novelists before 1960. Yet both were religious writers during theperiod when Canada entered the modern, non-religious era, and both greatlyinfluenced the development of our literature. MacLennan's journey fromCalvinism to Christian existentialism is documented in his essays and sevennovels, most fully in The Watch that Ends the Night.

Callaghan's fourteen novels are marked by tensions in his theology ofCatholic humanism, withhis later novels defining his theological themes in increasingly secular terms.This tension between narrative and metanarrative has produced both the artisticstrengths and the moral ambiguities that characterize his work.

Faith and Fiction: ATheological Critique of the Narrative Strategies of Hugh MacLennan and MorleyCallaghan isa significant contribution to the relatively new fieldstudying the relation between religion and literature in Canada. ... Read more

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Canadian Fiction Studies are an answer to every librarian's, student's, and teacher's wishes. Each book, about 80 pages in length, contains clear, readable information on a major Canadian novel. These studies are carefully designed readings of the novels; they are not substitutes for reading them. Each book is attractively produced and follows the same format, so students will know exactly what to expect:

A chronology of the author's life The importance of the book Critical reception Reading of the text Selected list of works cited ... Read more

Product Description
Canadian Fiction Studies are an answer to every librarian's, student's, and teacher's wishes. Each book, about 80 pages in length, contains clear, readable information on a major Canadian novel. These studies are carefully designed readings of the novels; they are not substitutes for reading them. Each book is attractively produced and follows the same format, so students will know exactly what to expect:

A chronology of the author's life The importance of the book Critical reception Reading of the text Selected list of works cited ... Read more

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Many of the highly praised bibliographies that make up The Annotated Bibliography of Canada's Major Authors are also available in individual author reprints. Separately bound and covered, each bibliography concentrates on one major Canadian author. ... Read more