Book Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Sheila Watson, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 1075 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Book Description
When eight English noblemen known as the Lords Proprietors were granted the Charles Towne territory by King Charles II as a reward for their loyalty, the grant came with an express command to develop the area into a profit-making venture. Fortunately, the area came with a natural deep-water port, perfect for establishing trade. Soon trade in lumber, deerskins, and indigo established Charles Towne’s wealth and prosperity, and the invention of the cotton gin and improvements in the rice crop cultivation helped boost the area’s economy. By 1750, Charleston was the fourth largest city in colonial America—and the wealthiest, thanks in part to additional trade through Georgetown and Port Royal. ... Read more

Book Description

Using case studies drawn from all areas of museum studies; history, anthropology and archaeology, Museums and their Communities explores the museums as a site of representation, identity and memory, and considers how it can influence its community.

Focusing on the museum as an institution, and its social and cultural setting, Sheila Watson examines how museums use their roles and informers and educators to empower, or ignore, communities.

Looking at the current debates about the role of the museum, she considers contested values in museum functions and examines provision, power, ownership, responsibility,and institutional issues.

This book is of great relevance for all disciplines as it explores and questions the role of the museum in modern society.

Customer Reviews (17)

Students! wanna understand this book?
I was horribly depressed when I chose this book for my English "Book Review". Soon after reading the first page I categorized it to be Stupid, Useless and Crazy altogether! In other words a "Piece of Junk". FORTUNATELY, I had no way to get my mark other than reading it. I read it quickly because I hated it so much. When I reached the end, I had a complete look to the lives of the players (the characters). That "pre-reading" was my key to understand The Double Hook! So, try to follow these steps [IN ORDER]

1. Read it fast till the last end; focus on these nasty characters.
2. Make sure you know whom the characters are.
3. Read the book again with a fairly slow, thorough reading.

You'll find how easy it is to get inside the life of these people. My opinion is that "The Double Hook" is one of the best novels EVER! It increased my appreciation toward literature, Canadian Literature, and made me discover a new way to express your feelings. I think that the story is worthy to be turned into a movie. The story is somehow similar to that movie called "The Village" by M. Night Shyamalan

The Double Hook - Sheila Watson
"In spare, allusive prose, Shiela Watson" annoys all readers with her pretentious format and conceited belief that she has an important message to depict through her novel.Ms. Watson attemps to portray universal themes, yet, I, as a reader from urban Canada, find myself unable to relate to the characters, ideas, and symbolism of The Double Hook.I do not believe in a mystical or divine creature called "Coyote", and I'm sure the intended audience (id est, the global community) share similar sentiments.

I really appreciate her use of quotation marks, basically, her lack thereof.If I were to not use proper grammer in an essay, I would be severely punished, however, since Ms. Watson does not include quotation marks, she is praised as a hero of modernist literature.Furthermore, she injects her writing with fragmented sentences, another literary crime for which I would be penalized.For instance, "Flesh mountainous contemplating" (page 16).Is this supposed to be impacting in some way, am I obligated to be amazed by such an attempt at profundity?In my opinion, this is merely an unsuccessful sentence.Perhaps Ms. Watson could explain the meaning or significance of this phrase, because without her, this code cannot be deciphered.

Not only does Ms. Watson fail to project her intended thoughts, she gives her readers the impression that she is arrogant.She is obviously trying very hard to be controversial and original, but she manages to succeed only in revealing her artifical and spurious personality.Some critics, an extremely small minority, refer to The Double Hook as a masterpiece of magic realism - I think, on the other hand, that it is an incoherent collection of random symbols and themes.

Mixed Feelings
If this book were any longer, it might not be worth the effort required. However, it's brevity makes it possible to give it the two readings it probably requires (or at least, I required).
My three star rating reflects my mixed feelings about the book. It is interesting, but I feel its ambiguity wasn't entirely necessary.
All the characters in this book are pretty despicable,which I don't necessarily mind, I just wish I knew more about them in the end. The afterword mentions that Watson cut out a lot of the personal history of the characters in the editing process. I think I would've liked it more if she had kept that sort of thing in.
Also, an introduction would be particularly helpful, especially one that introduces the reader to the Coyote myth.

Hardship and Beauty
Sheila Watson's selective and allusive prose reveals the lives of a small isolated community in Western Canada where hardship and kindness shape daily existence and make it extraordinary. When reading this classic, one must let the various images flow to get the whole picture---it is truly a unique and refreshing reading experience. The atmosphere created is heavy with emotion--Greta's resentment, Ara's disappointement, the Widow's loneliness, James' struggle for independence, the mysterious death of the the old lady, and the touching birth of a little boy are fused together to create a rawness that is both scary and beautiful. It is a compelling novel that reveals the true force of Canadian talent, and is very much demonstrative of the endless possibities when one moves beyond traditional form

An daring experimental novel of failure & redemption.
I was dismayed by the negative reviews of Watson's fine experimental novel, The Double Hook (1959).Most of them came from high school students who were required to read a book when they didn't really want to readanything.Clearly some students are being given this book prematurely inCanada.

For someone willing to give the book a chance, I have somesuggestions.It concerns a frightened group of people living at the edgeof civilization, in British Columbian Cariboo country.A former populationof Native Canadians has been displaced by settlers like them.Eachcharacter is haunted by the spectral presence of Coyote, a trickster figurerevered by the former natives.Although Coyote is a symbolic presence, andfeared as a curse by the whites, he brings redemption because hiscontinuity means the destruction of native influence isn't complete, oreven possible.That relates to the "double hook" of thetitle--literally a hook that points two ways, so that "you can't catchthe glory on a hook and hold on to it.That if you hook twice the gloryyou hook twice the fear" (61, Kip's thoughts).

The book is writtenlargely in dialogue without quotation marks.Modern writers like Joyce andWoolf experimented with varied presentations of fiction in the early 20thcentury, and Watson is playing with these techniques.Do not be dismayedby them, though.The book is presenting characters deeply fearful of whatis happening around them.What they most fear is their ability to controltheir own existence.When Mrs. Potter dies, she becomes part of that fear(like Mrs. Moore in Forster's A Passage to India, who becomes part of thelegends of the caves when she dies).Fire ends the influence of Mrs.Potter, and characters who have been alienated come into a better alignmentwith each other.Shrewdly, the narrator tells us, "Coyote plotting tocatch the glory for himself is fooled and every day fools others"(61).Finally, a new child born is named "Felix" (Latin for"fortunate").Here Christian redemption in a newborn babe blendswith native beliefs, again hooking us doubly.

Failure in this bookderives from an unwillingness to look at the alien and accept its presenceand importance.When characters stop doing that, they create a place forthemselves in the most inhospitable locale Watson ever found herself (as ateacher in the early 1930s).The book reflects her mental struggle toreconcile the bleakness of life in the Cariboo with her sense that theremote locales of Canada matter as much as the sophisticated soirees ofMontréal and Toronto.

Finally, a book by William Faulkner--As I LayDying--greatly influenced this book's characters and style.Watson's bookmakes a good deal more sense if you read Faulkner's book first, or at leastget a plot description of it. ... Read more

Book Description
This small collection of stories that were published between 1938 and 1980 includes a remarkable narrative range, from the closely observed realism of “Rough Answer,” Sheila Watson’s first story, through four stories which represent members of the family of Sophocles’ Oedipus as contemporary and naturalized, to the ritualized mystery of “And the Four Animals.” A Father’s Kingdom is an original New Canadian Library collection. ... Read more

Product Description
A test of faith and courage as a young wife and mother comes to terms with her husband\'s infidelity after a long battle with cancer. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Gift for Pregnant Couples and New Parents
This is a terrific book for pregnant couples and new moms! I give it to all my friends when they have a baby.

It is wonderful for making your home safer for you and your child ... Read more