In Fond Remembrance of Me: A Memoir of Myth and Uncommon Friendship in the Arctic

Although the title may sound like Norman is on an ego trip, he's really talking about another human being, a woman with whom he was once quite close, a woman he met, as Rex Harrison did Kay Kendall, while she was dying. Her name? Helen Tanizaki. Norman was a junior and Tanizaki a senior translator and Arctic analyst, and the two of them had met up in God's own country, Manitoba Canada, to transcribe Did you know that both Deanna Durbin and Nia Vardalos (MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING) are both from Manitoba? Marshall McLuhan and Neil Young are others who hail from this part of the world. In the Inuit legends, Manitoba, about which Norman has written often, is derived from the sound that spirits play while beating on a "drum." Compare the word "manitou." As Norman was to discover, there were one million filk legends on the Manitoba wind, and they had been so distorted by time and whispers that his informant, a colorful fellow, might tell Norman one version of the same story one afternoon, and that enebing he would have told Helen quite another. Howard Norman, of course, grew up to be one of the world's great story tellers himself, and this book is a bittersweet reflection of a love that didn't really "happen," but it happened nonetheless, and in her conviction of friendship for Norman, Tanizaki's name shall be long remembered, for he has written an astute memoir about her. I loved the part where Norman watches in helpless irritation, while Helen doubles over in laughter by something their Inuit informant is telling them. The truth is that Norman just isn't expert enough in the kanguage to understand Mark's quite ribald native humor. Helen never rubs it in, she merely gives him space enough for him to figure out that he isn't quite the authority his training had left him thinking he was. For out in the field, Norman was often hampered by his own inexperience while Helen, quite a bit older than he, had the benefit of many years of working and thinking and creating with all sorts of people in many cultures. Rather touchingly, as the two become closer, he asks her for a reading list of modern Japanese fiction, and she complies, saying, these books qill keep you for quite awhile (for she knew that she would be dead before he had finished all of the books). Thus into this cold Canadian paradise crept something of the romantic, renunciatory spirit of Der Rosenkavalier. Though not everyone will enjoy this book, those of us who like a good love story, such as the old chestbnut 84, Charing Cross Road, by Helene Hanff, will find plenty to like here. Norman's understatement can be a bit annoying from time to time, but there is never a moment when we lose sight of the important threads of the story. As Helen says, "Illness tends to turn you inward. It makes you eccentric in ways you ever wanted. It's hard to explain." Hard indeed, but Norman does his level best and that should be enough.