Island: The Collected Stories of Alistair MacLeod

I went looking for a book to read; one that was smart, but not pretentious in its prose. One that would hold my interest, but that I wouldn't spend the rest of the summer reading. On a wim, I grabbed this book. And found exactly what I was looking for. Alistair MacLeod writes with astounding sight and insight. It's difficult to describe a writer this good. He writes simply, but beautifully. He tells us just what we need to know, but often through new ways of looking at things. You're kind of riding along for a while, and then one simple sentence will knock you for a loop because it rings so true. In The Return, a story of a man who has married, moved to Vancouver and not been back to Cape Breton to visit his mother, father and brothers in nearly a decade, MacLeod perfectly shows us the anger, hurt and pain experienced by all. Even the son who is narrating the story understands the underlying tension in the house. "It is morning now and I awake to the argument of the English sparrows outside my window and the fingers of the sun upon my floor." A sentence perfectly put in the story at a time when the tension is felt, but not quite understood to what level it may rise. Everything about Cape Breton is tension in this story, even the birds. Quite often in this book, the sentences that nail you are because of the build up. It reminds me of the movie the Wonder Boys with Michael Douglas (not in scenario or character or theme, but in prose), where it builds, and you aren't quite sure where it is all going, but you are intrigued, and then Christina Ricci says, "Do you remember how you always tell us that a writer has to make choices? It's just that you haven't made any choices." And even though she is discussing his novel, you know it means so much more than that. That is how Alistair MacLeod writes. His sentences are simple, but they mean oh so much more than that.

Alistair MacLeod writes of isolation and loneliness and loss. His characters are often solitary people, yet they are solitary people with a strong sense of both history and community...the community of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.MacLeod's characters are a dying breed, people we don't see many of these days: coal miners, fishermen, farmers, lighthouse keepers. They are a people held together by a strong Gaelic thread; they speak Gaelic, sing Gaelic songs and live lives upheld and reinforced by strong Gaelic traditions. They are a rural people and they very much prefer things to stay the way they have been.But, as we all know, things never stay the way they have been. MacLeod's rural characters are the older ones. The younger ones have left the lonely farms of Cape Breton to work and study in the cities. The tourists are moving in, and, finding the Cape Breton landscape "unspoiled," and, therefore, very much to their liking, they are spoiling and defiling it, taking the first steps toward turning it into the very thing from which they wish to escape.In "Island," MacLeod, writes mainly of the modern, city-wise, young people who come home to visit the dying world from which they wanted to escape. What they find is a world and a culture that will not die, that refuses to be obliterated. "The Closing Down of Summer" is a story that illustrates this persistence of the past perfectly.MacLeod is at his best in this collection of stories. His prose is emotional but never maudlin, precise but never terse and it possesses a rhythm so Gaelic it can't fail to strike a chord of recognition in anyone who is in the least bit familiar with Cape Breton and its inhabitants. MacLeod is not a "rural" writer, yet his love for the rural is one thread that wends its way through all of these disparate tales.To the uninitiated, MacLeod may seem a bit artificial in his dialogue. He's not. He's just being "Cape Breton" to the core. The dialogue of Nova Scotia is a dramatic one, full of artifice and beautifully cadenced. MacLeod captures all of this perfectly.The stories in "Island" are simple, honest, earnest stories about simple, honest, earnest folk. They may, at times, sound a bit naive, but that's just the total honesty of them. And, it is the very thing that makes them so beautiful and unforgettable.Some of these stories are older stories, so they may have a bit of an old-fashioned ring to them. Don't let that put you off. MacLeod isn't old-fashioned, he's timeless, and this book proves it. These stories, revolving around a vanishing people and a disappearing way of life, are marvelous, contemplative creations and it would certainly be a shame to miss them.

I found the stories in Alistair MacLeod's Island to be beautifully moving--some incredibly powerful, others merely just very good. These are contemplative stories and because they all deal with similar underlying topics (but altogether different stories)--the return to the rural, the countryside's slow adaptation to change, youth contrasted with age--it makes sense to read these stories slowly, over several weeks. I believe reading these quickly may cause them to blend together, something you don't want to do because each story has its unique original beauty. MacLeod writes very carefully and his prose is very, I don't know, almost heavy, very powerful. You have to be in a contemplative mood, I believe, to appreciate these stories. This is not a collection for that cross country plane ride, or your week at the beach. Rather, these are stories to be savored slowly, in peace and quiet. Well done.

Alistair MacLeod is a Canadian national treasure. I hope they appreciate his talent as much as I. This collection reaches deep in to the psyche of natives of Cape Breton Island, descended from strong Scottish stock, roots deep within the land and the hard work necessary to maintain life and soul on the sometimes unforgiving islands. The writing is lyrical with wonderful glimpses of Gaelic, which few of us know anything about. MacLeod's use of Gaelic, his talk of farm living and mankind's link with the sea, and more importantly, mankind's link with the past enable the reader to intimately feel the island culture, separate from the rest of Canada.The tone is mournful, graceful, and paradoxically, both harsh and kind. Each story is self-contained. I usually had to stop between stories to allow the last one ot settle within me. Such power and understanding!

One of the wise Elders in the story says. "Music is the lubricant of the poor all over the world. In all the different languages." Books like these and the people who write them provide the same comfort, and encouragement, and are a gift for readers to continue reading when there seems to be less writing of this caliber produced. The quote from the first paragraph is actually from Mr. Alistair MacLeod's work, "No Great Mischief". It was the first novel he wrote and was one of the finest reading experiences in the last several years for me. This collection of short stories was published in 2 separate books prior to his novel, and they distinguished him as one of the great talents writing today.These stories may indeed be short when measured by the page; however any given piece that you care to choose is essentially faultless. The concept of, "second sight", is a subject that arises in some of these tales, and while Mr. MacLeod may not have that particular brand of vision, he like any great writer does see things differently than most people perceive them. And his sensitivity to detail extends to the other senses, and then he is able to place it upon pages for the rest of us to enjoy. He engages the reader on every level with the environment he creates, the sounds, and the very texture of the places he brings you to. This is the kind of work that you get so deeply involved with that you think about these people as real, as real as the names of the places they live, work, and die that appear on a map.I don't believe there is one transcendent theme he is presenting with these stories, there is far too much involved in each to place a label on them all. The climate is as vital as many of his characters, and he imbues it with personality that is nearly sentient. Water provides the food for eating and employment, to illustrate tradition, and to show its demise. It cruelly takes life, when as ice it is deceptive and kills, then provides the stage for heroic deeds, and also crossings that bring forth new human life to its shores. And when it is neither liquid nor solid but an amalgam, it becomes a barrier that forces a person to watch the passage of two caskets containing her Parents as the funeral cortège proceeds on the unreachable far shore.The Author will take every emotion and not just make you feel it, but at times hurt or suffer from the intensity that he brings with his writing. A Grandmother holds her 11-year-old grandchild, and says that of her 30 grandchildren she will never know him, as his Parents do not value visits home. And the husband, his Grandfather tells the child if the interval of time is the same until he again visits, there will be no meeting as the Patriarch will most certainly be dead. Cruel words to a child? Not when this man writes the exchange. What comes through is truth and the acceptance of it, pleasant or not.New technology may keep all books available sometime in the near future but that does not mean availability crea