This is the final story in the single volume of Alistair MacLeod’s collected stories, Island (if you’re discovering this project after it’s complete, you will be able to find the schedule for this reading project here).
After spending a little more than a year with Alistair MacLeod’s short stories, I found myself reluctant to read this last story; however, it was published in the same year as his novel, No Great Mischief, which I now look forward to reading.
As a younger reader, I would have begun with the novel—novels always took precedence over short fiction when began reading as an adult—but I’m glad to have started reading MacLeod’s stories. I’m also glad to have read him after having discovered so many other Canadian writers for whom memory is an integral part of the story.
Writers like Michael Ondaatje, Timothy Findley, Margaret Laurence, Margaret Atwood and Jane Urquhart. Contemporary writers who share that preoccupation, like Dionne Brand, Tracey Lindberg, Shani Mootoo, Wendy McGrath, Theresa Kishkan, Katherena Vermette, Pascale Quiviger, and Kim Echlin.
In the context of CanLit, MacLeod is a key figure. His editor and publisher Douglas Gibson referred to him as The Stone Carver because he “inscribes every perfect word with loving care.” MacLeod’s first collection, 1974’s The Last Salt Gift of Blood, with seven stories (all but two set in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia) and second, 1986’s As Birds Bring Forth the Sun (seven stores all set in the Cape) had previously been published, so when Gibson started to work at McClelland & Stewart in 1988, he “inherited” MacLeod.
Gibson’s recollections begin: “Alistair MacLeod’s people left the Scottish island of Eigg in 1790 to come to Nova Scotia. Proud memories are long in the Western Isles. When he won the international IMPAC prize for No Great Mischief in 2000 a local paper ran the headline… ‘Eigg Man Wins Prize.’”
Throughout these stories, characters look out over the water to someplace they (or their ancestors) called home. And, it’s the same with “Clearances”:
“He looked toward the sea; somewhere out there, miles beyond his vision, he imagined the point of Ardnamurchan and the land which lay beyond. He was at the edge of one continent, he thought, facing the invisible edge of another. He saw himself as a man in a historical documentary, probably, he thought, filmed in black and white.”
Throughout these stories, characters look back over their shoulders, casting a glance at their younger selves, as is true in “Clearances”:
“Now there was only himself and his dog, and when he visited the upstairs rooms they seemed like a museum that he had had a hand in creating.”
In many ways, therefore, “Clearances” is a fitting final story, even though it is succinct and perhaps a little less atmospheric than some of the earlier (and longer) works.
But I would rather think about the words I’ve yet to read, than dwell on having reread the last of his stories. And this story is so short, I’ll say more about MacLeod now instead.
In Stories about Storytellers, Gibson describes meeting MacLeod in such broad strokes that it feels like their friendship was so long that he barely remembered its beginnings. In fact, a few years before their relationship took a professional turn, the Gibson family had visited the MacLeod home in Nova Scotia, when they took a family vacation there in the mid-‘80s.
“Alistair showed me around his corner of Cape Breton and I remember walking that grassy track to his spartan clifftop writing cabin, which faces west to Prince Edward Island. It struck me at the time that, with the sound of the wind and the waves and the constantly changing view, I would get very little writing done there.”
And, perhaps that was the root of the legend of the book that might never have finished, No Great Mischief, because MacLeod was a deliberate writer to begin with, and this was to be his first book-length work. For years, Gibson touched base with MacLeod every six months or so, pressing lightly on the topic of the work’s completion. (Behind the scenes, he pressed friends and family members for more detailed updates.)
Gibson, meanwhile, was eyeing the landscape of CanLit and had noted that other prominent Canadian authors (Munro, Atwood, Ondaatje, Mistry, Urquhart) did not have a book due in 1999 and Gibson wanted the long-awaited MacLeod novel for that season. He regales: “No, no, it wasn’t ready, I shouldn’t do that, don’t come, and so on.” The date to finalise that season’s catalogue was rapidly approaching and, still, MacLeod demurred. So what did Gibson do? He “told him that I was coming, hung up, and didn’t answer my phone for two days.”
With that novel (and this has been said about MacLeod’s stories too), Gibson claims that his role as editor “was almost non-existent. The early material, typed in a variety of faces over the years, was so polished that it needed almost no attention from me.”
(The later material is considered separately, not because it required more attention, but because it arrived in bunches of 12-15 yellow-lined pages, handwritten, after Gibson had travelled to fetch the manuscript. The publishing staff was responsible for typing, because during the summer, MacLeod finished the story longhand, ink and paper all the way.)
It’s a treat to have No Great Mischief to anticipate now.
For the better part of two years, I was rereading Alistair MacLeod’s short stories, from start to stop, just as I’ve done with Alice Munro’s and Mavis Gallant’s short stories previously. If you love short stories or if you would like to be a short-story lover, several of these authors’ stories are among my favourites, and would make an excellent introduction to the finest of the form. If you have other favourite story writers, please feel free to contribute those to the conversation too.
I remember being in Ireland when it won the Impac award, still called that (I guess it’s now the Dublin Literary Award) and seeing it in high stacks in all the bookstores and feeling ridiculously proud. I love that book. I love the opening passage: “As I begin to tell this, it is the golden month of September in southwestern Ontario. In the splendid autumn sunshine the bounty of the land is almost overwhelming, as if it is the manifestation of a poem by Keats. Along Highway 3 the roadside stands are burdened down by baskets of produce and arrangements of plants and flowers. Signs invite you to “pick your own” and whole families can be seen doing exactly that: stooping and straightening or staggering with overflowing bushel baskets, or standing on ladders that reach into the trees of apple and of pear.” And how elegaic it is somehow, how beautiful. It might be time to read it again!
So beautiful indeed. Thank you for sharing that passage as I was still dragging my heels in its direction and now I feel it would be only right to begin it in September. It reminds me of one of my favourite sentences that always comes to mind in later August, from “The Closing Down of Summer”: ““It is August now, towards the end, and the weather can no longer be trusted.” And how remarkable it must have been, at that time, to see a Canadian writer’s work in such quantities overseas, which was even less common then (except for Ondaatje, Atwood, Moore, and I think maybe Mistry were prominent on the international stage then too). I’m reading the follow-up Douglas Gibson book now, with his travels on the west-coast!
I’m excited to see your review and thoughts on No Great MIschief! I read Douglas Gibson’s book when it came out b/c he came to Wordfest, and I remember him being very kind, and very outgoing. A great chap to spend time with for sure.
Did you know there’s been a sequel from ECW? Somehow I missed that!
A sequel really? Ok yes I definitely missed that. Sorry ECW! I only began reviewing for them regularly a few years ago, probably happened before then…
It’s very similar in tone to the first volume, but arranged by region, which adds an interesting dimension. Probably only of interest to serious CanLit geeks.
Ah, the end of the collection! I’d planned to join you on more than one story, but I haven’t been blogging much this year. I enjoyed reading your thoughts on these stories, though, and I’m grateful to you for introducing me to Alistair MacLeod. I hadn’t heard of him before and probably wouldn’t have read Island otherwise, so I’m very happy you told me about it.
I love that description, “The Stone Carver”! It feels very apt. His sentences do feel so finely carved, and yet they’re also so natural. I can imagine him spending so long on each one, chipping away until they were just right. Hope you enjoy the novel as much as the stories!
I kind of felt like you were reading along, even so, Andrew. Like you and Mel and Naomi and I were all in the same boat peering out at the mainland through MacLeod’s eyes, even when we weren’t reading in tandem. I didn’t keep to my own schedule, either, mainly because the stories are so powerful that, in combination with some life changes, reading them felt almost overwhelming at times.
And I know what you mean, sometimes entire projects emerge and resolve while I’m still seriously intending to locate and read the book(s) in question. When I first started BIP, someone was reading The Pillow Book and periodically I still think, Oh, I’ve got to get a copy of that. Heheh (She’s probably STILL reading that one, though. Hah)