Summer Reading Challenge '09: As for Me and My House by Sinclair Ross

[Scheherazade]

This summer we will be reading As for Me and My House by Sinclair Ross.

Please post your comments and questions in this thread.

In "wind-swept, sun-burned little Horizon," Sinclair Ross sets As for Me and My House and his big, human themes of isolation, alienation and unrealized ambition. Our narrator, Mrs. Bentley, uses a diary to detail life with her husband Philip, the artist who puts aside his painting to become a small-town preacher. "What he is and what he nearly was. The failure, the compromise, the going on." Mrs. Bentley too had aspirations but gave them up to marry Philip. Her writing reveals just how brittle their relationship has become: "For hypocrisy wears hard on a man who at heart really isn't that way. As far back as I can remember, it's always been there, darkening, draining him, but with Horizon now it seems to be gathering for a crisis."
Even with disaster looming, the uneventful chronicling of a clergyman and his wife struggling through the Depression in Saskatchewan might sound dull. That is, until the reader realizes how absorbing Mrs. Bentley's ambiguous and layered diary entries can be. Ross leaves it to us to decide whether our narrator is sincere or deceptive, shrewdly aware or deep in denial, as she chronicles her interactions with her husband, the townspeople, and the false fronts which surround them. It's this complexity that makes Mrs. Bentley one of the most engaging characters in Canadian fiction and draws generations of readers back to tiny Horizon, Sask.

[JBI]

The Amazon synopsis is quite silly. In truth, the diarist, is perhaps the most written about, and debated character in all English language Canadian writing. The actual diary itself forces one to question exactly how our ideas are shaped and exactly how we construct the world around us, yet at the same time, our view of observer puts us within her mind - within a frame where we can see what she sees, yet at the same time, be tricked by what she tricks herself with, and be lost in the misunderstanding with her, meanwhile groping for some sort of solidity, which for the most part, is left up to the imagery, quite poetic like in delivery.

I recommend the newer edition of it, with the Afterward by Robert Kroetsch, as his essay at the end is particularly good, and begins to take into account the 6 decades of criticism this text has gone through, with all its changing interpretations.

[JBI]

Is anyone going to join me in reading this text? I'm already 100 into my first reread.

[Scheherazade]

This is a summer read, JBI, which means that we have till the end of August. What's more, it would take some time to get hold of a copy as well.

Personally speaking, I am not sure if I am interesting in this book.

[JBI]

Nobody interested in this text but me - is anyone reading it? It is a good book guys, and I really recommend you go out and get a copy so we can have a discussion.

[kasie]

Hang on in there, JBI, my copy is winging its way to me from Amazon, even as we speak. It would have got here sooner but I ordered the wrong book - doh! - I remembered you recommended a particular version but couldn't recollect the name and what turned up was AFMAMH - Five Decades of Criticism, edited by David Stouk. The edition you suggested is now ordered (along with a Leonard Cohen CD - I'm getting in the Canadian mood.....) and a couple of Somerset Maughans - it's that Brian Bean's fault, I haven't read any WSM for years and didn't much like it at the time but his posts have got me thinking that maybe I was too young to appreciate the Master at the time and maybe I should give him a second reading. And I had to make up the order to get the free postage, didn't I? Will set to and read the text as soon as it arrives - not a good idea to read the criticism first, I think!

[Scheherazade]

[kasie]

No, no, Scher, I am reading it. The copy eventually arrived - I had to go into the PO to collect it as the dispatcher had forgotten to put stamps on it, I hate paying postage at the best of times so the book had better be good to warrant paying twice!

Have started but not got far yet (Somerset Mauygham took far more time than he should have done). Will post when I have read a bit more but already all sorts of warning lights are flickering and I'm thinking 'Oh, really? Are you sure - are you kidding us or yourself?'