A person could spend hours in the library or at the bookstore searching
for writing that makes his heart beat meaningfully, that is purposeful.
There is brilliant literature left in the world, but admittedly it is
easier to reread something good than to look for new sources. I have a
favorite few books that I have read so many times I’ve lost count.
There are things that separate what is fun from what is lasting. There
are thousands of authors who are talented entertainers, handy with
gimmicks to stimulate the mind. But there are only handfuls who write
what will last because of how it sticks in the ears and in the hearts
and on the tongues of its readers. That said, it is a wonderful thing
to haphazardly pick up a book and have its voice fill your mind, to
begin to think in terms of its places and its people. By a rare
accident I picked up a book
On the author’s web site Ivan Doig confesses ‘Reader, my story is
flirting with you; please love it back.’ The Whistling Season is a
book of history both real and imagined, characters, parallels between
the past and the present. It is about a family on a Montana homestead
who just prior to the start of the narration lost their mother. It is
not a book in which characters look for meaning in cold disenchantment;
on the contrary, it is about a family who makes meaning and richness in
spite of what is bitter and hard. There is a good blend of history as
it happened and fictional storytelling where real-life characters and
events mix with fictional ones who are equally believable. It is also
a book about the power education can have to elevate us above our
circumstances.
The narrator is an older man in the middle of the century
recounting the vividly drawn details of a significant couple of
seasons in his youth. He is an exceptionally gifted student and
plagued by dreams. I found him endearing, but not pathetic. The plot
centers on a character contrast: two well dressed ‘foreigners’ from the
east and the rough, blandly clad Montana homesteaders. The narrator
describes his first sight of ‘Uncle Morrie,’ who came to have an impact
on his life: “Like her, this individual believed in sparing nothing on
appearance. A paisley vest peeked from amid the tweed... The man was
not at all tall, but held himself very straight as if to make the most
of what he had. He was lightly built, and an extraordinary amount of
him was mustache.”
If the book's strengths were in its characters and well used
literary devices (like voice and setting and metaphor) its weakness
was in its small surprises toward the end. I found them a little
melodramatic and not as consistent with the overall theme and story. But the author was obviously fond of these characters. Their sorrows
and joys made them real. It was a well told story and I admit that I
did love it back.
images via Distincly Montana and NYTimes
