Alistair MacLeod
Paperback | Pages: 304 pages Rating: 4.02 | 10048 Users | 704 Reviews
Point Books In Pursuance Of No Great Mischief
| Original Title: | No Great Mischief |
| ISBN: | 0393341194 (ISBN13: 9780393341195) |
| Edition Language: | English URL http://books.wwnorton.com/books/No-Great-Mischief/ |
| Setting: | Canada Toronto, Ontario(Canada) |
| Literary Awards: | Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award (2000), Canadian Booksellers Association Libris Award for Fiction Book (2000), Trillium Book Award (2000), Canadian Authors Association Award for Fiction (2000), Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize Nominee (1999) International Dublin Literary Award (2001) |
Chronicle Conducive To Books No Great Mischief
Alistair MacLeod musters all of the skill and grace that have won him an international following to give us No Great Mischief, the story of a fiercely loyal family and the tradition that drives it.Generations after their forebears went into exile, the MacDonalds still face seemingly unmitigated hardships and cruelties of life. Alexander, orphaned as a child by a horrific tragedy, has nevertheless gained some success in the world. Even his older brother, Calum, a nearly destitute alcoholic living on Toronto's skid row, has been scarred by another tragedy. But, like all his clansman, Alexander is sustained by a family history that seems to run through his veins. And through these lovingly recounted stories-wildly comic or heartbreakingly tragic-we discover the hope against hope upon which every family must sometimes rely.
Describe Epithetical Books No Great Mischief
| Title | : | No Great Mischief |
| Author | : | Alistair MacLeod |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 304 pages |
| Published | : | November 28th 2011 by W. W. Norton Company (first published September 30th 1999) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Cultural. Canada. Historical. Historical Fiction. Literature. Canadian Literature |
Rating Epithetical Books No Great Mischief
Ratings: 4.02 From 10048 Users | 704 ReviewsEvaluation Epithetical Books No Great Mischief
We are all better when we're loved. 1940s Cape Breton is a place untouched by modern ideas of individualism. Here identity is not forged by choices made, but by birth into a history, birth into a clan, birth into your place in that lineage that stretches back to Calum Ruadh who came from Moidart to the New World in 1779 when he was a man of 55, who lived another 55 years in the land of trees, giving his life a strange sort of balance. Who are your parents, who are your grandparents, those areI guess this is not my sort of book. It is the tale of Scots in Cape Breton and in particular a branch of the MacDonalds, and makes much of how they never forgot their roots, always stick together, and still speak Gaelic. It won various prizes and is considered the best Atlantic Canadian novel. But how it got so esteemed I have no idea. I found it tiresome and longwinded. There is really not much of a plot except a bunch of disjointed anecdotes. The characters are little more than mouthpieces
Lovely writing in a lackluster story. All the tools of a great writer: imagery, foreshadowing, a nice job of interweaving themes. Grandpa and grandfather are two memorable and contrapuntal characters. But the history was simplistic, a lot of repetition and such xenophobic Scottish posture that I could not give this more than 3 stars.
All this obsession with the family past and a wish to get down to the roots...No Great Mischief seems to be too ordinary to win so many prestigious literary awards and though I liked the novel I wasn't impressed greatly.In the landscape around me, those who harvest the bounty of the earth are stilled for the day. Yet they are there in the near-darkness with their own hopes and dreams and disappointments.At first there are great expectations then there are just hopes and then one keeps hoping
This haunting story stays with you long after you have put down the book.It is beautifully written, the descriptions of the settings are so evocative that I actually felt as if I had visited Cape Breton myself.It tells the story of a family, the MacDonalds, who leave Scotland in the late 18th Century to journey to Canada, and it follows the lives of their ancestors in the Cape Breton area of Nova Scotia. Most of the MacDonald clan intermarry, so that they form a very tight-knit community, who
I read this book, quickly, in less than twenty-four hours. It really held my attention, and I was interested to see how it ended. This novel won several major literary prizes when it was published in 1999 by Alistair Macleod, a Canadian writer. The narrator is an orthodontist, who frequently visits his alcoholic older brother in a rundown rooming house on downtown Toronto. These visits provide the opportunity for the narrator, Alexander MacDonald, to tell the story of his family's history in
April 21, 2014: Rest in peace, Alistair MacLeod. Died April 20, 2014.His extraordinary style will never be matched. Another outstanding piece of storytelling from this great Canadian writer. He uses repetition of images and phrases throughout the book as a very effective tool. It gives the story both a rhythm and an anchor, continually bringing you back to reminders of what binds the clan and their shared history.This is the story of the Scottish clan of Calum the Red, who came to Nova Scotia
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