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Title: Clara Callan by Richard B. Wright ISBN: 0-06-050607-5 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 December, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.75 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: a wonderful book
Comment: I usually don't like books in diary/journal and letter form, but this book is the great exception. These characters who live in the 1930's deal with many issues that are still hot topics today: rape, homosexuality, extra-marital relationships, abortion, and more. The more things change, the more they stay the same...
Rating: 5
Summary: Masterful Storyteller
Comment: Richard B. Wright has written a marvelous story of two sisters who grew up in a small Canadian town. The time is the 1930's, and the author is able to bring alive the times, the movies, the newspapers, the famous people, the politics, and has been able to weave these events into the lives of the characters in the book. The author received the Canadian Giller Prize and the Governor General's Award for this novel.
The story is told through the two voices of Clara and Nora Callan mostly in letter format. Letter format has not been a favorite of mine, but the author brings these women to life in a extraordinary manner.
Clara is a school teacher and lives alone in her deceased father's home. Clara was her father's favorite, and seems to be a lot like him, frugal and conservative. She is prone to think of excuses why she should not have a telephone or a radio. Clara is a lover of books and reads voraciously. And, Clara writes poetry, not the kind of poetry her family or friends would appreciate. However, she expresses her poetry to us, the readers in a compelling narrative. She leads a fairly ordinary existence, but then something happens that requires all of her strength and perserverance and this changes her entire life.
Nora had more of a dream for her life. She left the small Canadian town for the big, bright lights of New York City. Nora found a job in radio very quickly and began her glamorous life. She soon had a job on a soap opera that became very popular, and she played the part of a beloved character. Her Canadian town is very proud of her- the young girl who made good.
She has several men in her life, but not the right kind. Either they are married or not the marrying kind. Life in the city that is so exciting becomes more humdrum, but she maintains that allusion of mystery .
Evelyn is a friend of Nora's. She is an author and pens the scipts for Nora's radio show. They become good friends even though Evelyn is a lover of women and Nora a lover of men. Evelyn is very well paid for her job and lives extravagantly- Nora is often the lucky recipient while meeting the rich and the famous. Both sisters come to love Evelyn for her kindness and generosity, and she becomes a prime mover throughout their lives.
Each woman has her tale to tell and brings with her the people she meets. Even though the lives of these women are disclosed, their characters are brought to life without deep psychological probing. These are people who are so ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. The twists and turns of life are fully revealed and so rewarding in this marvelous book. prisrob
Rating: 5
Summary: An unremarkable life?
Comment: Clara Callan, the protagonist of Wright's novel, is a small town spinster in the 1930s. She lives a reasonably comfortable life thanks to the inheritance of her father's house and a job as a local schoolteacher. Through her diary entries and exchanges of letters, mainly with her more glamorous younger sister Nora, Clara reveals herself to the reader. Wright has created a believable character that "grows on you" as her personality emerges little by little. Life's difficulties during the Depression years, in particular for a single woman in rural Southern Ontario become apparent through the description of daily events. However, a very dramatic personal incident and its aftermath force Clara to confront her new circumstances in a very direct manner. While she was accustomed to express her daily experiences and reflections in poems, events interfere and poetry becomes impossible. She recognizes "how suddenly a life can become misshapen, divided brutally into before and after a dire event." Her beliefs are challenged and so is her self-contained whole-ness as a person.
Clara's personal story is embedded in the realities of the mid-thirties where unemployment is rife and poverty spreading. Although at the periphery of the main thrust of the book, Wright alludes to the emerging pre-war anxieties. He touches on the contrasts between city and rural living, utilizing Clara's reluctance to accept such innovations as the telephone, as an example. Yet, the regular Saturday trips to Toronto, perceived by her as a necessary escape from the village, lead to a new, important phase in her personal development, giving her also a new taste of independence. She visits her sister in New York, although in rather difficult time in her life. Cleverly, Wright lets her visit pre-war Italy as a third party to her sister's vacation. It allows the author to add impressions of the growing political conflicts in Europe as a backdrop without losing the focus of the story.
The counterweight to Clara is Nora, who could not bear small-town Ontario and leaves for New York to "make it in radio". She becomes successful as a radio voice in daytime "soaps" and her personal life seems to take on some aspects of a soap opera itself. Nora is privileged in finding a solid rock in a glamorous female friend, Evelyn, while her on and off affairs are far less successful. Clara, always concerned about her sister and her superficial lifestyle, attempts to remain the firm family base for her sister, but her own life story places her more and more on a shaky ground. She finds advice and empathy through her correspondence with Evelyn.
Clara Callan is a very engaging story indeed. Wright successfully places himself into the mind of a woman: Clara's personality quietly and gently takes hold of the reader as one follows her in the exploration of the multifaceted realities of her time and place.
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