What do You think about Island: The Complete Stories (2011)?
Every story in this collection is beautifully written and, taken together, makes an argument for Alistair MacLeod as one of the very best craftsmen of the short story. I'm mystified -- and a little embarrassed -- that I'd never heard of him. He has a wonderful ear for language and an uncommon ability to give his writing a sense of depth and wisdom. He knows people--actually, it's more accurate to say that he knows a certain kind of people. He anchors all of his stories in the history and culture of the Gaelic people who settled in and around the small mining and fishing villages of Nova Scotia, particulary the area of Cape Breton Island where MacLeod grew up. They are rugged, salt of the earth people, bound to the land, their families and their Scottish heritage. MacLeod's stories rely heavily on the theme of returning to the place of one's origin or escaping to the wider world beyond, and the constant tension that exists between the two.If I had to offer one criticism, however, I would say that MacLeod's strength can also be a liability. His familiarity with this group of people and their way of life allows him to render very poignant, richly detailed portraits of their lives. But, at least in this collection of stories, he doesn't deviate much beyond this template. As much as I loved the writing, I began to get the feeling that I was reading the same story over and over, just different facets. MacLeod doesn't show much versatility. Having said that, though, I highly recommend this book. It was like a master class in the art and craft of writing.
—Dan
I read this this past summer due to a round-about recommendation from a friend. Loved the book then. Gave it five stars here but didn't write a review but did recommend it to my main book group which voted to read it for November.Update: November 12, 2010 Started rereading this yesterday with pencil in hand to underline passages and write comments. This is a book where people and place and their way of life are inseparable. Cape Breton Island is the stage on which most of these stories take place. But in all of the stories set there the island also has a constant presence on stage the same as any of the human characters. Also the history of the people sits there in the shadows upstage and even, occasionally, stands up and comes to the front of the stage and speaks a piece. Having just finished Tom Franklin's Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter I can see a strong similarity between Island and books and stories set in the American South. The connections to place and a way of life is evident, and crucial, in Island the same way it is in Southern literature. The coal mining and the fishing on Cape Breton replace the cotton farming of the South but break a man and his wife down just as surely as the summer sun and bad harvests of Mississippi and Alabama do. One of the things I really enjoy about MacLeod's writing is that while spare and straight forward it is also rich and elegant. A sentence from the story "The Vastness of the Dark" will serve as a good example. An eighteen-year-old boy is leaving home and is hitchhiking his way off the island. He has gotten a ride in a coal truck. "The truck makes so much noise and rides so roughly that conversation with the driver is impossible and I am grateful for the noisy silence in which we are encased."(p. 45) The last part of the sentence, ". . . and I am grateful for the noisy silence in which we are encased." is almost a throwaway, a bit tacked on at the end, not crucial to the action, but it provides us so much information about the young man's state of mind and spirit at this point in the story. Also, "noisy silence" is such a great description of riding in a decrepit, old truck.Anyone who is on goodreads should enjoy the first story, "The Boat," since in that story there is a tension, a push/pull, between those who read and those who find it a waste of time. And that is what many of the stories deal with — the push/pull of a place of beauty that is harsh and demanding; of a way of life that was lived by your ancestor and so it is to be honored but it is also cruel and a sure way to an early grave; of the old ways vs. the new ways; of book learning vs. learning that comes from using your hands. Island is a chance for the contemporary person living in our fast-paced world of e-mail, the Web, 24-hour news cycles, and constant change to slow down and examine a world where what happened over the years is remembered, cherished and held on to; and the old songs are remembered and sung. Where the past not only has a seat at the kitchen table but rides in your hip pocket every day of your life and tags along for the ride when you leave the island. Island is also a chance to examine the tensions that that way of live has had presented over the last half century and longer to the people who live on The Island.Finished rereading this Nov. 26, 2010. Took much longer to reread than to read the first time. This time through I tried to do a close reading, observing connections within stories and between stories. Definitely a 5-star book. Too bad so few people read short stories anymore.
—Nick Schroeder
Reviewed in 2012Although 'Island’ is clearly fiction, I prefer to imagine this collection of stories as the portrait of a community and its history and traditions, as if Alastair MacLeod were in reality a social geographer in the mode of Henry Glassie and had collected these stories from the people of his community and then retold them in his own words. And I say ‘his’ community not only because I know he grew up on Cape Breton Island but also because of the love of the people, the animals, the land and the sea that is woven into every sentence, many of which I read again and again, revelling in the searing truth and beauty of the images.This chronologically arranged collection is composed of stories written between 1968 and 1999, which makes it very interesting to the reader who is new to MacLeod because we see the evolution in his writing and thinking. The early stories tend to be classic and tightly constructed while the later ones are more expansive, containing stories within stories, but are even more powerful in spite of that looseness of structure. I began to have real difficulty leaving the characters of each story behind from ‘Rankin’s Point’ onwards but at the same time the common landscape of the collection allows you to stay in the atmosphere of the previous tale even as you move on to the next. There is also a more meditative strain in the later stories as MacLeod begins to reflect on the passing of a way of life that he respects so much. He also focuses more on the Scottish origins of his characters and on Scots Gaelic and Scottish legends in the later stories, as if, being older, he is now more preoccupied with the distant past.The characters are by turns isolated farmers, fishermen, miners; sometimes they can be all three at once. Their world is a masculine one of complex relationships between sons, fathers and grandfathers, as well as close ties to beloved dogs and horses. This is a world of strong physical work and women women appear mostly in the background although there are a few fine portraits of women, women who are feared, venerated, or simply loved.As I was reading, I was reminded of the writing of John McGahern who also wrote beautifully about his own place and then I remembered where I had heard of MacLeod for the first time: in McGahern's Love of the World: Essays, a volume that includes some of the book reviews he did for a few select journals. McGahern didn't write many reviews but MacLeod was among them and he gave him the highest praise.This collection has a prime place on my bookshelves.
—Fionnuala
