A Student of Weather

Today, inspired by the sub-artic temperatures in the office, I will continue with another Canadian book:

Elizabeth Hay's A Student of Weather

Many, many moons ago I was working at a bookstore, and this book caught my eye every time I walked by the Fiction “H” section. I should mention that I’m notorious for judging books by their covers. I’m a glutton for charming illustrations, which is why the Classics sections in used book stores are strictly off-limits for me, because I go “charming illustration” CRAZY!!! My Best Friend can vouch for this obsession, since I send her many children’s books because the illustrations are so charming. But I digress. That’s how “A Student of Weather” sucked me in…. The Allure of the Cover Art…. Take a look at it for a moment. Aren’t you intrigued? Isn’t the title drawing you in? I thought so…. Let’s continue.

“A Student of Weather” takes place in Saskatchewan during the Depression, when there was nothing but dust. No rain, no crops, just dust. I know you think “that’s all well and good”, but take a look at some of these dust-storm pictures from Alberta in the ‘30’s.

That’s a whole lotta dust, and I’d sure hate to be in the path of THAT. A little oppressive, non? The novel follows the lives of Norma Joyce and her sister Lucinda on a Saskatchewan farm in the middle of the depression. Norma Joyce is an unusual child; wildly uncooperative, strange and virtually alone amid her family since her mother’s death, while Lucinda is beautiful, busy and efficient. Maurice, a student from Ontario stumbles upon their home during a violent snow storm and throws their lives into an eternity of love-triangle turmoil.

Perhaps the most unnerving (but wonderful) thing about this book is the blunt honesty of it. The characters are reflective of the landscape… Harsh, expansive, wildly extreme as the weather. Again, the characters are in survival-mode, existing, but not living. Norma Joyce is the exception to every rule… violently alive, aware, different and alone. Hay’s greatest talent (imho) is her ability to write with such bold honestly, create characters that are so damaged and real, and yet weave in breathtaking moments of beauty. I’m again reminded of the prairie landscape with this… in the winter I see the brown frozen stubble of wheat fields, the white heavy snow clouds that go on forever, flat, like eternal hopelessness. But in Summer, when the sky goes purple with thunder clouds, with sunlight slanting in from the west over the mountains, the wheat turns to gold and my heart just soars. Hay has captured this prairie dichotomy perfectly, and her lyricism, her characters are pulled by these polar opposites. Beauty and ugliness, drought and flood, hope and despair, dead and alive.

Being the “emotional reader” that I am, this is the book I turn to when I’m feeling alone or misunderstood. This is yet another book that I give to everyone, because I think it’s brilliant, and also because I feel so connected to it. Hay’s writing sinks into me and stays with me, challenges the ways I think and see people. What else can I say? GO READ THIS BOOK ;)

Much love,
~g~