Friday's Forgotten Books

It is with great delight that I join Pattinase's blog roundup this week for Friday's Forgotten Books.

Moving right along:

The Last of the Crazy People by Timothy Findley
1967

This was Timothy Findley's (1930-2002) first book. He is one of my very favorite Canadian writers. The Last of the Crazy People was not even published in Canada, only in Britain and the U.S. His second novel, The Butterfly Plague, (1969), was also rejected by Canadian publishers. His third novel, however, The Wars, (1977), won a Governor General's Award. Findley won several writing awards from both Canada and France.

Findley grew up in a wealthy section of Toronto (Rosedale) and attended private school, then Jarvis Collegiate, although he did not finish grade ten. I actually have a nephew who goes to that same high school!

Findley was briefly married. The marriage was annulled and Findley spent the rest of his life with his partner, screenwriter William Whitehead. Findley turned to dancing and acting. He was one of the originals at the Stratford Festival which opened in Southern Ontario in 1953 and where he worked with Alec Guinness. He wrote for television and radio and adapted Mazo de la Roche's The Whiteoaks of Jalna for CBC television. My entire family watched this show and I HAD NO IDEA, until I did a bit of research for this post, that Timothy Findley (Tiff for short) was one of the writers!

About The Last of the Crazy People: It's 1964 and the protagonist, Hooker Winslow, 11 years old, lives with his dysfunctional family. The family includes his crazy mother (who recently gave birth to a stillborn), his Aunt Rosetta (who caters totally to her brother/Hooker's dad), Nicholas (Hooker's dad and a man who can't connect with anyone and who talks whether he has a listener or not), his drunken brother, Gilbert.

From the back of the book: One brilliant, summer morning, an eleven year old boy commits a shocking and unpredictable crime. What drove Hooker Winslow to his act of insanity?

From an article written by Laura Moss: Although the stories differ dramatically in plot and form, the symbolic content of Findley's work is often predictable. His writing proliferates with scenes of violence, loneliness, animal rights, abuses of power, madness, and apocalyptic visions. Indeed, Findley himself jokingly points to his own recurring images and themes: "It came as something of a shock…to discover that for over thirty years of writing my attention has turned again and again to the same unvarying gamut of sounds and images…. I wish I hadn't noticed this. In fact, it became an embarrassment and I began to wonder if I should file A CATALOGUE OF PERSONAL OBSESSIONS.

Go see pattinase's blog for links to other posts for Friday's Forgotten Books.

P.S. Timothy Findley is the guy who wrote The Piano Man's Daughter. He hated the film.

P.P.S. Sorry. Got way too wordy on this post. But I do love this writer.

(Sources: Wikipedia, http://www.athabascau.ca/writers/findley.html, http://www.cbc.ca/news/obit/findley/)

Friday's Forgotten Books

The Chrysalids by John Wydham was originally published in 1955. In the US, it was released as Re-Birth.

The Chrysalids is a post nuclear war sci fi that takes place in Labrador or Newfoundland and, at the end, in New Zealand. It's the story of a backward fundamentalist society with very strict laws concerning the fate of those with mutations. Deviant animals are killed. Human abominations are sterilized and banished to the Fringes.

David Strorm, a ten-year-old boy who communicates telepathically, has a zealot father who follows to a "t" the laws of the rural society. David must keep secret, especially from his father, his mutation and the identities of his friends with telepathy. David's cousin, Rosalind, also shares this gift. And then there is David's little sister, Petra, who has stronger telepathic powers than any of the group. Along his travels, David meets another mutant, Sophie, a girl with six toes. I won't tell you what happens to Sophie, but it isn't pretty.

Some critics consider the ending too contrived (deux ex machina), but I have to admit that when I read The Chrysalids as a ninth grader, I loved the entire book. So much so that I actually re-read it a few times. Last year, I ordered it used from amazon (for one cent which seemed so insulting to a book I so enjoyed) for my eighth grader. I have to be honest; I was a little nervous when we started out reading it together. What if The Chrysalids didn't stand the test of time? Which meant I'd destroy a childhood memory.

BUT, I loved it all over again. And so did he.

Thank you to Patti Abbott who allowed me to join in on Friday's Forgotten Books. Please check Patti's blog for other participants. I'm looking forward to next Friday (July 4) when we'll be posting about forgotten young-adult books.

For other reviews of this book, you can visit Classic Sci Fi Reviews and The Chrysalids Book Review and Wikipedia.