Mermaids in Winnipeg - The Republic Of Love by Carol Shields

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Republics do not have kings or queens, nor princes or princesses, so, we must assume, fairytales are out. Winnipeg is not exactly a republic, and, at least in terms of their love lives, two residents of the city, Fay and Tom, seem to inhabit a world where fairytales are inconceivable. But that place might not be Winnipeg: it might be closer in to themselves.

Despite - or perhaps because of - having had a multitude of mothers, Tom has been married three times, each attempt turning success into apparent and mildly painful failure, with or sometimes without associated acrimony. For her part, Fay, at thirty-five, has had several relationships of varied length, but none has led to wedding bells, a fact that seems to trouble her, sometimes.

Tom is a radio presenter. He hosts one of those late night phone-ins aimed at insomniacs, but usually attracting the opinionated. His mood, his history, his takes on where life has taken him clearly influence his style. Rises or dips in his personal life are immediately apparent, communicated without trying. But do not assume that anything offers even influence to what the contributors say. Rest assured, they will offer precisely what they want, perhaps precisely what they have been fed, if only because they are all as self-absorbed as everyone else.

Fay works more regular hours. She is an ethnologist and works in a folklore centre. She is heavily into mermaids, and perhaps they are also into her. She researches the mermaid myth, catalogues sightings, interviews people who have seem them, travels the world giving papers on our social and psychological need to invent these creatures. Mermaids, though overtly sexual and obviously female, are eventually sexless, unless they have exaggerated tails. They are both alluring and inviting, but, being half fish, they are cold-blooded and cold. They tempt, but cannot satisfy.

Obviously Tom and Fay are going to meet. They, along with their accumulated baggage, join forces and, as a consequence, begin to see life differently. But each is still influenced by relatives, acquaintances, ex-partners, ex-in-laws, new partners, parents and anyone else who might have an opinion. They all count. They all influence, especially when stiffness of apparent resolve can be easily bent by contradiction, shock or surprise. And so Fay and Tom's relationship develops to what Carol Shields deems it should become. Throughout The Republic Of Love is beautifully written. Carol Shields's prose is often witty, elegant, telling, funny, incisive or provocative all in one. A single sentence can turn on itself to frighten or mock its own beginning.

This is a book worth reading for its style alone. But it offers more than elegance of expression. These characters have all the confused confident complexity, the undirected and variable resolve we would expect from non-ideological adults in the last decade of the twentieth century. It would be interesting to revisit them twenty years on to see where they are now, to know if anything might have lasted. In The Republic Of Love they certainly come to life.

Philip Spires

Author of Mission and A Fool's Knot, African novels set in Kenya

http://www.philipspires.co.uk/

Migwani is a small town in Kitui District, eastern Kenya. My books examine how social and economic change impact on the lives of ordinary people. They portray characters whose identity is bound up with their home area, but whose futures are determined by the globalized world in which they live.

Review of Stephen King's FROM A BUICK 8

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This book makes you want to get out of the car next time you're pulled over and thank your local state trooper for risking his or her life every day to keep your state safe. Seriously. Why? Because King has created characters that at best are noble heroes and at worst are achingly human. The troopers of the Pennsylvania State Police Troop D have wives and kids and drink and smoke and know they should spend more time with the former and less with the latter. They have losses and divorces and tragedies but also births and grandkids and shining moments of bravery, comeraderie, and friendship. The troopers are more than colleagues. There is a bond in Troop D that is like family.

And that bond, you find when reading FROM A BUICK 8, is as crucial a force in the story as the Buick itself. It counteracts the weird light shows and strange disappearances and hideous trunk births that the impounded car out in Shed B behind the trooper station produces at an irregular but fairly often basis. The book is told from various character viewpoints, alternating between past and present, as Sergeant Sandy Dearborn and his fellow troopers try to help a fallen trooper's son (Ned) deal with his father's death. Sandy, Tony, and Curt (Ned's father), as well as Huddie and Arky and Eddie and Shirley and George and a host of other troopers come and gone over the years, are connected by a common secret - the strange car that shouldn't work, but yet serves as a portal to another dimension. As the story about finding and dealing with all the oddities presented by the Buick unfolds, Sandy tries to get Ned to understand that sometimes there is no explanation. The Buick, like life and importantly for Ned, like death, presents mysteries that can't always be solved. Sometimes things just happen, like accidents on the highway that strip boys of their fathers and fathers of their skin. Sometimes the unthinkable happens on the road and troopers at a loss to explain compound the senseless tragedy. Sometimes people go missing to God-knows-where and don't ever come back. But what I think Sandy discovers is that sometimes there are answers. Maybe there are no accidents. Just because you can't immediately see an answer, doesn't mean it isn't there. What I think both Sandy and Ned both realize is that sometimes you can only find something when you stop looking so hard at it.

This book works on an emotional level most effectively when King shows us COPS unsensored. These men love their job and are loyal to it, but sometimes they are afraid. Sometimes they make mistakes. They know the job will be the end of them someday and a part of that always weighs on them. Sure, they may not die "in the line of duty," exactly, but there are divorces and infidelities and highway wrecks and alcoholism and suicides and sickness.... In essence, the job sinks into them. One way or another, it determines their ends. They are connected - to it, to each other. Things come full circle, and maybe it isn't just happenstance that brings them round again. The pull of the work, much like the pull of the Buick, is undeniable. The Buick, like their jobs, becomes a part of them, sometimes dangerous, but usually just a part of everyday life they accept and are used to. But it is always there, and it shapes the course of their lives.

The book seems to revolve a lot around accidents and purposes - what is accidental and coincidental as opposed to purposeful or connected in an inevitable chain of events. The true horror of the book isn't the occasional monster that comes out of the Buick (although they are wondrously strange). It's the notion that maybe nothing is really an accident. Since we can't always see the sinister purpose connecting the seemingly unconnected, there is nothing we can do to prevent or stop it. All we can do is just accept that we can't explain or change it. I think Sandy and Ned both come to understand (from different ends of the argument) that the most - the best - we can ever do is accept that sometimes the answers we need just come in due time, usually when we aren't looking so hard to find them. Sometimes they don't come at all, and in those cases, the best we can do for our own peace of mind (maybe the only active thing we can do) is work on bridging the gaps with the ties that bind us together.

I enjoyed this book - another good one from King. Pick it up, if you get a chance.

Gatsby and Daisy Forever? (or for 5 Minutes?)

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If you have read Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby' you may have thought it was a love story. To some it is, but to most who study it in school or read it with an analytical eye start to wonder about the romance that dominates the narrative. Does Gatsby really love Daisy, or more specifically does e love her as a person, or just as a status symbol. There are valid arguments to be made on both sides.

We'll start with the idea the idea that Gatsby does love Daisy as this is the most common interpretation taken from the book. Lets have a look at some quotes from the great Gatsby to prove this.

Well for a start there is Gatsby bought the house so Daisy would be just across the bay, and the casual way he remembers that the last time they saw each other was five years last November. Even the weather thinks Gatsby is in love with Daisy, when they meet again for the first time in years the room is filled with twinkle bells of sunshine.

So is it clear that he loved something about her but we still don't know what. One of the most easily believable options is he wants her as a trophy wife. The perfect women to complete his perfect image. He says that fact that 'many men had loved her increased her value in his eyes' which makes you think that he doesn't care about the girl but about her image, what people think of her and therefore her husband. He also spends a lot of time talking about how beautiful her house is, again hinting that what he loves about her is her status as the richest and most desirable girl, rather than anything about her personality.

A third option is also on the table and it's one that I personally agree with. Gatsby doesn't love her as a person, and doesn't just want her to look good on his arm, although that is a fringe benefit. He wants her just for the challenge of getting her, the thrill of the chase. Gatsby is obsessed with the American Dream, of making himself perfect through nothing but the sweat of his own brow. Daisy rejected him for being poor in his youth so now he has to prove how much he has climbed the social ladder by winning her love. I like this idea the most because it makes sense of his ridicules need for her to say she never loved Tom, if he loves her, as a person or a status symbol he would quit while he was ahead, but he can't.

In conclusion, Gatsby definitely loves something about Daisy, that much is clear but whether it is her as a person, her as the perfect wife,were just the fact she's the next to do on his to-do list is up for debate. Personally, I think intentions were good, I think he really thought he did love her but when the moment came he found she tumbled short of an expectations and the only thing he knew how to do was carry on trying to live the dream.

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