Heaven: September Book Club - The Colony of Unrequited Dreams
Septembers book choice is The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston. It's a fictionalised account of the founding of modern Newfoundland based on the life of the real-life politician Joey Smallwood.
@Caissa will be posting some questions later in the month.
@Caissa will be posting some questions later in the month.
Comments
One of the things that often comes up for me about this book is that Wayne Johnson and I are both NL writers of historical fiction, of roughly the same generation -- he is of course much more successful and well known! -- but we have very different approaches to the craft of writing historical fiction and how much a writer can or should deviate from actual history. I won't get into specifics as folks are still reading, but I will say that his approach is much "freer" and less bound by historical facts than mine is! Of course the same is true of readers of historical fiction -- some readers prefer books to stay much more within the realm of "what really happened" or at least "what probably happened" while others are willing to go along with "what certainly did not happen but sure would have been interesting if it did!"
https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/politics/commission-government.php
The Heritage NL website's short bio of Smallwood (with links at the bottom to many related subjects) is not a bad place to start if you want to know a little of the history behind Johnston's fictional portrayal of him in the novel.
https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/politics/alfred-valdmanis.php
These questions are taken from here: https://www.readinggroupguides.com/reviews/the-colony-of-unrequited-dreams/guide
There are 12 other questions. Please feel free to comment on any of them that might resonate better with you than the five I have chosen, Below.
1) Johnston has created the structure of the book by interspersing Joe Smallwood's first-person narrative with excerpts from Fielding's journal, her History of Newfoundland, and her "Field Day" newspaper columns. What is the effect, as you read, of the interplay of these parts?
2) Johnston has given Joe Smallwood the role of protagonist and the main first-person narrative, but some reviewers have expressed the opinion that Sheilagh Fielding is a more compelling character. Is Fielding ultimately more admirable than Smallwood? Whose life story is more interesting?
3) Why does Smallwood's marriage proposal to Fielding go awry? When he next sees her, she tells him with her customary irony that she has been "reduced to hermiting because you broke my heart" [p. 228]. How true is this statement? Why does Smallwood marry Clara Oates and not Fielding?
4) Some Canadian readers have been troubled by the liberties that Wayne Johnston has taken with the life of Newfoundland's first premier. Is the book more purely fictional, and therefore more purely enjoyable, for American readers, for whom Smallwood is not a known entity? It appears, for instance, that Johnston created the character of Fielding wholly from his own imagination. Why do you suppose he decided that Fielding was needed as a counterpart to Joe Smallwood? What would the novel have been like without the presence of Fielding? What are the particular complications and pleasures of fiction that is based on, but not entirely true to, historical reality?
5) Why does Johnston wait until late into the novel to reveal Fielding's secret about what happened when she was sixteen? How does this revelation affect your understanding of Fielding's character and her motivations up to this point? Would you say that Fielding is a selfless character?
1) Johnston has created the structure of the book by interspersing Joe Smallwood's first-person narrative with excerpts from Fielding's journal, her History of Newfoundland, and her "Field Day" newspaper columns. What is the effect, as you read, of the interplay of these parts?
I enjoyed reading the newspaper columns and the journal entries added more context to the story. I felt the history was necessary as most readers would know little about Newfoundland history, but wish it could have been written in a more interesting way.
2) Johnston has given Joe Smallwood the role of protagonist and the main first-person narrative, but some reviewers have expressed the opinion that Sheilagh Fielding is a more compelling character. Is Fielding ultimately more admirable than Smallwood? Whose life story is more interesting?
I found Fielding really unlikable and annoying for most of the book. Perhaps if I knew more of her life story early on such as her relationship with Prowse and her pregnancy etc. I would have found her more sympathetic. It is understandable she was affected by her mother's abandonment and her father being unable to give her much of his time, but her behaviour and manner seemed unrealistic for a girl and woman of her time, place and class. Once Smallwood got into power and became somewhat tyrannical I warmed more to Fielding's character and her courage to continue to criticise Smallwood's government despite his attempts to censor or silence her.
3) Why does Smallwood's marriage proposal to Fielding go awry? When he next sees her, she tells him with her customary irony that she has been "reduced to hermiting because you broke my heart" [p. 228]. How true is this statement? Why does Smallwood marry Clara Oates and not Fielding?
Based on some of Fielding's prior behaviour towards him, Smallwood seemed to jump to the conclusion that she would not want to marry him and to save face pretended his proposal wasn't genuine. I was a bit confused about whether Fielding still had feelings for Prowse as an adult and if this also influenced her reluctance to form a romantic relationship with Smallwood. That how story-line was convoluted and I found it hard to get my head around Fielding's motives in continuing to hide the letter writer's identity long after her father's death.
Smallwood married Clara Oates as he realised all the successful politicians had wives and children. Fielding would have been too eccentric to be a model politician's wife. Smallwood himself started acting more conventional after his marriage. I felt sorry for Clara and the children who seemed to barely see their husband and father in this fictional account of Smallwood's life.
4) Some Canadian readers have been troubled by the liberties that Wayne Johnston has taken with the life of Newfoundland's first premier. Is the book more purely fictional, and therefore more purely enjoyable, for American readers, for whom Smallwood is not a known entity? It appears, for instance, that Johnston created the character of Fielding wholly from his own imagination. Why do you suppose he decided that Fielding was needed as a counterpart to Joe Smallwood? What would the novel have been like without the presence of Fielding? What are the particular complications and pleasures of fiction that is based on, but not entirely true to, historical reality?
I always feel a bit conflicted reading historical fiction based on real people. I would rather read a good biography. The way Smallwood was portrayed before he became successful did not gel with his actions as a longtime leader as based on Smallwood's real life. The book also focused very little on Smallwood's siblings, as if he had no relationship with them at all.
Sheilagh Fielding is the one major character here who is purely fictional, and is often considered to be Wayne Johnston's best creation in this book. Johnston himself clearly loves her; she appears in two further books, The Custodian of Paradise and First Snow, Last Light. She is a vivid, striking and memorable character (her later career is loosely inspired by a few journalists who were thorns in Smallwood's side, but none of them were women) but I think I agree with @Mili that she's not convincing as a believable character. Even an unconventional woman of her time and background would not, I think, behave as Fielding does, but it's been so long since I read the book that it's hard to recall specifics.
Historical accuracy is an interesting question with any historical fiction, and I think I mentioned above that I have very different opinions than Wayne Johnston does on the boundaries of historical fiction. I don't have any problem with writers writing fiction about real people -- I often love those kinds of books, although I think the closer to the present time the person is, the more living descendants they have who actually knew them, the trickier it gets. My personal rule for writing historical fiction is that it's fine to write things that DIDN'T happen (such as inserting a wholly fictional character like Fielding into a real person's life) but I don't like it when writers put in things that COULDN'T have happened in that time and place. My quibbles with Johnston in this book are not the large things, like liberties he takes with Smallwood's biography, but small things, such as the fact that there's a scene in the novel where crowds of people are standing on Harbour Drive in downtown St. John's watching ships come in -- but Harbour Drive is a street that literally did not exist at that time: it was created by infilling part of the harbour in the 1960s, and the harbour in the time Johnston is writing about would have looked completely different (piers sticking out into the water rather than a street running along it) from what he describes. But these are the kinds of things that always drive local readers crazy about a book set in the place where they live. Wayne Johnston definitely knows when Harbour Drive was built; he is just not concerned about these small details of historical accuracy.
I do love the idea of Smallwood having a foil -- he was such a towering figure, and he always had political enemies, but nobody who was anywhere close to him in terms of being a larger-than-life character who could go head-to-head with him. I think it's quite fitting that he has a fictional one in the novel, and that it's a woman, even if I don't think the execution of that character in Fielding is as successful as many readers think it is.
I'll add as a parenthetical note that it is impossible, if you're reading this book, to overemphasize what a small and insular place Newfoundland is ... even now, and much more so during the time of the book. Joe Smallwood and my grandfather were good friends growing up; when Smallwood went to stay in New York, he slept on my great-aunt and great-uncle's couch. (That is clearly not to indicate that my family is anyone important -- we are not; it's just that small a place. Everyone really does know everyone -- no degrees of separation here!)
In 1948 Grampa voted against Confederation (he was a small business owner and believed it would be bad for local businesses, and he was certainly right about that). Smallwood never forgave Grampa for voting against him, and his printing company never got another government contract as long as Smallwood was in office; Joey held grudges. Not only can I remember Smallwood (an old man by this time, but still in office as Premier) visiting my elementary school; I still know (not well, but certainly more than nodding acquaintances) some of his family, including Smallwood grandchildren. When I was growing up he was just "Joey" (he had been premier for 16 years by the time I was born, and had 7 years more in power after that); like Elvis he only needed the one name.
This was one of those books where there were certain bits I really liked, the sailors getting trapped on the ice was so well described I felt I was there, and I found the bits about branch lines fascinating. I also thought the way Smallwood's ambition as a politician was described seemed plausible, though I don't know if Johnston was being unfair to him. Certainly, his changing his views if it meant he could get on seemed pretty credible.
As for Fielding she was an interesting character, but she didn't seem very real. I could imagine a girl wanting to be treated as an equal by the local boys and doing risky things to get noticed, but after that her behaviour and what she did didn't seemed guided by her character but by the needs of the plot.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/mun-drops-ode-to-newfoundland-from-convocation-ceremony-1.6622977