If, along the way, something is gained, then something will also be
lost. Those words were emblazoned on Min's bedroom wall, burned
into the wallpaer with a charred wine-bottle cork. Our parents
dismissed them as psuedo-profound, angsty-adolescent babble, but
they haunted me. Why should that be? I wondered. How did she know
that? Did she really believe it, or did she just like the way those
words looked in burnt cork?
- from The Flying Troutmans
Let's make an analogy between books and buildings. Some books, like
some buildings, are mammoth in scope, appearance, and construction.
You can smell the sweat of the author on the pages. You can see the
mortar in the cracks. You stare at it, and are amazed. Infinite
Jest. Against the Day. Underworld. Books that demand your attention
not only for their overall quality, but for the effort as well.
And there's nothing wrong with this. A well-built edifice can be a
thing of beauty. Underworld is a spectacular skyscraper of a novel.
But such monuments may serve to denigrate the 'simpler' buildings.
Buildings of equal care and precision, and certainly of equal
effort, as their more elaborate counterparts, but buildings that
don't show off. Like a house that offers its residents a sense of
peace and acceptance, obscuring the work that went into its
construction. Or a book that quietly leads its readers along a
journey, offering multitudes of pleasures, only upon reflection
revealing the immense craft that went into its manufacture. Alice
Munro is a grand master of such writing. And Miriam Toews is no
slouch.
Enter The Flying Troutmans, Toews' first release since her
monstrously successful (and damned good) A Complicated Kindness.
Like her previous output, the simplicity of Toews' writing belies
the artistry which lies underneath. You enjoy the work, but she
makes it appear so effortless that subconsciously you may not
appreciate how artful an author Toews really is. It requires
monumental skill to write in such a fashion that you don't notice
the author's perspiration that undercoats every word.
The linchpin of Toews' tale is Min, a manic-depressive who has
undergone complete mental collapse. Picking up the pieces of Min's
life is Hattie, Min's sister and Troutmans' narrator. Hattie had
always watched over her older sister, but had taken the step of
moving to Paris, fleeing "Min's dark planet for the City of
Lights." Now, Hattie has had to return to care for Min's children;
Thebes, an eleven-year-old daughter prone to speaking in gansta
slang, and Logan, a fifiteen-year-old son unwillingly thrust into
responsibility too soon. And before you can say "Hollywood road
movie," she's loaded up the family and headed south in search of
the children's long-absent father.
As I rather dismissively wrote above, the trappings of The Flying
Troutmans is a road trip, that classic staple of Hollywood quirk.
It goes without saying that the reader will be reminded strongly of
films such as Little Miss Sunshine and The Daytrippers, although it
is quite unfair to simply lump Troutmans in as yet another 'weird
family' road movie. The travelogue may have become co-opted and
popularized by the cinema, but it has its roots in literature, and
as Troutmans ably proves, there's life in the genre yet (alongside
Michael Winter's recent triumph The Architects Are Here). A good
road trip narrative understands that - and here comes another old
reliable stand-by - it's not the destination that's important, but
the journey.
Toews' great strength as an artist is complete empathy for her
characters, combined with a subtle wit and a genuine flair for
imagery. Her narrative careens from past memories to current events
with nary a misstep. Her tour of the American heartland is warm and
funny, complete with reliable standbys such as people who confuse
Manitoba with California, and the realization that the Grand Canyon
is simply an enormous hole.
In the end, it's simply a great story, wonderfully told. Sometimes,
as we bounce around the post-modern world, we forget just how
important and rare a skill that is.