No Great Mischief (READ)

• Hardcover
• 283
• No Great Mischief
• Alistair MacLeod
• English
• 24 February 2018
• 9780393049701

Alistair MacLeod ↠ 4 Free read

No Great Mischief Download ô 104 Seemingly unmitigated hardships and cruelties of life Alexander orphaned as a child by a horrific tragedy has nevertheless gained some success in the world His older brother Calum a nearly destitute alcoholic living on Toronto's skid row has been scarred by another tra. I guess this is not my sort of book It is the tale of Scots in Cape Breton and in particular a branch of the MacDonalds and makes much of how they never forgot their roots always stick together and still speak Gaelic It won various prizes and is considered the best Atlantic Canadian novel But how it got so esteemed I have no idea I found it tiresome and longwinded There is really not much of a plot except a bunch of disjointed anecdotes The characters are little than mouthpieces for their ethnic background continually making historical references to Culloden and Wolfe at any moment and continually reciting the same lines It is difficult to know who is speaking or where they are speaking since they all say the same things all the time And nothing much happens but even what does happen makes little or no impact since none of the characters seem to have any depth One character called Alexander MacDonald gets replaced by another character called Alexander MacDonald for no particular reason The traveling to Scotland falls particularly flat as everyone they meet is out of a North American fantasy of the Scottish Highlands Immediately recognizing the MacDonalds by their red hair and black eyes and talking of the 45 and Prince Charlie as if it all happened yesterday

No Great Mischief Download ô 104 Alistair MacLeod musters all of the skill and grace that have won him an international following to give us No Great Mischief the story of a fiercely loyal family and the tradition that drives itGenerations after their forebears went into exile the MacDonalds still face. April 21 2014 Rest in peace Alistair MacLeod Died April 20 2014His extraordinary style will never be matched Another outstanding piece of storytelling from this great Canadian writer He uses repetition of images and phrases throughout the book as a very effective tool It gives the story both a rhythm and an anchor continually bringing you back to reminders of what binds the clan and their shared historyThis is the story of the Scottish clan of Calum the Red who came to Nova Scotia over 200 years ago They come from that rich ancient oral tradition where the family stories are repeated endlessly through the centuries and added to as events progress They re all so hopelessly inbred within the clan that they can barely keep track of who s who There are THREE Alexander MacDonalds in the story All cousins who basically look the same redheaded but dark eyed Even the dogs are inbred descended from the brown dog Calum the Red brought from Scotland Given the confusing family ties I thought the author did an amazing job of setting them apart so I could keep track of all the peopleThe main story takes place in modern times with the narrator telling his story of being raised by his grandparents after his parents died when he was three years old The behaviors and connections of the clan are so deeply rooted in the ancestral experiences that the oft repeated histories and songs sometimes appear real and important than current events

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No Great Mischief Download ô 104 Gedy But like all his clansman Alexander is sustained by a family history that seems to run through his veins And through their lovingly recounted stories wildly comic or heartbreakingly tragic we discover the hope against hope upon which every family must sometimes rel. We are all better when we re loved 1940s Cape Breton is a place untouched by modern ideas of individualism Here identity is not forged by choices made but by birth into a history birth into a clan birth into your place in that lineage that stretches back to Calum Ruadh who came from Moidart to the New World in 1779 when he was a man of 55 who lived another 55 years in the land of trees giving his life a strange sort of balance Who are your parents who are your grandparents those are the uestions to establish who you are Ah clann Chalum Ruadh That is who you areOur narrator is Alexander MacDonald but he hardly knows his own name until poked by a cousin when he fails to respond to it called from the roll at school He is gille beag ruadh the little red haired boy Years have passed since that time he drives from south west Ontario to visit his eldest brother Calum in Toronto stranded there in the back lanes between Spadina Avenue and Yonge Street a man who has nothing a man who has everything In majestic sweeping rhythms ille beag ruadh interweaves the history of his family and of the MacDonalds those same MacDonalds betrayed by the Campbells at Glencoe those highland men who fought alongside General Wolfe on the plains of Abraham of whom the General said They are hardy intrepid accustomed to a rough country and no great mischief if they fall Past and present drift and mingle indistinguishable Is it nought but fine irony when a young woman in a black T shirt walks towards him the T shirt carrying the slogan Living in the past is not living up to our potentialThe men of the clan work the land and the sea and when that no longer serves Alexander s brothers set off to work deep under the surface in the uranium mines of Elliot Lake When a cousin also Alexander MacDonald is killed in an accident this Alexander MacDonald steps in to fill his place He in turn is replaced by another cousin another Alexander MacDonald come from California to escape the draft They are elements in a complex network one that demands fierce loyalty and eually fierce adherence to a code of honour among blood When that code is broken Calum the eldest the leader must take the rap Eually as remarkable as the relations between brothers and cousins is the relationship between man and beast even the dog who cares too much and tries too hard even the horse who always keeps her side of the bargain aye even they show that fierce loyalty Only the sister is a weakness in the construct of this saga as she appears too much as a mere spokesperson a history lesson a lecture for our edification but not our delight And the ending slips just a touch into melodrama and sentiment twin spectres at the feast so successfully shut out from all that had gone before although the chance for them to wheedle their way in was often there But somehow a book has to end and why not with a death foreseen and a return home across a storm swept causeway Crossing to the other side indeedSoundtrack