The Douglas Notebooks
A Fable
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
An Amazon.ca Best Book of 2013
Romain was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. At 18, he leaves his family for a home in the forest, learning to live off the land rather than his family's wealth. Éléna flees a house of blood and mayhem, taking refuge in a monastery and later in the rustic village of Rivière-aux-Oies. One day, while walking in the woods, Éléna hears the melody of a clarinet and comes across Romain, who calls himself Starling and whom Éléna later renames Douglas, for the strongest and most spectacular of trees. Later a child named Rose is born. Fade to black. When the story takes up again, Douglas has returned to the forest, Rose is in the village under the care of others, and Éléna is gone.
From these disparate threads, Christine Eddie tenderly weaves a fable for our time and for all times. As the years pass, the story broadens to capture others in its elegant web — a doctor with a bruised heart, a pharmacist who may be a witch, and a teacher with dark secrets. Together they raise this child with the mysterious heritage, transforming this story into an ode to friendship and family, a sonnet on our relationship with nature, and an elegy to love and passion. The Douglas Notebooks was originally published in French as Les carnets de Douglas. This edition was translated by Sheila Fischman.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
One of Canada's most prominent translators, Fischman brings Eddie's award-winning first novel to English readers. The fable has a post-WWII setting, but it is a timeless love story. Romain Brady is unwanted by his parents and mistreated by his older sister. He distances himself from his family through music and literature and plots an escape. l na Tavernier also plans to leave her home and abusive father. She finds inspiration among the remaining letters fading from her mother's poor quality headstone. "Dare to Live," she reads on the day of her departure. Romain leaves his nouveau riche family to live off the land in a forest. l na is eventually taken on as an apprentice to an apothecary in a small town near the forest. While searching the woods for healing plants, l na encounters Romain, and their love story begins. A child is born, but tragedy strikes and the baby Rose is left to be raised by a cobbled together family of societal misfits, including L andre Patenaude, the town's doctor, and Holocaust survivor Gabrielle Schmulewitz, the town's teacher. In a slim volume of sparse, poetic prose, Eddie deftly and movingly covers vast territory what it means to be a family; the fragility of life and of nature; the impact of the war in Europe (woven through Gabrielle's story line); and progress and development.
