Customer Reviews

The Innocent Traveller (New Canadian Library)

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I've only recently been introduced to Ethel Wilson's work, and I'm surprised I didn't find out about her sooner!

The Innocent Traveller takes place during the mid 1800's until the mid 1900's. We follow along the vibrant, happy-go-lucky Topaz Edgeworth, from when she's a curious young toddler sitting at the dinner table in Ware, England, until she's an old, fragile lady talking nonstop, living well beyond her years. We watch her grow up, losing her mother, losing siblings and other family, falling in and out of love, going to school, travelling across the Atlantic, arriving in Canada, and crossing Canada by train until she finally arrives in Vancouver at the turn of the century to live for the next few decades of her life. But her stories don't just stop there!

We also learn the most about Topaz as a person. We're exposed to her vibrant personality, her optimistic attitudes, and her originality that truly stood her apart from any other person during that time period.

Ethel Wilson quotes, "This is the story - part truth and part invention - of a lively woman who lived for a hundred years and died triumphant in Vancouver and is nearly forgotten after all her commotion of living".

One gem about this book is that Ethel Wilson based it on the life of her Aunt. And at times, I'm sure she's basing the story on her own experiences while travelling across Canada and living in Vancouver. Because of this, all the geographical settings described in The Innocent Traveller are fact. Stanley Park, Hastings Street, Joe Fortes, English Bay, the mountains, etc. I was instantly transported into the era when Vancouver was a young city. The story creates a living world so familiar, yet so different to me, but it's something thrilling that I couldn't get just by looking at old city photographs.

While reading this book, keep in mind that you are following a journey of a life. Don't expect the standard conflict, climax, conclusion plot. While I wouldn't recommend this book to just anybody, I think the people who would appreciate it the most would have to be patient enough to take the book as it is - the complete 100 year history of an amazing bubbly character we know as Topaz Edgeworth.

Probably Ethel Wilson's most delightful novel, THE INNOCENT TRAVELLER began as a series of short stories about Wilson's own family, with a particular interest in her silly, attention-starved, irrepressible great-aunt; Wilson's publisher insisted she turn the stories into a novel, and this charming one-of-a-kind piece was the result. Topaz is born to a wealthy Victorian family in the Five Towns, and lives an extremely protected life free from much harm or much meaning. What saves her ultimately is her own essential triviality, which allows her to live through a century on two continents with her sense of wonder always about her. The description of Topaz's first cross-continental train trip from the St. Lawrence river to Vancouver is a remarkable set piece, and displays beautifully Wilson's famous skills at evoking landscape and atmosphere. I was so happy to have discovered this little gem--it's not quite like anything else I've ever read.