Nikolski [Import] [Hardcover]

Nicolas Dickner (Author), Lazer Lederhendler (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 4, 2008 | ISBN-10: 0676978797 | ISBN-13: 978-0676978797

Selected as the 2010 CBC Canada Reads Winner!

Awards for the French-language edition:
Prix des libraires 2006
Prix littéraire des collégiens 2006
Prix Anne-Hébert 2006 (Best first book)
Prix Printemps des Lecteurs–Lavinal

Intricately plotted and shimmering with originality, Nikolski charts the curious and unexpected courses of personal migration, and shows how they just might eventually lead us to home.

In the spring of 1989, three young people, born thousands of miles apart, each cut themselves adrift from their birthplaces and set out to discover what — or who — might anchor them in their lives. They each leave almost everything behind, carrying with them only a few artefacts of their lives so far — possessions that have proven so formative that they can’t imagine surviving without them — but also the accumulated memories of their own lives and family histories.

Noah, who was taught to read using road maps during a life of nomadic travels with his mother — their home being a 1966 Bonneville station wagon with a silver trailer — decides to leave the prairies for university in Montreal. But putting down roots there turns out to be a more transitory experience than he expected. Joyce, stifled by life in a remote village on Quebec’s Lower North Shore, and her overbearing relatives, hitches a ride into Montreal, spurred on by a news story about a modern-day cyber-pirate and the spirit of her own buccaneer ancestors. While her daily existence remains surprisingly routine —working at a fish shop in Jean-Talon market, dumpster-diving at night for necessities — it’s her Internet piracy career that takes off. And then there’s the unnamed narrator, who we first meet clearing out his deceased mother’ s house on Montreal’s South Shore, and who decides to move into the city to start a new life. There he finds his true home among books, content to spend his days working in a used bookstore and journeying though the many worlds books open up for him.

Over the course of the next ten years, Noah, Joyce and the unnamed bookseller will sometimes cross paths, and sometimes narrowly miss each other, as they all pass through one vibrant neighbourhood on Montreal’s Plateau. Their journeys seem remarkably unformed, more often guided by the prevailing winds than personal will, yet their stories weave in and out of other wondrous tales — stories about such things as fearsome female pirates, urban archaeologists, unexpected floods, fish of all kinds, a mysterious book without a cover and a dysfunctional compass whose needle obstinately points to the remote Aleutian village of Nikolski. And it is in the magical accumulation of those details around the edges of their lives that we begin to know these individuals as part of a greater whole, and ultimately realize that anchors aren’t at all permanent, really; rather, they’re made to be hoisted up and held in reserve until their strength is needed again.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Dickner's first novel is an odd tale of missed connections, restlessness and the search for home that follows three quirky Montrealites. One story line follows a nameless narrator who works in a second-hand Montreal bookshop and reveres an inexpensive compass sent to him when he was a child by his absent father. Meanwhile, Noah, who grew up in the care of a transient single mother, arrives in Montreal to study archeology and rents a room from the owner of a fish shop. Then there's Joyce, a young woman from a family that claims pirate origins, who washes up in Montreal, finds work in the fish shop and begins her own version of living the family legend. The characters' lives brush up against one another (largely thanks to a book about pirates that, through various personal connections, ends up as the lightly binding force of the three characters' fates) but—in a nice subversion of the intersecting fates arc—don't loudly collide. Dickner's three spiritual nomads are strangely fascinating, while Lederhendler's smooth translation makes this offbeat novel all the more attractive. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“Despite the preponderance of clues and artefacts scattered throughout the story, Dickner does not tie everything up in a neat package. He lets certain threads dangle, giving Nikolski more substance and nuance. The story lingers in the mind long after the last page has been read, leaving the reader in its strange and wonderful orbit.”
–The Gazette

“Nikolski offers a breathtakingly original perception of the world, mixing geography, cartography and longing in a language and construction both intellectually sophisticated and emotionally affecting.”
–The Globe and Mail

“The characters are so infused with vitality and surprise that they become unforgettable; the language (and in translation — remarkable) is as lively as the characters; and the humorous, sweetly sad view of life in general is engaging. . . . This novel is so richly textured and multi-layered that a single short review may do it a disservice. But its comic brilliance is undeniable — a hugely enjoyable read.”
–Edmonton Journal

“Chock full of arcane detail about the sea, fish lore, antique books, travel and archaeology, Nikolski is the product of an eccentric mind propelled by an exuberant spirit.”
–Marianne Ackerman, The Walrus

“Lederhendler’s cadences and elegant vocabulary are a pleasure to read, while Dickner inexorably sweeps the reader along with the tide as the characters mature. This novel will bring a smile to your face and will be one you will want to read again.”
–Winnipeg Free Press

“One cannot say it enough: this book is the discovery of the year. . . . The humour is striking; his vision stunning.”
–Carole Beaulieu, L’actualité

“Nicolas Dickner has a limitless imagination, great erudition and an inventive pen. He is the incarnation of the future of Quebec writing — nothing less.”
–Pierre Cayouette, L’actualité

“If you are interested in the great wide world, submerse yourself immediately in this phantasmagorical, lively and fascinating novel.”
–Hugues Corriveau, Lettres québécoises

“A carefully crafted, sumptuous first novel that will restore your taste for flights of fancy and for treasure hunts in time and space.”
–Benoît Jutras, Voir

“Stylish, offbeat, poignant and perceptive.”
–David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas

“Dickner excites the imagination of the reader to the point of ecstasy.”
–Le Monde

“Nicolas Dickner, who uses beautifully spare prose which can be as darkly comic as it is affecting, isn’t trying to tell a conventional story, he’s trying to tap into a very modern idea: that we need to understand that we all connect with each other somehow, family or not. And he does so impressively well.”
–Metro (UK)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Knopf Canada (March 4, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0676978797
• ISBN-13: 978-0676978797
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,427,542 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Three-Headed Book, November 23, 2009

By 

Blake Fraina (Connecticut) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Nikolski: A Novel (Paperback)

Some books make you feel; other books make you think.

Nicolas Dickner's clever debut, Nikolski, definitely falls largely into the latter category. As a matter of fact, it still has me turning over its intricacies in my head months after I've finished it. This tightly woven tale is packed with ideas that challenge the customary thinking about the nature of personal identity. Dickner asks if who we are is a result of nature or nurture, genealogy or geography, or, perhaps, a combination of all four.

Early in the story, we are introduced to the three main characters, all distantly related, although not necessarily aware of one another's existence. They are the unnamed narrator - a second hand bookshop clerk who is in possession of a compass that always points in the direction of Nikolski, a tiny Aleutian Island, Noah - son of an itinerant Native American mother and absentee father, who learned to read from roadmaps and Joyce - a restless young woman descended from a family of French-Canadian pirates. The three stories unfold in alternating chapters as each begins a pilgrimage to unearth their family connections, seek their place in the world, establish their destinies and find themselves.

Like the Nikolski compass, the writer postulates that all people have a built-in homing instinct. A family of Dominican fishmongers (who rent a room to Noah and employ Joyce in their retail shop), despite being long time residents of Canada, hold a monthly "jututo" to enjoy their native foods and boisterously debate Dominican politics. And humorously, we see how Joyce (and her erstwhile mother) inadvertently fall into a twentieth century version of the family business - as computer pirates. Ties to place, ethnicity and family not only dictate our actions, but define who we are.

This was a deceptively easy and enjoyable read. There was a certain sense of mystery, plus a fair bit of suspense, that pulled me along until the end. It's particularly impressive to see how the author weaves all the threads together. Much like the "three-headed book" that passes through the hands of both Noah and Joyce, before ending up on the bookstore's shelves, Dickner manages to stitch three disparate stories into one cohesive, and endlessly captivating, whole. Definitely one of a kind.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting literary novel, May 13, 2009

By 

Russ Mayes (Glen Allen, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Nikolski: A Novel (Paperback)

In Nikolski, Dickner tracks the lives of three wandering characters whose lives cross--and who share a family tree--but who do not really interact with each other to any great extent. The narrative jumps quickly between the various characters; most chapters are no more than a couple pages. This lends a feeling of disjointedness to the novel, but that mimics some of the disjointedness of the characters themselves. The characters share more than a family tree, as Dickner weaves similar motifs into all of their stories. For example, one character wants to be an archaeologist of garbage who learned to read by looking at maps as he and his mother traversed Canada throughout his essentially homeless childhood. Another steals discarded computer parts from corporate dumpsters and computer books from a used bookstore. The unnamed narrator works in said bookstore and owns a compass that does not point north, but instead points toward the tiny island of Nikolski where his own father had died.

Dickner also makes sure to pay homage to his literary precursors. Most significantly, the novel has an ongoing conversation with Moby Dick (the novel opens with the narrator telling us "My name is not important."). Melville's work appears at several other key points in the novel, as if the search for the white whale was somehow a parallel for the lives of these characters. The parallel, though, never really quite works out, and some of the other recurrent allusions to authors like Dante and Joyce are left undeveloped. Those are minor weaknesses in an otherwise strong novel. I'll be looking forward to more of Dickner's work in the future.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cross Canada Fishing Tale, May 28, 2010

By 

Friederike Knabe (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nikolski: A Novel (Paperback)

Every character in this light comedy-satire seems to be fishing for something, although not necessarily fish or even in water. Yet, most places where the action takes place are somehow located on islands: Montreal Island, Stevenson Island, and an island off the Venezuelan coast. Finally, and not to be overlooked the "magnetic north" and the title of the novel, Nikolski, a village one of the small Aleutian islands off Alaska. Sounds a bit like a mystery story? In a way, yes, as first time Quebec novelist Nicolas Dickner spins a delightful yarn around his three primary characters, either moving to or through and/or living in Montreal until...

Noah, who, until he was eighteen, lived with his mother a nomadic life in a trailer, crisscrossing the western regions of Canada, arrives in Montreal to study archaeology and discovers the "archaeology of trash" as an intriguing topic, "trash being the artifacts of civilization" and much "fishing" is involved. Joyce, from a long line of Doucettes of dubious reputation in Atlantic Canada, pursues her ambitions to live up to the family's tradition and to become a modern-day pirate. She also goes on fishing expeditions, but of a different kind: she scrounges through industry trash to find all the bits needed to get a workable computer built and much more... Finally, a first person narrator of a kind, who runs a second-hand bookshop also has some fishing to do...

Do these characters link together in some way? Are the connections stronger than strangers meeting in the night? It is for the reader to find out. The author introduces some secondary characters, charming in their own way, who may have to offer some clues or provide connections. Along the way, Dickner's easy-going, ironic style hits a few punches at Canadian multicultural society and the modern way of life. His descriptions are off-beat yet apt, whether he describes certain areas of Montreal or of one of the other islands in the novel. The novel won the 2010 Canada Reads competition, and the sensitive and lively English translation won a major Canadian award. 3.5 stars [Friederike Knabe]