Theatre of Fish: Travels Through Newfoundland and Labrador [Paperback]

John Gimlette (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 14, 2006

Newfoundland is one of the most intriguing places in North America, a land of breathtaking but cruel beauty, populated by some of the saltiest, oddest characters you’ll ever find. In Theatre of Fish, John Gimlette vividly describes the dense forests and forbidding coastlines and recounts the colorful and often tragic history of the region. He introduces us to the inhabitants, from the birds and moose to the descendants of the outlaws, deserters, and fishermen who settled this eastern edge of North America. Leavened with irreverence and affection, this is an irresistible portrait of life in extremis.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Gimlette's account of his journey through Newfoundland and Labrador is more personal than his last travelogue (At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig, set in Paraguay); he's tracing his own history as he follows the trail of his great-grandfather, a nineteenth century missionary doctor. Rather than slowing the pace, the family connection increases his chances of stumbling across weird and wonderful tableaux, and the turns of phrase Gimlette uses to describe them are as singular and unruly as the isolated and forgotten land he explores ("The sky was clean as a knife," for instance). It's difficult to avoid feeling like a keen sense of the absurd rules the northeastern reaches of North America: bear-fighting goats, an emergency air-landing strip serving the whole world and countless ghost towns left from the heady days when the cod fishing ruled the island; every place Gimlette visits is stranger than the previous. He weaves his ancestor's tale with his own travels and the region's history without creating an overwhelming tangle, although at times his delivery is choppy and truncated with abrupt section breaks. Usually, he eases into each locale, finds the oddest, most garrulous inhabitant and listens to their complaints, theories and family sagas. Readers will be fascinated by Newfoundland's and Labrador's bizarre, often tragic pasts and equally strange presents, and they will be glad it was the eloquent Gimlette who made the trip so they don't have to. 16 pages of photos not seen by PW.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Gimlette's encounter with Newfoundland was inspired by a great-grandfather who participated in one Wilfred Grenfell's 1890s attempts to bring modern medicine to "the Rock," as inhabitants diffidently call their home. Gimlette found a statue of Grenfell but no other permanence to his efforts, which like other projects of colonization over the centuries, failed to prosper. Encountering a sense of historical and contemporary futility on his journey, the British Gimlette strives to see the positive but recurrently admits the negative into his narrative. As travelogue, however, his prose rolls forward engagingly as Gimlette weaves together a forgotten incident and a locale's present appearance and aspirations. He starts and ends in St. John's, taking bus or car to outlying settlements and a ferry northward to inspect Labrador. Many of his stories germinate in the local bar and are as varied as the denizens. Redolent with accents only slightly altered from those of original Irish, English, and French settlers, these tales reinforce Newfoundland's edge-of-the-world reputation and will transport readers to its windswept landscape. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (November 14, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400078539
• ISBN-13: 978-1400078530
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #934,060 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Piscium inexhaustia copia", January 16, 2006

By 

Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Theatre of Fish: Travels Through Newfoundland and Labrador (Hardcover)

"Fish without end" is Newfoundland and Labrador's social, economic and political burden. For something no longer there, the weight seems strangely ponderous. In this account of Canada's youngest Province [cliche for sale - cheap], barrister and travel writer John Gimlette takes us on an historical and sociological tour of the Newfoundland that was - and is. Although a Londoner, Gimlette has ties to "The Rock". His great-grandfather, Dr Eliot Curven, tended bodies and souls in the distant colony, and Wilfred Grenfell was headmaster of Gimlette's school. Grenfell's adventures in Newfoundland clearly helped inspire Gimlette's sprightly prose in relating his follow-along journey.

Gimlette understands the multicultural foundation of this location at "the Edge of the World" as many Canadians do not. He reminds us of the Basque, Portugese, and Spanish who preceded the first hesitant British probings along those shores. He reminds us that cod [the only fish under consideration here] could be taken up in baskets. Photographs in the book show these weren't "pan frys" but substantial animals. With fish so plentiful and the means to take them so restricted, it was natural that control of the industry would pass to a few. Gimlette describes the rise of the "Fishocracy" where a few merchants controlled the flow and price of fish. That control passed along to the entire social structure of the island. Even the "home" government in London had far less power than the merchants. There were the merchants and the fishermen - no "middle class" could arise and farming was next to impossible on the rocky barrens. And now the fish are gone.

Using his great-grandfather's journal, Gimlette tours The Rock [Newfoundland] and along the Labrador coast. His journey is spiced with historical accounts of the original settlers and their modern descendants. The stories aren't always happy reading. Poverty and struggle are a fundamental element in life here. If nothing else, the wind is able to toss houses and shift churches on their foundations. And in tightly packed communities of wooden dwellings, fire is an ever-present threat. St John's itself burned in the 19th Century alone. Grenfell arrived just after one of these conflagrations. In remote towns, dogs offer one threat while the polar bears provide another. Life here may be hard, but it shouldn't be boring. Yet that's exactly what led one of Gimlette's contacts into local politics.

Gimlette's narrative is a rollicking adventure of observation and commentary. He's hardly a "detached" journalist, as his account of Premier Joey Smallwood's career demonstrates. There are heroes, heroines and villains aplenty. Gimlette manages to understand a few of them, even though 66 dialects have been identified and to him, one man sounds as if he's "speaking Irish through shingle". Gimlette doesn't fall into the trap of simply cataloging local idiosyncracies, however. He's more interested in, and relates with fine prose skills, the lives and struggles of people living in a forbidding place. Ye'll never use the term 'Newfie' again, b'y. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'm all wrung out!, August 20, 2005

By 

Dr. Gabriella Kadar (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Theatre of Fish: Travels Through Newfoundland and Labrador (Hardcover)

This book has me totally exhausted. John Gimlette is a poet and so much more. In such few words he can paint the most extraordinary mind pictures. He combines his impressionistic descriptions with a palatable dollop of extensive historical research, some rather esoteric. (But isn't that one of the reasons we read these sorts of books?) Who would ever have thought that the people of Newfoundland could be so incredibly varied? Not only in regards to where they live, but where their ancestors came from, when, and how they live. What an incredibly interesting place! It's probably the most interesting part of Canada. John Gimlette certainly convinces this reader.

I read this book and then I read it again out loud. Every so often I had a hard time suppressing the tears in my voice. More often I had to laugh and at times marvel at his expressions. Except for the few Gaelic quotes, this book is superbly written for reading performance!!! I hope someone records it!

I think he has portrayed the people and their situation in an even-handed way. There were many people he met whom one must admire for their intellectual honesty, their resilience in the face of life's hardships and their generosity as an expression of their integrity as human beings. I realize that Newfoundlanders don't appreciate being explained by those from 'away' so I'll be interested to read their views. The people are portrayed as being proud of their heritage, their ability to survive and to enjoy life. The quotes are hilarious. Islanders everywhere develop their unique patois and Newfoundlanders definitely have theirs. They even have a huge Dictionary of their own.

Gimlette's ancestor worked as a doctor in 1893 briefly with Grenfell. So there's a great romantic quest here to retrace his footsteps. Grenfell and his mission play a relatively large role in the book owing also to the fact that the author attended a boarding school in England which is owned by the Grenfell family. ....a bizarre time had by all, one can assume. (Are all English boys boarding schools so surreal?)

Mr. Gimlette, I am on my way to visit Labrador and Newfoundland. Your book gives me not only more insight but also instills some not insignificant fears. About those 120,000 moose? I hope not too many of them choose to saunter into the road while I'm passing by. No night driving for me!

Congratulations. Extremely well done! People are fighting me for my copy!!!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A most unusual travel book, June 1, 2006

By 

Loves the View "Louise" (Hawaii) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Theatre of Fish: Travels Through Newfoundland and Labrador (Hardcover)

John Gimlette is downright poetic as he describes the geographic, social and sad economic landscape of Newfoundland and Labrador. This prose poetry has a style, but I'm at a loss to say what that style could be called.

His ability to turn a phrase, though, is outdone by the Newfies and Labs themselves... "She'd an eye for my father... always put her tent up he did"... a boat ran into "dirty weather" (a hurricane) and "Got no eyes... got no teeth... but I still shoot". Once you get into it, you laugh out loud when Gimlette tells a local he's a lawyer. Without any of the modern sensibilities about this, the Newfie resonds, "So you're a li'ar, you say."

It's a harsh world he describes using information that I don't believe is available anywhere else. Besides quotes from his great great grandfather's journal, there are recounts of new stories and oral histories. One weakness is that not all sources are attributed in the text and there are no footnotes. He catalogs many horrible ways people have died of cold, hunger and dogs. He tells of famous people who came to this area, made history and left without a trace.

Gimlette describes the "Truck" system that ruled till the 1950s, the fish equivalent of sharecropping, that served to entrench poverty. (Some fisherman never used money in their lives.) With the end of fish in the 1990's, government assistance helped some and 50,000 others left.

I've been to the South Coast of Newfoundland, which he briefly describes in more positive terms than any other place in the book. Reading about this merely "Dickensian" area is somewhat like a relief after all the tragedy JG describes elsewhere on this rock. I stayed in a home much like he describes (clean... momentos... scant furnishings...no running water). The beauty of the landscape and the hospitality of the people left me totally unaware of the suffering all around. This book, is lovingly written and communicates the writer's affection for the area and his understanding of and empathy with its people.

If Gimlette decides to trace his great great grandfather's steps in China, I'll be very interested in that book.