Customer Reviews

Vancouver

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I picked up this book because I love the Pacific Northwest, and I enjoy historical fiction. The book is well-researched, and holds your attention fairly well. The problem was, I just didn't like any of the characters very much. I just wanted them all to fail and die (which is rare for me in books), with the exception of the Indian girl Gitsuli, and the story drops her right when her life is getting interesting. If you realize that many characters in real history are unlikeable, the read will be easier. Definitely not a comfort read. One of the other problems was that so many of the characters come from such divergent places, the Arctic Circle area, England, India, China, California, even Europe -- and the book spends a huge amount of time on those places, not on Vancouver. Vancouver ends up being somewhat incidental compared to the stories of all the other places -- and I wanted to know more about stories that happened in Vancouver itself, that being the title of the book. If you'd like to read a book that seems to not have much to do with Vancouver itself, you might find it interesting. Perhaps if I'd known the book was like that, I might not have been as disappointed. Can't help but think it might have been more aptly named, "Fictional Lives of People Before They Came to Vancouver, with brief follow-up of their Vancouver Lives."

Historical fiction can be tough to do, but David Cruise and Alison Griffiths have put together a very solid read that relies less on history and more on fiction. With historical fiction, writers can dip into a character's point of view and write down the nuances of thought and motivation -- something that biographies and histories rarely get to do. "Vancouver" covers numerous individuals who form the cultural basis for modern-day Vancouver. A narrative hook (actually two different ones, but they share the same origin) runs through the stories, sometimes in the foreground, sometimes in passing, echoing to different effect in each major section of the book.

To the authors' credit, they do not try to be politically correct or present an activist screed for the various peoples in the guise of story. They describe the people and their conditions as best as possible, despite the inevitable guesswork needed when researching the journals or writings of less-than-objective contemporaries.

If the story has a flaw, it is that the characters become flatter and more two-dimensional the closer they get to contemporary times. This is in part by necessity, since the characters are fictionalized and must be squeezed into an existing world of people and politics. There is less freedom to create interesting characters out of whole cloth, and as a result the latter third of the book feels less compelling than the preceding sections. In the end, the book doesn't celebrate the vibrant, patchwork quilt that is Vancouver; instead, it looks backward to the past with bittersweet remembrance, rather than forward to the future.

If you are looking for more history about Vancouver and less fiction about people, then you may want to look elsewhere. This is not a "Cliff's Notes" history of the city; in my opinion, a dash of historical reference would have helped tremendously. I've been to Vancouver several times, yet I wanted to refer to a map in order to have a mental anchor for the places mentioned. Without a map in the book, geographical references like "across the bay" or "next to the smaller mouth of the river" were turned into abstractions, which was a shame; since so much effort went into creating the characters, they deserved a more concrete setting. A few historical maps scattered throughout would have been invaluable, at least for my own sense of curiosity.

Despite my nitpicking, the book warrants four stars. I've recommended the book to various friends and relatives who have high standards and who enjoy well-written works. It's tough to write this type of book, and David and Alison have done an excellent job bringing the various stories together.

I enjoyed this book from cover to cover...it really did hold my attention. However, there were many flaws, mostly in the flow of time. For example...if a person is stated to be 35 years old in a certain year...well he is NOT, then, 59 years old just 14 years later. Stuff like that drives me nuts. The other flaw in this book....and this may or may not be considered a flaw...is that most of the characters are really unlikable...even the likable ones have serious character defects.

I was strongly reminded of Rutherford's "Sarum" as I read this book. "Vancouver, a Novel" traces a history of Vancouver, in 12 sections, from the prehistoric to the present-day. It starts with an intriguing anthropological idea that people from Africa migrated to Alaska. This leads onto stories of the descendants moving and mingling further down the Pacific coast, and the impact of the Western, Chinese and Asian 'pioneers'. A weakness in the book is that the dialogue in the early sections is quite dire.

Some of the speculative ficition is quite gripping (the deaths of the first Spainards, the reasons for the settlement of the first 6 Sikhs), and some of the situations and characters I recognised from Vancouver history books. Unfortunately the distinction between historical fiction and history is blurred. I would have appreciated a decent biblography at the end of the book (or even better, footnotes to the chapters) so I can find out the difference between fact and fiction. Also the book is crying out for some decent maps! Hopefully this can be remedied in a second edition.

This book clearly has been well researched, and there is a wealth of information about First Nations customs, class structures (tribal, immigrant etc).

It is an enjoyable, fast paced read.

While engaging in the sections covering early history (ignoring the formulaic obligatory sex), the final phases of this book, from the 1960's on, are painfully badly written fiction. The authors have an axe to grind regarding the Vancouver Stock Exchange, and populate these chapters with stock (no pun intended) characters whose exploits are tedious. Inaccuracies are jarring to a person who knows Vancouver well (the Landmark Hotel is on Robson Street, not Denman, for example), and pointless exposition does nothing to move the plot.

Many reviews equate this novel with the works of James Michener; "Vancouver" is in the Michener style but without his meticulous research and memorable characterizations.

I lived two years in Vancouver, and had planned to pass this along to my my many friends who have also lived there. Having plowed through it, I'm not so sure. For a book that is supposed to be about one of the most beautiful parts of the world, there is surprisingly little sense of 'being there.' Despite comments to the contrary by other reviewers here in Amazon.com about political correctness, I found the authors overly preoccupied with establishing the roles of all ethnic groups in the development of the city. The contemporary parts of the book were the most disappointing, focussed entirely on the stock exchange, characters and events that would seem more appropriate in a bodice-ripper by Jacqueline Suzanne. As an aside, I did not notice any stylistic or continuity problems that could have resulted from two authors working on one piece of fiction. For me, some sections of the book were enjoyable reads, but the majority were not. This one may end up in the recycle box rather than making its way through my friends.