Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"The history of nations...is not only a history of land but a history of water.", April 21, 2009
Eleven years after the publication of Fugitive Pieces: A Novel, her only other novel, Anne Michaels has published a monumental philosophical novel which is also exciting to read for its characters and their conflicts. Complex and fully integrated themes form the superstructure of the novel in which seemingly ordinary people deal with issues of life and death, love and death, the primacy of memory, the search for spiritual solace, and man's relationships with earth and water--huge themes and huge scope, reflecting huge literary goals. And Michaels is successful, not just in dealing with the big issues and themes affecting mankind itself, but in bringing them to life through individuals who muddle along, seeking some level of personal connection with the world while trying to appreciate life's mysteries.
Avery Escher is a young engineer in 1964 when he and his wife Jean travel to Egypt's Abu Simbel site, where he is charged with the task of helping to remove the Great Temple and reconstruct it in the cliff sixty feet higher. Gushing water, which will be released when the Aswan Dam is finished, will flood the area where the temple lies, and the new Lake Nasser will cover all the land downstream. As he works on the site, Avery feels that "Holiness was escaping under the [workers'] drills," and he comes to believe that "the reconstruction was a further desecration, as false as redemption without repentance."
All the Nubian people who have lived in the area below the dam for tens of generations have been relocated, but they are bereft of their roots, their memories, and their dead. This is not the first time Avery has been exposed to the dislocation of long-time residents. His father, William Escher, was an engineer who worked to build the St. Lawrence Seaway, which flooded ten Canadian villages near the Eschers' home and built a lake. Stories about the Eschers' displaced family friends are touching and bring the thematic development--and the sadness--down to a more intimate personal level. A third thread takes place in Warsaw, following World War II when the city reconstructed its bombed-out historical core, though its heart was missing, as were its memories--along with almost all its Jewish people.
Within this fully developed thematic framework, filled with symbols, Anne Michaels creates a passionate love story between Avery Escher and his wife Jean, a botanist who collects seeds and seedlings, transplants gardens, grafts trees, and, during a particularly difficult time in her relationship with Avery, plants flowers at night in public places to surprise visitors. Their love is tested to the limits by their different understanding of man's relationship with nature and the interconnections of land and water with memory, the past, and ultimately the present and future.
Michaels's talent as a poet is obvious in her gorgeous ruminations about the meaning of love and life, and in her evocative, unique imagery, but the beauty of the language is matched by the richness of the novel's underlying concepts, which give depth and significance to this challenging and satisfying novel. Raising fascinating questions, Michaels piques the imagination and guides the reader into new realms of thought. n Mary Whipple
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The audacity of words..., May 7, 2009
Not many authors would have the boldness to connect three completely unrelated examples of engineering ingenuity in three different continents under one thematic arc, however complex and multilayered. Anne Michaels has done just that in her new, long awaited second novel, THE WINTER VAULT. Michaels' passion is, however, less focused on the impressive visible results of these engineering achievements - the Aswan Dam in Egypt, the St. Lawrence Seaway in Canada and the post-World War II reconstruction of Warsaw's Old City - and centred more on the people who have been involved in these constructions or those who have been impacted by the resulting changes. In rich poetic prose, the author interweaves the intimate experiences and musings of her protagonists with broad societal questions and her own philosophical reflections.
The story begins in 1964 when the ancient Abu Simbel temple complex in Upper Egypt needed to be carved up and moved block by block, through a complicated process, to higher ground, to protect it from the impending flood waters of the dam. Avery Escher, a British engineer, is overseeing this delicate operation. His relevant experience stems from his training through his father during the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Avery is a practical, forward looking man, who can only imagine positive change emerging from such major redesigning efforts. His young wife Jean, having grown up in this region of Canada, had a different perspective on the project, and as a result is less convinced of the potential benefits of change for the affected people. She is also concerned with the need to preserve what was there, such as the local flora and fauna.
What brought those two very different people together, other than some parallel aspects in their personal lives? In Michaels' sensitive portraits they come across as complementary soul mates rather than passionate lovers "... at what moment during their years together had this woman... become Jean Escher? He knew it had nothing to do with marriage, not even with sex, but somehow had to do with all this talking they achieved together." And talking to each other they do, indeed! Much of their background is revealed through back story sharing. From the beginning, though, Michaels gives Avery the more prominent voice; strongly influenced by his father, he is grounded in his convictions, confident in his actions. Jean is an excellent and beautiful listener following Avery's story while her own reflections are more easily kept to herself than expressed to her mate.
Their dissimilar characters are well explored through their differing reactions to the Abu Simbel project and the visit of an abandoned Nubian village. The author takes great care to convey the beauty of the place, the romantic atmosphere on the one hand and, on the other, the deep pain that those who had to leave it must have experienced. While Jean feels for the refugees and the loss of their ancient history and of their natural environment, Avery prefers to see the positive side of new beginnings: the life that buildings can emanate. His perspective of "home" is that is something that we create over time and not the place where we were born or grew up. "Home is our first real mistake. It is the one error that changes everything... It is from this moment that we begin to build our home in the world. It is this place that we furnish with smell, taste, a talisman, a name."
The couple's fundamentally different mind-sets come to the fore when tragedy strikes them to the core. They return to Canada to struggle with the fallout in their own, separate ways. What is striking right away in this second part of the novel is that, apparently, the "talking they achieved together" and that had cemented their relationship, is no longer an adequate tool for dealing with the crisis. Avery quietly fades into the background while the focus is on Jean as she attempts to reclaim her poise. Can she change sufficiently to succeed in her efforts? There are questions that linger.
It is at this point that, rather unexpectedly, the third successful architectural construction project is woven into the narrative. Using the same technique as earlier - personal flashbacks - timelines appear to be deliberately blurred, as the author's focus is as much on the devastating impact of occupation, destruction and dictatorships (Nazi and Soviet) on the population of Warsaw as on the reconstruction itself. Again, Michaels expands into opposing philosophical positions: faithful restoration of historical sites as a positive step to reclaim the past vs. any restoration of historical places defined as fake and therefore fundamentally wrong.
Michaels delves into a range of fundamental themes, such as human suffering due to displacement, loss of cultural roots and identity, the needs of the many over the rights of the few - the Nubians vs. the Aswan Dam, etc. Yet, she is first and foremost a poet. Her language and imagery is often impressionistic, leaving the reader to interpret the meaning and, even more so - not always successfully - to attempt linking poetic phrases to the novel's depicted realities and characters. At times, Michaels interweaves her own musings, and while we can admire her power of words, it can also distract the reader away from the narrative flow.
The two parts of the novel could easily be treated as stand-alone novellas, linked loosely through Jean as the consistently present protagonist throughout. Whether Michaels brings the novel and the story of Avery and Jean convincingly to a close in the short third section has to be left to the reader to find out. For this reader, a number of issues remain unresolved. It is evident also that the author's overriding preoccupation in this novel is not to produce a plot driven or character-based story, but to open the reader's mind to important and existential topics, even if they at times swell beyond the confines of a more traditional novel. [Friederike Knabe]
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A lovely and thoughtful meditative novel, May 18, 2009
I think this is Michaels' finest work yet. It deserves to be read slowly and thoughtfully--like a meal to be savored, not fast food to be bolted. It is about place and its meaning in our lives, and the inevitable loss of our places to the forces of time and "progress". It is also (of course) about loss, both that of physical space and also of people. But best of all, it also about all the consolations that one can find in dealing with loss. And art like this is one of those consolations.
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