Another W. O. Mitchell book I picked up at the St. Vital Library book sale.

I love Mitchell's sly sense of humour and how he catches the nuances of human speech. In this book, which is about an English professor who gets mauled by a grizzly bear, we get that plus some advice from Mitchell about how to write. The professor tells his Creative Writing class "All I want you to do--during the winter and spring sessions is write. I want you to write every day, every week, every month, of every term." Later he tells them "If you want to fool your reader, your poem or play or novel or short story must seem to be in the world of the many. They are illusions that can be smelled and tasted and heard and touched and seen. You find sensuous fragments in your past--emotions, people that you remember--then your creative partner reads through a sort of minefield with your words for triggers. He sets off explosions of recognition, and then gives you total credit for them when, in fact, the charges were already set in his own past. If the reader and the writer together do not manage such recognitions, there is no life resonance and they might better use their time in some clever, cerebral game--say chess."

I would say Mitchell succeeded in this aim. For me the explosions of recognition took place in the pre-trial and trial scenes that resulted when the taxidermist switched the grizzly skin for that of a small brown bear. Professor Dobbs didn't want a monetary value placed on the skin and he refused the offer of a grizzly that the senior taxidermist had shot himself. Even when he learned that it was his guide, Archie Nicotine, who had actually killed the bear he refused to give up his action. How many times when I was practising law did I see people refuse to compromise and fight "for the principle" and bend the truth and, yes, outright lie? Mitchell caught the intransigence of people involved in law suits perfectly.

Mitchell was born in Saskatchewan but he spent much of his adult life in Alberta (see this article from The Canadian Encylopedia) so I think that qualifies this book for celticoracles Alberta Arts Day release challenge, especially since it is set in Alberta. I will be releasing it on our holiday in Kananaskis Country.

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

Actually I ended up leaving this book outside of the women's showers. Since we saw two grizzlies in the morning I thought this was an appropriate book to release here. They were gone almost as soon as we saw them but they were all around the campground at Interlakes the whole time we were there. This release is for celticoracle's Alberta Arts challenge.