Book Review: The Power of Story

The Power of Story: On Truth, the Trickster, and New Fictions for a New Era

Author: Harold R. Johnson, and Forward by Tracey Lindberg

Publisher: BIBLIOASIS, paperback, 187 pages, including Forward, Prologue, and The Power of Story

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

The Author(s) 

Harold R. Johnson (1954-2022) was something of a Renaissance man. He was the author of six works of fiction and six works of nonfiction, including Firewater: How Alcohol is Killing My People (and Yours), which was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Nonfiction. Born and raised in northern Saskatchewan to a Swedish father and a Cree mother, Johnson served in the Canadian Navy and worked as a miner, logger, mechanic, trapper, fisherman, tree planter, and heavy-equipment operator. He graduated from Harvard Law School and managed a private practice for several years before becoming a Crown prosecutor. He was a member of the Montreal Lake Cree Nation. In The Power of Story Johnson shares some of his knowledge, wisdom, and experiences he gained from the wide array of his occupations. 

Tracey Lindberg is a writer, scholar, lawyer and Indigenous Rights activist from the Kelly Lake Cree Nation in British Columbia, and friend of Harold Johnson. 

Forward

In her forward, Tracey Lindberg speaks of an important occasion when she and Harold Johnson were both living in Saskatoon, and they both gave a reading of their work at the Broadway Theatre. Seeing him as a fiction writer left a surprising impression upon Lindberg.

Lindberg states that Johnson has been described as a “genre-bending (Clifford), border-crossing (Bjorkan Sagas) and a creative philosopher (Cry Wolf)...(p. 14).” 

Lindberg points out that one of the most significant emphasis of Johnson’s life and work was: “we are the stories we tell and we become the stories we tell ourselves (p. 15).”

Prologue and The Power of Story 

In the Prologue, Johnson briefly describes the context and background of this volume, which was his last—having written the last edited version only a couple of weeks before his death. The Saskatchewan ecumenical society made arrangements to visit Johnson, and there were 12 of the ecumenical society’s members who arrived in 2 boats, where he lived in northern Saskatchewan. He then welcomed them, and proceeded to tell them his stories, which are contained in this volume. 

Johnson begins “The Power of Story portion of the book by acknowledging the land he was living on, including everything: trees, water, birds animals, and so on. He then speaks a little about how his family were unjustly displaced to the land. “This land we are on is where my grandfather settled after being evicted from the territory that became Prince Albert National Park. My mother was only twelve years old when the RCMP went there and told all the Indians they had to leave (p. 16).”

The volume is mainly a collection of story after story. Although he is a master storyteller, Johnson has an interesting—albeit for some, perhaps controversial or incorrect—take on stories. Rather than tell one or more of his stories in this review, I am going to provide readers with several thought-provoking quotations, which hopefully spark enough interest to either purchase this volume or borrow it from a library. 

According to Johnson: “Stories are not part of your culture. Your culture is story. Our being is story (p. 35).”

Stories can be revised, edited, changed over the years, therefore Johnson believes that stories are fiction rather than true. “None of the stories we tell ourselves are true (p. 36).” 

In speaking of his time at Harvard, Johnson states: “I went to Harvard because I wanted to prove that nobody gave me anything. That’s true. But I also went to Harvard because Harvard is a prestigious place and I wanted some of that prestige. Another reason I went to Harvard was to study. I wanted to know more (p. 39).”

Over against settler history and interpretation of Treaties, Johnson states: “All the rights that Canadians enjoy, all the privileges they have living in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, are Treaty Rights. They have those rights by virtue of being related to Indigenous Peoples. When we adopted them as our relatives, as our cousins, our ancestors became their ancestors (p. 63).”

“Science is a story, but so, too, is its supposed antithesis—God (p. 72).”

“As Aboriginal people we have understood...that we are related to everything around us. It’s part of our spirituality. When I finish a prayer, I remember to say “kakithaw nawakomakanak,” which means, “all my relations” (p. 75).”

Many readers, I think, will be surprised by and disagree with Johnson’s view of justice. “Justice is a fiction. We created it. It’s not something tangible. You can’t touch it. You can’t taste it. It’s an idea. It’s a story made up. Justice doesn’t exist in nature (p. 82).” 

“Placebo and nocebo effects are not restricted to medicine and sugar pills. Every story we tell can heal or kill. You have to be very careful of the stories that you tell (p.89).”

“A single word can hurt or heal, and we have no way of knowing the result. We never know how our words will be taken (p. 92).” Johnson does not mention this in his book, however this reminds me of the Indigenous tradition that God speaks to us in the silence between the words, and God speaks to us between the drumbeats.

“Did you know that 95 percent of men and 97 percent of women in prison were sexually or physically abused when they were children. I learned this from an Edmonton police officer who is working on his doctorate (p. 96).” 

“As long as the rest of Canada and the world sees us as victims, if that’s the story they tell themselves about us, that’s the way we will be treated (p. 98).” Johnson makes an insightful case for recognition of the distinction between what we mean by victim and what we mean by being victimized. 

“We need stories of hope and possibility to nurture us. We need new heroes—environmental heroes, humanity heroes, and social development heroes (p. 100).”

“Your personal story is a sacred story. It has power. It can change the world (p. 107).”

Johnson’s mother made a good living trapping and fishing. Sadly, the government forced her to move to La Ronge and go on welfare or she would lose her children. However Johnson states: “I was fortunate. I was taken out to the trapline and taught how to live on the land (p. 129).”

“The greatest diminishment of our people came about from the attack on women (p. 148).”

An Indigenous woman told Johnson a story about how a sex worker’s life was changed because a woman walking by her stopped and gave her a hug. That’s all it took for her to stop being a sex worker, get clean, and now she’s helping others to get off the street. 

“A common difference between people who live well into their hundreds and people who don’t is that people who are cared about live longer. Sometimes it’s that simple (pp. 178-179).”

“We all need to be in a story that tells us that we are wanted, we are cared for, and that we belong (p. 180).” Now that’s Gospel/Good News! And to that I say, AMEN! 

Book Review: The Watch That Ends the Night

The Watch That Ends the Night

Author: Hugh MacLennan

Publisher: Macmillan of Canada, paperback, 373 pages

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

The Author

John Hugh MacLennan (1907-1990), was a reputable Canadian author and professor of English at McGill University, winner of 5 Governor General’s Awards, and a Royal Bank Award. He was made a Companion of the Order of Canada, and a Knight of the National Order of Quebec. He wrote several novels and non-fiction works. 

The novel’s title comes from the hymn by Isaac Watts, “O God, our help in ages past,” which Watts based on Psalm 90:4. 

The novel begins during the first winter of the Korean War. The place is Montreal. The main characters are George and Catherine Stewart. George was a political commentator on the radio, and a freelance writer. Now he lectured part-time at the university. Catherine was a painter. She had been married before to a surgeon, Jerome Martell, and they had one daughter, Sally. He had been a close friend of George. After not hearing from Jerome for around a decade, George and Catherine believed he had died in a Nazi prison camp.

Catherine had been handicapped since childhood with a rheumatic heart. In the last few years, she had almost died from it. So each day George and Catherine were aware of the sobering reality that it could be Catherine’s last. 

In Part One of the novel, one day George received a phone call at the university from Jerome Martell, whom he believed had died around ten years earlier. However, Jerome’s life was spared because he was a surgeon. He spent time detained by the Russians, and later was sent to China. Eventually he was freed, and now he arrived back in Montreal. Jerome told George he wanted to see Catherine and Sally. 

Part Two goes back in time, when George was seventeen, and he has just come home from a long canoe trip from Port Arthur to Georgian Bay. He then introduces his parents, sister and aunt Agnes, as well as when he and Catherine fell in love with each other. They both decide to study at McGill. However, because of Aunt Agnes’s influence and deliberations, George did not go to McGill; and his relationship with Catherine ended until several years later.

Part Three fast forwards the reader to Montreal again. George is hobnobbing with federal politicians in Ottawa. George, reflecting on the meaning of time has these thoughts: “What is time anyway? The past seemed part of the present today. Time had lost its shape. Time is a cloud in which we live while the breath is in us” (p. 90).

As Part Four begins, George tells of his past, when he lived and worked in Toronto in a bank and studied and obtained a degree. During those ten years, George states: “I lost my faith in religion; I lost my faith in myself; I lost my faith in the integrity of human society” (p. 107).

With an honours degree in history from the University of Toronto, George was able to find work teaching at Waterloo school for boys. He describes the backgrounds of the other teachers.

Part Four also focusses on George’s relationship with both Catherine and Jerome Martell. Both of them share personal details about themselves with George. Jerome, having fought in World War I, has this to say about the capitalist system: “Wars are the inevitable products of the capitalist system. We’re all compelled by the capitalist system to become murderers” (pp. 167-168). Jerome confessed to George that he had killed eleven men with a bayonet. In a state of psychological shock (likely post traumatic stress disorder), Jerome couldn’t speak for several weeks. 

Part Five consists mainly of Jerome telling George about his childhood. After his biological mother was killed, he was adopted and raised by the Reverend Giles and Josephine Martell in Halifax.

Part Six describes the demise of Jerome as a reputable surgeon, thanks in large part to the press’s negative coverage of a riot Jerome participated in; the exposure of his affair with nurse Norah Blackwell; and his subsequent resignation from the hospital.

One of the impressive features of this novel is MacLennan’s creative, poetic and mystical descriptions of the natural world. For example: “April had turned into May and the world was bright and clear: cool air and warm sun, a powder of buds on the hardwoods, fields skunk-cabbage green against the heavy viridian of spruce and fir, the muscles and bones of the land visible as an athlete’s under the light dust of its first verdure. All the waters were cold, and crossing the bridge at Sainte-Rose I saw the wash of the river coming around the northern curve of Montreal Island with eddies as smooth as the backs of enormous jellyfish” (p. 262). 

Also in Part Six, Jerome leaves Montreal for Spain because of his communist-leaning political convictions, and the loss of his reputation as a surgeon, and the unlikelihood of finding another job.

In Part Seven, Jerome returns to Montreal after twelve years of being tortured by the Nazis and imprisoned in concentration camps in Poland, Russia and China. Everyone had thought he had died, but he had survived all of his sufferings. He has one last visit with Catherine, and tells her that he was most likely going out west, and would not see her again.

After Jerome’s visit, Catherine ends up in the hospital. George is beside himself, and goes into a long monologue lament about God’s seeming lack of justice, theodicy, and the meaning and meaninglessness of life. He interestingly cites portions of the Genesis creation account, 1 Corinthians 13, and Job. Catherine seems to be lingering between life and death.

In the Epilogue, Catherine after taking a long time to recover from a surgery, has a second surgery, and recovered from it as well—although it had weakened her and she was slowly dying. George eventually becomes more peaceful and content. Both George and Catherine come to view life as a gift. The novel ends with the Latin phrase: nunc requiesce in me (now rest in me).

Overall, this novel is somewhat autobiographical: for example, in real life MacLennan was not happy teaching at Lower Canada College, nor is George happy in the novel teaching at Waterloo School.

In this review, I have left out a detailed description of several of the rather intense and lengthy conversations involving the main characters concerning several personal, political, philosophical and theological, etc. subjects of the day. I therefore commend the novel to readers to discover them. 

Book Review: The Cellist Of Sarajevo

The Cellist Of Sarajevo 

Author: Steven Galloway

Publisher: Vintage Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, paperback, 261 pages

The Author 

Steven Galloway, at the time of this publication, authored two other novels, and was a professor who taught creative writing at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University. However, he was dismissed from the University of British Columbia because of charges of sexual misconduct and bullying. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, one charge was substantiated, an extra-marital affair with a student. 

Format

The novel is divided into four parts, each having a few chapters, which focus on the three main characters: Arrow, Kenan, and Dragan. The cellist is an unnamed, and in a sense, minor and mysterious character in the novel. There are a few other characters not portrayed or developed in great detail. The novel concludes with an Afterword, in which Galloway explains the true life cellist, Vedran Smailovic; actually did play Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor for 22 days, where 22 people lined up to buy bread were killed.

Some Observations

Sarajevo is under siege; principal cellist of the Sarajevo Symphony Orchestra looks out his window; he sees many of his friends and neighbours lined up on the street; waiting to buy bread. A bomb exploded and killed them. The cellist puts on his tuxedo; takes his cello down onto the street; and proceeds to play Albinoni’s Adagio. He did this for 22 days, each day to honour the dead. 

A sniper who names herself Arrow successfully has escaped from being shot by other snipers.

Kenan, husband of Amila, and dad of three children worries about the dangers of travelling to the brewery to collect enough water for the family and their widow neighbour, Mrs. Ristovski. Will he make it back home safely, or will someone shoot him? 

Dragan, a sixty-four-year-old baker remembers how Sarajevo was prior to the war—or at least how he thought it was. He sent his wife and son to Italy, hoping they’ll be safer there. Every time he goes to the bakery he risks being shot by a sniper. He is grateful for his work, and through it he has access to food, which he shares with his sister, brother-in-law, and their family. He lives with them now, since his home was destroyed. 

The novel gives us a realistic impression of how disruptive and destructive war can be in a city. There are ruined buildings all over; the tram, the public transportation system is no longer available; inflation is sky-rocketing; food is scarcer and the price of it is more than double prior to the war. People like Kenan, a clerical assistant in an accounting firm, no longer work and have to sell house appliances or other items to buy food; while those involved in the black market exploit others, have plenty of food, and drive new Mercedes. 

A commander named Nermin assigns Arrow the sniper the job of keeping the cellist alive while he plays on the street. 

The cellist and the music are a symbol of the necessity of mourning the dead and living in hope for the future of Sarajevo. 

Galloway addresses several issues regarding the realities of war, including: good and evil, the consequences of individual and collective actions, the fear of death, despair and hope, the eternal questions of why and how long in the face of suffering and injustice, to name a few.

Reflecting on the vulnerability of civilization, Dragan observes: “It needs to be built constantly, recreated daily. It vanishes far more quickly than he (Dragan) ever would have thought possible.” (p. 248) 

In his Afterword, Galloway briefly mentions some of the historical details of the 1992-1996 Siege of Sarajevo, and thanks all of those who inspired him and contributed to his writing and publication of the novel.

Reading this novel makes yours truly more grateful that we Canadians have been blessed to live in a peaceful nation compared to far too many other countries in the world. May we never take this peaceful blessing for granted!