Books (#8)

I just finished reading Swamp Angel, by Ethel Wilson. I don’t know why I reserved this book at the library. I do this when I read book reviews or come across the mention of a story that sounds interesting, but by the time I actually get the book from the library, I’ve  usually forgotten what triggered my interest in reading it.

Nothing much happens in Swamp Angel. A woman leaves her husband, travels to the interior of British Columbia, and ends up working at a fishing lodge. End of story. And it was published in 1954, although I’m not sure that’s relevant to the relative absence of any plot highs or lows, or to my relative inability to put down the book. 

A friend once lent me The Goldfinch. She couldn’t get through it, while I couldn’t put it down. Afterwards, she asked me what the theme of the book was. Hell if I know… but the author created a world that I inhabited for a time, and how many people (or biblical figures, for that matter) can make the same claim? So don’t ask me to tell you the theme of Swamp Angel. The man who wrote the afterward to the book, George Bowering, appeared to feel the same way.

Swamp Angel is a short novel and a highly complex one. On re-reading it we are rewarded with the assurance that we will never be able to tell anyone what it is all about. Wilson’s feigned simplicity is the most complicated trick of all. For a careful reading the text is as difficult as this world our home.