The Words of My Roaring
The The Words of My Roaring, the colourful first novel in Robert Kroetsch's Out West trilogy, is set in the same Alberta farm country as the better-known The Studhorse Man and Gone Indian. More conventional and accessible than the others, The Words of My Roaring moves kinetically through a 1930s provincial election campaign as experienced by the irrepressible Johnnie Backstrom. An undertaker, a drunk, a self-proclaimed "heller with women, " and a neophyte political candidate, Johnnie begins his campaign by recklessly promising rain to the drought-stricken prairie. His bemused opponent, the popular Doc Murdoch, delivered Johnnie as a baby 33 years before and still thinks of him as his "first-born. " Johnnie's party leader is the Bible-thumping, Ontario-bashing John George Applecart, loosely based on the historical "Bible Bill" Aberhart. As Johnnie struggles to define himself against these father figures, Kroetsch offers a lively portrait of small-town Depression-era politics and the roots of present-day western alienation. Brimming with personality, Johnnie is a unique mix of contradictory qualities: boasting and self-deprecating irony, awkward silences alongside blustery, flamboyant speech. As a political candidate he develops the gift of the gab, telling his audience of cowboys, farmers, and rodeo fans exactly what they want to hear. And as a narrator he proves immensely flexible: he's by turns comic, philosophical, impassioned, confessional, and raunchy. You can't help but like this guy, even at his most self-indulgent. The formal experiments of Kroetsch's later fiction and poetry, along with his highbrow theorizing, earned him the label "Mr. Canadian Postmodern" and a mostly academic readership. If he'd kept on writing novels as fun as this early one, he could have cultivated a wide popular audience, too. --John C. Ball Author(s): Robert Kroetsch. Binding Paperback. Publisher(s): The University of Alberta Press. Label: The University of Alberta Press.
| Manufacturer: | The University of Alberta Press |
| Part Number: | |
| Lowest Price (CAD): | $15.52 |
Product Features |
|
| Author : | Robert Kroetsch |
| Brand : | University of Alberta Press |
| Format : | Paperback |
| Title : | Title U-Z |
