The Tin Flute: Gabrielle Roy

The Tin Flute is a classic Canadian novel, first published in French as Bonheur d'occasion. The book tells the story of the Lacasse family in the St. Henri area in Montreal, during World War II. They are poor, and only the oldest daughter, Florentine, is working. Eugene, the oldest brother, has joined the military. It took me a while to get into the story, but about halfway into the book it took hold of me and I could not stop reading.

This is how the story begins:

Toward noon, Florentine had taken to watching out for the young man who, yesterday, while seeming to joke around, had let her know he found her pretty.

The fever of the bazaar rose in her blood, a kind of jangled nervousness mingled with the vague feeling that one day in this teeming store things would come to a halt and her life would find its goal. It never occurred to her to think she could meet her destiny anywhere but here, in the overpowering smell of caramel, before the great mirrors hung on the wall with their narrow strips of gummed paper announcing the day’s menu, to the summary clicking of the cash register, the very voice of her impatience. Everything in the place summed up for her the hasty, hectic poverty of her whole life in St. Henri.

The story centers around Rose-Anna, the mother, and Florentine. With eight children in the family, Rose-Anna is again pregnant. Her youngest child, Daniel, is in very ill health. The father, Azarius, is usually unemployed, a dreamer, always leaving one job for a "better" opportunity and spending most of his time away from home talking with a group of men, young and old, about the state of the world.

Florentine is a waitress in a restaurant in the back of a Five and Ten store in her neighborhood. She meets Jean Lévesque, a customer, and falls for him, although he is arrogant and aloof. She is desperate to escape from her life in poverty. Later she meets Emmanuel, a friend of Jean's, who loves her while she is still obsessed with Jean.

The story is beautifully written. In the first portion of the novel I was impatient with the slow pace and the introspection of the characters. As I became more involved in the pain and sadness and frustrations of the family members, I was pulled into the narrative.

This is a story of war and those who are affected, the Canadian home front, and the pain of poverty. There is so much more to this book than I can describe here, but not without revealing the later parts of the story, and I think each reader should discover all of it on their own.

I found the story depressing although I am sure not everyone would feel that way. Yet, I am very glad I read this book and I highly recommend it.

The Tin Flute was Gabrielle Roy's first novel. Nine more novels followed, published between 1950 and 1982.

Brian Busby of The Dusty Bookcase introduced me to this book, suggesting it two years ago for a World War II reading challenge. I did not get to it until this year. I am grateful that he mentioned it.


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Publisher:   McClellan & Stewart, 2009 (orig. pub. 1945)
Length:      400 pages
Format:      Trade paperback
Translated by:  Alan Brown
Setting:      Montreal, Canada, 1940
Genre:       Fiction, Classic
Source:     I purchased this book.

Monthly Reading in February 2019

In February, I read ten books. Four of the books were not crime fiction, although one was a reference book about classic crime ficton. And I read six crime fiction books, published between 1941 and 2015.

Mystery reference

The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books (2017) by Martin Edwards

From the introduction by Martin Edwards: "This book tells the story of crime fiction published during the first half of the twentieth century. I see it as a tale of the unexpected. The diversity of this much-loved genre is breathtaking, and so much greater than many critics have suggested. To illustrate this, I have chosen one hundred examples of books which highlight the achievements, and sometimes the limitations, of popular fiction of that era." 

The book is comprised of chapters discussing various types of Golden Age mysteries, with several examples of each type examined in detail. My favorite part was the introduction to each group of books, where many other books and authors are briefly discussed.

Nonfiction

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania (2015) by Erik Larson

In telling this story of the events leading to the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915, Erik Larson focuses on the Lusitania, the U-boat that attacked the ship, and governmental groups in the US and the UK. This was a very entertaining book and I raced through it. Of course, I knew the basic story, but there was so much I did not know, so there were many surprises.

Graphic novel

Descender, Vol. 1, Tin Stars (2015) by Jeff Lemire (Writer),  Dustin Nguyen (Artist)

One of my reading goals in 2019 is to read more of the graphic novels I have. In this science fiction story, TIM-21 is a robot designed to be a companion to a child. He wakes up from a 10-year long sleep to find that everyone on his world is dead and robots have sort of been outlawed. I will be continuing with this series; this was an intriguing start to the story.

Fiction

The Tin Flute (1945) by Gabrielle Roy

This is a classic Canadian novel, first published in French as Bonheur d'occasion. The book tells the story of the Lacasse family in the St. Henri area in Montreal, during World War II. They are poor, and only the oldest daughter, Florentine, is working. Eugene, the oldest brother, has joined the military. The father, Azarius, is usually unemployed, a dreamer, always leaving one job for a "better" opportunity. It took me a while to get into the story, but about halfway into the book it gripped me and I could not stop reading.

Crime Fiction

Murder in Mykonos (2010) by Jeffrey Siger

This is the first book that features Inspector Andreas Kaldis. In this book he is Police Chief on the island of Mykonos, but in later books he works in other parts of Greece. I am looking forward to reading more of the series. Reviewed here.

A Chill Rain in January (1990) by L.R. Wright

This is the third book in the Karl Alberg series by L. R. Wright. Alberg is a Sergeant in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The novel is set in Sechelt, which is on the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia, Canada. I have read books 1 and 2 and will be continuing on with the series. Reviewed here.

A Killing in Quail County (1996) by Jameson Cole

This is a perfect story of growing up in the 1950's in rural Oklahoma. Fifteen-year-old Mark Stoddart lives with his older brother Jess, a deputy sheriff in the small town of Bob White. Mark plans to spend his summer looking for evidence of a local bootlegger, to help out his brother. This turns out to be very complicated and more dangerous than he expected. The teenage characters are depicted especially well.

Evil Under the Sun (1941) by Agatha Christie

A while ago we purchased a set of three films based on mystery novels by Agatha Christie, and one of them was Evil Under the Sun. So I skipped ahead to read this book in the Hercule Poirot series out of order. The setting is the Jolly Rogers Hotel, on Smugglers’ Island, off the coast of Devon. A beautiful woman is killed and the murderer must be one of the guests on the island. As usual for an Agatha Christie novel, this is a clever and entertaining story.

The Shanghai Factor (2013) by Charles McCarry

Charles McCarry is one of my favorite writers of spy fiction and this novel did not disappoint. It is narrated by a young male American spy, working as a sleeper agent for an unnamed US agency, who is living in Shanghai to learn Mandarin. Many of the spy novels I have read have an underlying theme of betrayal and mistrust, and this one is no different.  Reviewed here.

All the Old Knives (2015) by Olen Steinhauer

Olen Steinhauer is another of my favorite authors of spy fiction. This book has an unusual format, taking place during a dinner between two people who used to work together at the CIA station in Vienna. Henry is following up on an investigation into the hijacking of an airliner that occurred when Henry and Carol worked together. During the dinner they both think back to that event and we gradually learn how it turned out.