I read this book in 2005 when it was first published. I’ve subsequently read the two other books in
the trilogy: What They Wanted and The
Fortunate Brother. I recommended
Donna Morrissey to my book club and suggested we start with Sylvanus Now since it’s the first in the
series. And it gave me an opportunity to
re-read it. I think a second reading of
it only heightened my appreciation.
Sylvanus Now is a fisherman from the Newfoundland outport
community of Cooney Arm. He falls in
love with Adelaide, a beautiful girl from nearby Ragged Rock. Adelaide wants to escape her stultifying life
working the flakes drying cod and helping care for her many siblings. Sylvanus convinces her to marry him,
promising her, “’You won’t ever have to touch a fish agin’” (103) and building
her a house with no windows facing the flakes or the sea. The two face personal tragedies and the
outside world intrudes as they work at building a life together.
Set in the 1950s, this novel is also the story of changes in
the Newfoundland fishery. Sylvanus fishes
the traditional way, by hand-jigging and drying his catch on flakes, but the
traditional fishery is being supplanted by trawlers using gill nets and by giant
factory ships. Sylvanus’s method of fishing
is very ethical as well; in the first fishing trip described in the novel, he
releases a mother-fish full of roe which has not yet spawned: “The ocean’s bounty, she was, and woe to he
who desecrated the mother’s womb” (4). His
method is contrasted with that of the trawlers, “scraping the bottom, getting
the mother-fish and all them not yet spawned” (200). Sylvanus witnesses one of the colossal factory
ships wasting thousands of fish when a net splits: “Within minutes Sylvanus’s boat was
encompassed by the fish now drifting on their backs, their eyes bulging out of
their sockets . . . their stomachs bloating out through their mouths . . .
Mother-fish. Thousands of them”
(255). Because of foreign freezer ships, “offshore
killers,” the fish Sylvanus catches become smaller and eventually he catches
fewer and fewer. Sylvanus foresees the
collapse of the cod fishery because of what he views as a raping of the sea: “What
kind of fool can’t figure we’re farmers,
not hunters; that we don’t search out and destroy the spawning grounds, that we
waits for the fish to be done with their seeding, and then they comes to us for
harvesting” (219)?
This is very much a novel of character. Adelaide and Sylvanus in particular are
developed in depth. A reader will feel
as if s/he knows these people because they are so realistic. They have
flaws and inner conflicts which make them relatable and sympathetic. In some ways, the two are foil
characters. For instance, Sylvanus “was
poor at book learning” (4); what he loves is his life fishing which gives him “satisfaction”
and “fulfilled him” (3). For Adelaide,
school is “salvation. For it was there
her work was tallied, and her excellence in Latin, calligraphy, and reading
raised her to the front of the class” (27).
Because he loves the sea, Sylvanus imagines “The sea would be [Adelaide’s]
garden” (21), but “She hated the water, hated its stink of brine and rot and
jellyfish, and hated how all night long it shifted and moaned like some old
crone hagged in sleep. And worse, she hated
the briny smell of salt fish” (26). Yet
they do share some similarities. For
instance, both enjoy being alone, Sylvanus on the sea and Adelaide in her
house.
For me, Adelaide is the most relatable. She’s a dreamer with aspirations to be a
missionary and not just a woman whose worth is “determined by the white of her
sheets flapping on the line” (29). She’s
very intelligent and loves school, so being forced to stop her education and
work on the flakes is heart-breaking for her; she becomes “a soul forced along
another’s wake” (43). Her desire to
escape the wretched work on the flakes and at the cannery and the “bathing,
diapering, and feeding the babies, and scrubbing, sweeping, and picking up
after the toddlers trailing behind her” (24) is understandable. Likewise, her desire to be alone is
understandable. She has virtually no
time to be alone in peace and quiet.
Unfortunately, her wanting to be alone earns her a reputation as being
standoffish. When women come to comfort
her, she interprets their visits as attempts to snoop and gossip: “so far had she dwelled outside the lives of
these neighbours, their goodwill had less effect upon her heart than a tepid
kiss upon a wintery cheek” (156).
Fortunately, Adelaide is a dynamic character. Suze gives her a gift which acts as a
catalyst for change. Suze also tells
her, “’We don’t know half the time what we’re giving others. . . . there’s a
comfort knowing others are suffering worse than you right now. Makes you think about them rather than
yourself’” (164). And Adelaide listens and
acknowledges the wisdom of this warm-hearted, generous woman “whose soul she
had shunned because it couldn’t read a prayer book” (162). She realizes her selfishness: “’Perhaps I don’t think of anybody long
enough to talk about them. . . . I never done that in my life – go visiting
somebody needing company’” (160). The
window Sylvanus puts in their house symbolizes Adelaide’s new outlook.
The relationship between the Sylvanus and Adelaide is
developed very clearly. Sylvanus’s love
for Adelaide is so obvious: everything he does, he does for her. He builds her the type of house he thinks she
would like, and he tells her not to worry:
“’Strong hands, I’ve got, and a strong mind when it comes to caring for
you’” (169). He’s always thinking of
things to make her happy and make her life easier: “And it was nice, those gifts he kept
bringing her, of snow crab, and scallops bigger than tea plates, and handfuls
of last summer mint tea buried beneath the snow, and the paths he kept well
shovelled . . . “ (170). Because we are
given their perspectives in alternating sections, the reader sees what they
think of each other and how misunderstandings arise. During an argument, Adelaide twists away from
her husband, “her mouth lined with self-loathing” (176) but Sylvanus interprets
her actions differently: “she had pushed
him away, staring upon him with loathing” (199). Both leave much unspoken and
that causes problems.
The dialogue is perfect because Morrissey has truly captured
the Newfoundland dialect. The
conversations between Sylvanus and his brothers really need to be read
aloud.
This book is highly recommended to readers who like complex characters. It will take a reader on an emotional ride;
s/he will feel anger and sadness but, most of all, admiration for the spirit
and resiliency of a people faced with harsh realities. And for those who have fallen in love with
the Now family, there are two more books chronicling their lives; I think I will
re-read both What They Wanted and The Fortunate Brother.
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