Reviews for A Student of Weather

The average rating for A Student of Weather based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-05-05 00:00:00 Boris Jolin When I first arrived in Leeds for my master's program in 2005, I met a PhD student who was writing her dissertation on Canadian women writers. To my shame, at that point in time I could literally only name one. Margaret Atwood. And I hadn't even read anything by her yet. Fortunately, since then I've discovered more Canadian women writers in addition to Atwood, several of whom I admire greatly: Carol Shields, Margaret Laurence, Mary Lawson and now Elizabeth Hay. This was her debut novel, shortlisted for the Giller Prize in 2000. I knew nothing about it when I picked it up as part of a 5-for-£1 stack at the Hay-on-Wye Oxfam shop. Set between the 1930s and 1970s, it's something of a family saga but focuses on a pair of sisters, Norma Joyce and Lucinda Hardy, and the tacit feud that arises between them over a frostbitten young researcher who stumbles upon their Saskatchewan farmhouse one January evening in 1938. "Two sisters fell down the same well, and the well was Maurice Dove." Seventeen-year-old Lucinda has become a capable family housekeeper since their mother's death three years ago. Norma Joyce is only eight but has gone through early puberty and is a precocious, sneaky child. Maurice works at an experimental farm and comes back twice more that year to observe a dust storm, drought, and plague of grasshoppers. On each visit, and in the years to come, the sisters quietly jostle for his attention. Despite the upheaval of war and a move to Ontario and then New York City, some things never change. I loved the way Hay lends her story allusive depth by continually revisiting biblical pairs of opposites: Jacob and Esau, Mary and Martha, and the Prodigal Son and his jealous older brother. The descriptions of the Canadian prairies are also wonderful. My favorite parts of the book were when the two sisters were still together in Canada; once Norma Joyce moves to New York, it starts drifting a bit. However, there are such astute observations about what goes on in familial and romantic relationships, and so many perfect sentences, that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this slowly over the course of a month, and I'd gladly read anything else Hay has written. Some favorite lines: "Miniature berries after an endless winter. It's what saves you. Something delicate and contained after endless loss." "Maybe that's all anyone wants in the end, to be remembered rather than overlooked." "Such a delicate thief, the sound of rain the next morning when the lilacs were over and the day lilies just beginning."

Review # 2 was written on 2015-07-02 00:00:00 Gene A. Patterson Jr. A Student of Weather was today's choice read to recover from travel, jet lag, and the unpacking and laundry tasks that come with it. I had high hopes for the novel: It's set during the 1930s in depression-hit dust bowls of Saskatchewan and the New York of the 1960s, and it's by a Canadian author. The last one, the Canadian factor, may have worked against the book. I'm only half kidding. I love Canadian writing. However, I am also reminded of Will and Ian Ferguson's summary of the Canadian literary novel (found in How to Be a Canadian): "Handy tip! Write about a family gathering, a funeral or some sort of homecoming. That's the easiest way to bring characters together without having to construct a plot. And make sure to include the free-spirited sister, the recovering alcoholic brother, the other sister (the one who gave up on her dreams and is married to an abusive and/or aloof man) and - last but not least - the standard-issue abusive and/or aloof father figure. Add to the mix some cryptic dialogue about a past betrayal, maybe a dark secret or two, and half-bake at 40F. Do you see how these things just write themselves?" The thing is, my assessment of every Canadian novel I have read since the Fergusons' above summary has started with a categorisation: either the book fits the description or it doesn't. The ones that didn't fit the Fergusons' description were, on the whole, much more enjoyable and interesting reads. Sadly, A Student of Weather fits the above description to a T (except there was no recovering alcoholic brother, tho there was a brother who died early on... I am counting this as half a point.). What is even sadder, is that I could not find any other aspect that made this book compelling or that kept me from skim-reading some parts. It didn't help that the centre premise of the book is based on a love triangle that features some selfish asshat of a guy and two sisters who fight over his affections (which are always engaged elsewhere and for some reason the sisters just cannot see it)... Ugh. The writing, tho, was very accomplished and I do look forward to trying the other book by Hay on Mt. TBR, Late Nights on Air. Seriously, if that one also has a love triangle in it, I will DNF it faster than than I can type out the book title.