Wow. A Jest of God (1966) by Margaret Laurence is absolutely brilliant. I bought it in 2007, and 15 years later it has come off my shelf and been devoured in a couple of sittings. It might not quite be a novella, at 202 pages, but its scope is compact in time and space – and a spectacular success.
This is the second in Laurence’s Manawaka series of novels – I’ve now read the first, fifth, and second (in that order) – set in a fictional town in Manitoba, Canada, though with a different set of characters each time. Having read the lengthy, spacious The Diviners for ‘Tea or Books?’ and finding it astonishingly good, I wanted to see which other Laurence treasures I’d been neglecting.
They are not actually chanting my name, of course. I only hear it that way from where I am watching at the classroom window, because I remember skipping rope to that song when I was about the age of the little girls out there now. Twenty-seven years ago, which seems impossible, and myself seven, but the same brown brick building, only a new wing added and the place smartened up. It would certainly have surprised me then to know I’d end up here, in this room, no longer the one who was scared of not pleasing, but the thin giant She behind the desk at the front, the one with the power of picking any coloured chalk out of the box and writing anything at all on the blackboard. It seemed a power worth possessing then.
Rachel Cameron isn’t just living in the same small town where she grew up – she is living in the same house, and working as a second grade teacher at the same school she attended as a child. Her life has not progressed in any of the ways she’d imagined. Her days are spent at work with children who know her deeply for a year and then move on – still in the same school, the same town, but no longer part of her life. Her evenings are spent with her widowed mother, living above the funeral parlour that Rachel’s father used to run. Like some of the other books I’ve read this month, the mother/daughter relationship is too dependent, too stultifying, too thoroughly tangled with guilt and resentment, as well as love. Rachel seems to have few friends and no intimates – and she tries to avoid the closeness sought by her colleagues, such as the teacher who wants her to come along to her charismatic church.
Into this unchanging world comes Nick Kazlik. Or, rather, into it he returns.
“Hello, Rachel.”
Has someone spoken to me? A man’s voice, familiar. Who is it?
“It is Rachel, isn’t it?” he says, stopping, smiling enquiringly.
He is about the same height as myself. Not thickly built, really, but with the solidity of heavy bones. Straight hair, black. Eyes rather Slavic, slightly slanted, seemingly only friendly now, but I remember the mockery in them from years ago.
Nick was the milkman’s son, returned to stay with his elderly parents – he left; he went to teach high school in the city. He and Rachel weren’t particularly close, but now they are drawn to each other. Soon, they are spending most evenings together – clandestinely, for both know their parents wouldn’t approve of anything so sudden.
In another genre, this would be a romantic release from drudgery. But in A Jest of God, Rachel cannot get release from herself. Though there is happiness in this new fling, Rachel has the self-consciousness of an adolescent. She second guesses everything she does or says, constantly imagining how it might be interpreted, what sort of impression she is making, whether she will be accepted or rejected.
Laurence writes with astonishing psychological acuity. The Diviners was sprawling in time and space – A Jest of God takes place over just a few weeks in a town so insular that it’s hard to conceive the rest of the world exists in any meaningful way. Rachel is so detailed and complete a character that the reader loves her, wants the best for her, and knows how unlikely it is that she will get it – because of flaws in herself and her upbringing, as much as the environment in which she lives. The tension between the possibility of Rachel’s future and her own hubris is what keeps this novel pacy and compelling, even when very little is happening on the surface.
It is a fantastic success of a novel, showing how adept Laurence is at whichever scope she sets herself.
This sounds really good!
I now have to decide whether this or The Diviners makes my end-of-year list…
I was thinking about you at a book sale I went to last week because it felt like every 5th book was by Laurence (and every 4th one by Alice Munro, and every 3rd one by Carol Shields – it felt like they raided a few high school lit classes to stock up). I have spent a long time running away from these types of stories, of bleak lives in stifling small towns (bonus points for fraught mother-daughter relationships – see basically all of Munro’s works), because it felt like, for so long, that was the only kind of story written here but I think I’m coming around to finally reading more by Laurence, thanks to your enthusiasm for her work.
Haha, yes, I suspect I’ll be buying up any missing Laurences when I go to Canada, because you make it sound like you can’t move for stumbling over them. I can see that it’s the sort of book you’d want to resist, but I think you’d love if you can bring yourself to try!
I thought I’d read Laurence but your review has made me realise I was confusing her with Margaret Kennedy! This sounds wonderful, and it’s in the TBR…
It’s so great when you take a book you’ve had for ages, finally read it and love it. It feels like it was a treasure just waiting to be discovered right there on your shelf.
For my money, Laurence is much better than Kennedy :D Though I suppose not really all that similar, beyond their first names. And yes, moments like this always make the bookshelves seem even more like troves.
This sounds amazing, someone I really should explore.
Absolutely!
Sounds brilliant simon. I have, or had, some Laurence on my Virago shelves but I’m not sure if it’s still there. If it isn’t I’ll obvs regret it….
I think you’d love this, Karen. I’m glad I held onto my copy for 15 years!
This book was made into the movie “Rachel, Rachel” starring Joanne Woodward and directed by Paul Newman. Worth seeking out.
Yes, the blurb said that and I was intrigued if it would be done badly or well – good to know it’s worth watching.
I come from Manitoba, Magaret Laurence’s home
I have read each of her Mannawaka series novels 3 times-once as a young man, then as a middle aged man and now as an old man.
I have loved her novels more each time I have read them.
Originally I felt the Diviners and the Stone Angel were her masterpieces, but this time round I am appreciating her lesser known novels.
That is such a lovely comment – I’m so glad the novels have accompanied you through life, and I’m sure they feel different every time.
Simon,
I am a big fan of Tea or Books and loved hearing–and reading here–your thoughts on some of the fiction of Margaret Laurence, among lots of other authors too, of course.
Have you seen this 1966 video clip of an interview Laurence gave to the CBC?
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1704404063
It is brief but absolutely brilliant; Margaret Laurence outlines her literary aims in a nutshell. And oh, how well she succeeded!
Warm wishes to you and Rachel,
Lisa