Review of Theresa Kishkan\u27s Winter Wren

Hansen, Vivian M

English

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Winter Wren by Theresa Kishkan

Wilfrid Laurier University

The GooseVolume 15 | No. 2 Article 122-14-2017Winter Wren by Theresa KishkanVivian M. HansenUniversity of CalgaryPart of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Literature in English, NorthAmerica Commons, Nature and Society Relations Commons, and the Place and EnvironmentCommonsFollow this and additional works at / Suivez-nous ainsi que d’autres travaux et œuvres:https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegooseThis article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Goose by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Cet article vous est accessible gratuitement et en libre accès grâce à Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Le texte a été approuvé pour faire partie intégrantede la revue The Goose par un rédacteur autorisé de Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Pour de plus amples informations, contactezscholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended Citation / Citation recommandéeHansen, Vivian M.. "Winter Wren by Theresa Kishkan." The Goose, vol. 15 , no. 2 , article 12, 2017,https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol15/iss2/12.Song Motes:  a review of Winter Wren  Winter Wren by THERESA KISHKAN Fish Gotta Swim Editions, 2016 $18.00  Reviewed by VIVIAN HANSEN  This little book is delightful in both its narrative and the physical style of the book itself. The returning literary theme of a woman escaping conflict is still a draw. Grace returns to Canada to find peace and reflective beauty in her outer and inner landscape.   Winter Wren is a sequel to The Age of Water Lilies (2009). Grace Oakden, the daughter of Flora Oakden of Water Lilies, has returned to a west-coast beach after leaving a broken relationship in France. Grace buys Tom Winston’s land, renews the beauty of its hideaway corners and the small miracle of the Winter Wren.  Tom is a catalyst for Grace’s understanding of this unique place as he struggles with his daily life in a nursing home. We hear his sorrow in how his father claimed First Nations’ artifacts for the museum. Tom has his own sorrows as a veteran of the First World War, and his search for healing on the land he claimed many years before. The Winter Wren had been his music. He collected a whale vertebra to decorate his land. As a directive to Grace the painter he says: “bring me the view at dusk” (62). She knows what he means, painting finally nine separate palettes.  This is a surprisingly complex novella that draws on poetic language to emit the beauty of painting and its peace. Grace    wanted a vocabulary for the serene  wash of Jordan River into the sea,  the meeting of water and sky, dull as  pewter until a cloud parted and light  melted down. The angle of a winter  wren perched on the vertebra.  Wanted a colour for the sound of  wind in trees containing a multitude  of ravens. (65)    The style in this novella compels toward a ghostly understanding of each character. There are no dialogue tags. We must discern which character is speaking when. Although a bit disconcerting, this lack offers a ghostly presence to each character; blending them into the narrative mix. Minor characters lift from the narrative. Andy McIntyre, Grace’s new lover who is a potter, seems to stabilize her and offer some plot value in addition to his knowledge about old Tom. Freya, a thirteen-year old girl, shows up much too late in the work, offering some sense of symbolic renewal. I wanted more of her, but I hope Kishkan has some use for her in a sequel.   Despite these minor intros, the novella seems only superficially about humans. It is more about the prickly relationship between human life and the natural, healing world. The sense of separation of land and nature and character is less distinct. The song of the wren might as well be the sound of human speech. It is in this quick twist of narrative convention that Kishkan finds a turn of genius. In evaluating the characters, we must deploy the narrative rule of distinction in text; we are the wren, the whale vertebrae, the very view at dusk.  Kishkan is also masterful at shifting the role of telling. Her simplicity of stating “Grace walks into the library” (69) offers a greyscale to the narrative that pushes against the senses. The writing style preserves the latitude of dusk—that 1Hansen: Winter Wren by Theresa KishkanPublished by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2017ephemeral sight that refuses precise colour and the unusual tenor of light.    The book offers an apprenticeship in place: a wide narrative motion in the larger trope of a female character who finds, in nature, her natural catalyst toward healing. Tom’s character reveals the conflict between the artifact and ephemera that is so prevalent in the interaction between human and natural worlds. As a bird taxidermist, he describes his hunt:    It was so tiny. The wren let him  approach and quick as anything he  had it in the net, dropping it into a  bag with a small cloth soaked in  chloroform. The light in the dark  eye went out . . . He was sure it was  the source of the notes he had so  carefully transcribed, listening and  asking himself, was that little run e- g-e-c? Are they sixteenth notes?  Now there? A rising run, g-b-d-g?  That was the bird he had drawn, its  pert tail and brown legs. And  probably this  was that very wren.  (122-23)   Kishkan accomplishes a great deal in this work. Her poetics and sense of a narrative molding, using the conventions of fiction and creative nonfiction, allows a poetic prose to emerge from Winter Wren. This is a style that promises to create an emerging form in the genre of Canadian novella.  VIVIAN HANSEN is a Calgary poet and creative nonfiction writer.  2The Goose, Vol. 15, No. 2 [2017], Art. 12https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol15/iss2/12

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Winter Wren by Theresa Kishkan

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