If you are interested in Canada and history, you should read this book. The Clio Collective has constructed a book that details the life of women in Quebec, from before the colony to the late 70s, early 80s. (The book was published in the 1980s).

The Collective includes native and European women. I do wish there had been a bit more of contrast between the three groups - native, Franco, Anglo - women, but there is much to unpack here. I have long been interested in Marguerite Bourgeoys, and reading this puts the issues her order had with the various men in a totally different perspective.

Meine Meinung

Der Klappentext des Romans “Das Mädchen, das in der Metro las” der französischen Schriftstellerin Christine Féret-Fleury klingt aller Wahrscheinlichkeit nach im Ohr eines jeden Buchliebhabers sehr wohltönend und verführerisch. Denn gibt es etwas besseres als ein Buch über die Lese-Leidenschaft (eines anderen Menschen) und die Macht der Bücher und wie sie dadurch Leben verändern können?

Doch meine Freude auf die Geschichte über die junge Frau Juliette wurde von Seite zu Seite immer mehr getrübt. Ich nahm an, dass Juliette die meiste Zeit lesend verbringt, doch weit gefehlt! Juliette hat zwar auf der täglichen Metrofahrt zu ihrer Arbeit als Immobilienmaklerin ein Buch dabei, doch sie beobachtet viel lieber andere Menschen beim Lesen ihrer Lektüren als ihre Nase selbst in ein Buch zu stecken. Da gibt es die Dame mit dem immer gleichen italienischen Kochbuch, der Herr mit Hut und seiner Insekten-Lektüre oder die junge Frau die immer auf Seite 247 in Tränen ausbricht. Zudem irritierte mich die regelrechte Hortung von Büchern in Juliettes kleiner Wohnung – denn sie gibt einfach jedem Buch, ob sie es einmal lesen wird oder nicht, ein Zuhause. Da spielt es auch überhaupt keine Rolle, ob sie der Inhalt des Buchs eigentlich gar nicht interessiert. Es macht eher den Anschein, als wolle Juliette allen verlorenen Büchern ein Heim bieten um ihrem Leben wenigstens etwas Farbe zu verleihen.

Der für sie immer enger werdenden Lebensraum entzieht Juliette jedoch die Luft zum atmen. Auch der Leser wird etwas durch die Trostlosigkeit von Juliettes tristen Leben angesteckt.

Ende am Licht des Tunnels zieht erst auf als Juliette eines Tages beschließt zwei Stationen früher aus der Metro auszusteigen und den restlichen Weg zur Arbeit zu Fuß zu gehen. Das Schicksal führt sie an diesem Tag direkt zu dem kuriosen Buchvermittler Soliman und seiner Tochter Zaïde.

Die lang ersehnte Kehrtwende ist somit eingetreten und das wirklich Interessante an dem dünnen Büchlein beginnt sich sacht zu entfalten. Auch ein Hauch französischer Charme schwingt nun zwischen den Zeilen mit. Es wird romantisch verträumt – allerdings nicht in dem Sinne der Verliebtheit in einen anderen Menschen, sondern im Sinne eines aufblühenden Lebenslaufs. Juliette beginnt endlich zu lesen und findet zu sich selbst. Leider ist auch hier nicht alles ganz rund für mich, aber der Ansatz hat mir richtig gut gefallen und es hat mir Freude bereitet mitzuerleben wie Juliette endlich aufblüht und sich in das Abenteuer ihres Lebens stürzt.

Ich bin wirklich ein bisschen traurig darüber, dass diese Geschichte und ich nicht ganz zueinander gefunden haben. Der Ansatz über die Buchkuriere, wie sie Menschen beobachten um ihnen ein Buch auf den Weg mitzugeben das ihr Leben verändern kann hat jede Menge Potential. Vielleicht hätte die Story auch nur etwas mehr Raum benötigt um sich mit mehr Details und Tiefe einen Weg in mein Leserherz zu bahnen. Aus den Charakteren hätte schließlich so viel werden können, doch vor allem die interessanten Nebendarsteller verkommen zu blassen Statisten. Schlussendlich bleibt bei mir nur der hübsche blaue Schal von Juliette und ein gelb gestrichener Bus in Erinnerung.

Fazit

Trotz romantisch-verträumten französischen Charme und einem gelungenen Ansatz lies diese Geschichte mein Herz nicht schneller schlagen.

"Nobody Cries At Bingo" is a memoir of Dawn Dumont's life from early childhood through to her early years in college. It's not an "I was born on a dark and stormy night" kind of read that goes from conception to emancipation in an order driven only by the logic of the calendar. It's much more interesting than that.

It's a series of episodes from Dawn's life, each one completely immersive and self-explanatory but which together build up layers of memory of people and events and relationships that better reflect how we remember our lives than any do-it-by-the-timeline history.

Dawn Dumont grew up in the Okanese First Nation in southern Saskatchewan. The life she is describing is far away from my own upbringing in an Irish-Catholic community in the NorthWest of England yet Dawn Dumont bridges that gap, showing me how similar large families from minority communities can be. She also shows me how unique her way of life and the history of her people is.

The thing that shone through all the episodes Dawn Dumont describes is that she grew up in a family where she knew she was loved and where people looked after one another. This isn't something she says directly. At a first glance, the sometimes nomadic life adopted by her mother in the face of her father's alcoholism, the racism in the school she attends, the stories of kids running wild in packs could be seen as a cry for intervention but that would be a fundamental misunderstanding. The starting point here is love. Love allows freedom, offers forgiveness and never walks away for good. That changes the context of the all the behaviour. It doesn't make it perfect, just different.

Dawn Dumont is a stand-up comic as well as an author and she describes incidents from her life in ways that made me want to smile even when they also made me want to cry.The nature of Dawn Dumont's humour is emblematic of the way of life she is describing: it is optimistic, unaggressive and deeply insightful. Dawn doesn't use sarcasm or get laughs by playing on or against stereotypes. She laughs at herself and her responses as much as she laughs at those who try to do her harm or those who are just part of the constant chaos that she takes for granted.  This is a humour that makes you laugh because laughter keeps you human.

I was completely ignorant of First Nation history in Canada. I hadn't realised that the same attempts at cultural annihilation where made there as in the US. I've been to the Navaho and the Hopi and Pueblo people's and heard their stories. Naively, I had expected better of Canada. Dawn Dumont makes tackles the history of her people in a matter of fact way that does not dismiss or minimise what was done to her parents and her grandparents or what continues to happen today, but which seems to say: "It happened. It was crap. But we're still here." I admire the strength of that.

"Nobody Cries At Bingo" is a personal narrative, not the history of a nation. Dawn rolls our her life and lets us look at it and smile at her remembered self. It's inclusive and funny and feels honest and intimate.

I wasn't able to find an audiobook version of "Nobody Cries At Bingo", which surprised me as Dawn Dumont is a narrator and her text would be perfect as an audiobook.

If you're looking to get a gentle, funny, honest look at a girl's remembered childhood, this is the book for you. Along the way, you may learn a thing or two about what it means to be Native in modern Canada.

Dawn Dumont's latest book "Rose's Run" is now in my TBR pile ( yet again only in ebook - doesn't anyone want to do First Nation audiobooks?).

Dawn Dumont is a stand-up comedian, actor, writer, TV host, speaker, and activist. She has appeared in comedy clubs across North America, is the author of  Nobody Cries at Bingo and Rose’s Run, has written plays for the stage and screen, and is a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines.

Dawn Dumont's Nobody Cries at Bingo (Saskatoon: Thistledown Press, 2011).

In this particular year, Dahlia had already run three marathons, three half marathons, and four 10Ks — and it was only June. This was Rose’s second race, in her lifetime. (Fifth if you included races she ran in elementary school. She’d done okay in those — never last, just an innocuous second or third last, depending on whether one or both of the asthmatic Bower twins was in attendance.) She’d never had an athletic performance that resulted in someone taking her aside afterwards like the coach in Rocky and patting her on the shoulder: “Yuh got real talent, kid. But you’re still a bum.”

I don't even remember how I found this book but it's been lingering on my kindle for far too long. You know when you browse through your library and find titles that you really want to pick up and read but you don't want to squeeze them in between other books and rush them? This has been one of those books. 

Yet, I had no idea what the book would be about. All I knew was that it was about Rose, a mother of two, who lives on a reservation in Saskatchewan and decides to take up running.

What I didn't know was how her decision to take up running came about, and when the book started off with Rose standing on the starting line of a 10k race without having had much training at all and showing Rose full of both self-doubt and determination to finish this race, I was intrigued. 

This was a light read. Dumont has a warm and empathetic way of narrating Rose's story and that of the other characters on the "rez". She's funny, yet, gets across some of the issues faced by Rose's community. 

There even was a romance element that I didn't mind reading about because it was quite quirky and fun, and that is really saying something.

I look forward to reading Dumont's other book Nobody Cries at Bingo, which has also been on the kindle for far too long already.