Turnstone 93 ISBN 0-88801-174-1 $14.95
Adult fiction. Interrelated stories set in Winnipeg's North End
This book is taught on the high school curriculum in Manitoba
Young Danny Stein's vision of the Prophet Elijah dancing on the garbage cans opens a window to the vivid reality of his own neighbourhood. His mother seems trapped among the mannequins of her store window. The old caretaker stays sheltered in his basement workshop recalling miracles of the Ba'al Shem Tov. Rita, the waitress at the Popularity Cafe, sings her Caribbean songs while Dean, a butcher's apprentice, risks all to become a rock and roll star. Danny seeks some magic charm, as lives around him join and collapse with the joy and tragedy common to every person in every age.
A Teacher's Guide with Extensive Comments by the Author
Stories by Sheldon Oberman
The Sale
Money
The Lady of the Beanpoles
Hidden Wishes
The Projectionist's Wife
Secret Tongues
POP
Deaf Messengers
The Portrait
City Butchers
Spin Master
The Early Days of Shadowman
Two Spirits Had Come Dancing
The Last Days of Shadowman
PREFACE
The book does not need to be read as a whole. Seven core stories directly trace Danny's development; This Business With Elijah, Hidden Wishes, Secret Tongues, Deaf Messenger, Spin Master, The Early Days, and The Last Days. The other eight stories can be used for enrichment. They focus on the parents, neighbours and related events in Danny's life.
I wrote the questions and answers to provoke thought not shut it down. Students may find alternative interpretations and teachers, as always, must decide what is reasonable. Some answers offer more than students may be expected to give and are meant for the teacher's interest.
The activities suggest discussion topics and a variety of learning experiences. The author's comments give a personal dimension. The guide offers cultural and historical information in the background section. Teachers can add, cut and modify the material to suit the class.
I visit schools through the Manitoba Arts Council Reading Series which accepts requests any time of the year. I also give workshops and presentations on creativity for students and teachers.
This Business With Elijah
Author's Comments
Like my main character, Danny, I grew up on Main Street in the 60's and Danny's family has similarities to mine. However, I never saw the Prophet Elijah, nor did I have a friend like Mr. Werner, though I certainly would have appreciated one. There was an old caretaker who seemed to live in the building's basement workshop and I did share one extraordinary experience of him after his death which I described in the last story in the collection.
Questions
1. Give the particular and general time and setting of the story. What was Danny's age?
2. Passover celebrates a release from slavery. How does this theme connect to Danny's family situation?
3. Compare and contrast The Angelus to the scene of Danny's parents working at the table.
4. A. What was symbolic about Danny's vision of Elijah? Why wings? B. Find other images of weightlessness. C. Find contrasting images of weightiness.
5. Show how being weighed down and being light and free were an issues for various characters.
6. What qualities did Elijah represent in the ritual?
7. Who would have told Danny stories about Elijah?
8. What was the boy originally seeking? At what moments did he seem to fail? Did he succeed in the end?
Answers
1. It is an afternoon in spring (early 60's). Danny lived over a store on Main Street in Winnipeg. He was ten.
2. Danny's family was in bondage financially and to Baba.
3. Both couples were poor and hard working, however, The Angelus showed a couple living on the land. His parents were caught in material concerns. They were separated from nature and natural physical labour.
4. A. Elijah stood on garbage but headed to heaven. He was physically deformed but spiritually whole. His wings suggested an angel. B. Danny's grandfather and Uncle Saul wanted to be free of weight. See the flying spirit of the dead uncle and the final "flight" of Werner and Danny while they sang. C. The farm couple's tools were heavy with mud. The street person was weighed down by clothing. The brothers lifted weights. The food was "heavy". The slaves carried loads.
5. The weight of worry, distrust and materialism oppressed the family. The spiritual Elijah escaped into the sky. Werner "raised" Danny's spirit through the joy of friendship, song and the symbolism of the exodus.
6. Miracles, blessings, reconciliation, joy.
7. Mr. Werner.
8. Danny looked for Elijah. He lost him by running away and further when his family denied Elijah's existence. The joyful singing of the question was like Elijah's singing flight.
Activities
A. Danny viewed his neighbourhood from his roof. Describe yours from a particular place. What might you see, hear, smell, think about and feel?
B. Describe a family meal.(not necessarily yours).
C. Discuss the difficulties immigrants faced then and now. Or consider the effects of a major depression. Why might it focus people on material success and power?
Background
The book begins in spring 1961. (Note references to Jackie Kennedy and Ben Hur.) It is set on two blocks of Main Street between Inkster and Matheson with literary "relocations" of buildings.
The Angelus is a daily Catholic prayer referring to the angel that announced the coming of Jesus to Mary. The painting by the French painter, Millet, shows a couple obeying the church bell's call to prayer.
Passover refers to the tenth plague when the angel of death killed the first born of Egypt but passed over the Jews, forcing the pharaoh to finally release them from slavery. (see the Bible, Book of Exodus) For ten days Jews do not eat food made with leavening. Matzos is eaten instead, reminding Jews that their ancestors did not take time for their bread to rise but rushed from Egypt as soon as they could. The exodus is recounted as members at the seder table read from a book called the Haggadah.
Elijah the prophet performed miracles and offered comfort and reconciliation. He was said to have risen to heaven on a chariot of fire. (see the Bible, l Kings, 17-19,21 and 11 Kings 1-2, Malachi 3: 23-24) Tradition says he enters invisibly during the Passover meal to drink from the wine and bless the table. As the messenger of the Messiah, his presence is a reminder of the prophecy that the Jewish people will leave their present exile to return to the Promised Land to await the Messiah.
Pogrom an organized mass attack on Jews who were scapegoats for the frustrations of the poor. Jews made easy targets since they were visibly different and often had little protection from the government. One pogrom in Poland killed 100,000 Jews.
Charlie Chan movies were old by 1961 but ran on Saturday matinees seen by Danny.
Baba means grandmother
Zaida means grandfather
Seder means ritual meal
Kibitzer means a joker
Other books on the Canadian Jewish experience: The Immortals - Ed Klieman, Corner Store - Bess Kaplan The Second Scroll - A.M. Klien. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz - Mordechai Richler, Raisins and Almonds - Fredelle Maynard, The Favourite Game - Leonard Cohen. Anthologies - A Mirror of a People and The Spice Box.
THE SALE
AUTHOR'S COMMENTS
It was difficult to create characters based on my parents. I wrote "The Sale" and "The Portrait" in the third person rather than the first person to get more emotional distance. As I kept writing, my parents gradually changed into fictional characters. Later, I was surprised at how well my parents accepted these "character portraits". They knew what was true and what I'd changed for the purpose of fiction. They accepted that I was writing about them was my way to understand their lives.
Questions
1. Compare and contrast the character of Murray and Deborah.
2. What did Murray give up and why? Do you think that Murray made the right choice?
3. Why did Murray feel connected to the young worker?
4. Why did Murray want Danny to give up his comics?
5. Did Murray have his own fantasy world that offers him escape from reality? Explain.
6. Why did the coal dust on his sleeve bother him so much?
Answers
1. Both were determined, hard working and seek success. When frustrated, each withdrew into work. Deborah was personable while Murray was socially awkward, preferring physical exertion to social subtleties. The store was more Deborah's environment with Murray following her direction.
2. Murray gave up the physical satisfaction of the gym and possible renown as a champ. He wanted security and respect as a businessman. Murray remained poor and found no great status as a shopkeeper. He was not really his own boss since he was dependant upon Deborah and had to cater to customers.
3. The butcher's apprentice seemed athletic and in another setting (the gym) might respect Murray, have even become pals like the city workers.
4. Murray wanted Danny to grow up and to be more active.
5. Murray "played" with the coal in the basement.
6. Murray swept the side walk to make his store appear successful. The dust returned making a mockery of his "appearance" as a mature businessman. He was caught playing with dirty coal.
Activities
A. For writing or acting. Imagine yourself in a job. How do you interact with fellow workers, with your boss, and others?
B. Interview someone about his or her job.
C. Recommended book - Working by Studs Terkel. Short interviews of workers in a wide variety of jobs.
MONEY
AUTHOR'S COMMENTS
Main Street was a marketplace so I was constantly seeing people buying or selling -- money was always being exchanged. As merchants, my parents had to exchange goods for money then pay expenses and buy more goods trying to make a profit. So money was involved in most of their work most of the time, especially since we were always in debt. This story was my way of examining how money has positive and negative sides. Danny's lesson is a step in growing up but it also a step in losing his innocence.
Questions
1. Give an example of a superstition, a ritual and a game of Danny's. What did they have in common?
2. Describe the negative and positive windows Danny passed.
3. What did he imagine his mother to be like and why?
4. How was the cafe different than the store? Contrast the atmospheres as well as Danny's contrasting moods.
5. Eldorado was a mythical land of fabulous wealth. How was it appropriate that Roberto took Elizabeth away in an Eldorado? What was ironic about it leaving behind a black oily cloud?
6. What "mixed" feelings did Danny have retrieving the money?
7. How was the money personified?
8. Danny considered what to do with the money. Each possibility represented an attitude of a different character including his own. Describe four.
9. What seemed to change for Danny when he left the shop?
10. Give the positive and negative sides to Danny's new understanding of money.
Answers
1. Jumping cracks was primarily a game though the earlier form suggests superstition and ritual. He played games of sport at school. Climbing the steps was a ritual, the lucky charm candy was a superstition. All had strict rules.
2. The right side had the strict, judgemental male barber.
The left side showed the intuitive, sympathetic feminine with hints of miracles. Young Danny leaned towards the nurturing side.
3. His mother was like a part of the cash register. Her work made her businesslike. She gave money rather than serving food.
4. The cafe was noisy, open and cheerful while the store was silent, crammed with clothing and deserted. Danny felt welcomed by Rita while he felt a formal distance from his mother.
5. Roberto controlled Elizabeth by promising money. The smoke suggested both the car and the promise was unreliable, deceptive and a bit devilish.
6. He desired the money and was repelled by the bugs.
7. The coins sang.
8. Roberto showed it off and spent it on luxuries. Beatrice McKay spent a bit each day like her candies. Danny would buy treats and his mother a card. His mother wanted him to save it all.
9. The negative and positive figures in the window withered
away replaced by numerical figures he imagined in a bank book.
10. Danny had more control in his life. He no longer feared the barber nor needed the female figures. The superstition and ritual ended. Negatively, he came under the "spell" of money which controls adults. He vaguely sensed a "betrayal".
Activities
A. Create a scene at a lunch counter. Give each character a problem or a desire that someone may fulfil or frustrate.
B. Discuss your attitude to money. How do you earn, spend and save? How much do need to feel comfortable or successful. How much will you need to feel successful? Why do you think people are uncomfortable saying how much they earn or saved?
Background
Older mechanical cash registers had numbers painted on metal tags that popped up in a window at the top of the register to indicate the charge. Other tags read No Sale, Total, Cash, etc.
The Lady of the Beanpoles
Author's Comment
Sometimes characters are combinations of people I've met. Mrs. Slawik came from three different neighbours from different times in my life. I once dug up a fine marble base in my backyard and I did save an ashtray stand exactly as described from being tossed out by a neighbour. I keep the "lady" in an honoured place in my home. The character of Albert Barry was based on a friend whom I imagined in this situation. When I was a child three girls did tease me into opening an old, empty "witches'" trunk. However, Barry's last scene surprised me as much as it did him.
Questions
1. What interested Albert Perry in gardening? Give three reasons why he might give it up.
2. What music did he like, originally and then later? What music did his wife like?
3. How was Mrs. Slawik different from Albert Barry?
in her nature, background and in the way she gardened.
4. Give two experiences from Barry's past that might make him uncomfortable with females.
5. How did the ring compare to a empty seed physically and symbolically?
6. How was the statue's excavation compared to a birth?
7. What was the original purpose of the statue? Why did it seem ridiculous? How did Mrs. Slawik dignify the statue?
8. What did Barry come to understand about his marriage?
9. Barry got drunk and danced wildly. Why? What had the "miracle" have to do with his problems?
Answers
1. Folk musicians praised farming. He had poor crops, a sore back, blistered hands and could rent it out as a parking space.
2. He switched from Gilbert and Sullivan to modern folk music. His wife probably liked her boyfriend's jazz.
3. Mrs. Slawik was earthy, direct, raised on an East European farm, and gardened successfully using mysterious even pagan methods. Barry was introspective, "square" though friendly and humorous inside the security of his fence. He came from a white collar English background and gardened "by the book".
4. Barry had a flashback of being teased by girls, and struggling to open a "witch's" trunk. He also recalled a series of failed relationships including his marriage.
5. The spinning ring looked like an empty container, symbolically the marriage was empty and sterile.
6. Note the words "labour", "swell", "foot long human form"
the careful manner of extraction, the placental muck,
7. The statue was a decorative handle for an ashtray. Representing a partially exposed woman as part of a household object is tasteless, even offensive. Mrs. Slawik saw it as a fertility statue to bless the crop.
8. He was never fulfilled by it or by previous relationships.
9. Barry tried to release his inhibitions which kept him from feeling joy and the powers of growth and change. In wanting the garden to grow miraculously he wanted himself to grow and change.
Essay Topic
The story is about a man wanting to learn a gardening secret to improve his crop. More deeply, it is about a man needing to learn a mystery -- how to nourish his sterile life. Discuss.
Activity
Albert Barry can be understood by comparing him to another character; by describing his hobby; his family background; his taste in music; and some moment when he acts out of character. Use four of these methods to describe a friend, family member or to create a fictional character.
Discussion
Think of a particular "miracle" that would improve your city, school or neighbourhood.
Background
In primitive times, pagans worshipped statues of gods and goddesses of nature. Some were fertility gods guaranteeing good crops and children. Such a deity would be worshipped in the fields especially at planting and harvest times. In some cases, worship became ecstatic with song and drink as people opened themselves to the spirit of fertility and growth.
Art Deco was a decorative style during the 1920's and 30's.
Hidden Wishes
Author's Comments
Childhood memories are often most intense because children are wonderful observers -- everything is new and fresh, including their own senses and they aren't distracted by adult concerns and preconceptions. Emotions run very deep as well; what seems trivial to an adult can feel catastrophic to a child. Or wonderful. However, there is no knowing we'll remember from childhood. A single sensual detail -- a smell or taste can retrieve a memory lost for twenty years that is suddenly more real than any moment of the last week or month. To create Barry's experience of recalling a distant event I concentrated on sensory descriptions.
Questions
1. Who is the narrator? How long ago did the events occur?
2. Danny didn't know why he stole the statue for Rita. Why do you think he may have associated the statue with her?
3. Why did Mr. Werner think wishes were dangerous? Did he think they were sinful? Do you think such wishes can be bad?
4. How did Rita, her aunt and uncle have different taste in music? How did it show different attitudes?
5. Did Rita really betray Danny? Explain. What caused that corrosive feeling in Danny's chest?
6. Explain Danny's fantasy of putting Rita in the clock. Explain Alec's act of striking at the birds in the ivy.
7. At the end Danny believed that he and Alec have a secret "alliance". What attitudes did they share regarding Rita?
Answers
1. Danny Stein told the story over 22 years later. His mother said he was older than Rita was then. (32 - 10 = 22)
2. Though Danny was too young for full sexual desire, the statue's sexuality attracted him. Rita was compared to the swizzle stick figure, and a shrunk figure to place in the clock. Danny "idol worshipped" her in a mix of possessiveness and awe.
3. Mr. Werner considered such wishes superstition. His father saw them as prayers, perverted when directed to idols. Werner expressed either insight in black magic or in the destructive effects of wilful fantasies.
4. Rita's music was exotic and sensual showing romantic fantasies and a desire to be taken away. Beatrice liked inspirational music with moral values. Alex liked songs that bonded the family in a sing along and glorified "old time" values and his life on the trains.
5. Rita didn't take him seriously enough to realize his feeling but is that betrayal? When she left on her date, Danny's frustrated desires turned to bitter jealousy.
6. Danny fantasized Rita dependant and held back in "time". Alec disrupted the birds at love making. Rita was associated with birds - the cuckoo clock, "fluttering" on her coat, her free and, in this case, sexual nature.
7.Alex and Danny both wished to control Rita. Danny's desire turned to jealousy. Alex's social disapproval turned to outrage.
Essay Topics
A. Discuss the theme of possessiveness.
B. Create a character sketch of Rita listing eight traits with a proof for each one. Find an order for the list. (major/minor, personality/character, positive/negative, or a dynamic of how traits relate to each other)
C. Note the many references to time in this story. Consider time as a motif (repeated image) affecting Rita as well as Alec and Danny. How might their attitudes to time affect their actions?
Activities
A. Rita, Alex and Beatrice can be understood in part by their tastes in music. Discuss how people's music is an expression of who they are and what they value.
B. In a paragraph express what for you is the boundary between love and possessiveness.
Background
In 1961 the radio played teenage beach party music with some rock and roll heartache thrown in. West Side Story was big on Broadway. The Twist was danced on The Ed Sullivan Show. Elvis was still King. Buddy Holly was only recently dead. In 1961 only the odd person like Albert Barry in "The Lady of the Beanpoles" would be affected by the folk musical revival of the Weavers or the Kingston Trio though Bob Dylan, Peter Paul and Mary, Joan Baez were on their way. The Beatles would made their impact in 1963. Rita, being thirty-two, liked an older romantic style, especially the Latin music which she'd know from Cuba. "Lady of Spain" was a song of the 40's regularly released by new singers.
The Projectionist's Wife
Author's Comment
As a Jew and as a citizen of the world I needed to face the horror of the Holocaust. Of course, Jews are not the only victims of intolerance. Nor are minority groups. Intolerance can poison any relationship and victimize anyone. Unfortunately, Anshelm is an very common sort of monster. Grete, the very person whom he has pledged to love was, of course, his closest victim. A great task of the next generation, represented by Karl, is to avoid the infection of judgemental anger that seeks to criticize and hate. I think intolerance begins when we fear and hate weakness in ourselves, then it spreads as we attack weakness in others.
Questions
1. What was the general and specific time and place?
2. What was unhealthy about the booth? Why caused Grete to feel faint? What was generally trouble her?
3. What showed Anshelm to be overbearing? What showed Grete's submissiveness?
4. What kind of a child was Karl? What shaped his character? How did he change when he left?
5. Was Grete made submissive by Anshelm or was she already submissive?
6. Why were the boys compared to the warriors on the screen? Why was Grete so frightened when they make the Nazi salute?
7. Why did Anshelm hide the letters? How did Grete learn about it? How did she find his deeper secret? How did Karl?
8. Why did Grete think that Anshelm still controlled Karl?
9. Explain Grete smashing the glass. What did glass symbolize?
Answers
1. The general setting was February, 1962 on Winnipeg's Main Street. The specific setting was afternoon in The Spectacle.
2. The booth was airless. The cards upset her, especially when one damaged the paint. She was worried about Karl.
3. He wanted her booth kept shut, he searched roughly for his cigarettes, criticized Doris, and kept everyone away from his booth. Grete obeyed him, feared to confront him even about the mail When they first met she was in awe of him.
4. Karl was silent, distant and stayed in his room perhaps because his father undermined his confidence. He became expressive and daring once he was on his own.
5. Grete was submissive about her religion. Anshelm took over; he kept her submissive and "locked up".
6. The boys were potentially just as violent and barbaric. The salute linked that violence with Nazism. It mocked her background while at the same time threatening her with the same violence.
7. Anshelm hid the mail to repress Karl's accusations that he was a Nazi collaborator. Grete realized he took them from the mail carrier. She found them with the film which proved his involvement. Karl found out from Helmut.
8. She felt Anshelm infected Karl with anger and judgement. Karl was obsessed with opposing his father's attitudes and thus distracted from his developing relationship with Grete.,
9. Grete was suffocated by her submission to Anshelm. The glass of the booth sealed off her air. The glass of Anshelm's camera symbolized his cold, distant and judgemental attitude. This combined in a glass window painted with the Nazi symbol. From her view of that window, the symbol covered Anshelm. The climactic breaking of the glass freed her.
Activities
A. Research Nazism. see The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - Wm Shirer (also in video), The Holocaust by Martin Gilbert, The War Against the Jews by Lucy Davidowitz or Night - a personal account by Elie Weisel
B. Discuss or research the problem of emotional abuse. see Runaways by Jeff Artenstein. Violence in the Family by Gilda Berber or Coping With Verbal Abuse by Janet Grosshandler
C. Bring to trial or debate the punishment for war crimes or specifically consider Anshelm's responsibility.
Background
When Karl visited Berlin in early 1962, the Berlin Wall had just been raised by the Communists which occupied East Germany. The wall stopped people from escaping to the democratic west.
Hamburg, a German port, and the Klatt family's city, was nearly levelled by bombs during the war. Grete's medieval Catholic church was one of many that were destroyed.
Few Jews in Germany survived the Nazis. Of the very few who stayed, the children had a terrible time being accepted. Reuven's troubled character was molded by such a situation.
Morocco is an Arab country in North Africa, south of Spain. Marakesh is an ancient walled city with an open market place.
Plato, the Greek philosopher, said our reality was an illusion. He compared humanity to prisoners born chained in a cave who watch shadows of figures crossing a wall and believe it is reality. Anyone who escaped and saw the reality outside would be disbelieved or called insane. Anshelm compares his movie screen to Plato's illusory cave of shadows. By operating the projector, he feels superior to those below who merely watch the screen.
Nazism murdered six million Jews, two million Gypsies, millions of political prisoners, homosexuals, and mentally handicapped people. Nazis also enslaved millions of Eastern Europeans whom they considered inferior. While Nazis were directly responsible, many others collaborated. The Swedes were the one occupied people who united to protect their Jews. The Nazis were unable to face the Swedes' moral courage and most Swedish Jews were saved.
Secret Tongues
Author's Comments
The first part of this story always seems both painful and funny to me. There is a ridiculous side to Danny's confusion, especially when his parents bumble about with their own odd ideas. It seems to stabilize when we reach Werner though his tales confuse Danny in another way. But the third part sets a very dark mood. One can't easily laugh at Danny's not understanding the funeral ritual. All of us, young or old, are ignorant when it comes to death and might feel just as powerless approaching its door.
Questions
1. Give examples of the parents deliberately concealing information. Give examples of them confusing Danny.
2. Rita was quite open. Why was Danny confused by her?
3. Why had Danny bought the fishing rod for his father?
4. Explain how Werner's stories might encourage Danny's desire to understand the adult world.
5. Danny rushed out to enact the Ba'al Shem Tov's adventures. What have the chapel and fishing rod symbolically become?
6. What in Werner's story foreshadowed Danny's failure?
7. A story's central conflict or problem began with a complication, moved to a climax or anti-climax and ended with a resolution by the protagonist. The central theme was always present in the central conflict. Give the complication, climax or anticlimax, resolution and theme.
Answers
1. They concealed finances, family scandals, gossip, news and sex. The deaths of Beatrice and Alex, the nature of the funeral,
2. Rita was too sophisticated. He didn't know the basics.
3. The fishing rod was to appease him and possibly be a compromise to the sports that his father wanted him to play.
4. Werner's stories glorified the Ba'al Shem Tov as a hero who found great power in secret "adult" knowledge.
5. The Ba'al Shem's way of learning excited Danny into a "quest". The chapel became the Book of Adam whose ending offered something glorious, the rod became the Ba'al Shem Tov's magic cane.
6. The Ba'al Shem Tov failed to bring the Messiah. (The images of death and decay in the basement may also be foreshadows.)
7. The general problem was Danny feeling excluded from adult knowledge. The particular conflict was Danny wanting to go to Alex's funeral. His failure to get in to learn adult knowledge was the anti-climax. His resolution was a feeling of helplessness and a discovered horror of death as the door shut. (Ironically, he found some "adult" knowledge) The theme might be a search for knowledge or the pain of ignorance.
Activities
A. Discuss misconceptions you or others had as a child. Should parents tell their children everything?
B. Research different views of death and the afterlife.
C. Research mythic wisdom heroes such as the English seer, Merlin, in The Once and Future King or in the movie, "Excaliber", Elijah in the Bible, Don Juan, a contemporary Yaqui Indian medicine man, in The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Casteneda, Canadian Indian shamans, the Greek prophet, Tereiseis, the Welsh wizard Taliesin, or the Russian magician, Volga Vseslavich.
Background
The Ba'al Shem Tov, born in 1700 in Poland was a religious mystic. While he observed religious laws, he redirected his followers from the laws and Bible study to seeking God through intense ecstasy and joy. He was a healer and communicated his wisdom through songs and stories rather than preaching or lecturing. He himself became a legend with many tales about his powers and adventures. He was the inspirational founder of Hasidim. Hasidic Jews today still dress in the style of 18th century Poland. A number survived the Holocaust and live in Montreal, New York and Israel.
Each culture has different rituals of mourning. Alec would have had a Protestant funeral at the Borko Funeral Chapel. Danny imagined the chapel to be wonderful, like an entrance to a heavenly world. Coming through its basement showed him a different and disturbing "approach" to the mystery of death.
During the "shiva", the seven days of public mourning after a Jewish funeral, mirrors are covered perhaps to discourage vanity or perhaps in superstitious fear that spirits from the other world may enter through them.
POP
Author's Comments
One way to understand people is how they behave at work. We give our jobs so much of energy and almost half of our waking hours that they must affect who we are and how we deal with the rest of our lives. However, I don't think its the job that gets to Lorne. I think it's Genie though it doesn't show at first. But decide for yourself. Just because I'm the writer doesn't mean my opinion can't be challenged. The more important thing is what the story says, not what I meant it to say. It's out of my hands now and it belongs to the reader.
Questions
1. What bothered Lorne about his job? What was his ambition? What in his private life caused deeper unhappiness?
2. What connotations has the name "Pop"?
3. Why did Lorne do to anger Jimmy?
4. Lorne resented serving yet was drawn to it. How does this show as he served the boy at the pinball, Jimmy and Genie?
5. What attracted Lorne to Rita? Why would it attract him?
6. Genie was clinically depressed. What were her symptoms?
7. What stopped Lorne from leaving her?
8. What did the boys seem to think of Genie? How did that make Lorne feel about his relationship to her?
9. Lorne would not let go of the chain yet wished the dog would break free. How did these conflicting feelings express his own conflicting desires?
Answers
1. Lorne hated the grease, being called Pop, hated serving,
the brawling kids and the noise. He wanted to be an engineer.
His wife was incapacitated with a long term depression.
2. Pop connotes age, a serving father role, a silly noise.
3. Lorne gained Jimmy's trust then abandoned and betrayed him by telling the counsellor details of his private life.
4. Lorne offered the boy credit while being rude to him. He became an advisor to Jimmy then backed away. He took great care of his wife then tried to leave her.
5. He admired her free spirit. He felt so imprisoned.
6. She was unable to function, make decisions, had anxiety and suicidal thoughts.
7. She showed total dependence. She wanted him to "free her" by helping her commit suicide. His need to serve (a need to be needed) combined with fear for her and guilt to make him stay.
8. Genie appeared as a witch with Lorne under her spell.
9. Lorne had control issues. He felt he must keep control of his life (and people in it) yet hated doing it. (The result was the wound on his hand that began by losing control of Jimmy and worsened when he tried to control his desire to escape Genie) so he identified both with the master and the escaping dog.
Activities
A. Research the causes, symptoms and treatment of depression.
B. Group discussion or private writing - Have you ever felt even mildly depressed? What causes people to get depressed? What might help them to get through it?
C. Lorne, Jimmy, Rita and Genie are each described in a few lines yet their appearance and character become clear. Write a scene describing someone familiar in a specific setting and action. How does the person act and speak? Give effective details.
Background
Many people suffer a serious depression at some point in their lives. It can be caused by a traumatic experience or by a medical condition. Prolonged depression, marked by problems sleeping, eating and an inability to concentrate requires professional attention. People caring for a depressed person may also benefit from counselling in order to give effective support.
Deaf Messengers
Author's Comments
Danny doesn't really understand what he was doing in Rita's bedroom or why he confronts Mr. Nojuk. He's operating out of his unconscious urges. It is a risky business to give up so much control to the unconscious which isn't very "socialized". Danny is taken over by a dark part of himself that does some "dirty work" in the bedroom and he gets into trouble. He redeems himself by trusting a positive element of his unconscious -- his intuition.
1. How did Danny, his mother and his father have different attitudes to Rita's apartment?
2. This was June 1962, (the same day as the events in POP).It was nine months after the events described in Hidden Wishes. What happened during those months to Rita's family and to her relationship with Lorne?
3. Why did Danny's chatter about the cafe upset Rita?
4. Why did Danny wish to be like Aaron the deaf messenger?
5. Rita was still angry at her dead aunt and uncle. What did she resent about each of them? How did she try to avoid their memory? Deborah said those emotions were a natural part of Rita's mourning experience. Would you agree?
6. Why did he act that way in Rita's bedroom?
7. How did he see himself in the mirror? Explain.
8. Rita vented her anger at Danny but what really caused it?
9. Danny did not know why he shouted Rita's words at Lorne Nojuk. How was it appropriate? Approaching Nojuk's house he felt weighed down. As he ran away he felt he was flying. Explain.
Answers
1. Deborah thought it was glamorous like Rita was. Murray teased Rita that her furniture was overpriced and light weight. Because Danny felt Rita had abandoned him, he felt uncomfortable with her new home and blamed it for her changed behaviour.
2. Her aunt and uncle died. She began an affair with Nojuk.
3. We discover later that she just broken up with Lorne Nojuk which may also explain why the cafe was not open.
4. He became painfully critical of the adults' attitudes and wished to avoid them. Aaron stopped himself from "listening".
5. She hinted that Beatrice punished her harshly and was miserly. Alex was critical and verbally abusive. Rita gets rid of their house and furniture (except for the clock and carpet).
6. Danny felt he'd lost her, so he tried to reach her through her possessions.
7. Danny saw himself as an awful stranger committing a taboo. He he'd "glimpsed" a dark possessive side of himself. (He will later identify it with Nojuk in order to reject it.)
8. Danny's intrusion sparked her anger but it was Lorne Nojuk who had really misused her.
9. Danny's was released from his "heavy" guilt by redirecting it at Mr. Nojuk whom he described like the dark stranger in the mirror - dangerous and controlling. He was scape goating but in this case it was an effective though unconscious way to get rid that attitude in himself. And it delivered Rita's message.
Activities
A. A detective's challenge. Look at a person's room and that person's collection of personal objects, clothing, posters, etc. How do they offer a silent character description of the person?
B. What does your room reveal about you?
C. Imagine your parting words to someone you have positive or negative feelings about in your present or your past, alive or dead. If you had no more than twenty words, what would they be?
THE PORTRAIT
Author's Comments
It's a challenge to write believably about the experience of someone very different from oneself, in my case a woman, mother, shopkeeper in the early 1960's. Some say male writers shouldn't represent the perceptions of women or white writers represent other cultures. But a writer must take these risks and the reader must decide if the story is honest, insightful and worth the read.
Questions
1. Deborah compared her family to a magazine image. List three other examples of her concern with her image.
2. What drew Murray to the booth? Relate it to the theme of appearances.
3. Was Deborah's interest in Dean romantic? Explain.
4. Foils are characters who by comparison make the main characters look better and their weaknesses seem less serious. How was Janet a foil to Deborah? How was Dean a foil to Murray?
5. How did Deborah look in the mirror? Why was it upsetting?
6. Did the portrait solve Deborah's problem?
Answers
1. She was self conscious outside the House of Mirrors, while going through it and when facing the distorting mirror. She was concerned with her image in the shop window scene. She found a positive self image through the portrait.
2. Murray was attracted by the prize pictures of the sexy woman and successful man and by luxurious prizes.
3. Deborah saw Dean as "a poet of the people" whose insight could offer her some special image of herself. It was doubtful she'd want a physical relationship.
4. Unlike Deborah, Janet was too weak to face Dean's unfaithfulness or to face her own self image (being pregnant.) Dean was not as responsible, loyal or stable as Murray.
5. She saw three images of the female; the crippled old woman, the woman as sexual or feeding object, and the mindless child-girl. She was horrified as if that was how her son and husband wanted her to see herself.
6. It soothed her hurt feelings by being seen and drawn in a positive way. In the long term it may be a comforting lie.
Activities
A. Self Image. Collect images from ads. Do they tell us how to look and act? What relationships are shown as important? Which are ignored or mocked? What feelings are acceptable? Which are not? You might examine how we view a certain part of society; men compared to women; rich compared to poor; young people; parents; people in different jobs.
B1. Describe yourself in the third person; your appearance; habits; way of speaking and acting. B2. Make yourself into a character in a story written in the third person.
City Butchers
Author's Comment
My knowledge of the exhibition and butcher shops came from research as well as general experience. As a reporter, I'd examined "the Ex" for a feature article. Even though I had once I lived over a butcher shop, in order to write this story I interviewed a butcher and got a tour. A writer can't just fantasize a story. There's the work of carefully observing settings, objects, the way different people act and react, how they speak and listen. I always carry a notebook to record ideas or observations that I might someday set in a story.
Questions
1. Comment on two meanings of the title.
2. How did Dean's dream express his ambitions and fears? How did it foreshadow the ending?
3. Why did Dean feel no loyalty to his wife? With whom do you sympathize more?
4. How was Dean's perception at the Stein's store window different than Deborah's?
5. Why was Dean so fascinated by light?
6. What caused his breakdown?
7. What made Candy so attractive to him?
8. Why did his wound make him care about his wife and child?
Answers
1. It was the name of where he worked. It also warned of the dangers of the city. (foreshadowing Dean's knifing)
2. He feared being lost after leaving his home town, fears being trapped by his job and his wife, he desired a crowd, desired to be "in the spotlight", was ambivalent about flesh -- was horrified by butchered meat, anxious about his wife's physical changes but sang about physical desire and wanted to be an object of an audience's desire.
3. Dean felt that Janet attached herself to him and that her pregnancy was a further entrapment.
4. Dean was disappointed that she was human rather than a mannequin which has a more perfect, permanent beauty.
5. His isolated farm was separated from others by darkness.
6. His disgust with meat made him weaken under the pressures of the work and the crowd.
7. She was independent unlike his wife and looked rather cold like a doll or mannequin.
8. He appreciated their needs once he needed help and was vulnerable in "the way of all flesh" His acceptance of his own humanness was rather like a birth. He no longer tried to be a star rising above human weakness.
Activities
A. Report the stabbing as a news article. Include background and quotes by various characters involved.
B. Draw or create a collage of what you consider the important symbols and characters in the story. Explain where you place them and how you connect them.
Background
The Wheel of Fortune was originally a symbol of fate. It was connected to the cycle of the seasons, crops, rotation of sun and earth as well as the life cycle of birth, growth, maturity, decay, and death with the hope of rebirth or new life through offspring. It expressed the phases rising and falling, success and failure. It came to be connected with gambling and the wheel turned into a betting game. The Ferris Wheel takes on that same fateful quality in the story, especially since is bright with the lights that drew Dean to carnival. The midway crosses Canada each summer and is called the Red River Exhibition in Winnipeg.
Carnivals in parts of ancient Europe were festivals of wild drunkenness, promiscuity and a reversal of social order. People of importance became servants. Someone from the lower class became king or "star" of the carnival and was given every honour. When it was time to restore order, he was killed; sometimes sacrificed and his blood sprinkled on the fields to insure fertility. (for more read The Golden Bough by Fraser)
Spin Master
Author's Comments
A boy or girl breaks away from parents to become an individual in stages. Some stages are exciting and risky. Breaking free of parents' rules can also mean losing parental protection. Main Street outside my home was like a Wild West town for kids -- lots of fights. I had to fight or end up a wimp, a constant victim -- that sometimes meant facing tougher kids who'd been knocked around themselves and were out to prove that now they were tough. Unfortunately that often meant they victimized someone else, someone like me. Of course, trouble didn't just happen on Main Street. In this story it happens on a peaceful country bridge.
Questions
1. Why did Danny so badly want to catch a big fish?
2. The tangled line was like other "tangles" in Danny's life. Name another problem Danny made worse.
3. Why did the two men dynamited the river?
4. Why was losing the rod especially awful for Danny?
5. Why did Danny feel sympathy for Whiner?
6. Jack was also messing up his life. Recount an incident.
7. What was Jack doing with the knife when Danny jumped?
8. Danny submerged three times. How was each time different?
9. What tempted Danny under the water?
10.How did Danny deal with the tangles? How did he change?
Answers
1. Because of past failures he wanted to show his parents and his relatives that he could succeed.
2. His school yard fight.
3. It stunned the fish which floated up to be easily caught.
4. It was Dad's rod. He made Danny responsible for it.
5. Whiner appeared as helpless as Danny often feels.
6. Jack roughed up the mountie in a hockey game.
7. Jack was offering it to him if he'd stay quiet.
8. First he discovered the fish. The second time he felt for them. The third time he retrieved what he lost.
9. He felt tempted to give up his frustrating struggles and become passive like the dead fish.
10. He cut the "tangles" in his life. He found his will power.
Activities
A. Describe how Danny might return to face the family.
B. Consider an object you care about. What makes it important? Does it have a story? What associations does it have?
C. Discuss what charges Jack and Whiner should face. Consider reasonable punishments. Think of an alternative consequence that might discourage them from future crimes.
The Early Days of Shadowman
Author's Comments
Are writers consciously creating symbols for teachers to find in their stories? Symbolism depends on the writer. A story communicates the writer's reality and some writers simply don't see the world in symbolic ways. I do or at least I see levels of meaning and feeling which includes the symbolic so my stories may focus on that more than stories by some other writers. But these kinds of meanings are not artificial. Good writers don't "stick in" literary devices for readers to "pick out". A writer tries to create a true experience in a way that causes readers to feel and think about it. A good story brushes away the clutter so we can see actions and characters in a meaningful way.
Questions
1. Why did Danny do a yoyo trick on the post? Two reasons.
2. How did Mr. Werner and Danny misunderstand each other?
3. What did they have in common to form a friendship?
4. Though Mr. Werner got lost in his thought he also came out with remarkable insights. Discuss one that impressed you.
5. Danny performed "The Sleeper" What kind of message might this had have for Werner?
6. How did Mr. Werner's stories move Danny beyond his comic book fantasies in both pleasant and painful ways?
7. How did Werner understand his problem? How did Danny justify leaving him?
Answers
1. He did it on a dare, to prove to the world or himself that he was no longer "timid".
2. Werner misunderstood how the window broke, Danny misunderstood what an "auger" was.
3. They both daydreamed; Danny fantasized adventures. Werner recalled the past. They also liked puttering in the workshop and sharing stories.
4. There are many examples and responses.
5. Werner was "asleep" -- lost in memories. Danny woke him up with his visits and he became more clear minded.
6. Danny went from childish fantasies to his culture's folklore then learned the recent history of his people through Werner's past. Some of it was colourful and enjoyable. The last stories were painful as Werner recalled persecution and struggle.
7. Werner stated twice that his "work" was putting his memories into "order". It finally became so difficult he was exhausted and confused. Danny, using the image of the yoyo -- an symbol of his youthful spirit -- felt he could no longer draw Werner out of his sorrows and confusion.
Activities
A. This story explains how Danny first met Mr. Werner and covers their friendship from early 1961 (before the other stories in the collection begin) to the fall of 1962. The student might consider why the author provides the early information near the end rather than at the beginning of the collection.
B. What if you had partial or full amnesia? Or what if you had a sudden shift in reality and tried to live your life as it was years before? How would you cope? What would you feel?
Background
Jews suffered many persecutions over the centuries, some by peasants, some organized by governments. The ones in Eastern Europe around the turn of the century caused many Jews to immigrate. Most of those not forced out were murdered by the Nazis a couple of generations later.
There were no public schools at the time. Jews began religious study at a young age. The talented or wealthy might become scholars studying with some rabbi famous for his wisdom. There were also religious "colleges" called yeshivas.
Unions were organized by workers to be guaranteed steady work with fair pay. Union activities could be dangerous. The Winnipeg General Strike of 1917 (?) shut down most of the city for weeks. It ended in a mass arrest of union leaders. Mr. Werner had good reason to worry about his wife working for a union.
Werner's memory of a policeman on a dike of sandbags refers to the Winnipeg Flood of 1950 which threaten much of the city.
Two Spirits Had Come Dancing
Author's Comment
When I completed the other stories in the work I realized there was a missing link. I needed to explain Mr. Werner's background and to describe him becoming lost in his memories. His struggle was to parallel Danny's in "Spinmaster" when the boy was tempted in the river to give up his problems and float passively away. Danny could resist because his life lay ahead of him. Old Mr. Werner was at a different stage; he needed to work on the meaning of his past in order to accept approaching death. I wanted Mr. Werner's struggle to be both tragic and noble but it needed a focus. Then my elderly father told me a strange experience. He'd seen two spirits in his bedroom, a woman dancing with a man whose face he couldn't see. I let his tale incubate for about a week and then began this story.
Questions
1. To where was Yossel Werner travelling and why?
2. Describe the mood of the bus scene.
3. Miriam's ghost wanted Werner to make love with her in her world. What might this mean? Why did he keep refusing?
4. How long before had Werner's wife died?
5. What showed that he never fully accepted her death?
6. Why did Werner feel he could not live like his father?
7. Explain Miriam and Werner's argument over memories.
8. When Werner discovered Miriam's lover his reaction seemed surprising. Why did he embrace her dress instead of her spirit?
9. What happened to Werner's sense of reality at the end?
How was this an attempt to solve his problem?
10. Note the drawing. What might destroying the fence mean?
Answers
1. He went to his house to search for clues to his wife's lover.
2. The term black humour or existential humour could describe the grotesque quality of the sadness.
3. He stated it might be a sin but he does not fully believe it. Perhaps he was resisting the embrace of death, though here death was necessarily negative.
4. A year and eleven months before.
5. He turned the house into a shrine. He visited on the monthly anniversary of her death to listen to their music.
6. His father saw miracles. Werner felt no spiritual power so he gave up that world for Miriam and a new life in Canada.
7. Miriam wanted him to give up the past and accept the after life. By holding onto the past Werner did not have to accept change thus the loss of Miriam in his life.
8. He did not wish to reunite as spirits but with bodies.
9. He returned to a time they were together in this world.
10. The fence was a divider. Werner's unhappiness was due separations; between himself and Miriam, himself and his father, the physical and spiritual world. He wouldn't solve that by going over to the "Other side". He wanted to break down the divider.
Background
Earth, air, water and fire were thought to be the four elements of the universe in Medieval times. They made up the four humours that made up people's natures. They were the base of the twelve signs of the zodiac.
The Kaballah was a mystical philosophy that began in the late biblical period and rose to a high level in Medieval Spain and later in the Holy Land. It combines complex ideas with poetic images to reach deep sources of religious understanding. While books are publicly available, the Kaballah traditionally requires an experienced guide as a teacher.
The setting. Mr. Werner's building is between Inkster and Matheson in Winnipeg's North End where Eastern Europeans settled mainly during the great immigrations of 1885 to 1914. Mr. Werner's son moved to upper middle class River Heights in the south end. Mr. Werner's house on Stella Avenue is in the oldest part of the North End near the railway tracks. It would have been quite run down by 1961 though not a slum.
Jews and Moslems mixed with Christians in Medieval Spain to create a great culture. In 1492 (when Columbus sailed to America) Jews and Moslems were expelled to make Spain purely Christian.
Jewish Life in Eastern Europe centred in villages called shtetles. Most village homes in 1909 had no plumbing, electricity or telephone. The streets were often dirt paths. There were no cars, public libraries or schools. While most people around the Jews could not read or write, Jews had a two thousand year tradition of learning Hebrew to study Torah and various religious writings. Learning was considered a life long task and the synagogue was also a house of study. Even a labourer like Yossel Werner's father might have a high degree of religious knowledge. However, traditional beliefs also kept Jews from assimilating into the modern world because outside the community it was difficult to keep observing their hundreds of religious laws.
Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement is a fall ceremony beginning at sunset and ending at sunset. Jews pray, fast and withdraw from work and entertainment. They disavow any obligations that interfere with their devotion. They repent individual sins and the sins of the community believing that God decides on that day who will succeed or fail, live or die during the next year.
The Torah is the Holy Scroll kept in the Ark of the Covenant in each synagogue. It is a hand written record of the first five books of the Old Testament from the creation of the world to the entering of the Promised Land.
The Torah is read out each Saturday taking a year to complete. Simhat Torah celebrates the completion. Hasidic Jews often sing and dance with the Torah scrolls on that night.
"Lo, the bush was burning but was not burned up" - refers to the burning bush revealed to Moses in The Book of Exodus
THE LAST DAYS OF SHADOWMAN
Author's Comments
I wrote dozens of drafts so the book would flow as a whole from beginning to end. I spent six months after the manuscript was accepted preparing it for publication and grew very close to the characters. I ended the revisions with this story, concentrating on the beginning in which Danny breaks into a fever as he keeps "following" Mr. Werner's thoughts in his mind. Two hours after I handed in the manuscript, I went into my own high fever of 103 that lasted through the night. I dreamed especially of Danny and Mr. Werner. I suppose it was my way of saying goodbye to them and finally letting go of the book.
Questions
1. Why did Danny avoid Mr. Werner? Did it work?
2. Quote descriptions that raised our sympathy for Mr. Werner.
3. Why psychologically might Mr. Werner want the fence down?
4. How might Danny's story about the river help Mr. Werner?
5. What happened to Werner in the end? What were the clues?
6. How did Riley help Danny? How did Werner's "ghost" help?
7. Why were the comics important in the past? What changed?
8. Why did he set the fire?
9. Danny at the beginning tried to avoid his fears. What fears did he face at the end?
Answers
1. Werner's recalled upsetting stories. Danny kept thinking about him.
2. Werner's worn clothes, his struggle.
3. The fence was "in the way of everything." Werner was in his past trying to "change everything" that pained him.
4. It calmed him and distracted him from the struggle. It may also have comforted him as a parable of dying.
5. Werner died. No ambulance siren, the mother's word choices, the memorial candle.
6. He goaded Danny into recovering the comics, hummed and dried the comics. Danny imagined Werner pointing the way.
7. They offered heroes. They were ruined but Danny had outgrown them; he had new models and could tell his own stories.
8. He burnt his childish past and helped Werner get "free" of the fence.
9. He faced Werner's pain, his fear of darkness and parental disapproval over taking the comics and burning the fence.
Activities
A. Write an obituary or a eulogy for Mr. Werner.
B. Enact a scene in which an abject of great personal meaning must be destroyed. What benefit can come from this?
C. Danny and Riley become unlikely friends. Discuss what kind of experiences can turn an enemy into a friend.
D. Art project. Take photos or draw scenes to "illustrate" any story in the book.
Recommended Books
On Death and Dying Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
Teenagers Face to Face with Bereavement by Gravele and Haskins,
General Essay Question on the Book as a Whole
A. Examine how Danny grows up through the various stories.
B. Sketch the traits and development of a main character such as Mr. Werner or Rita or a secondary character such as Deborah, Murray, Dean, Pop, Alec or Beatrice.
C. Describe how Danny grows out of comic books through Mr. Werner's legends and stories into telling his own stories.
D. Consider how Danny's grew through his fascinations with different objects of symbolic power; comics, yoyo, mannequins in their window, money, the statue, the fishing rod, Jack's knife, the fence post.