FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1998 All Rights Reserved.
| BOOKS Restlessness Within the envelope of temporary warmth of a Chinook during a February in Calgary, a woman hastens to meet her own killer after having pursued others of his kind worldwide and found them wanting. Their meeting place? The stately Palliser Hotel, which serves not only as the main venue for the new novel by Aritha van Herk, but also as its topographic center. Dorcas, a courier by trade, has been trying to have herself killed for some time. A woman of the world whose memories are always accompanied by would-be assassins, she has returned to the closest thing to a center of the heart for her. Restlessness catalogues her last (?) night on Earth as a test of her killer's mettle and manners. Throughout the evening Dorcas reflects on her life, those who have made application to take it away, and her mysterious "Dear One." Her reason for ending her life is a literal take on the words "manic" and "depression" - the restlessness of the title. van Herk's prose shows a deft hand at work as the novel steps smoothly through the night and her protagonist's memory. Dorcas's internal monologue reveals a literary weariness with the world which occasionally seems inauthentic. This may be the source of her angst - if it is, kudos to van Herk on an amazing characterization. After having helped to put Calgary on the literary map, Aritha van Herk does it again, literally. Restlessness, set in Calgary, takes a walk through the downtown core, which makes the main characters seem like wraiths caught in the city's grid. Usually I'm glad the characters in novels set in cosmopolitan centres know their way around, for I am quite certain that more often than not I don't know the landmarks. So it is reassuring to find the warm ambience of Divino's vying with the concrete angularity of downtown. The last pages show a vision of what might be - Dorcas between her savior and her nemesis. "Who is who?" is not the only question one is left with after this night. And as with all great novels, direct answers seem unnecessary. Richard Jagodzinski |