![]() And in spite of all the grave themes, Welch has a subdued sense of humour that is not always obvious to "get" but that drifts back to you later. Of course, that's just the surface of the narrative, and there is a rich subtext teeming underneath with plenty of reflections and analogies around themes relating earth, man, nature, sex, direction, animals, etc., not necessarily in that order. ![]() The guy needs to thaw out, and the novel covers a few days or a week during which that process starts to take place. ![]() His brain is stuck to frozen memories like a tongue on an icicle it's too painful to just rip it off and nobody is around with the warm water. He's alternately unguided and misguided as he sluggishly tries to go forward. The young (well, 32, as he often points out) main character's life is pretty much on ice. Welch's title for this novel, his first, sets the tone. The stories just kind of happen, pulling you in (matter-of-fact, whatever) so you don't so much as plunge in but float along and finally end up thinking about them long after you've turned the last page.Īt any rate, that's the way they work on me. There is no visible effort to command your attention - no showy passages, no plot-bending events - just a slow-rolling flow of pages that sometimes don't even seem to have been written. ![]() This was my fourth James Welch novel and I still can't pin down what it is about his writing that I find so affecting. ![]()
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