Dancing at the Rascal Fair by Ivan Doig August Book Club Online

[JoanP]

 
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Dancing at the Rascal Fair by Ivan Doig

Dancing at the Rascal Fair is an authentic saga of the American experience at the turn of this century and a passionate, portrayal of the immigrants who dared to try new lives in the imposing Rocky Mountains. Ivan Doig's supple tale of landseekers unfolds into a fateful contest of the heart between Anna Ramsay and Angus McCaskill, walled apart by their obligations as they and their stormy kith and kin vie to tame the brutal, beautiful Two Medicine country. It is a story rich in detail, recounted in language that rings true, from the Scottish lilt of Lucas Barclay to the laconic speech of Stanley Meixell; above all, it is a story filled with “those word rainbows called poems.” (Barnes & Noble) "Against this masterfully evoked backdrop. Mr. Doig addresses his real subject: love between friends, between the sexes, between the generations....His is a prose as tight as a new thread and as special as handmade candy....Dancing at the Rascal Fair races with real vigor and wit and passion." Lee K. Abbott ~ The New York Times Book Review

Discussion Schedule:

August 1 ~ 5  Scotland and Helena; Gros Ventre; Medicine Lodge (about 88 pages)
August 6 ~ 14  Scotch Heaven (about 111 pages)
August 15 ~ 21  The Steaders (about 75  pages)
August 22 ~ 31  Two Medicine, 1918, 1919

*****

Some Topics for Consideration
August 22 ~ 31 

Two Medicine

1. Why does Angus say that the band of sheep grazing on the rented Blackfeet reservation land  was for Varick's benefit "in the eventual"?  Why is Rob helping with the shearing up there?

2.  Did Anna come up there with her children because she knew Angus would be there, or in spite of it?  When she agreed to see the dawn with Angus, was she agreeing to something more? 

3.  Why did Rob  bring Varick into the equation?  Do you think he came to regret his action?

4. "They look at us, our fleeceless sons, and wonder how we ever grew such awful coats of complication."  A parallel between Varick and those vulnerable sheep.  How did the teen-aged Varick respond to Uncle Rob's report? 

5.  What was Lucas thinking when he made that will?  Do you think he achieved what he wanted for each of his  "heirs"?

6. As remote as it seems, the world seems to find its way into Scotch Heaven and the lives of its inhabitants. Somewhere Professor Doig asks the question, "Can fiction bring a milieu alive more vividly than "straight" history?"  What do you think?


Related links:
1862 - the Pacific Railroad Act and the Homestead Act
Gros Ventre Indians in Montana
Ivan's Notes on his home page

Discussion Leaders:  Babi  & Joan P

[JoanP]

Mrs. Childers' letter refers to the loneliness all of these ladies must have felt. that loneliness - I'll bet she would have looked forward to these dances in Scotch Heaven, Callie.

 I wonder how many are aware of the tension when Anna and Isaac come to these dances - surely Angus feels it.  Adair must be aware of his discomfort too. don't you think?  I'm not so sure Adair feels carefree, Babi - but she doesn't want to take her place with the ladies serving the midnight meal.  She doesn't appear to even want  to be one of them.
And yet she had to have been lonely. She's determined to stay on that dance floor.  Maybe she was afraid to leave Angus with Anna...

Callie, in the beginning, wasn't Adair  going home - before Angus proposed to her?  I'll bet Lucas or Rob would have paid for her passage back to Scotland if she had asked them - to put her out of her misery.  And she certainly does not feel at home in Montana.  Isn't it always in the back of her mind that life in Scotland, no matter how difficult, would be better than the life she has here?  So what kept her?  Are we to conclude that it was Angus who was determined to make their baby - and that it was his determination that worked?  That was the second time he took things into his own hands.
I loved the way he stood up to her refusal to get on the horse.  He wouldn't take her "no" for an answer - just plopped her on Scorpion and off she went. 

[JoanP]

 Some of you have made it clear that you are more interested in the historical context than in these love relationships.    I can see where you would get tired of Angus' ongoing infatuation with Anna.  I feel his pain -   Why doesn't he appreciate what he has?   The really sad thing is, he isn't able to let it go.  I don't even care about Anna any more.  She has settled into her life with her husband and her children.  She's left her past behind - I think.

 - Doig surely sets his story into the historical context - the past, the Blackfeet - and now the present.  We're all aware how near they are to Glacier National Park.  In this chapter,  Forest Ranger, Stanley Meixel arrives on the scene, posing a threat to the the ranchers of Scotch Heaven.  I'm interested to know more about Teddy Roosevelt's actual orders regarding the  grazing rights on the  free range surrounding the settlement?  Did you catch the humor in Doig's question about that land always being "free range"?

Mippy, who likes history, we're looking forward to hearing from you on Teddy Roosevelt's interest in preservation...

[JoanR]

About that free range - if every sheepherder would take his flock there, how do they keep the flocks separate?  It would take more than 2 or 3 men to keep a thousand or more animals in one cluster, I would think.  And how did they tell one herder's sheep from another?

On our trips to the British Isles, we noticed many flocks of sheep grazing unattended in the hills and fields.  Many of them had splashes of color - red, blue green - on their backs.  Did that identify ownership - or what?

You're right, I'm afraid, JoanP - I have grown a bit tired of the Anna-Adair thing and am much more interested in how life was carried on in the homesteads.  They must have grown much of their food.  How could Angus deal with teaching school, tilling his land (I'm sure that tiny Adair didn't push any plow) , tending a thousand or more sheep, caring for his horse and - what about the chickens?  Would they have had a cow for milk?  I don't remember reading about one although I could have misremembered that!

Perhaps these "steads" weren't largely self-sustaining at all and all supplies would then have come from town.  Another time-consuming task since it involved a long wagon ride.

[salan]

Oh, the changes that would occur to this land between 1908-1910....Can you imagine Rob's response to the park ranger's statement that the land designated as a national forest would no longer be free range??  The Rob's and the Williams of this world with their hunger for more sheep and more cattle would eventually over-graze and abuse this land if no restrictions were placed on it.  They simply couldn't imagine that this vast land could be over used.  They wouldn't even think about it until it was too late.

In a way, it kind of reminds me of the problems that we, in TX, are now having with our water supply.  I never realized how much I "wasted" until we were asked to curtail our useage.  Water is always something I assumed would be there.....
Sally

[Mippy]

Here's a brief link about TR and Conservation.  He encouraged a great number of National parks and forests, not only Glacier National.  I'll try to look for more detail later, if I can find any:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Theodore_Roosevelt#Conservation

[Babi]

 Adair's hunger for the dance floor can't have been fear of leaving Angus loose,
JOAN. She was dancing with everyone.
  I believe it helped Adair to realize that Angus' insistence on her learning
to ride was due to his concern for her. He did care about her; he just couldn't
give her what he had already given to Anna.

  With that year, 1893, came the first sobering discovery of a
year that was "the sour kind that we handn't known was in the calendar of
America'.   The prices of wool and lambs was dropping and the young men are
still struggling with the debt owed Lucas.  So, though unexpected, the wage
Angus earned as a schoolmaster would be useful. But how little he knows about
the history and geography of America. Scotland, now, that's a different matter.

Did you enjoy 'Angus' describing the students of his 'minnow school'. Here Doig
makes it all so real that I have to remind myself that this book is fiction.
Don't you find that this author makes his characters and places come so alive
you come to accept them are real?

 If I'm remembering correctly, JOANR, the only crop Angus had..other than
Adair's kitchen garden..was hay. I'm really ignorant about farming. Do you
have to plow and plant hay?  Or is it just overgown grass?

 In the 'quote' from a Gros Ventre Weekly Gleaner in May of 1909, there is
a line that hints at the sometimes misleading role of business in luring in
settlers. "Nearest us, a Paris of the prairie called Valier already exists on the
maps the irrigation company is providing to hopeful immigrants, and there can even be found in the townsite vicinity occasional buildings which, if rounded up and
bedded down, may constitute some sort of a town eventually."

[JoanP]

Sally, you asked about Rob's response   to the park ranger's statement that the land designated as a national forest would no longer be free range.   As you in Texas have always assumed water will always be there - Rob, Angus and those in Scotch Heaven can't  imagine that this vast land could be over used."  I had to smile at their belief in "free range" - assuming it had always been "free."  Ask the Blackfeet what they think of free range.  I wonder what the Blackfeet thought of restrictions of land use.

JoanR - "About that free range - if every sheepherder would take his flock there, how do they keep the flocks separate? You may have answered your own question about keeping sheep separate - with the different color paint on each band.  Right now though, it seems that only Rob and Angus are grazing their sheep there - along with Double W cattle.  Isn't  that the problem?  And don't the number of cattle seem to be growing -   outnumbering the sheep?  This seems to be a problem in the making - even before the Ranger appears on the scene.

[JoanP]

Mippy - quite an interesting link - and fits in perfectly with what we are reading:

"The history of the Forest Service has been fraught with controversy, as various interests and national values have grappled with the appropriate management of the many resources within the forests. These values and resources include grazing, timber, mining, recreation, wildlife habitat, and wilderness."

I don't think Scotch Heaven has any ground to stand up to TeddyR and the US government -

 

[JoanP]

BABI - "Don't you find that this author makes his characters and places come so alive
you come to accept them are real?"
   Yes, I do.  Maybe that's why I can't let go of the characters - and their relationships.  They feel so real.  I have to keep asking whether Ivan D. is basing them on characters with whom he is quite familiar.  And I love the children in Angus' schoolroom too!

- I'm  ignorant about farming too. Is Hay just overgown grass?  I'm going to guess that hay is overgrown grass.  I'm guessing too that the reason Valier is growing is because of irrigation in the area.  
Valier - doesn't that sound familiar?  Isn't that where Ivan Doig went to high school?  Valier survived  - possibly due to irrigation.  You don't see Gros Ventre on maps any more.  Granted, a fictional town - but still, I'll bet we are provided a reason it failed - by the end of the book.  Lack of irrigation?  We'll see.   It has grown to the point that it has a weekly newspaper now...
JoanR, I try to picture Adair - as a real homestead wife -  in her garden, milking the cow, cleaning the hen house in-between games of Solitaire - without success.  You ask a good question.  Are the homesteads self-sufficient?  I suppose they could get provisions in Gros Ventre - or exchange products with neighbors. 

[Mippy]

Here's an op-ed article by the Governor of Montana, which ties in to the question of the importance of ranchers being self-sufficient:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/19/opinion/cutting-costs-the-montana-way.html?ref=todayspaper

[Babi]

What do you think of this statement? "Straight paths simply are not in people."  And this, "Time to be honest, said the thief in the noose."
 Hurray for Mr. Schweitzer! Thanks, MIPPY.  "For one thing, we challenge every expense. If it isn’t absolutely necessary, we eliminate it."  I would definitely
recommend that one to Washington and all the congressional reps.

   I am pleased to see evidence that Angus does care for Adair, though he cannot
love her as he loves Anna.  When the lamp glass shatters he is frantic to be assured
she is uninjured. Thinking of her vulnerability when he will be away so much, he
insists that she learn to ride a horse. Initially, she resists, and Adair's powers
of resistance are formidable. As Angus writes, he wishes he "knew how to snipper Barclay stubbornness into five-foot chunks to sell as crowbars."  All it really takes to persuade her, tho', is hearing that it is his concern for her that makes him insist.
  "Dair, I'm afraid for you.  I could never stand it if something happened to you
on account of marrying me."

  When Adair miscarried, Angus felt that Adair really needed that child to help her
deal with the isolation; that she would be a different, happier woman.

"I had lost my own best self when Anna spurned our life together. How many possibles are in us?  How many can we afford to lose?"

[PatH]

The loss of the child hit both of them hard.  The many children they both wanted would have strengthened the marriage a lot.

Each of them married the other as a sort of compromise, to get what they could out of life, when they couldn't have what they really wanted.  They weren't lucky, didn't get as much as they hoped, but they didn't get zero either.  There was affection, clearly on Angus' side, less clear in Adair.  They did eventually have one wonderful child.  They got companionship, weren't alone, even if they were always slightly strangers to each other.

And even when their marriage was most remote, they both enjoyed their physical relationship.  That part of their marriage was a success.

[PatH]

What a contrast between Rob and Angus in their reaction to the two big changes: formation of the Forest Reserve and arrival of the new wave of farmer-homesteaders.

Rob is dismayed at the loss of grazing land, which will keep him from increasing his flock.  He sees the new settlers as a business opportunity.  He can make money by helping them choose their tracts.

Angus doesn't like losing the grazing, but feels conservation is right and important in conserving the land he loves so much.  He takes a risk in secretly giving the forest ranger the information he needs to present his case in a way that will be accepted.  He is appalled at the idea of helping the naive would-be farmers to settle where there life will be so marginal.  He does it anyway, because he needs the money, but can't stick it for long.  (He isn't really cheating them, since he's helping them pick the best of their unsatisfactory options, but he can't feel good about it.)

I wonder what it would be like later on to be surrounded by people who could blame their unsatisfactory life on you?

[Mippy]

PatH ~ I agree, the opening of the National Forest hit different people in different ways!  Our author masterfully uses this time to contrast Rob and Angus' personalities.
   
We've seen similar reactions by property owners in the 20th century when states or towns took property by eminent domain.  Here's a Wiki link with a review of the constitutional law on the subject:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain#United_States

[JoanP]

Good morning, Mippy!  You've got an early start, today.  Good for you!
And thank you for the two articles -

Hope everyone had a chance to read the Montana governor's comments -  "Treat your ranchhands with respect."   He cut his own salary before he' would cut the ranchhand's.  You can bet Doig enjoyed that article. (Were you surprised to learn that Doig lives in Seattle now?  Montana winters too much for him - or his wife? )

You can understand the shock among the ranchers in Scotch Heaven when it appeared the Ranger, the US government was stepping in to take the grazing land they had always assumed was "free" -
This from the Constitutional Law link provided by Mippy this morning:

"In the early years, unimproved land could be taken without compensation; this practice was accepted because land was so abundant that it could be cheaply replaced."

As far as I can see, Angus was the only one who sat down with Stanley Meixell to try to understand why they had to start conserving - or there would be nothing left.  And it was Angus who put two and two together - that the only way the ranchers would understand this concept - if the cattle allotment on the grazing land was cut back considerably - They all knew that Williamson's cattle grazing was getting out of hand.

Would you say that Angus is taking over the leadership role in Scotch Heaven - or are the ranchers unaware of the part he played in getting the acceptance for the ranger's allotment plan?

I'd be interested to know who Vernon Carstensen is - the dedication:
For Vernon Carstensen
Who Saw the Patterns On the Land

[JoanP]

Found out who Vernon Carstensen was - a Professor at the University of Washington -  In the back of the book there are notes on Ivan Doig - who holds a Ph. D in history from the University of Washington.  Here's Carstensen's paper on Patterns on the American Land - Interesting reading -

If you don't have time - or the inclination to read the whole thing - if you scroll to page 10 you move on from the Land Ordinance of 1785, which provided for the rectangular survey of the public domain - which governed the distribution of  a vast territory before it was even occupied.  Carstensen writes of intruders, squatters who argued that occupation of the land gave them title to it.  Now we know how the ranchers of Scotch Heaven reacted when the US government stepped in and told them otherwise.  

[JoanP]

PatH - it seems we are seeing a pattern, doesn't it?  Angus takes the high road - doing what is right, even when he stands to lose.  Rob always with his eye on personal profit -
This becomes really clear as you pointed out - in their reaction to the proposal for the forest reserve and then again in the land-locator scheme with the and arrival of the new farmer-homesteaders.

Are they too stereotypical - or do you see Doig blurring the lines a bit, now and then?  I'm thinking of the quote Babi brought up yesterday - "Straight paths simply are not in people."  Do you see Angus always on the "straight and narrow"?

I'm still thinking of JoanR's question - about farming in this area - and whether the homesteads can be self-sustaining - especially the new Steaders.

[Babi]

 PatH, it is beginning to look to me as tho' Rob looks on most things as a business
opportunity, and thinks Angus is dumb because he doesn't. He seems to have a great
need to be rich, successful. Do you suppose, with his great charm and gifts, he found
his 'inferior' status in Scotland too galling to be borne?

  Varick Alexander McCaskill, the answer to prayer, the rescuer of a marriage.
 Rob: "You just don't know how lucky you are, Angus."   Angus: "I maybe have some
idea of it, Rob."]/i]

 Stanley Meixell, the living harbinger of a changing way of life.  Fencing in the
mountains?  Is it even possible?!  "A fence around the mountain, not to control them,
but us. Did we need that? Most, no. But some, yes."  The Double W burying the meadows
in cows. Rob with his desire for ever more and more sheep.
  
 I hadn't realized how much we owe to Teddy Roosevelt for protecting the land with
his national forests.
 

[BarbStAubrey]

Whew I have a lot of reading to catch up - started the book back when it was first suggested but only read the first chapter - I have read all the posts -

Notice y'all had a short discussion about growing Hay. Hay is planted from seed - it is a very labor intensive crop - you have to till the soil down to get at and remove the roots of any weeds or invasive grasses or any past grain that may have been planted in a field that had been harvested the year before. Back in this time in history the plows did not dig as deeply so there was a lot of bending to pick out those weeds that the plow did not loosen the root. Then to help protect the hay seed so it will have a chance to crowd out any weed seed that blows into the field during those early days of germination a farmer usually plants some Oats with the Hay seed - Back then I am sure it was like the paintings we have seen of men and women with large aprons held in front of them as they caste seed out with their other hand.

If Hay is harvested with swaths of weeds in it then there is a limit as to what animals can eat the Hay and therefore the value of the hay bail is greatly reduced.  

[JoanP]

Hey, Barb!  With some words on HAY ~ so would you say it's like grass - not needing much depth of soil?  This land really doesn't look good for planting - I'm not sure anyone takes the time or expends the energy weeding either.  Of course with the draught, everything is drying up - weeds and all.  Poor sheep.  Sheep don't eat weeds? I didn't think they were that choosey.

So happy you've joined us.  The next chapters are real page-turners.  I'm sure you will catch up in no time.  You are in for quite a story.  Look forward to hearing your take on it.

- "Rob looks on most things as a business
opportunity, and thinks Angus is dumb because he doesn't."  Babi  Hmm - how would you say Angus regards Rob?  And Lucas?  Are he and his nephew of the same cloth?

I'm trying to think back to the time the boys left Scotland.  Were they both leaving with the same expectation?  Wealth from the silver mines - or land?

[PatH]

Barb, I had no idea it was so much work to grow hay.

JoanP, Patterns on the American Land is a really interesting article.  Shows a wry sense of humor, too.  I read the whole thing.  Angus measures out the sides of claims by counting revolutions of his wagon wheel.  Carstenson regards that method as unacceptably sloppy. 

[BarbStAubrey]

Haven't read enough to get to the war between the cattle and the sheep grazing - but that is an issue - sheep graze to the nub leaving nothing for any animal to graze after they've been let loose on the land -  where as cattle graze leaving a layer of grass in evidence - do not yet know the story but as I recall part of the issue of limiting the grazing on Federal Land was due to cattle ranchers making the case and fighting the sheep ranchers because sheep can destroy the land by taking the grass so close that it cannot recover in time before winter and there is risk for flooding and new crevices or creeks forming when the snow melts. Where the land is very rocky - too rocky for either horses or cattle is where most cattle ranchers prefer the sheep to graze.

[Babi]

  Varick is growing up into an interesting youngster.  Not his very typical instant hero worship of the big man with the badge. Varick takes to the
Montana homesteading life joyfully, loving all of it. "..he had a capacity for being
just what he was and not caring an inch about other directions of life."

"My son, then, was steadily becoming some self that only he had the chart of." I don't think Angus realizes, but in this his son is like himself. Angus McCaskill
always remained true to himself and what he saw as right.
  I have tried, in some part, to excuse Rob's telling Varick about Anna as a brother's desire to protect his sister.  But it won't wash.  Destroying the relationship between her husband and her son is no help to Adair.  I see Rob's
action as his angry response to Angus not following his leadership in all things.
Rob was always the leader...and that's the way he wants it.  He has seriously
misunderstood Angus nature and character.
  Adair chooses not to make that trip with Angus and Varick to move the new
band of sheep up to the Blackfeet reservation.  I wish she had gone, but I can
understand in a way. I can recall a time in my marriage when I could have, and should have, gone somewhere with my husband. But I simply could not rouse myself to make the effort.  I know now, looking back, that I was depressed, but I didn't realize that until many years later.

[JoanP]

Well then, Barbara, Double W Williamson will not be happy when he hears the Ranger's plan to limit the number of cattle in the shared summer grazing land - from "hundreds of millions" to a few hundred, will he?  We don't hear from him once Stanley has announced his decision?  Did he simply leave Scotch Heaven?

PatH - I read more on vernon Carstensen in the back of the novel - in the Acknowledgements - he and Ivan Doig were friends - and talked about the novel all the time as Doig was writing it.  He says something about Carstensen being available to talk and answer his questions whenever he was needed.
In case any one missed it - Vernon Carstenson is the one to whom Doig dedicated this book - you can read his article that Pat is referring to - here:
Vernon Carstensen's "Patterns on the American Land"
I'm going to read it again - didn't read it as carefully as Pat did - missed some of the dry humor too --

PatH - I'm sure it was a sloppy measure the boys were using - but they only had limited tools, limited ways to measure the land, didn't they?
I wonder how far off the Steaders' properties were measured.  Not only was it "sloppily" measured, but it wasn't very good land at that.  What could they do with it?  Solid rock beneath, wasn't it?  I guess I can understand how Angus got into the land locator business.  He's got another mouth to feed now.  Amazing what  that'll do to ones conscience.
As some of you pointed out - it's not as if he's scamming the Steaders.  He just can't convince them that they won't be able to make a living out there.
What do you think - Angus and Adair have the son they prayed for.   And Anna has two children of her own.  Would you think the situation erased all hope of changing partners once and for all?

Babi tells me that she has lots of notes, and quotable quotes from the Steaders.  We'll move on tomorrow to Two Medicine - but please, feel free to refer to anything from the pages before.  Oh, and let's tread softly into the final chapters...so much happens.  Let's just limit our discussion to the Two Medicine chapters for a few days - until others have indicated they have caught up - especially Barbara.

[BarbStAubrey]

still catching up - I see in the book it was wild hay - I have heard how the plains was a sea of grasses with a strong, deep, entangled root system that not only held the earth but choked out invading weeds - with that wind that is described in the book it really must have been a very effective natural protection to keeping pure various swaths of grasses.

On page 45 there was a line I had to stop and read several times it was so beautiful - "I could feel the slowing of the day; a shadowless truce while light speaks to time."

So far I am seeing the two personalities as representing the two kinds of immigrants that settled this nation - the opportunists much like an investor today however, a dreamer - Which reminds me of the Samuel Johnson quote, "The pleasure of expecting enjoyment is often greater than that of obtaining it, and the completion of almost every wish is found a disappointment." and there in lies the impulse to move on the the next dream -

The other, the worker looking for a certain morality and ethic who lives in the now with ties to the arts and recognizes beauty. The saying that the ethical and moral worker reminds me of, that I would like to whisper in Angus's ear is - "Happiness is not something ready made. If your happiness depends on what somebody else does, you have a problem."

I see in both the wonders of character that made this nation and the dark side of each that continues our struggle living and governing this nation. In addition the 'Land' appears to be a character in this story - it is described as if a fashion designer is explaining the lines, workmenship and affect of a new Paris creation - and the temperment of the land is affecting both the dreamer and the worker - almost like the Trinity - God the father the dreamer - Jesus the worker - the Holy Spirit the land.

I must say though, constantly reading how hard the work and how hard they worked - sheesh the old proverb keeps popping into my head - "The tiredness leaves but the profit remains."

And Nancy - the perfect metaphor to how we treated those we made powerless in our quest for greater personal oppontunity... we took and took and kept on taking.

Well, again my thoughts may change as I get deeper into the story - I keep wondering what each of our deviding line is - where is it that we come from our past and where we are embracing a future. Age or not, I think we keep doing this in our lives - in many ways I can see we emigrate from our past and immigrate to our dreamed of future. Is it a morning event - or an event in our lives where there was a large shift --- interesting to contemplate.

Oh yes, one more - I noticed they arrived before Ellis Island was the point of debarkation - this is a nice link the history of how Castle Garden became established as a central point of debarkation.

[Babi]

 BARB, thanks for those comments on the native grass/hay. I didn't understand the
significance of all that until you pointed it out. Isn't nature a constant marvel?! And Doig's
writing has been a constant delight.
  Some of my favorites... "..as merry as thick jam on thin bread." And I love the way his earnest desire to be of service to Anna was expressed. "Anything, anything. Wheelbarrowing a mountain from here to there. Putting socks on snakes." 
  Another delicious line: "You can't but admit that a land of both John Knox and Robert Burns is nimble..."   And such great verbal pictures. "..the naked affronted ewe, stark as glass knickers.. "

   

[salan]

I'm confused.  Where are we in the book, now?  I m beginning 1918.  Am I caught up, or ahead?
Sally

[JoanP]

Good morning, Sally.  We're down in NC for the next few days, celebrating granddaughter's birthday - her 10th!  Where has the time gone.  I thought I was able to access the Internet from the motel where we are staying - kept getting frozen at the motel's home page - and no one on duty was able to figure out why.  I'm finally on this morning with the help of...well, you don't want to hear all this.  I plan to get in later this morning, grandchildren permitting.

In the meantime - Babi will be here with you, I'm sure.
Sally, if you look at the heading, you will see that you are just about right on schedule.  Because everyone hasn't finished the book, we're spending the next few days discussing only the first of those three final chapters - "Two Medicine" - so we don't spoil the ending for others.

Still can't figure out Anna - Did she come up there to the remote Indian reservation with her children because she knew Angus would be there, or in spite of it?  

Later!

[Babi]

 Joan, Anna was on her way somewhere else,  and while the camp was a logical place to
stay overnight, I don't think it was on her direct route.  Still, it is reasonable to spend an
evening with company than out on the prairie alone. From my impression of ANNA, tho', I
really think she stopped there because she was curious to see Angus again. She finds that Angus has not changed at all concerning her. He announces himself prepared to trounce anyone dares say a word against her. "You would, too, wouldn't you, Angus.  In spite of
everything, you would."
 Frankly, the survival of this bond in Angus after all the years puzzles me. I could understand some nostalgia for a youthful love and hope, but now there are years with Adair in the closest of all relationships. Why cannot he value her more?

I had to stop and smile at the quotation Angus' applied to his son; "He'll have misfortunes great and small! He'll be a credit to us all."

We are introduced to Lisabeth. Anna's daughter.  She looks like her mother. She weighs matters much as Anna does. Angus: "I watched her go in a gait of grace that was more than a girl's. Lisabeth was, what, fourteen now, and womanhood had its next priestess arriving."

[BarbStAubrey]

Finished the book last night so I will hold my comments till we are summing up the entire story...

[JoanP]

I've got a son who lives and works in Central Virginian - his 80 year old office building  had to be evacuated this afternoon - mighty tremors.  They're not used to earthquakes in this part of the country.  Had to shut down two or more power plants nearby.

Another son vacationing on the Outer Banks in North Carolina felt the tremors all the way out there.  They are expecting to be evacuated before their week is up as Hurricane Irene aims directly at them.

My family from all over is emailing us here in North Carolina to see  if we're all right,  We don't know what's going on at home in Arlington.  Our house is about a mile from the Pentagon - I hear that the tremors were felt in DC - and that pipes burst and there was quite a bit of flooding and damage there.  Don't know what happened to our house...


It seems that when Anna agreed to meet with Angus at dawn, she was telling him that she wanted to talk to him alone - perhaps to continue that conversation they were having at lunch at Valier that day.  Funny, it was Rob who discovered them - both times, wasn't it?  I guess you can't blame him for thinking they meet on a regular basis.  No wonder he got so mad.  But why did he have to go and tell Varick about them?  Why not talk to Adair if he felt he had to talk to someone.

[JoanP]

Frankly, the survival of this bond in Angus after all the years puzzles me.  Babi

Babi - unless one is caught in this mind-set as Angus seems to be, it is bond to be puzzling. I'll bet it puzzles Anna too - and Adair!  It is clear by now that he is not going to act on these feelings, so Adair seems to have learned to live with it.  She knows he can't help himself.  Maybe it's comforting to Anna to - to know that she is still desirable - and has other options in case she tires of life with Isaac.  But does she?  Isn't it impossible to think of Angus leading another life with Anna?  He'd have to leave Scotch Heaven, wouldn't he?  Leave Varick and Adair too.  I don't think he'd do it - even if Anna turned to him.
I think Doig is writing a story of an atypical attachment - which is not to be understood, but simply to be accepted.  I'm so sorry for Angus.  

I've made several notes here - on those sheared sheep - "betrayed and dismayed."  What an apt description of Varick - after Rob dropped the news on him.  Still wondering why Rob fleeced him like that!  No feeling for the boy - just wanting to hurt Angus.  I don't get that at all.

[Babi]

What Rob does is unforgiveable. Sure that Angus is betraying Adair, he tells Varick, driving a wedge between father and son. Varick is stunned, judgmental as only the young can be. He will have nothing further to do with his father.
 He is going to leave home.  He will spend the school year in town and the summers with the forest ranger.  Angus knew he meant it. "..you could put collect all the pretense in Varick on an eyelash; he was like Adair in that."
 I like Varick so much.  His reaction is understandable in one so young, and in so many ways he
shows the best of both Angus and Adair.   Doig says it so well.  "They look at us, our fleeceless sons ---and for all I knew, daughters..at the precise time when they least know how to give."

  And the other result of Rob's action?  "In less time than is required to tell it, Rob and I took apart twenty-four years of partnership." And Angus is left bereft.  "Varick, Adair, Rob, Anna as ever--each had extracted from my life whatever portions of themselves
it suited them to, and I knew nothing to do but try to trudge along with whatever was left."

[Babi]

 Oh, and BARB, please do continue to comment.  If you're concerned about getting too far ahead
simply comment on what you find posted.  Personally, I seem to run behind.    (That's me,
panting to catch up.)

[BarbStAubrey]

Babi I have an over-all arching concept of the story so that talking about each incident or character without sharing my over all concept is difficult - however, thoughts on Anna -

The way I see it is just because she wants to talk to Angus out of the earshot of her children and the others in camp does not mean anything unless we want it to mean something just as Angus wants it to mean something -

As to why he hung onto Anna - my take is except for the night in the school when they were young all the attachment Angus has is from his imagination or day dreaming - she made her choice - granted without very much explanation why she made her choice -

Angus can imagine all he wants that it was a choice because of her parents or any other reason he fantasizes but she made her choice.  After her choice she is not going to cut him off and she knows how he feels and does not want to add to his hurt - How would you handle this sort of situation looking at it from her point of view where they live not far from each other and share a similar profession that will put them in contact with each other.

As to why Angus kept the fantasy alive - I have several ideas - but the big one - she is like the angle on the Christmas tree - we know that if we have an unsatisfactory relationship with a parent as a child we often marry someone similar to that parent to try and fix or get what we didn't from that parent. And finally, the abandonment that goes with loosing parents at a young age.

I think Anna was the emotional pull that was going to fix in Angus the feelings of abandonment he felt not only from his parents who were not there for him when they were wrapped up in their own war and the abandonment he probably never realized was there but he does talk about his one sister who may have been the one he turned to when his mother was emotionally unavailable when she was so wrapped up in fighting her war like marriage.

When we really look at the attachment Angus has with Anna it is mostly his dream of how it will be while he waited that summer and like any dream we have for ourselves about life it stays until we either change our dream or it looses its luster.

As to Adair - she was thrust upon him and he simply turned to her partly knowing it was expected and partly because he was in such pain and marrying Adair would help soothe the pain -

I think he saw Adair as Rob's kid sister - nice but no sparks - however, what I see is, Angus loved Adair as a verb where Anna was someone he was in love with - a one sided emotion that was his dream - it had no legs - no action -

He did not want to hurt Adair and more he was aware from the kiss at his wedding she loved him passionately - Angus was enough of a poet lover of life and a life force to not want to hurt her and to treat with respect that passion. As they marched through life he admired her and was comfortable with her and because of his active verb love to her there was a union in this marriage minus Angus having his dream or life goal met - Adair was not enough like any women in his family to help him either fix his inner pain or to be the surrogate that allowed him to do it again as if he could control things to make it come out differently.

[Mippy]

Aside:  we felt the earthquake here at Cape Cod, too.  No damage anywhere has been reported in the local paper.   Hope all of you are ok!

I've finished the book, so I'm holding back on comments, as spoilers might slip out.
More out-of-town company is coming, so I might be here even less for the next week.

[BarbStAubrey]

Interesting in that I found Valier which is also where the author lived as a child - and not too far away there is Choteau - however going west the other names in the book must be fictitious since they do not show up on the map.

This look at the map though can be zoomed in and using the 'little yellow man' you can drive up and down the streets of Valier and then turn west into the Flathead National Forest which is more than likely the memory that Ivan Doig was working with when he described some of the land.
http://tinyurl.com/3d8zf37

I did find Gros Ventre which has also recently been made into a park however, it is located in Wyoming near Jackson Hole.  
http://www.free-press.biz/Jackson-Hole-WY/Gros-Ventre-River.html

And this site is precious - if you do not want to read - there is a lot to read - at least scroll and look at these photos - some of the names are so similar to those in our story you have to wonder - there is the log school and the Adair's - just fun to see...
http://www.foresthistory.org/ASPNET/Publications/region/1/flathead/chap11.htm

[CallieOK]

Barb, those are great links and so appropriate for this book.  I hadn't thought about using Google maps for seeing the area via "street view", even though I've used that many times.  I followed my son/family's adventure in New York City along the streets from their hotel - could even look waaay up at the skyscrapers.
Thank you for providing them.

[JoanP]

Oh Mippy, you may not have experienced the earthquake on Cape Cod, but it looks as if Irene means trouble for your area.  Are you making preparations to evacuate at all?  Stay safe!  My son looked forward to his vacation with his family on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  Just arrived there on Sunday.  Just this evening there was a Mandatory Evacuation order starting at 8 am tomorrow morning.

Barbara, that's the best, most satisfactory explanation of the so-called relationship between Angus and Anna. Thank you! She was his dream wife, even before Adair arrived in the area - and she continued to be his dream-mate, even after he married Adair.  But he never really intended to MAKE the dream come true - as Rob feared.  How could he, without hurting those close to him.  BUT he does not want to let go of the dream.  That's what he's asking Anna - for permission to keep the dream alive.

Babi - it's ironic, isn't it?  Rob wanted to hurt Angus.  He wanted to drive that wedge between Angus and Varick.  And then, with that accomplished - he'd drive the wedge between Angus and Adair too.  Is that what he wanted?  Rob never uses his head.  He may have sent Varick and Adair to live in town while Varick finished high school - but did he achieve a permanent estrangement between father and son?
We'll have to wait until Varick has some experience with life outside of Scoth Heaven to answer that.

Are we ready to move on to the next chapter - "1918"?