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The Watch That Ends the Night
Fiction
Paperback
First published January 1, 1958
62 people are currently reading
1608 people want to read
About the author
Hugh MacLennan
47 books76 followersJohn Hugh MacLennan was born to Dr.Samuel MacLennan, a physician, and Katherine MacQuarrie in Glace Bay; he had an older sister named Frances. His father was a stern Calvinist; his mother, creative, warm and dreamy. Hugh inherited traits from both. In 1913 they went to London where Samuel took courses for a medical specialty. When they returned to Canada, they settled briefly in Sydney, before moving permanently to Halifax where they experienced the Explosion in Dec. 1917, which Hugh later wrote about in his first published novel, Barometer Rising. He became good at sports, winning the men's N.S. double tennis championship in 1927. Both Frances and Hugh were pushed hard in their schooling by their father, especially in the Classics. Frances had no interest in these subjects, but Hugh did well in them, first at Dalhousie University, winning a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford. He worked incredibly hard there but only reached second-class. In his 4th year, he spent more and more time on tennis and writing poetry, which was not accepted by the publishers to whom he sent it.
While in Europe he traveled to Italy, Greece, Switzerland, France and Germany. While sailing home in 1932, he met his future wife, Dorothy Duncan. His father was not pleased with her American background and insisted that he not marry before becoming independent. Since he was refused a job at two Canadian universities and had a scholarship for Princeton University, he completed his Ph.D.Oxyrhynchus:An Economic and Social Study, about the decline of a Roman colony in Egypt.
He wrote two novels during those years, one set in Europe, the other in the USA. but they were never published. It was his wife, whom he married in 1936, who persuaded him to set his work in Canada, the country he knew best. He had begun teaching at Lower Canada College in Montreal. She told him, "Nobody's going to understand Canada until she evolves a literature of her own, and you're the fellow to start bringing Canadian novels up to date." Until then there had been no real tradition of Canadian literature, and MacLennan set out to define Canada for Canadians through a national novel.Barometer Rising, his novel about the social class structure of Nova Scotia and the Halifax Explosion of 1917, was published in 1941.
While in Europe he traveled to Italy, Greece, Switzerland, France and Germany. While sailing home in 1932, he met his future wife, Dorothy Duncan. His father was not pleased with her American background and insisted that he not marry before becoming independent. Since he was refused a job at two Canadian universities and had a scholarship for Princeton University, he completed his Ph.D.Oxyrhynchus:An Economic and Social Study, about the decline of a Roman colony in Egypt.
He wrote two novels during those years, one set in Europe, the other in the USA. but they were never published. It was his wife, whom he married in 1936, who persuaded him to set his work in Canada, the country he knew best. He had begun teaching at Lower Canada College in Montreal. She told him, "Nobody's going to understand Canada until she evolves a literature of her own, and you're the fellow to start bringing Canadian novels up to date." Until then there had been no real tradition of Canadian literature, and MacLennan set out to define Canada for Canadians through a national novel.Barometer Rising, his novel about the social class structure of Nova Scotia and the Halifax Explosion of 1917, was published in 1941.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 106 reviews
June 25, 2024
Why aren’t we all reading Hugh MacLennan?! First of all, thanks go to my friend Diane who pointed me towards this one with her stellar review. It took me a couple of years to get here, but, as I learned from this novel, perhaps my timing was just as it should be. There’s so much to unpack within these pages: love, friendship, marriage, faith and the loss of faith, fascism, communism, World War II, the meaning of our existence, and Montreal. The characters will stay with me much like those from a Wallace Stegner novel. So will Montreal which is treated much like a character in its own right. In fact, I’m now wondering why someone like Hugh MacLennan isn’t as widely known, at least on this site, as is Stegner. His writing is equally brilliant, in my opinion. I’ve only read this one work so far, but I’m willing to bet on the rest.
“There are some stories into which the reader should be led gently, and I think this may be one of them.”
I suspected from that first sentence that MacLennan was going to take care with his characters and his telling of their lives. I so loved the meandering nature of his story. Not meandering in a meaningless way, but rather in a way that takes us gently through the course of their lives. These lives were far from quiet, uneventful ones, however. Catherine has endured the threat of rheumatic heart disease since a child; Jerome had a childhood no one should ever have to bear. The narrator, George, walks a less tenuous course, but is caught up in the lives of these two. Yes, it’s a love triangle. But it’s a love triangle without all the hate and drama one might assume. Can a love triangle be a beautiful thing? Maybe that’s taking it a bit too far, but it was certainly very moving.
“Some people have within themselves a room so small that only a miniscule amount of the mysterious thing we call the spirit can find a home in them. Others have so much that what the world calls their characters explodes from the pressure. I think of it as a force… Catherine had more of this mysterious thing than anyone I ever knew with one exception, and the exception was Jerome Martell.”
MacLennan brings us straight to the heart of his characters. I got to know them so intimately that I had a hard time leaving them in the end. We see how they were shaped by their childhoods as well as the time into which they come of age: the 1930s. The Great Depression and the dawning of World War II play a major role in their development as well as in the plot itself. At the very beginning of the novel, MacLennan lays the groundwork for a major conflict: one of these characters has been presumed dead for years and has now resurfaced. He then moves us back in time so we can follow the events that lead up to this plot point. I liked the structure a whole lot. It added tension that leaves the reader a bit in suspense right from the start. It feels nostalgic and melancholic at times. Much is said about time and the passage of it.
“What is time anyway? The past seemed part of the present today. Time had lost its shape. Time is a cloud in which we live while the breath is in us. When was I living, now or twenty-five years ago, or in all those periods of my life simultaneously?”
I went to bed last night thinking I would sleep on this a bit and decide what more I should say. The problem is, it’s all crowding in on me, clamoring to be told. One thing I really should share is this idea of Montreal being a main character. I’m sure Hugh MacLennan can describe it much better than I.
“In those days the streets of Montreal were a kind of truth to me and I roamed them. I learned them block by block from their smells and the types I saw, I came to love the shape of the city itself, its bold masses bulging hard against the sky and the purple semi-darkness of the lower town at evening when Mount Royal was still high and clear against bright sunsets. I loved the noise of the ships booming in the harbor and along the canal to the Lakes, and the quiet little areas some said were like London but which were actually indigenous to this wise, experienced, amiably cynical town.”
Through George, the narrator, we see how the city morphs from one thing into another following the war. The characters also develop into different sorts of people, forever changed by this world war. I was swept away by their stories and can feel how they have seeped into my being now. The first and middle sections of the book had already gripped me, but the last section was astonishing. If this book sounds at all depressing, let me set that straight. It’s truly life-affirming.
“Life for a year, a month, a day or an hour is still a gift. The warmth of the sun or the caress of the air, the sight of a flower or a cloud on the wind, the possibility even for one day more to see things grow – the human bondage is also the human liberty.”
“There are some stories into which the reader should be led gently, and I think this may be one of them.”
I suspected from that first sentence that MacLennan was going to take care with his characters and his telling of their lives. I so loved the meandering nature of his story. Not meandering in a meaningless way, but rather in a way that takes us gently through the course of their lives. These lives were far from quiet, uneventful ones, however. Catherine has endured the threat of rheumatic heart disease since a child; Jerome had a childhood no one should ever have to bear. The narrator, George, walks a less tenuous course, but is caught up in the lives of these two. Yes, it’s a love triangle. But it’s a love triangle without all the hate and drama one might assume. Can a love triangle be a beautiful thing? Maybe that’s taking it a bit too far, but it was certainly very moving.
“Some people have within themselves a room so small that only a miniscule amount of the mysterious thing we call the spirit can find a home in them. Others have so much that what the world calls their characters explodes from the pressure. I think of it as a force… Catherine had more of this mysterious thing than anyone I ever knew with one exception, and the exception was Jerome Martell.”
MacLennan brings us straight to the heart of his characters. I got to know them so intimately that I had a hard time leaving them in the end. We see how they were shaped by their childhoods as well as the time into which they come of age: the 1930s. The Great Depression and the dawning of World War II play a major role in their development as well as in the plot itself. At the very beginning of the novel, MacLennan lays the groundwork for a major conflict: one of these characters has been presumed dead for years and has now resurfaced. He then moves us back in time so we can follow the events that lead up to this plot point. I liked the structure a whole lot. It added tension that leaves the reader a bit in suspense right from the start. It feels nostalgic and melancholic at times. Much is said about time and the passage of it.
“What is time anyway? The past seemed part of the present today. Time had lost its shape. Time is a cloud in which we live while the breath is in us. When was I living, now or twenty-five years ago, or in all those periods of my life simultaneously?”
I went to bed last night thinking I would sleep on this a bit and decide what more I should say. The problem is, it’s all crowding in on me, clamoring to be told. One thing I really should share is this idea of Montreal being a main character. I’m sure Hugh MacLennan can describe it much better than I.
“In those days the streets of Montreal were a kind of truth to me and I roamed them. I learned them block by block from their smells and the types I saw, I came to love the shape of the city itself, its bold masses bulging hard against the sky and the purple semi-darkness of the lower town at evening when Mount Royal was still high and clear against bright sunsets. I loved the noise of the ships booming in the harbor and along the canal to the Lakes, and the quiet little areas some said were like London but which were actually indigenous to this wise, experienced, amiably cynical town.”
Through George, the narrator, we see how the city morphs from one thing into another following the war. The characters also develop into different sorts of people, forever changed by this world war. I was swept away by their stories and can feel how they have seeped into my being now. The first and middle sections of the book had already gripped me, but the last section was astonishing. If this book sounds at all depressing, let me set that straight. It’s truly life-affirming.
“Life for a year, a month, a day or an hour is still a gift. The warmth of the sun or the caress of the air, the sight of a flower or a cloud on the wind, the possibility even for one day more to see things grow – the human bondage is also the human liberty.”
May 30, 2022
When I turned the last page of this book, I had to sit quietly for a while, not to think about what I had read, but to feel it.
"In the early October of that year, in the cathedral hush of a Quebec Indian summer with the lake drawing into its mirror the fire of the maples, it came to me that to be able to love the mystery surrounding us is the final and only sanction of human existence. What else is left but that, in the end?"
This is the story of a love triangle between one woman and two men. We get not only that, but the three childhoods that made them who they are, so the depth of understanding for each of them is deep for the reader. A complicated plot that also encompasses war and death, love and friendship, the existence of God, or not, because, if he exists, how can he hate us so much?
"The terror is simply this. God, whom we have been taught to regard as a loving Father, appears indifferent. God, whom we have been taught to regard as all-just, is manifestly unconcerned with justice as men understand the meaning of that word."
"Van Gogh painted alone and in despair and in madness and sold one picture in his entire life. Millions struggled alone, unrecognized, and struggled as heroically as any famous hero. Was it worthless? I knew it wasn't."
This book is hard to explain, but don't go into it lightly, for you may reach the end as a changed person. This is a Canadian author who was well-known there in the past, but has faded into obscurity, unfairly, I think. I had never heard of him, but I'm going to be hunting down more of his books. The setting of this book is Montreal, and it is as large a character as any of the humans. The writing is magnificent, as you can tell from the quotes above. It will make you think about the big picture as experienced by all of us.
One final quote: " It comes--to pass! That is, it comes, in order to pass."
"In the early October of that year, in the cathedral hush of a Quebec Indian summer with the lake drawing into its mirror the fire of the maples, it came to me that to be able to love the mystery surrounding us is the final and only sanction of human existence. What else is left but that, in the end?"
This is the story of a love triangle between one woman and two men. We get not only that, but the three childhoods that made them who they are, so the depth of understanding for each of them is deep for the reader. A complicated plot that also encompasses war and death, love and friendship, the existence of God, or not, because, if he exists, how can he hate us so much?
"The terror is simply this. God, whom we have been taught to regard as a loving Father, appears indifferent. God, whom we have been taught to regard as all-just, is manifestly unconcerned with justice as men understand the meaning of that word."
"Van Gogh painted alone and in despair and in madness and sold one picture in his entire life. Millions struggled alone, unrecognized, and struggled as heroically as any famous hero. Was it worthless? I knew it wasn't."
This book is hard to explain, but don't go into it lightly, for you may reach the end as a changed person. This is a Canadian author who was well-known there in the past, but has faded into obscurity, unfairly, I think. I had never heard of him, but I'm going to be hunting down more of his books. The setting of this book is Montreal, and it is as large a character as any of the humans. The writing is magnificent, as you can tell from the quotes above. It will make you think about the big picture as experienced by all of us.
One final quote: " It comes--to pass! That is, it comes, in order to pass."
November 24, 2025
Imagine it's 1951. You are in your 40's, have been happily married for 9 years to the woman you have loved since you were a teen, and have a stepdaughter whom you adore. You receive a message at work to return a phone call. When you do, it's your wife's first husband whom you thought had died during the war at the hands of the Nazis and who also happened to be your best friend. Hugh MacLennan quickly engages me and draws me into his classic novel The Watch That Ends the Night. In lesser hands this set up could have led to a bad melodrama. MacLennan skillfully uses it as a frame for his story and quickly sends me back in time to learn the backstories of his protagonists and then moves me forward to the present to bring his work to a climax.
The influences of WWI are subtle yet important here. I learn how the depression affected the growth of support for communism in Canada at the time. It is a good companion to Jess Walter's The Cold Millions which is set during this time period in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. I also enjoy how Montreal becomes a character in the story. Place does shape us, and that idea runs in the background of this tale.
MacLennan tells his tale through the stories of and relationships between Jerome--a man of action and great charisma, driven, seemingly impervious to mores and other's opinions, and impulsive-- George--reflective, slow to act, and very conscious of others and the environment he lives in--and Catherine--the epitome of women in the 1950's--beautiful, feminine, nurturing, and sympathetic. While they could be considered stock characters or maybe archetypes, none of them feel flat or stale.
MacLennan's wife Dorothy was dying of rheumatic heart disease, the condition he has given Catherine, when he wrote this novel, so it is quite likely that he is wrestling with his own feelings and beliefs as he writes.
What then is the purpose of this novel, you ask?
"Go to the musicians. In the work of a few musicians you can hear every aspect of this conflict between light and dark within the soul. You can hear all the contradictory fears, hopes, desires, and passions of Everyman fissioning and fusing into new harmonies out of the dead ones. You can hear--you can almost see--the inward process of destruction, creation, destruction again and re-creation into the last possible harmony, the only one there can be, which is a will to live, love, grow and be grateful, the determination to endure all things, suffer all things, hope all things, believe all things necessary for what our ancestors called the glory of God. To struggle and work for that, at the end, is all there is left."
In his exquisite prose, MacLennan describes the world around him, and explores the attendant feelings evoked by history and place. His outlook is surprisingly fresh and progressive. He asks some big questions. And elicits me to do the same: Where do we place our faith? What is my something larger? How am I connected to who and what is around me? What is the next direction for me to move in?
I entered this read with some trepidation as I was in the midst of a book hangover from reading Kaveh Akbar's Martyr!, also a work that asks big questions, though with a much more philosophical bent. MacLennan's novel was a good follow on that didn't disappoint.
Buddy read with and history lesson from Charles, who lives in Montreal. Read his review.
Publication 1959
The influences of WWI are subtle yet important here. I learn how the depression affected the growth of support for communism in Canada at the time. It is a good companion to Jess Walter's The Cold Millions which is set during this time period in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. I also enjoy how Montreal becomes a character in the story. Place does shape us, and that idea runs in the background of this tale.
MacLennan tells his tale through the stories of and relationships between Jerome--a man of action and great charisma, driven, seemingly impervious to mores and other's opinions, and impulsive-- George--reflective, slow to act, and very conscious of others and the environment he lives in--and Catherine--the epitome of women in the 1950's--beautiful, feminine, nurturing, and sympathetic. While they could be considered stock characters or maybe archetypes, none of them feel flat or stale.
MacLennan's wife Dorothy was dying of rheumatic heart disease, the condition he has given Catherine, when he wrote this novel, so it is quite likely that he is wrestling with his own feelings and beliefs as he writes.
What then is the purpose of this novel, you ask?
"Go to the musicians. In the work of a few musicians you can hear every aspect of this conflict between light and dark within the soul. You can hear all the contradictory fears, hopes, desires, and passions of Everyman fissioning and fusing into new harmonies out of the dead ones. You can hear--you can almost see--the inward process of destruction, creation, destruction again and re-creation into the last possible harmony, the only one there can be, which is a will to live, love, grow and be grateful, the determination to endure all things, suffer all things, hope all things, believe all things necessary for what our ancestors called the glory of God. To struggle and work for that, at the end, is all there is left."
In his exquisite prose, MacLennan describes the world around him, and explores the attendant feelings evoked by history and place. His outlook is surprisingly fresh and progressive. He asks some big questions. And elicits me to do the same: Where do we place our faith? What is my something larger? How am I connected to who and what is around me? What is the next direction for me to move in?
I entered this read with some trepidation as I was in the midst of a book hangover from reading Kaveh Akbar's Martyr!, also a work that asks big questions, though with a much more philosophical bent. MacLennan's novel was a good follow on that didn't disappoint.
Buddy read with and history lesson from Charles, who lives in Montreal. Read his review.
Publication 1959
June 29, 2022
I read this novel with such nostalgia-filled pleasure. It was like listening in on another era and being given the opportunity to understand what it was like to be an intellectual thinking humane adult in the 1930's--to anticipate the rise of fascism, to ponder the relationship between one's morals and one's need to act, and most of all, to take it all so seriously--to truly believe that ideas mattered, that human relationships mattered.
Reading this novel is like falling into a time machine. It's not exactly realistic but it reflects important issues of its time. The characters behave and speak like characters in movies before Method Acting became the norm. It was almost as if there were a patina of filmic pops and cracks over the language as I read some of the dialogue.
Everyone is white. Everyone is extremely gender-pigeonholed. Men are intellectuals and women want to stay home and have babies. The one woman in the novel who has a career and dares to have intellectual ideas is talked about openly by the other characters as being mentally ill and she meets a terrible end. Somehow these things didn't bother me as I read because again there was a sense that I was viewing the past and in a way the flaws in the story were giving me a truer picture of a way of life of people of a certain class and outlook in those times.
The physical descriptions of Montreal and Canada are stunning. Absolutely gorgeous. They made me long for more contemporary fiction that takes the time to set a scene rather than assume that I as a reader won't have patience for it.
Reading this novel is like falling into a time machine. It's not exactly realistic but it reflects important issues of its time. The characters behave and speak like characters in movies before Method Acting became the norm. It was almost as if there were a patina of filmic pops and cracks over the language as I read some of the dialogue.
Everyone is white. Everyone is extremely gender-pigeonholed. Men are intellectuals and women want to stay home and have babies. The one woman in the novel who has a career and dares to have intellectual ideas is talked about openly by the other characters as being mentally ill and she meets a terrible end. Somehow these things didn't bother me as I read because again there was a sense that I was viewing the past and in a way the flaws in the story were giving me a truer picture of a way of life of people of a certain class and outlook in those times.
The physical descriptions of Montreal and Canada are stunning. Absolutely gorgeous. They made me long for more contemporary fiction that takes the time to set a scene rather than assume that I as a reader won't have patience for it.
November 25, 2025
At the heart of this novel is your average intellectual man making emotional peace with notions of masculinity that may not always be his to embody. But that’s not a character, that’s the author. In The Watch that Ends the Night, the way he goes on to build a prodigy for a moral compass, fit for the troubled times, is breathtaking, if sometimes a touch heavy-handed.
Under protagonist George Stewart’s traits, and sharing much of his career, including as an academic, it’s with envious skill that Hugh MacLennan amalgamates imaginary pinnacles of strength and intellect into an actual second character — a wonder kid, a hero, a saint — who becomes part of George’s life under the name of Jerome Martell, both a romantic rival and George’s best friend.
George is married to Catherine, his childhood sweetheart, who was once married to Jerome after George dilly-dallied in making his advances. When Jerome disappears abroad long enough, George is given a second chance and nabs it, but then Jerome returns, and allegiances are tested.
The bigger themes are those of the times, and Montreal in the 1930s sets a lively backdrop for dreamers and doers alike as this novel opens. This is post-Great Depression, but pre-Great Darkness in Québec, and kitchen meetings around town see younger generations discuss politics, injustice, and foreign wars while privately grappling with matters of faith and personal aspirations. It struck me several times how MacLennan wrote intellectuals in an accessible way, which also displayed his own intelligence brilliantly.
By the time Jerome reappears, World War II is over, and more than just time went on. His little girl Sally has grown into a young woman, while George and Catherine have matured into their own groove, yet much is the same, at home especially. For a heart condition still has Catherine lying down for what seems like most of the time, and everyone enjoys silence and time to reflect, mountains of them; from all angles, the tick tocks run slow, and dust has essentially settled over a quiet household; George had always been around anyway, like a brother, before Jerome even left.
Jerome is a mesmerizing, godlike figure to observe in this context, where he is meant to disrupt at every turn and provide a mirror to George’s more modest endeavours. In this novel, just as George narrates his own humdrum career, a series of portraits smoothly position Jerome as a male ideal and a perfect counterpoint to his relative conformity. It works: Jerome is everything male perfume, bespoke tailors, and high-end vehicles have been advertising to the middle class to this day. Rugged, vital, and resourceful, he brightens this novel like a comet everywhere he goes. We watch him grow up in the harshest conditions, turn his life around at the youngest age, catch up in no time with the best in class, and continue his ascension professionally, winning all the hearts, beating all the odds, saving all the princesses in all the towers, always. He moves like a beast, loves with abandon, and charms up a room in no time, rubbing elbows with both activists and fellow surgeons, and dreaming of action at home and abroad. To George’s regular life, Jerome is an action man; Jerome is divine glory made earthly.
Only one of these men is Catherine’s love of her life, but whereas in other books this would spell passionate declarations and upheavals, in this novel the situation is met equally, and in fact with an eerie, enchanted peace oozing from all parties. This is very much a novel of values, religious and otherwise, and characters softly philosophize more than they throw objects, or even barbs. The author took it one step further by making the love triangle’s apparent moral Eden slightly demonstrative, parading his progressive views with enough insistence to make me notice, toying with my suspension of disbelief towards both the household and Jerome’s specific idiosyncrasies, repeatedly.
The Watch that Ends the Night explores motivations and boundaries; it examines faith and loyalty in particular, and opportunities both given and denied, as well as the old hunger for meaning within a single human lifetime.
But it also features a gifted author having fun with a larger-than-life character, giving Jerome all the gifts, all the manly attributes one can possibly pack into a human being, only to see him search for purpose like the rest.
Thanks to my buddy reader extraordinaire, Lisa, for taking the plunge with me and keeping the banter going. See her own review here.
Under protagonist George Stewart’s traits, and sharing much of his career, including as an academic, it’s with envious skill that Hugh MacLennan amalgamates imaginary pinnacles of strength and intellect into an actual second character — a wonder kid, a hero, a saint — who becomes part of George’s life under the name of Jerome Martell, both a romantic rival and George’s best friend.
George is married to Catherine, his childhood sweetheart, who was once married to Jerome after George dilly-dallied in making his advances. When Jerome disappears abroad long enough, George is given a second chance and nabs it, but then Jerome returns, and allegiances are tested.
The bigger themes are those of the times, and Montreal in the 1930s sets a lively backdrop for dreamers and doers alike as this novel opens. This is post-Great Depression, but pre-Great Darkness in Québec, and kitchen meetings around town see younger generations discuss politics, injustice, and foreign wars while privately grappling with matters of faith and personal aspirations. It struck me several times how MacLennan wrote intellectuals in an accessible way, which also displayed his own intelligence brilliantly.
By the time Jerome reappears, World War II is over, and more than just time went on. His little girl Sally has grown into a young woman, while George and Catherine have matured into their own groove, yet much is the same, at home especially. For a heart condition still has Catherine lying down for what seems like most of the time, and everyone enjoys silence and time to reflect, mountains of them; from all angles, the tick tocks run slow, and dust has essentially settled over a quiet household; George had always been around anyway, like a brother, before Jerome even left.
Jerome is a mesmerizing, godlike figure to observe in this context, where he is meant to disrupt at every turn and provide a mirror to George’s more modest endeavours. In this novel, just as George narrates his own humdrum career, a series of portraits smoothly position Jerome as a male ideal and a perfect counterpoint to his relative conformity. It works: Jerome is everything male perfume, bespoke tailors, and high-end vehicles have been advertising to the middle class to this day. Rugged, vital, and resourceful, he brightens this novel like a comet everywhere he goes. We watch him grow up in the harshest conditions, turn his life around at the youngest age, catch up in no time with the best in class, and continue his ascension professionally, winning all the hearts, beating all the odds, saving all the princesses in all the towers, always. He moves like a beast, loves with abandon, and charms up a room in no time, rubbing elbows with both activists and fellow surgeons, and dreaming of action at home and abroad. To George’s regular life, Jerome is an action man; Jerome is divine glory made earthly.
Only one of these men is Catherine’s love of her life, but whereas in other books this would spell passionate declarations and upheavals, in this novel the situation is met equally, and in fact with an eerie, enchanted peace oozing from all parties. This is very much a novel of values, religious and otherwise, and characters softly philosophize more than they throw objects, or even barbs. The author took it one step further by making the love triangle’s apparent moral Eden slightly demonstrative, parading his progressive views with enough insistence to make me notice, toying with my suspension of disbelief towards both the household and Jerome’s specific idiosyncrasies, repeatedly.
The Watch that Ends the Night explores motivations and boundaries; it examines faith and loyalty in particular, and opportunities both given and denied, as well as the old hunger for meaning within a single human lifetime.
But it also features a gifted author having fun with a larger-than-life character, giving Jerome all the gifts, all the manly attributes one can possibly pack into a human being, only to see him search for purpose like the rest.
Thanks to my buddy reader extraordinaire, Lisa, for taking the plunge with me and keeping the banter going. See her own review here.
Read
April 12, 201910/10
I finished (re)reading this some time ago but am finding time only now, to comment.
I feel like a toddler just learning her first steps, daring to venture into the world when she's so unsure.
This is one of my touchstones, when I need someplace to go.
Montreal, in winter, grounds me in a way that is inexplicable. (But I daresay you'll have to suffer through several tortured paragraphs as I nonetheless try to explain!) : )
My soul was shaped one winter long ago, in a way that has carried me, given me strength, courage, resilience, all the days of my life. I pick up this book, and I'm walking again along Avenue du Parc, shivering my way through the breadth/breath of winter to Mont Royal, carrying all my troubles in "my old kit bag". It was one of the most brutal winters Montréal had known in some time -- or so it seemed to my young self -- and seems so, still, in my mind. And I didn't know til much later that it was the most transformative one I would ever live through.
That is the beginning and the end of MacLennan's Watch. It seems that nothing happens at all; that you are only walking through the snow, in an endless loop of repetition; that it is always cold and the trees are barren; that there is only frozen obstacle after frozen obstacle to surmount; and then you wake up one day, to know that you've lived the life you always dreamed you would.
At first, you don't recognize the shapes, and the colours: but let's face it, you were only an apprentice when you started painting, and how could you have imagined, really, that the colours would turn so vivid, the lines become so abstract? But there it is: the very first dots of paint that you laid on the canvas are now plastered across huge country landscapes. Every brush stroke is recognizable.
Such is George and Catherine's story. Such is my story. And I daresay the story of so many millions of others: sometimes, the road not taken is exactly the one you shouldn't have taken after all; and all the regrets that went with the "what ifs" amount to nothing, because you are exactly where you were always meant to be.
George finds out just in time. Catherine knew all along.
The backdrop for the novel -- the political idealism that (mis)shaped the 30s and 40s -- is only a faint and distant landscape, in my mind. Though many consider it the heart of the novel, it is only faintly sketched in to contain, and give shape, to the lifeblood that flows within the main characters; and which hangs like the sword of Damocles over the lives of all of them.
Many have seen this is an existential cri de coeur for-or-against 1930s socialism (depending on which side of the line you stand), but I would barely recognize it as such, because for me it is more deeply personal, and thus more universal than any "ism" could ever be.
It is, rather, the shape of lives lived, for those who wait and watch patiently, without ever knowing that they wait and watch.
It is the one book I return to, everytime I am caught in a proverbial waiting room ... in a time of waiting ... for it always proves to me there is a point in waiting patiently.
While the bigger allegory about Canada, and our place in it, plays a tattoo in the background, for me it is only that. ... only background noise, for the humanity question rings so much harder, and truer, than simply the citizenship question.
I finished (re)reading this some time ago but am finding time only now, to comment.
I feel like a toddler just learning her first steps, daring to venture into the world when she's so unsure.
This is one of my touchstones, when I need someplace to go.
Montreal, in winter, grounds me in a way that is inexplicable. (But I daresay you'll have to suffer through several tortured paragraphs as I nonetheless try to explain!) : )
My soul was shaped one winter long ago, in a way that has carried me, given me strength, courage, resilience, all the days of my life. I pick up this book, and I'm walking again along Avenue du Parc, shivering my way through the breadth/breath of winter to Mont Royal, carrying all my troubles in "my old kit bag". It was one of the most brutal winters Montréal had known in some time -- or so it seemed to my young self -- and seems so, still, in my mind. And I didn't know til much later that it was the most transformative one I would ever live through.
That is the beginning and the end of MacLennan's Watch. It seems that nothing happens at all; that you are only walking through the snow, in an endless loop of repetition; that it is always cold and the trees are barren; that there is only frozen obstacle after frozen obstacle to surmount; and then you wake up one day, to know that you've lived the life you always dreamed you would.
At first, you don't recognize the shapes, and the colours: but let's face it, you were only an apprentice when you started painting, and how could you have imagined, really, that the colours would turn so vivid, the lines become so abstract? But there it is: the very first dots of paint that you laid on the canvas are now plastered across huge country landscapes. Every brush stroke is recognizable.
Such is George and Catherine's story. Such is my story. And I daresay the story of so many millions of others: sometimes, the road not taken is exactly the one you shouldn't have taken after all; and all the regrets that went with the "what ifs" amount to nothing, because you are exactly where you were always meant to be.
George finds out just in time. Catherine knew all along.
The backdrop for the novel -- the political idealism that (mis)shaped the 30s and 40s -- is only a faint and distant landscape, in my mind. Though many consider it the heart of the novel, it is only faintly sketched in to contain, and give shape, to the lifeblood that flows within the main characters; and which hangs like the sword of Damocles over the lives of all of them.
Many have seen this is an existential cri de coeur for-or-against 1930s socialism (depending on which side of the line you stand), but I would barely recognize it as such, because for me it is more deeply personal, and thus more universal than any "ism" could ever be.
It is, rather, the shape of lives lived, for those who wait and watch patiently, without ever knowing that they wait and watch.
It is the one book I return to, everytime I am caught in a proverbial waiting room ... in a time of waiting ... for it always proves to me there is a point in waiting patiently.
While the bigger allegory about Canada, and our place in it, plays a tattoo in the background, for me it is only that. ... only background noise, for the humanity question rings so much harder, and truer, than simply the citizenship question.
March 31, 2026
This book is a love story at its core. It is a story of a woman, Catherine, loved deeply by 2 men. Her first love was George but thanks to the Depression and his lack of self esteem, that love did not move forward. Her second love was Jerome- a larger than life personality whose very presence ignites passion in those around him. Catherine has one major factor against her- poor health due to a rheumatic heart. The author’s wife had the same condition.
When we meet George, our principal narrator, it is early 1950’s. Jerome, who has been thought dead, has reentered their lives. The author takes us back to the 1930’s and we get to know all three of our main characters. Montreal in the 1930’s comes alive within these pages- the aftermath of the Depression, the rise of Communism, all of the political happenings as well as the coming war. Our three become involved as young adults are known to do. I really felt that Hugh MacLennan knew what he was describing. He lived in Montreal at that time. Was he more George or Jerome, I wonder?
I grew up in Montreal and I loved walking the streets with George. I walked these streets in the 1970’s- I know the university he taught at. I worked in the hospital up on the hill.
“ There are some stories into which the reader should be led gently, and I think this may be one of them.”
As the opening line suggests, this is a book to wrap yourself in, meet these people, be annoyed at some of their decisions and follow this love triangle through to the last page.
A few lines I loved:
“ I don’t know how a man can describe his wife to somebody else unless he dislikes her- there is nothing like dislike to make a character appear vivid- but the very things in a woman that makes a man love her escape language.”
“ What fools we’ve all been, all us clever people. We were so sure we understood. We were so positive we knew all the answers. We’re not like the man who built his house on the sand. We’re like the man who tore down all the walls of his house in November and then had to face the winter naked>”
Such a thoughtful and thought provoking book. I loved it!
Published: 1958
When we meet George, our principal narrator, it is early 1950’s. Jerome, who has been thought dead, has reentered their lives. The author takes us back to the 1930’s and we get to know all three of our main characters. Montreal in the 1930’s comes alive within these pages- the aftermath of the Depression, the rise of Communism, all of the political happenings as well as the coming war. Our three become involved as young adults are known to do. I really felt that Hugh MacLennan knew what he was describing. He lived in Montreal at that time. Was he more George or Jerome, I wonder?
I grew up in Montreal and I loved walking the streets with George. I walked these streets in the 1970’s- I know the university he taught at. I worked in the hospital up on the hill.
“ There are some stories into which the reader should be led gently, and I think this may be one of them.”
As the opening line suggests, this is a book to wrap yourself in, meet these people, be annoyed at some of their decisions and follow this love triangle through to the last page.
A few lines I loved:
“ I don’t know how a man can describe his wife to somebody else unless he dislikes her- there is nothing like dislike to make a character appear vivid- but the very things in a woman that makes a man love her escape language.”
“ What fools we’ve all been, all us clever people. We were so sure we understood. We were so positive we knew all the answers. We’re not like the man who built his house on the sand. We’re like the man who tore down all the walls of his house in November and then had to face the winter naked>”
Such a thoughtful and thought provoking book. I loved it!
Published: 1958
June 23, 2022
After an unexpectedly transcendent experience with Two Solitudes this past winter, I knew I wanted to read more Hugh MacLennan. And this confirms my belief that he was a talented writer and unjustly forgotten.
MacLennan paints on a large canvas, always. He is concerned with people but also with politics, history, nationhood and cities. There are three main strands interwoven here: a personal story, a political story, and Montreal in the 1930s and the immediate post-war period. The personal story is a love triangle that is refreshingly life-affirming. George has always loved Catherine, but he lost touch with her for a while and in the interim she married Jerome. Jerome volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War and later was presumed killed by the Nazis, but suddenly, he’s back. George and Catherine have married in the meantime.
When I say it’s a refreshing love triangle, I mean there isn’t much hatred or violence. George loved and admired Jerome as well as Catherine, and he is pleased he has returned. The story is less about “what shall we do now” than an exploration of the forces that led to this moment – the psychological effects of the Great Depression on George and everyone his age, the seductive appeal of the Spanish conflict for disenfranchised leftists in the 30s, the strain of illness and political convictions on relationships.
It would be a fairly conventional novel with some beautiful descriptive writing, except for Jerome’s backstory, which comes at the midway point. This fifty page chapter is absolutely electrifying, uniting character, nature and the history of Canada into a lucid dream of an escape downriver by canoe. It alone was worth the price of admission.
But oh, the descriptive writing too. The city, the bitter cold of winter, the roast chickens and all the unemployed gazing in at them, the current at night with felled trees crushing up against the canoe, the moon, the mosquitoes.
This didn’t touch me quite the way Two Solitudes did, I think because the portrayals of women were pretty weak (particularly the supporting characters) and made some sections feel very dated, but I’m really happy to have read it anyway, for the stunning language, the subtle mastery of the relationships between men, and a chance to see the Depression through the eyes of someone my grandparents’ age. It was a defining occurrence in their lives, and MacLennan really brings the hosts of unemployed wandering the city streets alive, as well as the long tail of fear and lost self-esteem that follows such a decade.
MacLennan paints on a large canvas, always. He is concerned with people but also with politics, history, nationhood and cities. There are three main strands interwoven here: a personal story, a political story, and Montreal in the 1930s and the immediate post-war period. The personal story is a love triangle that is refreshingly life-affirming. George has always loved Catherine, but he lost touch with her for a while and in the interim she married Jerome. Jerome volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War and later was presumed killed by the Nazis, but suddenly, he’s back. George and Catherine have married in the meantime.
When I say it’s a refreshing love triangle, I mean there isn’t much hatred or violence. George loved and admired Jerome as well as Catherine, and he is pleased he has returned. The story is less about “what shall we do now” than an exploration of the forces that led to this moment – the psychological effects of the Great Depression on George and everyone his age, the seductive appeal of the Spanish conflict for disenfranchised leftists in the 30s, the strain of illness and political convictions on relationships.
It would be a fairly conventional novel with some beautiful descriptive writing, except for Jerome’s backstory, which comes at the midway point. This fifty page chapter is absolutely electrifying, uniting character, nature and the history of Canada into a lucid dream of an escape downriver by canoe. It alone was worth the price of admission.
But oh, the descriptive writing too. The city, the bitter cold of winter, the roast chickens and all the unemployed gazing in at them, the current at night with felled trees crushing up against the canoe, the moon, the mosquitoes.
This didn’t touch me quite the way Two Solitudes did, I think because the portrayals of women were pretty weak (particularly the supporting characters) and made some sections feel very dated, but I’m really happy to have read it anyway, for the stunning language, the subtle mastery of the relationships between men, and a chance to see the Depression through the eyes of someone my grandparents’ age. It was a defining occurrence in their lives, and MacLennan really brings the hosts of unemployed wandering the city streets alive, as well as the long tail of fear and lost self-esteem that follows such a decade.
June 11, 2022
A beautifully written, cerebral, and yet deeply heartfelt masterpiece of Canadian literature, and indeed of world literature, published in 1958. The novel follows three characters born around the turn of the twentieth century: Catherine Carey, a beautiful and kind young woman afflicted with a damaged heart that she struggles with her entire life; George Stewart, her bookish childhood friend who always loved her but never deemed himself quite worthy of her; and Jerome Martell, a brilliant surgeon with a mysterious past and Catherine's first husband (and one of George's best friends), who'd been declared dead during WWII but returns to Montreal several years after the end of the war, wanting to see Catherine and George again.
This setup might sound a bit maudlin, but the novel doesn't focus as much on the love triangle aspect as on a deep dive into each of the three main characters. Lavish descriptions of Montreal and the surrounding countryside provide a wonderful sense of place. The story is told almost entirely in deftly rendered flashbacks where we see each of these characters growing up into early middle age. Much of the meat of the novel occurs during the 1930's as it slowly becomes apparent that the rise of fascism in Europe makes war almost a foregone conclusion. There are a lot of political and philosophical discussions between characters that add to the novel's depth and make it seem almost like a political time capsule from that era, which I found fascinating. Other recurring themes include faith in God vs atheism or agnosticism (the main characters experience moments of each), and solitude vs marriage and friendship.
The book is at least partly auto-biographical - it was MacLennan's first book to be written in the first person, and the deeply personal nature of the story is apparent in all of the gorgeous prose. His own wife Dorothy Duncan suffered from a "rheumatic heart" the same as Catherine did, and she was in and out of hospitals during the decade or so that MacLennan worked on this book. The result is a rich, elegiac novel that examines life in Canada during tumultuous times.
This setup might sound a bit maudlin, but the novel doesn't focus as much on the love triangle aspect as on a deep dive into each of the three main characters. Lavish descriptions of Montreal and the surrounding countryside provide a wonderful sense of place. The story is told almost entirely in deftly rendered flashbacks where we see each of these characters growing up into early middle age. Much of the meat of the novel occurs during the 1930's as it slowly becomes apparent that the rise of fascism in Europe makes war almost a foregone conclusion. There are a lot of political and philosophical discussions between characters that add to the novel's depth and make it seem almost like a political time capsule from that era, which I found fascinating. Other recurring themes include faith in God vs atheism or agnosticism (the main characters experience moments of each), and solitude vs marriage and friendship.
The book is at least partly auto-biographical - it was MacLennan's first book to be written in the first person, and the deeply personal nature of the story is apparent in all of the gorgeous prose. His own wife Dorothy Duncan suffered from a "rheumatic heart" the same as Catherine did, and she was in and out of hospitals during the decade or so that MacLennan worked on this book. The result is a rich, elegiac novel that examines life in Canada during tumultuous times.
August 18, 2016
I don't think there was a single sitting where I read this and my eyes at the very least didn't well up. It's heavily emotional; and fiercely Canadian of a book. I'm not sure how to explain what I mean when I say that, it just captures the spirit of our nation at the time between the wars, when it really started to mature as a country in and of itself, notwithstanding it had grown "prosperous under the Bomb", and the people became "atomized".
At it's basest, and dreadfully oversimplification, we have in the story a love-triangle. George and Catherine love each very much since high-school. Catherine has a then-untreatable heart condition and is basically left for dead, no future, by everyone except George. But, because of the Thirties, and "no job, no money, no prospects, and most of all no courage", George never proposes to her and they go their separate ways to university. Years later, George meets Catherine again, now married to Jerome . They are all friends, and there is no resentment, even though George still loves Catherine, and Catherine still has a candle burning for him. When Jerome goes to fight against Franco in Spain, he is lost and declared dead. George and Catherine rekindle their love, they marry, he adopts her daughter, and they are a happy family for years .
Though this is written from George's point of view, much of it is insight into Jerome's mind as well, both revolving around Catherine, their life in the midst of death.
This is it, this is the Canadian The Grapes of WrathGrapes of Wrath, the great novel about the human condition. It's a novel set between the wars and during the Depression, but it's not about any of those things.
Of note, the Tragically Hip song, "Courage (for Hugh MacLennan)" is in a way, based off of this novel (as evidenced by the title's byline). It's feel is similar but updated, and the last verse is quoted nearly verbatim from the book, one of the greatest things in this book:
That song was stuck in my head every single time I picked this book up. I recommend listening to the lyrics if you want to get an idea of this novel. It's like, the song version of the book. Never thought they could do that.
A++ Canadian Literature.
At it's basest, and dreadfully oversimplification, we have in the story a love-triangle. George and Catherine love each very much since high-school. Catherine has a then-untreatable heart condition and is basically left for dead, no future, by everyone except George. But, because of the Thirties, and "no job, no money, no prospects, and most of all no courage", George never proposes to her and they go their separate ways to university. Years later, George meets Catherine again, now married to Jerome . They are all friends, and there is no resentment, even though George still loves Catherine, and Catherine still has a candle burning for him. When Jerome goes to fight against Franco in Spain, he is lost and declared dead. George and Catherine rekindle their love, they marry, he adopts her daughter, and they are a happy family for years .
Though this is written from George's point of view, much of it is insight into Jerome's mind as well, both revolving around Catherine, their life in the midst of death.
This is it, this is the Canadian The Grapes of WrathGrapes of Wrath, the great novel about the human condition. It's a novel set between the wars and during the Depression, but it's not about any of those things.
Of note, the Tragically Hip song, "Courage (for Hugh MacLennan)" is in a way, based off of this novel (as evidenced by the title's byline). It's feel is similar but updated, and the last verse is quoted nearly verbatim from the book, one of the greatest things in this book:
But that night as I drove back to Montreal, I at least discovered this: that there is no simple explanation for anything important any of us do, and that the human tragedy, or the human irony, consists in the necessity of living with the consequences of actions performed under the pressure of compulsions so obscure we do not and cannot understand them.
That song was stuck in my head every single time I picked this book up. I recommend listening to the lyrics if you want to get an idea of this novel. It's like, the song version of the book. Never thought they could do that.
A++ Canadian Literature.
December 20, 2022
I first read this book in university forty years ago and fell in love with it then. It was the book I’d been looking for, filled with history, rich dialogue, Canadian imagery and two guys fighting over a girl. Just the thing for an 18 year old English major.
I read it again recently and I found it almost as good as I did in 1982. I love the way the book begins, on a cold winter’s night in Montreal. You can feel the vibes of contentment, you can see the 1950’s fashions and you can hear the crunch of feet on snow as George Stewart and his step-daughter make their way home from the university where he teaches and she studies.
All those good vibes quickly dissipate when George’s wife’s first husband turns out to be alive and (somewhat) well and back in Montreal. His reappearance causes George’s to take a journey down memory lane, and through him we learn the story of the three main characters and their connections with one another.
This is a book packed with layered thoughtful emotions and good people who care about each other caught unwillingly in a love triangle.
When I read the book in 1982 I loved it unconditionally, but in 2021 I have a little problem with MacLennan’s portrayal of women. (He wrote the book in 1958, so I shouldn’t be surprised.) Catherine is really really feminine, and frankly she also seems a bit simple, so unaware of the rest of the world. I know I should give her a break, she has a debilitating illness, but I found her a bit off-putting. I would have liked her to have more spunk.
I gave 5 stars though because it's still the best book ever.
I read it again recently and I found it almost as good as I did in 1982. I love the way the book begins, on a cold winter’s night in Montreal. You can feel the vibes of contentment, you can see the 1950’s fashions and you can hear the crunch of feet on snow as George Stewart and his step-daughter make their way home from the university where he teaches and she studies.
All those good vibes quickly dissipate when George’s wife’s first husband turns out to be alive and (somewhat) well and back in Montreal. His reappearance causes George’s to take a journey down memory lane, and through him we learn the story of the three main characters and their connections with one another.
This is a book packed with layered thoughtful emotions and good people who care about each other caught unwillingly in a love triangle.
When I read the book in 1982 I loved it unconditionally, but in 2021 I have a little problem with MacLennan’s portrayal of women. (He wrote the book in 1958, so I shouldn’t be surprised.) Catherine is really really feminine, and frankly she also seems a bit simple, so unaware of the rest of the world. I know I should give her a break, she has a debilitating illness, but I found her a bit off-putting. I would have liked her to have more spunk.
I gave 5 stars though because it's still the best book ever.
January 7, 2025
This novel is so many things. It's a tremendous love story, It's a story about a Canadian city (Montreal) as it was in the 1930's and 1940's. It's a story of loss, betrayal and abandonment. It's a story about the internal strength and resliency of the human spirit. It is also a story of Canada written by an author who truly loved this country of ours. The story is tragic and hopeful at the same time. It left me with a feeling of loss at the end when the narrative of the three main characters comes to its ineveitable end. Jerome, Catherine and George will reamin with me for a time, as so often happens with wonderful books written by a master as Hugh MacLennan was. Not quite the book that Two Solitudes is, but I'm glad that I took the time to read it. Hugh's love and understanding of Canada and the people who live here was quite remarkable, and reading one of his books makes me prouder than ever to be a Canadian.
May 8, 2013
What did I think about the book? I liked it a lot. Not necessarily an easy read.
The book was first published in 1958, and is set in Canada in the 30s and 40s.
Part of the reason I started reading the book was simply due to a musical reference -- some of the lyrics to The Tragically Hip song "Courage" came from this passage in the book: "...there is no simple explanation for anything important any of us do, and that the human tragedy, or the human irony, consists in the necessity of living with the consequences of actions performed under the pressure of compulsions so obscure we do not and cannot understand them." That quote came to have an incredible amount of weight in my mind, and explains my view on the subjectivity of much human experience.
The book was first published in 1958, and is set in Canada in the 30s and 40s.
Part of the reason I started reading the book was simply due to a musical reference -- some of the lyrics to The Tragically Hip song "Courage" came from this passage in the book: "...there is no simple explanation for anything important any of us do, and that the human tragedy, or the human irony, consists in the necessity of living with the consequences of actions performed under the pressure of compulsions so obscure we do not and cannot understand them." That quote came to have an incredible amount of weight in my mind, and explains my view on the subjectivity of much human experience.
February 2, 2025
With sentences like “I am like the coloured people, I like to be gay”, you could say this novel is dated. It is, but it doesn’t take away from MacLennan being a terrific author who can weave an addictive tale.
Julian Casey reading in audio does justice to this love story set in Montreal in the 1930s. However the love story is only part of the story. It’s a homage to Montreal and an examination of societal changes of the time.
MacLennan obviously loved Montreal and as an Australian I had no idea the impact the Spanish civil war had on Canadians. It’s a wonderful time capsual of the mores and changes of the time. I am very happy to have discovered this author who for some reason reminds me of Ayn Rand. I hope he would not be offended.
Julian Casey reading in audio does justice to this love story set in Montreal in the 1930s. However the love story is only part of the story. It’s a homage to Montreal and an examination of societal changes of the time.
MacLennan obviously loved Montreal and as an Australian I had no idea the impact the Spanish civil war had on Canadians. It’s a wonderful time capsual of the mores and changes of the time. I am very happy to have discovered this author who for some reason reminds me of Ayn Rand. I hope he would not be offended.
February 5, 2017
It's perhaps surprising that I had never read this book before; it's a classic of mid-century Canadian fiction, written before the upsurge in Canadian literature in the decades after it. It is a book very much of its time, trying to be the Great Canadian Novel in the way that American writers of the same period were trying to be the Great American Novel, self-consciously engaging with Big Ideas about being Canadian and being modern and being a man and so on. It is very much a book of its time, with all the limitations and annoying assumptions and pretensions that implies--but also with all the ambition and hunger to say Something Important. I liked it, but I did find the essentialist assumptions about women and men annoying.
February 25, 2012
* * * * 1/2
This book chronicles the life of George Stewart; his wife, Catherine; and her first husband, Jerome Martell. George grew up with Catherine and always loved her, but never had the chance to marry her before Jerome did. Catherine's heart was damaged during a bout of rheumatic fever and so her time on Earth is more limited, but she does not let that limit her life. Jerome, a brilliant surgeon with an intense, energetic personality, goes to Spain during the Spanish Civil War and is presumed captured, tortured and dead, so after a while Catherine marries George. Except one day, Jerome comes back... and that's where our story opens. What effect will Jerome's return have on George and especially Catherine?
MacLennan writes beautifully in this book, and George's narration really touches your heart. Sometimes it is difficult to imagine how he would have been able to reconstruct some of the conversations, especially ones where he was not present, but it's easy enough to suspend disbelief. George's grief over Catherine's illness is all too real; MacLennan wrote this while his first wife was dying, and George's pain was likely to a great extent his own. But it's not all sad. Catherine herself refuses to let her condition bring her down, filling her days with creating joyful paintings, getting together with friends, and just enjoying life. There are amusing asides, too, especially about George's fellow teachers at Waterloo School (apparently based in part on MacLennan's experiences teaching at Lower Canada College). And the city of Montreal is very wonderfully described -- after reading this I have a hankering to go back.
This book chronicles the life of George Stewart; his wife, Catherine; and her first husband, Jerome Martell. George grew up with Catherine and always loved her, but never had the chance to marry her before Jerome did. Catherine's heart was damaged during a bout of rheumatic fever and so her time on Earth is more limited, but she does not let that limit her life. Jerome, a brilliant surgeon with an intense, energetic personality, goes to Spain during the Spanish Civil War and is presumed captured, tortured and dead, so after a while Catherine marries George. Except one day, Jerome comes back... and that's where our story opens. What effect will Jerome's return have on George and especially Catherine?
MacLennan writes beautifully in this book, and George's narration really touches your heart. Sometimes it is difficult to imagine how he would have been able to reconstruct some of the conversations, especially ones where he was not present, but it's easy enough to suspend disbelief. George's grief over Catherine's illness is all too real; MacLennan wrote this while his first wife was dying, and George's pain was likely to a great extent his own. But it's not all sad. Catherine herself refuses to let her condition bring her down, filling her days with creating joyful paintings, getting together with friends, and just enjoying life. There are amusing asides, too, especially about George's fellow teachers at Waterloo School (apparently based in part on MacLennan's experiences teaching at Lower Canada College). And the city of Montreal is very wonderfully described -- after reading this I have a hankering to go back.
February 7, 2008
Another reading assignment from my then girlfriend. It was an interesting read but not something I'd pick up on my own. Still, good emotional drama.
July 24, 2023
liked this a LOT more than i expected! really great and absolutely captivating.
December 7, 2013
Much like Two Solitudes, The Watch That Ends The Night is a classic of Canadian literature and one of MacLennan's finest works.
In a way that very few works do, Watch utterly permeates the reader with a sense of "being" in the lives of George, Catherine and Jerome - you feel the chill of the winter air when George is walking into the hotel in the first chapter, understand the dynamics between he, his wife and her confused realization that her presumed-dead former husband has returned to her life, Jerome's increasing desperation and need to interject in their lives and a better understanding of Montreal in all its glory.
It's an engaging and fascinating read that expertly covers the various interpersonal relationships, buoyed in part by MacLennan's own experiences with his first wife, who was dying at the time. You truly get a sense of the character's motivations and needs throughout the whole book, and while there are some stilted dialogue sequences and a handful of obscure references, the material is just too good to put down.
Definitely a book not to be missed.
In a way that very few works do, Watch utterly permeates the reader with a sense of "being" in the lives of George, Catherine and Jerome - you feel the chill of the winter air when George is walking into the hotel in the first chapter, understand the dynamics between he, his wife and her confused realization that her presumed-dead former husband has returned to her life, Jerome's increasing desperation and need to interject in their lives and a better understanding of Montreal in all its glory.
It's an engaging and fascinating read that expertly covers the various interpersonal relationships, buoyed in part by MacLennan's own experiences with his first wife, who was dying at the time. You truly get a sense of the character's motivations and needs throughout the whole book, and while there are some stilted dialogue sequences and a handful of obscure references, the material is just too good to put down.
Definitely a book not to be missed.
October 21, 2019
I was sucked in by the wonderful evocation of time and space but I stayed for the personal and universal journey. This is a story about perspective and it has made me examine mine. It's also a lot of fun to compare the passions of these young people of the thirties to those of the internet world of today.
August 20, 2012
This is a startlingly beautiful book, Canadian in its frankness and warmth, universal in its themes--marriage, sexuality, politics and spirituality. I read it months ago and its vibrant characters are still living in my head.
May 18, 2015
A great, if somewhat flawed, novel dealing with a love triangle, the hopelessness of the thirties, living in the face of death, and the personality of a great city. This uniquely Canadian novel is a great favourite, one I have read many times, and never tire of.
October 1, 2013
MacLennan is unarguably one of Canada's best ever authors. His prose is brilliant. In this book it felt like he was working out his own journey, his beliefs on life, love, politics, and God. I'll admit I skimmed some of the more philosophical narrative, but I did enjoy the story.
October 28, 2014
This book was published in 1959 and won the Governor General's award. It has wonderful depictions of Montreal in the 1950s and 1930s and gave me a better understanding of North Americans going off to join the Spanish Civil War. I think book clubs would have lots to talk about with this novel.
March 3, 2012
Should be mandatory reading in Canadian schools.
January 31, 2018
What is CanLit? Here you go... Where was this book when everyone wanted us to read more Canadian authors in high school?
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January 2, 2026I wondered, sometimes as I read through this novel if it might have been written by Hugh Hood. Perhaps there's something about being named Hugh, being English living in Montreal, that makes tone at least simpatico. This one focusses primarily on the 1930s, especially its politics, but the main cause for the focus is what's happening in the late 1940s and early 1950s--not so much on an international scale as on an individual scale. The past returns. What does one make of decisions made once the unforeseeable future becomes the inescapable present? How do you carry on being what you're sure is right when a majority of those around you insist you're wrong? History generally shows that the 'wrong' people in this narrative were largely correct about world issues. Marriage and relationships are foregrounded, as is jealousy and quick reaction. I'm not sure how I missed this one in the past. I know only that I put MacLennan to one side in 1995 and never came back to him.
April 19, 2019
Although this was supposed to be MacLennan's best novel, I can't say it stands up very well. It was just too serious and earnest. The 3 main characters, in a sort of loving love triangle, are just not very appealing, although they are supposed to be so intense and fascinating. The fragile but beautiful woman struggling with rheumatic heart disease, the narrator who is kind of wimpy and ineffectual, and the charismatic but complex and insanely talented surgeon - none of them ring true, and you just wouldn't want to spend any time with them. The resolution of it all in the end is quite Buddhist, although he tries to add some Christianity on top of that. The book does have a few beautiful lines, though, and I enjoyed it taking place in Montreal and around McGill University.
September 20, 2022
It was nice to complete a book I've wanted to read for a while now. The Watch That Ends The Night is a valuable picture of Interwar Canada, a time I know little about. It is also a (sometimes too) beautiful homage to Montreal, a place I know little about. The sociological aspects of this novel are really good. The narrator deftly explores politics, religion, and identity. I struggled to appreciate the characters very much except for the amazing story of Jerome's childhood. The plot's construction on a triangular romance is hard to take. I really enjoyed some interesting points and beautiful writing but don't feel the fiction was very strong.
June 9, 2025
I like the entire message of the book re the lines between ideology and spirituality, but this has got to have some of the most reductive depictions of women that I’ve ever seen in literature. MacLennan’s work seems to have been forgotten for a reason.
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