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The Parabolist
noun (1) one who speaks in parables. (2) a member of a splinter group of disaffected young poets in Mexico City c. 1975. (3) a practitioner of the art of concentrating multiple sources of energy into a single focus, illuminating or, if left unchecked, destroying everything in its path.
Part comedy, part mystery, The Parabolist is a novel about murder, sex, the medical establishment, poetry and vigilante justice on the streets of Toronto in 1975.
Told through interlacing narratives, the story funnels towards the eye of an unsolved on a rainy summer night, a woman is raped and very nearly murdered, but for the intervention of two drunken vigilantes who kill her attacker before fleeing the scene. The only clue the police have about their identities is a slab of Crisco shortening found on the victim.
The unforgettable cast of characters includes a charismatic Mexican poet, a libido-driven first-year medical student, a runaway teen turned prostitute, a raven-haired beauty, a sinister psychiatrist, and a donated corpse that is dissected - from skin to muscle to bone - as layer by layer, the inscrutable mysteries of anatomy, love, literature and life are poignantly revealed.
This is a funny, satirical, searing, dangerous and tender story of earnest youth and their ardent desire for love, acceptance and fulfillment.
Part comedy, part mystery, The Parabolist is a novel about murder, sex, the medical establishment, poetry and vigilante justice on the streets of Toronto in 1975.
Told through interlacing narratives, the story funnels towards the eye of an unsolved on a rainy summer night, a woman is raped and very nearly murdered, but for the intervention of two drunken vigilantes who kill her attacker before fleeing the scene. The only clue the police have about their identities is a slab of Crisco shortening found on the victim.
The unforgettable cast of characters includes a charismatic Mexican poet, a libido-driven first-year medical student, a runaway teen turned prostitute, a raven-haired beauty, a sinister psychiatrist, and a donated corpse that is dissected - from skin to muscle to bone - as layer by layer, the inscrutable mysteries of anatomy, love, literature and life are poignantly revealed.
This is a funny, satirical, searing, dangerous and tender story of earnest youth and their ardent desire for love, acceptance and fulfillment.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published February 9, 2010
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July 14, 2010Wow! What a ride. Imagine a touch of *Grey's Anatomy*, set in Toronto circa 1975. A ravishing poet of Mexican origin ... chance, fate and destiny in constant collision ... the most vile, despicable character I've read in a long time ... my home town, Toronto -- in the slushy semi-seasons before and after hard winter ... and thoughts like this one (from a psychiatrist while on rounds): "... He had all the doses down pat, it wasn't that hard to lay on the chemical straitjackets once you knew how, once you had confidence in the medication. When he first started, he always went with the lowest dose, to be careful. Now, fuck it, wham, just get it done."
More treasures in this story include a *hot* scene of lovemaking that reads like a hymn of praise to human musculature; an ordinary man's reverence for how squirrels play and care for their young; and a few facts about crickets and cicadas that ratchets up my amazement at what they can do with their wee bodies
Gorgeous story. Thank you, Nicholas!
P.S. Nicholas Ruddock, the author, is a physician.
More treasures in this story include a *hot* scene of lovemaking that reads like a hymn of praise to human musculature; an ordinary man's reverence for how squirrels play and care for their young; and a few facts about crickets and cicadas that ratchets up my amazement at what they can do with their wee bodies
Gorgeous story. Thank you, Nicholas!
P.S. Nicholas Ruddock, the author, is a physician.
December 11, 2010
Toronto, 1975. A medical student, Jasper Glass, is out drinking one night with his Mexican friend and poetry teacher, Roberto, when they disrupt a rape on Shaw Street just as it was turning into murder. It is Roberto who kills the rapist, but it's Jasper who leaves behind a smear of Crisco on the victim - and remembers nothing of the incident when he wakes up the next day.
But that's not really what The Parabolist is about, though this rape/murder provides an over-arching plot and general structure in a book that is wonderfully unstructured. Don't let that scare you off: by "unstructured" I don't mean it's all over the place. This is a book whose narrative moves effortlessly, lightly on its feet, back and forth and back again across the days, uncluttered by chapters or dialogue punctuation. I've read only a few books set in Toronto, like Margaret Atwood's Cat’s Eye and Rabindranath Maharaj's The Amazing Absorbing Boy , and each one has conveyed such a strong impression of place and time and Toronto, that the city I've always said lacks personality, suddenly comes alive for me and proves me wrong.
Part of the strong sense of setting is the constant use of street names and landmarks - Toronto hasn't changed that much over the decades. A few well-chosen words, stripped bare, revealing the grit and grime, a hint of seediness, clear autumn air, a city preparing to be bigger and better than before. Snippets like "At the Silver Dollar, the street was empty. Spadina Avenue, a few garbage cans, a cat, the neon sign that flickered half broken." (p.54) and "He walked out into King's College Road. He could barely see at all, the trees not yet fully leafed, the high sun merciless, his eyes blurred by tears and everything that mattered to him was still back inside that cold brick building, where light was a rare, unaccustomed visitor." (p.86) I just picked those randomly, but they're not exceptions. The narrative is consistently present and immediate by use of these distinct, bold descriptions, proving my point that you don't need to use present tense to create a sense of immediacy and unpredictability. This is one of several books I've read lately (also The Sisters Brothers and Getting Rid of Matthew ) that has demonstrated that, in the hands of a good writer, the present can be achieved by using the past. Tense, that is.
And Ruddock here proves that he is a very good writer indeed. He has developed his own voice and style and employs it with quiet confidence. There's a seamlessness to the narrative: the decision to omit quotation marks and chapters allows for a greater sense of flow and rhythm, an unbroken river - more like a gentle stream - of words and meaning and events. Ugh, I hate using such metaphors and similes, but I'm finding it hard to describe this book and do it justice. Let me try a different angle.
The main characters are a group of medical students - Jasper Glass and his brother John; Valerie Anderson; Wallace Wallace - as well as Roberto Moreno; Jasper's parents, June and Bill; a young girl on her way to Toronto who's adopted the name Heidi; Dr Krank, the head of psychiatry at 999 Queen Street; Marnie Kennedy, the married doctor Jasper's having an affair with; and Detective Ames, who's reluctantly investigating the rape and murder case. Other characters come and go but these are the constant ones, with Jasper, Valerie and Roberto forming a central triangle. Jasper has the hots for Valerie, his beautiful, clever lab partner, but she is drawn to Roberto, who inadvertently became their poetry teacher and then their friend. In the wings is Dr Krank, who we quickly feel uneasy around - and with good reason.
The characters reflect the city, and the city reflects the characters. This is the Toronto of drug abuse, sex, the Arts, iconic streets and gentle middle class suburbs. It's not all set in the city: at one point Jasper drives to Muskoka for a moonlit tryst with Marnie, and then there's Heidi's trip south through the rocky Canadian Shield, fending off men along the way.
There's also a fascinating sense of time, in that not only does the narrative sometimes step backwards, revisiting a scene from another perspective or showing us a new scene for a character that happened earlier than what we've been reading, but Heidi's trip occurs at a slower pace than the rest of the story. She's introduced fairly early on, but her two-day hitchhiking trip (or is it one day?) comes to us in segments throughout the novel, until she meets up with Jasper Glass in "real time". It's not at all confusing and the non-linear narrative adds an extra something to the story - an extra layer of time, of mystery, of tension, of oomph until it coalesces into a sudden and violent ending that fits perfectly.
And I haven't even mentioned the poetry. A love of the arts permeates the story, is embraced by the characters, and takes on new life through Ruddock's analogy to medicine. I'd never really linked art and medicine before, to be honest, but those days are gone. The way the body Jasper and Valerie are carefully dissecting and stripping down, becomes a kind of canvas, an artwork that brings to mind Body Worlds. Even the title has a double-meaning, or triple one: a parabolist is someone who speaks in parables; a disaffected Mexican poet who is a member of a splinter group of parabolists; and "a practitioner of the art of concentrating multiple sources of energy into a single focus, illuminating or, if left unchecked, destroying everything in its path." That third definition is chilling and apt.
Now, for as much as I enjoyed this novel and thought it was wonderfully written, I did make the mistake of starting it a week after giving birth, often reading bits in the middle of the night, and finding, with my disjointed and exhausted baby brain, that I was missing a lot of the meaning and nuances and depth of this novel. I could see that it was there but my brain was so fuddled I couldn't grasp it - not with any sense of clarity anyway. It also took me a while to read, despite its smooth readability, so it feels like a novel I read ages ago and am trying to belatedly remember. I don't even feel like I understand what a parabolist is (in the poetry sense). To be fair, I think that aspect is made up; I mean, I don't think there was a splinter group of disaffected young poets in Mexico City, not that I could find online anyway (and these days, everything is on the web). The characters often discuss things in a meaningful way, but I couldn't tell you what impressions I got. This is definitely a book I'll have to re-read to do justice to. I also should be shot for writing such a disjointed, vague review. I'm almost too scared to read through it or I'll never post it and be done!
I'll have to leave you with my overall impressions and hope that you'll give the book a try despite my ill-written review: The Parabolist is a story of irony, love, poetry and cadavers, a story that brings Toronto to life, a Toronto of the 70s that still exists in certain streets and dingy landmarks today. It is a story of self-discovery, of questioning yourself and everything around you; it is a homage to a different era that doesn't feel as historical as you'd expect - it feels very current. A story of women's rights, of a scary stalker and his obsessions, of sex and violence by night and middle class civility and conversation by day. I could keep going, as a sign that I have no clever words here, but my verbal diarrhoea must stop somewhere.
But that's not really what The Parabolist is about, though this rape/murder provides an over-arching plot and general structure in a book that is wonderfully unstructured. Don't let that scare you off: by "unstructured" I don't mean it's all over the place. This is a book whose narrative moves effortlessly, lightly on its feet, back and forth and back again across the days, uncluttered by chapters or dialogue punctuation. I've read only a few books set in Toronto, like Margaret Atwood's Cat’s Eye and Rabindranath Maharaj's The Amazing Absorbing Boy , and each one has conveyed such a strong impression of place and time and Toronto, that the city I've always said lacks personality, suddenly comes alive for me and proves me wrong.
Part of the strong sense of setting is the constant use of street names and landmarks - Toronto hasn't changed that much over the decades. A few well-chosen words, stripped bare, revealing the grit and grime, a hint of seediness, clear autumn air, a city preparing to be bigger and better than before. Snippets like "At the Silver Dollar, the street was empty. Spadina Avenue, a few garbage cans, a cat, the neon sign that flickered half broken." (p.54) and "He walked out into King's College Road. He could barely see at all, the trees not yet fully leafed, the high sun merciless, his eyes blurred by tears and everything that mattered to him was still back inside that cold brick building, where light was a rare, unaccustomed visitor." (p.86) I just picked those randomly, but they're not exceptions. The narrative is consistently present and immediate by use of these distinct, bold descriptions, proving my point that you don't need to use present tense to create a sense of immediacy and unpredictability. This is one of several books I've read lately (also The Sisters Brothers and Getting Rid of Matthew ) that has demonstrated that, in the hands of a good writer, the present can be achieved by using the past. Tense, that is.
And Ruddock here proves that he is a very good writer indeed. He has developed his own voice and style and employs it with quiet confidence. There's a seamlessness to the narrative: the decision to omit quotation marks and chapters allows for a greater sense of flow and rhythm, an unbroken river - more like a gentle stream - of words and meaning and events. Ugh, I hate using such metaphors and similes, but I'm finding it hard to describe this book and do it justice. Let me try a different angle.
The main characters are a group of medical students - Jasper Glass and his brother John; Valerie Anderson; Wallace Wallace - as well as Roberto Moreno; Jasper's parents, June and Bill; a young girl on her way to Toronto who's adopted the name Heidi; Dr Krank, the head of psychiatry at 999 Queen Street; Marnie Kennedy, the married doctor Jasper's having an affair with; and Detective Ames, who's reluctantly investigating the rape and murder case. Other characters come and go but these are the constant ones, with Jasper, Valerie and Roberto forming a central triangle. Jasper has the hots for Valerie, his beautiful, clever lab partner, but she is drawn to Roberto, who inadvertently became their poetry teacher and then their friend. In the wings is Dr Krank, who we quickly feel uneasy around - and with good reason.
The characters reflect the city, and the city reflects the characters. This is the Toronto of drug abuse, sex, the Arts, iconic streets and gentle middle class suburbs. It's not all set in the city: at one point Jasper drives to Muskoka for a moonlit tryst with Marnie, and then there's Heidi's trip south through the rocky Canadian Shield, fending off men along the way.
There's also a fascinating sense of time, in that not only does the narrative sometimes step backwards, revisiting a scene from another perspective or showing us a new scene for a character that happened earlier than what we've been reading, but Heidi's trip occurs at a slower pace than the rest of the story. She's introduced fairly early on, but her two-day hitchhiking trip (or is it one day?) comes to us in segments throughout the novel, until she meets up with Jasper Glass in "real time". It's not at all confusing and the non-linear narrative adds an extra something to the story - an extra layer of time, of mystery, of tension, of oomph until it coalesces into a sudden and violent ending that fits perfectly.
And I haven't even mentioned the poetry. A love of the arts permeates the story, is embraced by the characters, and takes on new life through Ruddock's analogy to medicine. I'd never really linked art and medicine before, to be honest, but those days are gone. The way the body Jasper and Valerie are carefully dissecting and stripping down, becomes a kind of canvas, an artwork that brings to mind Body Worlds. Even the title has a double-meaning, or triple one: a parabolist is someone who speaks in parables; a disaffected Mexican poet who is a member of a splinter group of parabolists; and "a practitioner of the art of concentrating multiple sources of energy into a single focus, illuminating or, if left unchecked, destroying everything in its path." That third definition is chilling and apt.
Now, for as much as I enjoyed this novel and thought it was wonderfully written, I did make the mistake of starting it a week after giving birth, often reading bits in the middle of the night, and finding, with my disjointed and exhausted baby brain, that I was missing a lot of the meaning and nuances and depth of this novel. I could see that it was there but my brain was so fuddled I couldn't grasp it - not with any sense of clarity anyway. It also took me a while to read, despite its smooth readability, so it feels like a novel I read ages ago and am trying to belatedly remember. I don't even feel like I understand what a parabolist is (in the poetry sense). To be fair, I think that aspect is made up; I mean, I don't think there was a splinter group of disaffected young poets in Mexico City, not that I could find online anyway (and these days, everything is on the web). The characters often discuss things in a meaningful way, but I couldn't tell you what impressions I got. This is definitely a book I'll have to re-read to do justice to. I also should be shot for writing such a disjointed, vague review. I'm almost too scared to read through it or I'll never post it and be done!
I'll have to leave you with my overall impressions and hope that you'll give the book a try despite my ill-written review: The Parabolist is a story of irony, love, poetry and cadavers, a story that brings Toronto to life, a Toronto of the 70s that still exists in certain streets and dingy landmarks today. It is a story of self-discovery, of questioning yourself and everything around you; it is a homage to a different era that doesn't feel as historical as you'd expect - it feels very current. A story of women's rights, of a scary stalker and his obsessions, of sex and violence by night and middle class civility and conversation by day. I could keep going, as a sign that I have no clever words here, but my verbal diarrhoea must stop somewhere.
June 26, 2026
Honestly, a bit of a strange 📖book. I loved that it is set in Toronto in the seventies. I recognized a bunch of the locations that they visit and streets they walk down. I liked that many of the main characters are in med school at U of T. The poetry part was interesting, sure. My biggest beef was that there are no quotation marks at all. I don’t know if the author was trying to make it feel like a poem in style, but I found it distracting and annoying.
2026 reading challenge - a 📖book that includes a science topic
2026 reading challenge - a 📖book that includes a science topic
January 1, 2023
i'm still trying to wrap my head around this book - there's a sense of danger (real or imagined) throughout the story; some of it 'light' - adultery, escaping a locked house, a collision with a moose - and some very dark - suicide, rape, and murder. figures of authority abandon their code of conduct - but not always with a negative result. medical students are elbow deep in the gore of anatomy and dissection, but are also elbow deep in the vulnerability of love and poetry
July 7, 2022
The Parabolist is about a group of Toronto medical students who divide their time between dissecting cadavers, participating in bohemian poetry lectures, and trying to get laid. It begins with one of the students, Jasper Glass, sleeping with a married woman, nearly getting caught by her husband, and slathering himself with Crisco to escape through the basement milkbox...a decision that would later get him caught up in a murder investigation.
This novel certainly has the ingredients to be an interesting read, but it fell short of my expectations. I didn't like the author's stylistic choice to forgo quotation marks and chapters. The narrative is actually kind of boring despite the frequent sex scenes and the unpredictable, brutal violence. Some parts are tragically funny but I still wanted more from this book. It doesn't help that almost every single male character is some sort of stalker, pervert, or rapist. Although I found the med school stuff interesting, and I enjoyed the poetry discussions, AND I liked the juxtaposition of these two things, something about this novel didn't click with me. It's too bad because I remember loving this novel the first time I read it; this time I kept waiting for something amazing to happen but it never did.
This novel certainly has the ingredients to be an interesting read, but it fell short of my expectations. I didn't like the author's stylistic choice to forgo quotation marks and chapters. The narrative is actually kind of boring despite the frequent sex scenes and the unpredictable, brutal violence. Some parts are tragically funny but I still wanted more from this book. It doesn't help that almost every single male character is some sort of stalker, pervert, or rapist. Although I found the med school stuff interesting, and I enjoyed the poetry discussions, AND I liked the juxtaposition of these two things, something about this novel didn't click with me. It's too bad because I remember loving this novel the first time I read it; this time I kept waiting for something amazing to happen but it never did.
September 22, 2020
An excellent debut novel, the story was well done. I would recommend this book.
November 2, 2021
Very enjoyable! Great cast of characters, great story.
Does remind me a lot of Vincent Lam's writing.
Does remind me a lot of Vincent Lam's writing.
February 3, 2019
Fun book that is about the"old days" following around a crowd of med students who love poetry and seem to have time for each other.
August 11, 2010
Fantastic read, definitely not what I was expecting (though to be fair I wasn't expecting much, as this book was picked up accidentally from the library). Great story, the style of writing is a bit hard to get into at first, but I love the descriptions and usages of poetry in this book. Didn't expect some of the more graphic sex bits, but it fit, so whatever. Fantastic story, felt the ending was a little rushed, but the whole thing came together beautifully. Had some seriously creepy overtones (especially that things with Dr. Krank, I wanted to reach into the book and give him a few good whacks), but I stayed through because of the poetry, which was used to great effect in this.
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November 6, 2013This is a very interesting book structurally. The plot moves forward episodically rather than in a straight narrative line. And each character has his or her own little episode. (Think of planets, each with its own rotation, also turning around the sun.) The fact that these "episodes," are not necessarily presented in chronological order asks quite a bit of the reader, but what the heck? I found it a good work out.
Please note: [If anyone is reading this] I just can't get my head around a number representing words, so I'm not using the rating scale above any more.
Please note: [If anyone is reading this] I just can't get my head around a number representing words, so I'm not using the rating scale above any more.
June 4, 2012
I am a sucker for offbeat bargain books which is how I found this one in hardcover, first edition. The Parabolist is by a Guelph MD, and set in 1970's Toronto... another draw. What character in med school, who boozes and scores hot women, is quick-witted enough to manage a crisco-slathered escape is not enough to at least draw me to read a bit further? A quick, but worthwhile read. I'd like to chat with the author.
November 11, 2011
Another 2011 Toronto Book Award nominee, about a group of medical students who become friends with a Mexican poet. I liked it, but I felt quite removed from the emotions of the characters, mostly (I think) because it was 3rd person with no quotes or dashes for dialogue. That often makes things feel quite muted to me. Interesting ending, though.
June 6, 2016
Loved the flowing narrative and multiple perspectives. Loved the slight detachment and honesty of each character. The mix of poetry and medicine was my favourite element to the novel. Definitely written by a man and followed several masculine storyline tropes that I found weak, but the prose was enticing enough that I didn't mind so much. Perfect summer read.
April 15, 2010
Love the fact that this book is set in Toronto. A little slow sometimes but very humourous and lyrical.
June 14, 2010
Very poetic.
January 3, 2015
Great start and end but dragged in the middle! Could have been sooo good but missed the money shot !!
April 18, 2015
loved this. beautifully written. loved the way it weaves in and out of the characters and of the time. bonus that it's canadian
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews