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Barometer Rising

Hugh MacLennan

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Mar 24, 2023 Manybooks rated it it was ok

Shelves: historical-fiction, canadiana, war, book-reviews, canadian-history, romance, text-can-get-boring, some-stylistic-annoyances, man-made-disasters, halifax-explosion

When we covered Canadian literature in grade eleven English, we read both Hugh MacLennan's Two Solitudes (1945) and also his Barometer Rising (1941 and in fact MacLennan's debut novel). But whereas I totally loved Two Solitudes in 1984 and still mostly enjoyed (even if I no longer adored) my recent rereading, both in 1984 and in 2023 I found Barometer Rising really and majorly hard to get into, primarily because the beginning of Barometer Rising is totally and utterly stylistically frustrating a When we covered Canadian literature in grade eleven English, we read both Hugh MacLennan's Two Solitudes (1945) and also his Barometer Rising (1941 and in fact MacLennan's debut novel). But whereas I totally loved Two Solitudes in 1984 and still mostly enjoyed (even if I no longer adored) my recent rereading, both in 1984 and in 2023 I found Barometer Rising really and majorly hard to get into, primarily because the beginning of Barometer Rising is totally and utterly stylistically frustrating and awkward (at least in my humble opinion). For MacLennan uses pronouns for almost everyone being encountered, and no or only very few personal names, so that one kind of ends up having trouble figuring out who is who and who is speaking with whom. And while I kind of understand why no names are being used by Hugh MacLennan at the beginning of Barometer Rising, since in particular Neil MacRae is supposed to be incognito (since he is trying to clear his name with regard to charges of desertion and is also presumed to be dead), this does not really at all make me enjoy MacLennan's stylistics any more, any better and to find the beginning of Barometer Rising any less annoyingly confusing (and quite frankly, if I had used that kind of personal pronouns extravaganza in my high school papers, my teachers would and rightfully so have pointed out that my text was bordering on being a bit incomprehensible and problematically vague).

Now I did push on with Barometer Rising and Hugh MacLennan's writing style certainly managed to kind of improve a bit for me, but also not nearly enough to consider more than two stars as a rating. For while MacLennan is definitely very good at textually evoking the sights, colours, sounds and even the scents, the smells of Halifax, that the city almost feels like a participating character in Barometer Rising and that the day by day moving ever and constantly towards the disaster, towards the Halifax Explosion of 1917 is historically accurate and also quite interesting with regard to Canadian history, sorry, but the fictional parts of Barometer Rising, in particular Penny and Neil's romance, the too facile and neatly tied-up ending and that many of the characters in Barometer Rising seem to feel wooden, often unlikeable and not at all to my reading tastes, yes, this has certainly negatively affected potential reading pleasure in 2023 as much as this did in 1984, with me certainly feeling that Barometer Rising comes a very very distant second to Two Solitudes. And yes indeed, although Barometer Rising as a story of and about the Halifax Explosion and WWI in Canada shows a very nice historical accuracy, I do and must say that I have found the fictional parts of Hugh MacLennan's story pretty unremarkable, tedious and not at all engaging. ...more

11 likes · Like · see review

May 13, 2012 Alissa rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-2012, library

Aug 28, 2017 Carrie marked it as to-read

Nov 29, 2020 Sara marked it as to-read

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