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“It’s an immense night out there, wheeling and windy. The lights on the street and in the houses against the black wetness, little unilluminating glints that might be painted on it. The town seems huddled together, cowering on a high tiny perch, afraid to move lest it topple into the wind.”

The town is Horizon, the setting of Sinclair Ross’ brilliant classic study of life in the Depression era. Hailed by critics as one of Canada’s great novels, As For Me and My House takes the form of a journal. The unnamed diarist, one of the most complex and arresting characters in contemporary fiction, explores the bittersweet nature of human relationships, of the unspoken bonds that tie people together, and the undercurrents of feeling that often tear them apart. Her chronicle creates an intense atmosphere, rich with observed detail and natural imagery.

As For Me and My House is a landmark work. It is essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand the scope and power of the Canadian novel.


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Customer Reviews (3)

An excellent--but not great--Canadian novel
Whether As For Me and My House can be considered one of the "great Canadian novels" is somewhat questionable, but there is no denying that it is a profound, complex and evocative work of literature.

Set during the Great Depression, the story revolves around the domestic life of the Bentleys, who have come to a small, isolated Saskatchewan farm-community of Horizon, where Philip Bentley has taken on role of being the town's new minister.

Ministering is something that Philip, in fact has little desire to do, and is instead obsessed with painting, to the point where his wife--through whose perspective the story is told--is neglected.There relationship is essentially broken, but the reasons for this are not simple, and this essentially is the focus of the story.

Throughout the novel, Mrs. Bentley--who is never named because the work is written in the form of journal entries--continuously explores their history, their personalities and the effect of their confined lifestyle upon themselves and one another.

Over the course of their residence in Horizon she comes to realize that the break-down of their relationship, is not so much the fault of Philip's conduct, as we are first led to believe, but fact that both have allowed themsleves to become victims of circumstance.

As For Me and My House is definitely a work worth studying, but like I initially stated, I question whether it can really be considered one of the great Canadian novels.

Wind, Earth and Dust
As For Me and My House provides a descriptive tale about a preacher and his wife during the depression.Written by the hand of the wife, who remains nameless, the book incorporates vast imagery to help portray the feeble lifestyle they were trapped within.Mr. Bentley, unable to motivate himself to move beyond his unsatisfying profession as a preacher, lives in unhappiness, bringing his wife into oppression with him.Animal imagery is prevalent, as the town and its people are described in such terms.They all cower and protect themselves; with the exception of Judith, who "scales the wind" at the beginning until she discovers her own sexuality and becomes the earth....Can air continue to have 'life' when submersed into the ground?

Canadian Literature at its' best!
Through the journal entries of Mrs. Bentley, we are given a beautiful and complex novel of great importance in Canadian Literature.As a story of life during the depression, this book perfectly captures the trials ofprairie life during this era.As Mrs. Bentley describes events in herjournal entries, we are given a chance to not only accept the text at facevalue, but to read betweenthe lines.Mrs. Bentley tends to say more bywhat she doesn't write than what she does. All in all, an incrediblebook and one which everyone should read. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A Novel Worth Reading...
As For Me and My House is truly a Canadian masterpiece.This novel provides us with a glimpse of our "canadian" heritage and allows us to understand and appreciate the hardships that pioneers endured. At times the novel seems dry and flat, but if you read closely and take the time to analyze and understand every sentence, you find words of wisdom that deal with human nature: their strengths and weaknesses.

Wonderful
Sinclair Ross is a brilliant writer. Although this story deals with a loney preacher and his wife during the depression era the trials they go through are easy to relate to. I would recommend this book to any adult wanting to discover how to really love and forgive. The content matter is a little advanced, so I would suggest it for anyone sixteen or over.

As For Me And My House
This book was well written, and that't the only good thing there is to say.It is the worlds most boring book to read, and if i didn't have to read it for my english lit class.... I recomend you not read this book ... Read more

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Keath Fraser, a friend of Sinclair Ross's for 26 years, offers an intimate portrait of the last years of Ross's often beleaguered life. Ross moved to Vancouver in 1982 and died 14 years later at the age of 88. This elegant and earthy account of an artist in decline-crippled by Parkinson's Disease and a sense of failure, attracted to suicide and his own sexual revelations-leads the author to a new biographical reading of one of Canada's most acclaimed novels, As for Me and My House (1941). A homosexual, Sinclair Ross grew up behind his own false front on the prairies, developing after the war into a more cosmopolitan man than previously imagined. We catch glimpses of him living beside the Mediterranean in Greece and in Spain where his career as a novelist later revived and where Fraser first visited him in the 1970s. ... Read more

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Sinclair Ross (1908?1996), best known for his canonical novel As for Me and My House (1941), and for such familiar short stories as ?The Lamp at Noon? and ?The Painted Door,? is an elusive figure in Canadian literature. A master at portraying the hardships and harsh beauty of the Prairies during the Great Depression, Ross nevertheless received only modest attention from the public during his lifetime. His reluctance to give readings or interviews further contributed to this faint public perception of the man.

In As for Sinclair Ross, David Stouck tells the story of a lonely childhood in rural Saskatchewan, of a long and unrewarding career in a bank, and of many failed attempts to be published and to find an audience. The book also tells the story of a man who fell in love with both men and women and who wrote from a position outside any single definition of gender and sexuality.

Stouck?s biography draws on archival records and on insights gathered during an acquaintance late in Ross?s life to illuminate this difficult author, describing in detail the struggles of a gifted artist living in an inhospitable time and place. Stouck argues that when Ross was writing about prairie farmers and small towns, he wanted his readers to see the kind of society they were creating, to feel uncomfortable with religion as coercive rhetoric, prejudices based on race and ethnicity, and rigid notions of gender. As for Sinclair Ross is the story of a remarkable writer whose works continue to challenge us and are rightly considered classics of Canadian literature.

Product Description
Sinclair Ross’ 1941 novel As For Me and My House is a masterpiece of Canadian literature, a stunning evocation of the Prairies and their inhabitants during the Depression of the Thirties. With The Lamp at Noon and Other Stories, an original New Canadian Library collection, Ross reveals further dimensions of his fictional universe.

A woman’s impulsive infidelity leads to tragedy. A sudden hailstorm destroys hope. A boy learns to conquer a beautiful wild horse. A little girl dreams about a circus. Against the isolated, haunting landscapes of summer droughts and winter blizzards, the men and women of Ross’ stories grapple with fate against almost impossible odds. Marked by a legacy of pride that will not suffer defeat, Ross’ unyielding characters are cut off from their loved ones by obstinacy and defiance. Their tragedy is not that they suffer, but that they suffer alone.

The sensitivity, compassion, and subtlety with which Ross portrays human aspirations and failings remain to this day unequalled in Canadian fiction.


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Customer Reviews (1)

A sad, sad story...
Terribly, terribly sad.The lamp becomes the framework, the stage for this story.There is the feeling of coming full circle, and of defeat; resignation.There is a certain desperation in the story that isdepressing and overwhelming.Not an enjoyable read, but an engrossing one. ... Read more

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A petty criminal eludes capture by becoming a hired man on a prairie farm, only to discover deception and betrayal. Introduction by Kristjana Gunnars. ... Read more

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Sonny, an aspiring musician, and Mad, a young woman down on her luck, struggle to survive in the mean streets of Montreal. Introduction by Nat Hardy. ... Read more

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On the eve of his retirement, Doctor "Sawbones" Hunter reflects on his career as a small-town physician. Introduction by Ken Mitchell. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Classic Canadian Literature
This is one of the great works of Canadian fiction.It tells the story of a retiring doctor through the first-person perspectives of others.It is extremely well written, and the existentialist bent of the theme is insightful and provocative.It reads fast, and you'll wish there were more.This should certainly be part of any reading list for Canadian literature, and probably for fiction in general. Surely you should also read Ross's "As For Me and My House." ... Read more

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Product Description
This digital document is an article from The Modern Language Review, published by Modern Humanities Research Association on January 1, 2008. The length of the article is 640 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: As for Sinclair Ross.(Book review)
Author: Alison Calder
Publication: The Modern Language Review (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 2008
Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association
Volume: 103Issue: 1Page: 214(2)

Article Type: Book review

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Product Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of (James) Sinclair Ross, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 1969 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Product Description
This digital document is an article from American Review of Canadian Studies, published by Association for Canadian Studies in the United States on December 22, 2002. The length of the article is 3978 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Book review essay: continuing to read Sinclair Ross.(Book Review) (book review)
Author: David Stouck
Publication: American Review of Canadian Studies (Refereed)
Date: December 22, 2002
Publisher: Association for Canadian Studies in the United States
Volume: 32Issue: 4Page: 695(9)

Article Type: Book Review

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