{"id":238,"date":"2011-05-19T10:28:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T10:28:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/?page_id=238"},"modified":"2012-02-05T23:11:31","modified_gmt":"2012-02-05T23:11:31","slug":"angela-hickman","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/writings\/reviews\/angela-hickman\/","title":{"rendered":"Angela Hickman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fiction Review<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\u00c9tienne\u2019s Alphabet
\nBy James King
\nToronto, ON: Cormorant Books, 2010<\/h6>\n

Dictionaries are not typically books we think of as being subjective. Rather, they are factual sources \u2013 somewhere to turn when you need to decide on a Scrabble word or solve a crossword debate. Dictionaries are not typically something people make up for themselves. Enter James King, who, in his novel \u00c9tienne\u2019s Alphabet<\/em>, does just that. Presented as the autobiography of the fictional artist \u00c9tienne Morneau, \u00c9tienne\u2019s Alphabet <\/em>is a personal story structured alphabetically instead of chronologically. It\u2019s an interesting take on a familiar form and, for the most part, it works wonderfully.<\/p>\n

Although the story is slow to get going \u2013 for the first few letter sections each anecdote and memory feels disjointed \u2013 a flow does develop to \u00c9tienne\u2019s chosen genre of self-expression and individual events are typically presented in chronology, even if it takes him several letters to get through them. I found this jarring at first, but there is a logic to the seemingly higgledy-piggledy arrangement. In many ways, reading \u00c9tienne\u2019s Alphabet<\/em> is like getting to know a real person, because no one tells their life story in one chronological swoop; rather, it comes out in pieces that you put together for yourself. King has created a complex, interesting and surprisingly normal character in \u00c9tienne, but most of all, he has created a character with a personality and mannerisms so vivid he could walk right off the page.<\/p>\n

At the time he is writing (1966 and 1967), \u00c9tienne is a 34-year-old teller for Royal Bank in Toronto, a French-Canadian, and an orphan. Like most people looking back at their life, there are some key events and themes that \u00c9tienne returns to repeatedly as his alphabet progresses. The story of how he was discovered by the nuns at the Montreal orphanage seems especially haunting \u2013 how, he wonders, could his mother have left him outside in the winter, all alone. His memories of childhood are quite striking in both their specificity and their point of view; it isn\u2019t always easy to render childhood memories in a realistic way, but King has done a very convincing job of it. Of course, \u00c9tienne also writes a lot about his day-to-day life with the Beaulieu family, from whom he rents a room. \u00c9tienne is not very social, and the Beaulieus are the main people in his life \u2013 besides his colleagues and the customers he serves at the bank \u2013 and their family life and pop-culture preferences get repeated attention in his definitions.<\/p>\n

The big turning point in the narrative, which is actually revealed in stages since the structure prevents lengthy ruminations on any one event, is \u00c9tienne\u2019s visit to Shanghai. He is sent there for work, knowing nothing about the city except what he read in Tin Tin comics as a boy. Not only did this trip open up \u00c9tienne\u2019s eyes to the world around him, but it also inspired his creativity, leading directly to his impulsive foray into art.<\/p>\n

But perhaps more revealing than the events and themes themselves, are the words \u00c9tienne chooses to define them by. For example, rather than entering into his thoughts on camels in the C-section, \u00c9tienne waits until D to discuss dromedaries and their ilk. Similarly, some people are filed by first name, others by surname. All the categorizing makes perfect sense considering that \u00c9tienne is, as he explains in one entry, a list-loving obsessive-compulsive.<\/p>\n

By far my favourite part of the novel, though, comes at the beginning of each new letter-section when \u00c9tienne describes the personality of the letter at hand. \u201cU: Is it simply a rounded-off V or a member of the alphabet in its own right? Many serious self-esteem issues here,\u201d he declares without a hint of self-recognition; \u201cF is the Hamlet of the alphabet. Very indecisive. It is forced to ask itself on a daily basis, Am I just some sort of bedraggled E?\u201d Although \u00c9tienne\u2019s memories and self-reflection are interesting to read, they sometimes feel too obvious, like overly specific character traits that King wanted to hammer home. The letter descriptions are what make this entire book work, because for all of \u00c9tienne\u2019s self-aware discussion, these brief introductions give us a window into the true man behind the autobiography.<\/p>\n

\u00c9tienne\u2019s life is presented as a collage, which can seem a bit disconnected when looked at piece by piece. But as you read through, the larger picture begins to emerge, and \u00c9tienne\u2019s life comes together in a startling and vivid way. I half-expected the novel to finish before reaching Z \u2013 it seems almost too perfect, otherwise \u2013 but \u00c9tienne managed to make it through the whole alphabet before dying of heart failure (which you find out at the very beginning). It\u2019s a little convenient, but you just know \u00c9tienne would feel better knowing it was all wrapped up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fiction Review \u00c9tienne\u2019s Alphabet By James King Toronto, ON: Cormorant Books, 2010 Dictionaries are not typically books we think of as being subjective. Rather, they are factual sources \u2013 somewhere to turn when you need to decide on a Scrabble word or solve a crossword debate. Dictionaries are not typically something people make up for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":77,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"authorpage.php","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-238","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":916,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/238\/revisions\/916"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/77"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}