The book has three main characters; Noah, Joyce, and the unnamed narrator. Unbeknownst to them, they are all related by blood. They don’t know each other but their lives intersect frequently in the book, often indirectly, through their relationships to secondary characters and to places. All three characters struggle with issues of identity and the book is about each of them pursuing paths to discover who they really are. The book is set mostly in Montreal, over a period of about 10 years.
Nikolski is about identity; each character is trying to find out who they really are and where they belong. The book ends up showing us that desperately holding onto the past isn’t the way for a person to find themselves. The book doesn’t offer readers a “Hollywood ending”. At the end of the book, none of the characters are left with any real satisfaction regarding their search for themselves.
Identity is also important when considering the objects associated with the characters in the book. Noah learned to read with road maps while travelling through central Canada with his vagabond mother. Joyce spent hours during her childhood looking again and again at her father’s maps, trying to feel less trapped by the small fishing village where she lived. The unnamed narrator wears - and obsesses over - a five dollar plastic compass that was given to him by his father who abandoned him. Strangely, the compass always points toward Nikolski, a small Aleutian village where (we later learn) his father (Jonas Doucet) settled down, and eventually died. And let’s not forget the three headed book which represents the three main characters and their lives being bound together by common themes, but still not quite belonging together as one, unanimous, story.
Fish are a major symbol in this book. Fish relate to Joyce’s life growing up in the fishing village, and also to Jonas Ducet (father to Noah and the unnamed narrator, uncle to Joyce) working on fishing boats. Fish are also responsible for the intersection of the lives of the three main characters as the Poissonnerie Shanahan is the fish store where Joyce works, and is also owned by Noah’s roommate Maelo, and is also known to the narrator. I also can’t help but consider the phrase “just another fish in the sea”. This would be in a non-romantic sense of course, although I can’t help but think about the night Joyce spent with the narrator, and I am still unsure about whether or not they had sex (keep in mind they are cousins, but but don’t know it). Just the same, I think of that saying more as a statement about Noah, Joyce, and the narrator being three of many lost souls associated with Jonas Doucet. At the end of the book, when we find out the narrator received a letter when his father (Jonas) died, the narrator mentions that Jonas’ co-workers were responsible for letting family and friends know of his death by going through “dozens” of letters to and from different people. This implies that there were possibly (and likely) more than two women that Jonas had children with.
Water is also an important symbol, frequently referred to. Whether it’s Sarah’s fear of water, the constant mention of islands, the relation Noah makes between the prairies and the ocean, the Venezuelan floods, Joyce’s obsession with being a pirate, the flooding basement, sea monsters, etc. The list goes on and on with references to water. Water is a difficult symbol to parallel to anything because of its ambiguity, but in this story, water is most often linked to fear, destruction, and loss.
One of the things I really don’t like about this book is the disappearance of several important secondary characters. The author allows the reader to become attached to these characters and it doesn’t seem right the way they are omitted from the story just when you want to know more about them. For example, Sarah (Noah’s mother) disappears from the book completely after Noah leaves her to go to University in Montreal. We don’t know if any of Noah’s letters ever make it to her and we never learn her fate. We also don’t know what happened to Arizna (Noah’s lover, but more importantly, the mother of Noah’s son Simon) with the flooding in Venezuela. I just can’t grasp how not allowing the reader to know the fate of these characters contributes to the story in a good way.
Another thing I didn’t enjoy is that the narrator remained unnamed. Maybe this served some deeper purpose that I missed completely, but I feel like the narrator was going to be revealed as some mystery character that would fill a missing link, but he remained unnamed. It is possibly a link to the identity issues in the story, but I didn’t think it did anything except take away from the story.
The book does have a funny side. One I particularly enjoy is when Joyce and the narrator are in the flooded basement to find the compass they dropped down the heating vent, the narrator talks about his long-time fear of the furnace. The narrator proceeds to tell us the manufacturer’s plaque on the furnace says “Levi Athan”. Considering that the furnace “ate” the very important compass, this is pretty funny.
I haven’t decided yet if I am going to read the original French version (I have never compared a French book to an English translation or vice versa). While I understand how people can appreciate this book for its imagery, character development, and intertwined plot, I don’t think this will be my pick for Canada Reads 2010 because it just didn’t grab me the way a good book should. A book being recommended to all Canadians should be a real gem, and unfortunately, Nikolsky isn’t one.
Book Information
Title: Nikolski
Author: Nicolas Dickner
Translated by: Lazer Lederhendler
Year of 1st publication: 2005
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Pages: 290
Awards (for French-language edition):
Prix des libraires 2006
Prix littéraire des collégiens 2006
Prix Anne-Hébert 2006 (Best first book)
Prix Printemps des Lecteurs–Lavinal
Purchased at: Chapters Bay & Bloor
Reading Time: 5h11m
Rating: 3/5
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