Emily Carr (1) (1871–1945)

I loved inhabiting this autobiography. Emily Carr writes in way that makes you want to be with her, like a friend.

Indian Sophie was my friend. We sat long whiles upon the wide church steps, talking little, watching the ferry ply between the city and the North Shore, Indian canoes fishing the waters of the Inlet, papooses playing on the beach. p. 278.

There are extraordinary moments of insightful expression

I felt bitter. My sister was peeved. She neither looked at nor asked about my work during the whole two months of her visit. It was then that I made myself into an envelope into which I could thrust my work deep, lick the flap, seal it from everybody. p. 175

And her deeply felt love of country and its native inhabitants is both poignant and expressed with a wonder that transported me:

No part of living was normal. We lived on fish and fresh air. We sat on things not meant for sitting on, ate out of vessels not meant to hold food, slept on hardness that bruised us; but the lovely, wild vastness did something to it all. I loved every bit of it – no boundaries, no beginning, no end, one continual shove of growing - edge of land meeting edge of water, with just a ribbon of sand between. P.108.

… (meer)

Enjoyable short vignettes by BC artist and writer Emily Carr. Yet this is not the equal of some of her other books - notably Klee Wyck, Growing Pains, and the The Book of Small. These stories concern her years running a boarding house and raising dogs as her main income. While all her memoirs are insightful and compelling, her anecdotes here centre on often inconsiderate, sometimes dishonest and occasionally pitiful renters, illustrating how unpleasant those years were for Carr. Her boarding house brought her into close contact with unfamiliar people and relationships, interactions and chores, and she reacted by categorising them and writing rather resentfully about her tenants' behaviours as payback. This broad disdain for people, coupled with Carr's love of (and evident preference for) animals evident in this writing, particularly in the appended stories about raising dogs, leaves a parting impression of a rather sour and disillusioned person. Fortunately her other memoirs - also written in late life - provide a more fully rounded view of her personality and humanness.… (meer)