Brett Perry

Ms. Breivik

ENG4U

Feb,25/11

SECONDARY SOURCES

The Author: Timothy Findley

Title: The Wars

    Timothy Findley is one of the most famous Canadian authors ever. He writes about a whole bunch of different genres and successfully communicates his idea in ways the reader can understand and live in their heads. Findley is a prize winning author that constantly makes references to historical events, figures and other books. Timothy Findley constantly writes on themes of history, isolation, identity, war, madness and authority. These themes are interesting to me and this is why I am interested in Timothy Findleys writing.

    Timothy Findley was born in Toronto Canada ,October,30/1930. He attended Rosedale public school and St. Andrews college and Jarvis Collegiate in Toronto. At a young age Timothy’s father abandoned the family and joined the Canadian armed forces this is what leads me to believe he wrote “The Wars”. He also learned of sorrow when he was little because of a sibling that passed away. Timothy came out of the closet when he was in high school and wanted to pursue a career in dance or acting. After he got some jobs acting he wanted to become a writer. He wrote a whole bunch of novels with many different genres. “ The last of the crazy people” and “Can you see me” to name a few. Findley has been awarded many prestigious awards that authors can win such as Canada Council award, 1968, 1978; Armstrong award, for radio writing, 1971;  1975; Governor General's award, 1977; City of Toronto Book award, 1977, 1994; Anik award, for television writing, 1980; Canadian Authors Association prize, 1985, 1991, 1994. Timothy Findley died at the age of 71 on june,21/2002.

    Some other books Timothy Findley wrote were: The Last of the crazy people, The butterfly plague, Famous last words, Not wanted on the Voyage, The telling of lies and Spadework to name a few. Findley doesn’t have a set genre to his stories like most authors he was very unique at what he did. His genres can range from fiction to non fiction, fantasy to real life everyday problems, happyness to sadness whatever he felt like writing about he wrote about.

    When Timothy Findley was 9 years old world war 2 began and his father left his family to go fight the battles for Canada. This is most likely what influenced him the most in his entire life to write a novel about battles and the hardships of war. He lost a sibling when at an early age as well which makes sense as why he can capture the depression and sadness the war depicts, lots of lives are lost and many men are not the same after war.

    The themes that Findley most liked to write about are history, isolation, identity, war, madness and authority. I figure these themes interested him a lot and he related the most to them. He was a homosexual and back in his day it was not tolerated to be gay. He was most likely was isolated and was afraid of his true identity. He was scared to show his true colours and probably felt alone in the world and very different almost like an alien.

Mordecai Richler

    Findley's death has special poignancy. His generation of writers changed Canadian culture forever. There was a time in the 1960s and '70s when writers and critics could be found anxiously discussing Canadian identity, asking why Canadians had an inferiority complex, and wondering about our place in the world. But authors like Robertson Davies , Mordecai Richler, Al Purdy, Margaret Laurenceand Timothy Findley - all now gone - answered those questions simply by writing passionately about their own place, no apologies needed. Now no one says with stupefaction: "You want to be a Canadian author!" Instead, young writers talk of agents and international advances, confident that the world is paying attention. But only a few are left of the remarkable generation who made this possible. Sullivan, Rosemary. "Findley, Timothy (Obituary)." The Canadian Encyclopedia. 15 July 2002. Web. 02 Mar. 2011. <http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=M1ARTM0012305>.

I decided to add this paragraph into my blog as my part of a comparison between Timothy Findley and other very famous Canadian authors. This paragraph talks about how intelligent these writers were which included Timothy Findley and how any questions that people had were able to get answered within there writing because they were so intelligent and beautifully written novels.


Gale Database. “Timothy Findley.” Gale Literary Databases February 25/2011 <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/GLD/hits?r=d&origSearch=true&o=DataType&n=10&l=d&c=1&locID=stc23378&secondary=false&u=CLC&t=KW&s=3&NA=timothy+findley&TI=the+wars&GD=%22Male%22>

Sullivan, Rosemary. "Findley, Timothy (Obituary)." The Canadian Encyclopedia. 15 July 2002. Web. 02 Mar. 2011. <http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=M1ARTM0012305>.

Williams, David. "A Force of Interruption: The Photography of History in Timothy Findley's The Wars." Canadian Literature 194(2007):54. eLibrary. Web. 24 Oct. 2010.

<http://elibrary.bigchalk.com/elibweb/curriculumca/do/document?set=search&dictionaryClick=&secondaryNav=&groupid=1&requestid=lib_canada&resultid=6&edition=&ts=6FEA76E4B0853678B75DA037E6400F66_1287971584081&start=1&publicationId=&urn=urn%3Abigchalk%3AUS%3BBCLib%3Bdocument%3B148089385#citation>

BOOK CHOICE SUBMISSION

Brett Perry                                BRETT PERRY

Ms. Breivic      
ENG4U

Feb/14/11

Book Choice Submission

    Novel: The Wars

    Author: Timothy Findley

    Publication date: 1977

    Pages: 190

     I have chosen the novel the wars because I have an interest in warfare, especially world war I and world war II. Old time war really interests me because it is the first time that certain types of weapons are used. It was these wars that introduced certain types of warfare and influenced weapons and war of modern times. The title was the most captivating to me out of all the books on the list we had to choose from. Your not suppose to choose a book because of its cover but I have, due to the trench warfare it depicts. Beyond just my interests in warfare and history i have also been reassured from a few good sources that Timothy Findley is one of the greatest well known Canadian authors of all time. My teacher Ms. Breivik told me it was a good choice because Findley really gets his point across and makes things clear and really aggressively describes his stories

  

    The Novel "The Wars" so far is actually rather interesting it’s a story of a young Robert Ross Who loses all will to live when his sister dies. He joins with the Canadian Forces and comes across a lot of challenges he has to face. It’s enjoyable so far to what I have read. The plot is well layed out and there is a lot of potential for this novel to be great in my mind. Its already worldly renowned as a classic and hopefully through the rest of my reading I too think of it as a truly amazing and classic novel.

 

   I am Currently in about 26 pages of the novel I think the more I read the more interesting it will become. It has layed out the entire plot, I know exactly what is going on with his family and the story line so far. The book is narrated by a historian trying to put together all the pieces of Robert Ross’s life through the memories of the people he knew. I now know all of the relationships he had with people and what he thought of them I also know what his feelings are and how he feels about everything going on around him. I like that all of these things have been communicated clearly to me and it makes the story a whole lot easier to read and understand.

    The setting right now is a set of train tracks with a town on one side behind the character, and a burning medical supply shop in front. There is an abandoned train beside the train tracks. And a horse and dog companion standing on the tracks. The characters name is Robert. The mood is a sense of dreary and rainy weather and an idea of pain caused from a broken nose. Robert has just released over 100 horses from the train and now they are all running towards the woods at 1 am in the morning.

    Although it is really early in the book and I don’t know what is going to happen. I am going to shoot in the dark and say that him releasing all of these horses is a bit of fore shadowing for the story. Maybe it will talk about prisoner of war camps, or possibly the horses running away is a symbol of the war ending and everyone getting to go home. I do not know what happens in this book and that was a complete guess but this is what comes to mind when I think of 130 horses being set free.

 I have currently found three secondary sources the first i found was a critical reception of Findleys work on the Gale databases. The part i found the most interesting was how other authors believe he brought his characters to life through psychological insight. The second secondary source was on the Canadian Encyclopedia. It talked about Findleys death and his legacy of how his writing will always exist because it was so detailed. I found this interesting because it talked about how he viewed his writing and always critisized it even though other authors believed it was wonderful. The third secondary source was from Canadian Literature and it was interesting to me because it fully explained Findleys style of writing and it introduced  me to how he painted pictures with his words using photographic technique. This is my favourite style of writing because it fully explains content to you in full details.

(Map of where world war 1 took place the Triple Entente would
be an alliance with the Canadian side of the battle )

    One line that sticks out to me so far is “ Then we shall all go together”  this is what Robert says just before he lets all of the horses out of confinement and sets them free. Then all of the horses run of together into the forest. He does not have to set all of theses horses free but he does anyway. This suggests to me that its like “no one gets left behind” rule number one when fighting in a war. It sends themes of war to me and there hasn’t really been a mention of fighting at all yet.