The Republic of Nothing (52 page)

Lesley asked if I had ever thought about publishing a book myself, and before that year was out, his company, Pottersfield Press, published my first book,
The Masked Rider.
Lesley himself appears in my second book,
Ghost Rider,
both as my host on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia (his “guest house,” a little trailer in the backyard, charmed me) and as the recipient of some of my many “therapeutic” letters.

Here is part of that first letter I wrote to Lesley, which also introduces some of my responses to reading
The Republic of Nothing.

This past Christmas a good friend of mine gave me a copy of
The Republic of Nothing.,
and not only was it a very enjoyable read, but it had something more: a rare and special quality of, well,
friendliness.
It is the kind of book the reader falls in love with — the characters, the story, the setting, and yes, the author too (in a Platonic manner, of course…).

But seriously, this book so well blends profundity and levity, sex and magic, psychology and landscape, and it also combines the wonderfully ridiculous (Everett McQuade's stick of dynamite blowing off the guard rail and the “Go Slow” sign) with the wonderfully sublime (lan's idylls with Gwen). Sometimes those last two elements are simultaneously woven, almost in a Voltairean sense, like the archetypal young man's “quest,” when Ian and Dr. Ben (a postmodern Candide and Pangloss) go to New York to find a “grandfather.”

There are so many delightful qualities in this book, but I don't want to go on too much. If you're at all like me, you'd only get embarrassed by too much praise — though too little praise isn't good either. I've always liked Hemingway's little poem, “Praise to the face is open disgrace,” but I don't think that applies to a letter of praise.

In my glow of pleasure at “discovering”
The Republic of Nothing,
I also felt ignorant for not having heard of your writing before. However, at least I had the anticipatory pleasure of seeing your long list of other works — it's great to find “new” writers you like and to know that you can look forward to reading lots more of their work. Lately I've had that experience with writers like Paul Quarrington, Nadine Gordimer, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Cormac McCarthy, and Tim O'Brien.
(In the Lake of the Woods
was another recent “revelation” for this reader.)

It's also nice to be able to turn your friends onto these “discoveries,” as I have been doing lately with
The Republic of Nothing
— telling everybody to read it (no borrowing my copy though; they have to buy their own). Hopefully you can look forward to a small bump in your readership this year!

Now, more than ten years later, I was excited when Lesley's publisher asked me to write this afterword for a new edition of
The Republic of Nothing.
The first thing I did was read the novel again, and I'm glad to say that my opinion of it has only heightened. The book really does have that quality of “friendliness” I referred to after my first reading, but behind that superficial ease is a wonderful sense of craft.

The Roman poet Ovid wrote, “If the art is concealed, it succeeds.” In the case of
The Republic of Nothing,
so much of the art — the thinking; the lyrical, yet concise descriptions of characters, landscape, and weather; the symbols and metaphors — is revealed only where it belongs: in character and plot. Character is destiny, and anything can happen.

And yet none of Lesley's characters is a mere “symbol,” a two-dimensional cutout representing a certain type, as in a satire. A little magic heightens this story, literally and figuratively, but it doesn't stretch realism too far.

Even the villains, like John G.D. Mclntyre — who first tempts Everett McQuade into political activism and then becomes his nemesis — or the corrupt politicians, like Bud Tillish, are rendered as full characters. And consider the complications of lan's relationship with Burnet Jr., who at first is feared as a bully but then, through lan's insight and compassion, transforms into an unlikely friend. Yet Burnet commits the ultimate betrayal: seducing lan's beloved Gwen. And, in a novel that is so much about innocence betrayed, another ideal is tainted when Ian has to face the reality that Gwen
wanted
to give herself to a coarse, shallow lout like Burnet. Thus both Ian and Gwen are betrayed by the most miserable of traitors — the subrational drives of adolescent “sex appeal.” We have all been laid low (so to speak) by that hormonal beast.

Then Burnet goes off to war, fighting for the Americans in Vietnam, and Ian comes to a timeless realization about him.

He was the perfect sucker for a government that had to preach and package hate in order to create and prolong a war that nobody would have otherwise wanted. It would always be so easy to sell hate.

That is a sixties point of view, sure, but clearly the novel also speaks to the nineties, when Lesley was writing it (he actually used the phrase “weapons of mass destruction,” which has echoed so darkly through our time — “Somebody somewhere else would always be willing to give up the land to fuel weapons of mass destruction if the price was right or if the will of the people was soft”), and the novel certainly speaks to the beginning of the 21st century. Like all great fiction, it speaks for all time. And like all great dramatists, Lesley Choyce can build a stage on Whalebone Island, Nova Scotia, and bring the whole world to it.

Camille Paglia once wrote dismissively about her generation, which had come of age in the sixties, lamenting the lack of great novels to come out of that time. She was insinuating something like Allen Ginsberg had in the opening line of his kaleidoscopic poem of 1956,
Howl:
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness.” And drugs etc.

But that wasn't really true, in Ginsberg's fifties, Paglia's sixties, or in our new millennium. The sixties was just such a big epoch that it took a while for artists to get hold of it. Eventually, they did — Norman Mailer's novelistic journalism; Tom Robbins's whimsical romps; Tim O'Brien's harrowing early stories and novels evoking the true horrors of the war in Vietnam; John Irving likewise, especially in
A Prayer for Owen Meany;
T.C. Boyle in several of his early novels and his more recent and more profound
Drop City;
and certainly, Lesley Choyce with
The Republic of Nothing.

His stage may be set on Whalebone Island, Nova Scotia, but the major issues of the times all play their role: Vietnam, draft resistance, student protests, nuclear proliferation, political assassination, environmentalism (and environmental activism — as in Edward Abbey's cult favorite,
The Monkey Wrench Gang,
when Ian sabotages the mining company's bulldozer), abortion, feminism, marijuana, homelessness, spiritualism, and, more than anything, the innocence and ideals that were inevitably sacrificed on the altar of human nature.

And speaking of altars of human sacrifice such as literary criticism, I went searching online for any useful reviews or commentary about
The Republic of Nothing.
Sadly, I came up disappointed save for this memorable report by a reviewer who wrote under
the adorable byline “Angel Fedora.” I am compelled to share her note verbatim:

We had to do this book in my grade 12 english class. Unlike most school books, which are often boring and tedious, this one kept us interested and we therefor did good on the tests :)

Bless you, Angel.

One passage from the novel illuminates the near-saintly character of Ian McQuade, illustrates the subtle poetry of Lesley Choyce's writing, and invokes the hopeful tenor of what seems to be Lesley's own vision of the world and our future:

If any of this sounds naive, I beg you to remember that I had grown up the son of a proud anarchic revolutionary and a beautiful metaphysical sorceress. Dreams changed lives. Wives appeared as gifts from the sea. The distribution of free fish to the masses brought power of political dimension. On an island in the Republic of Nothing, minds were read, dogs brought back from the dead, elephants appeared on the shore, Vikings slept and grandfathers took trains and ferries back to life from purgatory. Certainly in such a republic, mere human happiness was possible. Certainly two people could love each other enough, forge enough forgiveness and compassion in their souls to transform a small planet into a Garden of Eden. All of this was possible.

1.
The Republic of Nothing
can be read on many different levels. It is part fairy tale, part adventure, part coming-of-age, part socio-political commentary, part commentary on the sixties and seventies. Which level affected you the most and why?

2. Despite the Utopian nature of Whalebone Island, inevitably the real world intrudes. In the end, Utopia seems to triumph over reality. If you had the choice, which world would you live in and why?

3. Politics, or the lack of politics, plays a strong role in the narrative of this story. In Everett McQuade's life, anarchy gives way to party politics which gives way to anarchy again. Do you agree with Everett that people don't need government in their lives and why?

4. The sea is a major theme in the book. It gives a lot to the Island but is also responsible for taking away many things as well. Make a list of what the sea gives and takes. Is it balanced or does it give more than it takes or vice versa?

5. The female characters are especially strong in this book. What are some of the contemporary feminist issues that are tackled?

6. There is a strong sense of mysticism in
The Republic of Nothing.
lan's mother sees the future, reads tarot cards (and seemingly reads minds), and is a magical figure. What role does magic play?

7. Compare and contrast the natives of Whalebone Island with the “refugees” who join them. Which group affects the other more?

8. lan's family goes through many changes and is strained to the breaking point. What do you take away from the book about the survival of families?

9. By the end of the book, Ian learns that he doesn't have to move away from home in order to grow up. Do you agree or disagree?

10. The United States is portrayed as a place to get away from and a place of violence and intolerance. Is this portrait realistic? Would it be applicable to 21st-century America?

11. The Viking Ian finds in the bog ultimately plays an important role in the Island's history. What does this symbolize?

12. As in all small towns and villages, eccentrics are embraced with open arms. Who are the most eccentric individuals on the Island and what role do they play?

13. Free-spiritedness prevails throughout the story. How does this philosophy affect the characters?

14. Death hits the characters time and again throughout the story but so does life. Which is strongest in your opinion?

15. How did Dorothy's story affect the characters? How did it affect you?

Born in New Jersey, Lesley Choyce lives at Lawrencetown Beach, Nova Scotia, an all-season surfing paradise that he discovered thirty years ago. Canada's most versatile man of letters, he is the author of more than 60 books in genres ranging from essays and history to fiction and poetry for adults, young adults, and children. He has been a finalist for the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour, has won the Ann Connor Brimer Award, has twice won the Dartmouth Book Award, and was named the Best Writer in Halifax five years in a row.

Lesley Choyce is also the founder of
The Pottersfteld Portfolio
and the founder and publisher of Pottersfield Press. In his “spare” time, he hosted
Choyce Words
and hosts and co-produces
Off the Page with Lesley Choyce,
a book show broadcast on BookTelevision and Vision TV; performs with the band, The Surf Poets; and teaches creative writing at Dalhousie University. His animal epic,
The Skunk Whisperer
(based on a true story), was broadcast across Canada. Choyce is a former Canadian national surfing champion and was featured on the front page of
The Wall Street Journal
for his writing and his surfing. Lesley still surfs year round in the North Atlantic and is considered the father of transcendental wood-splitting.

Choyce's books express his deep passion for the sea, from his best-selling history,
Nova Scotia: Shaped by the Sea
to
The Coasts of Canada
to his celebrated novel,
The Republic of Nothing.

1. This book has many layers. It's a political satire, a coming-of age story, a fantasy. Which do you consider the most important element of the story?

The novel began as a coming-of-age story. It was pure fiction, but I soon fell in love with the island and the people and had a hard time returning to more mundane reality. So I guess that makes it a fantasy tale as well. Nonetheless, it all seemed so real to me that, for a while, I half believed I
was
Ian and I was living his life. Or maybe this is what I envisioned my life to be like had I been born on such an island on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia.

I'll let you in on the fact that, like Ian, I was born March 21, 1951. His life is radically different from mine, but I wanted him to have lived through the same time period during which I grew up. This helped me keep track of his age, his development, and the reallife events going on in the background.

The novel was intended to explore politics — the politics of daily life, local and provincial politics, and global political issues. I fought to keep them in the background so that it wasn't a preachy political novel. Gwen kept trying to bring politics into the fore-ground, and Everett was there to show the great paradoxes that exist for people in power who have good intentions.

2.
In this novel and several other of your books, you write about the sea. What is it about the sea that inspired you to turn it into a character?