Rope of Time

Lisa Arsenault is a public-school teacher in Ajax, Ontario.

The fortunes of a family of mid-twentieth-century expatriate Finns are
traced through four generations in this short novel. The grandmother is
the central character: the survivor of all the family vicissitudes, the
keeper of ancient Finnish traditions, and the provider to family members
of comfort and wisdom. Having been poor farmers in Finland, the family
emigrates first to the United States, where they find uncongenial work
as miners and then as stump farmers, and then to Canada, where they are
only marginally more successful as Prairie farmers. A branch of the
family is attracted by communism and settles on a commune in Russia,
where they are almost destroyed by the implementation against a family
member of Stalin’s infamous Article 58. At the end of the book the
last surviving member of the four generations is contemplating moving,
yet again, to Vancouver.

This restlessness appears to typify the spirit of the Finns in the
author’s view. Unfortunately, the results of this fictional family’s
relocations are generally disastrous. They encounter prejudice and
violence. Failure dogs their footsteps in almost all of their endeavors
and they seem to suffer a disproportionate number of deaths in the
family. Any successes and personal triumphs, which family members must
surely have experienced, are played down or omitted. This slim volume is
filled with sadness and tragedy, offset by scarcely a modicum of joy to
provide balance and realism.