The Pagan Wall

M. Morgan Holmes teaches English at McGill University.

In The Pagan Wall, Arnason has given us a splendid romp through Western
Europe filled with philosophical speculation, mysterious strangers,
death, disappearances, and international espionage. What sets this book
apart from the thriller genre, which it in part draws on, is its
mingling with all the intrigue of an apparently ordinary Canadian couple
sojourning in France. Expecting peace and solace, Lois and Richard
instead encounter a wild, often terrifying new world not only around
them but also, more importantly, within themselves.

Richard is a professor from Winnipeg; with his wife, Lois, he is
spending his sabbatical in Strasbourg with the intention of doing
research on the controversial German philosopher Martin Heidegger. While
the book begins with this conventional wife-follows-hubby setup, things
soon begin to get inverted as Lois learns to put her own
desires—sexual and otherwise—first. On a day trip to Mont Ste.
Odile, they, Nancy Drew-like, come upon a lifeless body stretched across
an ancient Druid altar. By the time the police arrive, however, the body
has disappeared. From that point on in the story the mystery of the
vanishing corpse is never far from Richard’s and Lois’s thoughts nor
from the events that overtake their lives.

The fascinating element of this web of intrigue is the impossibility of
determining how much of it is chance, how much is directly attributable
to outside forces, and how much Lois and Richard bring upon themselves.
“If you get a big enough explanation, then all the facts will fit into
it,” Lois recalls Richard saying. This observation, while it can lead
to paranoia, also offers some truth about how people create meaning in
their own lives. This is especially the case when, midway through the
narrative, the focus on international espionage broadens to include
passionate adultery in both of the characters’ lives. In Arnason’s
compelling story, how to explain falling out of love and chafing at the
bonds of conventional gender roles and monogamy ultimately is as
important, or more so, than the “whodunit” that opens the passage
into the labyrinth of questions.