The Colony of Unrequited Dreams

R.G. Moyles is a professor of English at the University of Alberta and
the co-author of Imperial Dreams and Colonial Realities: British Views
of Canada, 1880–1914.

This magnificent novel sets the innermost thoughts of Joey Smallwood
against the ironic reflections of his secret love, Sheilagh Fielding.
Her “Condensed History of Newfoundland” is one of the wittiest and
most truthful versions one will ever read, and her newspaper articles
(especially the ones on Squires) are more Leacockian than Leacock
himself. Johnston’s considerable descriptive powers are on display
throughout. Particularly impressive are his poignant characterizations
of the fisherfolk Smallwood encounters on his walking tour of the
island’s south coast. Here he describes the experience of walking on
ice: “One second you were walking uphill, the next downhill. The water
below moved shorewards but the ice did not; you rose to a crest on the
ice, then felt and saw that crest move on ahead of you while another
swell began beneath your feet. It was like walking on the skin of a
massive animal.”

The well-publicized debate about the extent to which Johnston has
fictionalized the life of Joey Smallwood is, in the final analysis,
beside the point. The novel is not primarily about Smallwood at all:
rather (as the title makes clear), it is about the spiritual history of
an island people. Johnston wonderfully lays bare the Newfoundland soul.
The Colony of Unrequited Dreams is one of the best novels ever written
by a Canadian.