Near Water

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is the
author of several books, including The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese
Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret Laurence: T

Near Water is the 12th and final novel in Hugh Hood’s impressive New
Age series, begun 25 years earlier with The Swing in the Garden. Woven
from Hood’s personal experience of growing up in Toronto and living in
Montreal, from his Christian faith and his extensive reading, and, most
importantly, from his imagination, this unique series chronicles the
experience of Matthew Goderich in late-20th-century Canada. The
first-person voice, almost inevitably, is Matthew’s.

The novel opens with Matthew reflecting on the word “periplum,” a
literary term meaning an epic journey that has numerous secondary
implications. It is, of course, a sly dig in the ribs of readers, who
should now be alerted to the nature of the book just opened. The
duplicity is comic. And like the Odyssey, Matthew’s favorite comic
epic, Near Water is “a traveller’s handbook” intended to help us
navigate the shoals of life.

Matthew is driving to his lakeside cottage in hopes of a reunion with
Edie, his estranged wife of 30 years, when he experiences a
cerebrovascular attack, a stroke. His mind roams over a life lived near
this beloved place. Structured in nine chapters, all with such
metaphysical titles as “Angels,” “Powers,” “Virtues,”
“Principalities,” “Dominations” and “Seraphim,” this
symbolic journey ends with Matthew’s arrival at his goal: “Faint
crunch of gravel. The three mighty forms ... coming across the water for
me now.”

Hood, who died recently, wrote 31 books, 17 of them novels. For
reflective readers, Near Water will remain a favorite. Noreen
Mallory’s cover image of an abandoned lakeside cottage is superb.