All language subtitles for The.Geographies.Of.DAR.2023.1080p.WEBRip.x264.AAC5.1-[YTS.MX]

"I went that night
and sat by our river."

"The water of our great river
makes us disappear.

We become at twilight
in the battle of water,

a symphony of ghosts.

We remember
the ghosts of children."

"Father Billy
has told us this.

Each man must attempt
to come to some truce

with his own heart."

"Gerry had never
known truth.

But he had conceived
it himself,

like some great men
conceive of truth,

and chisel it into the world."

"...but he had conceived
it himself, like some great men

conceive of truth
and chisel it--"

"...like some great men

conceive of truth and chisel it
into the world."

"Always, he'd come
back to his part of the river."

"He had
a peculiar way of expression.

Almost everything seemed to be
said slowly, and in duplicate."

"That's no good, no good."

"Or if asked how he was,
he would reply,

"Not too bad, too bad."

"He had a bad
head on him.

He sometimes couldn't
help what he did."

"Sir, you said
you would take me fishing."

"Turn her slowly, Cathy."

"Those words
still seemed to sing

in the trees above them."

"She'll walk with you
if you turn her slowly."

"To lilt
and measure out of some deep

reservoir of love and humility."

"'Can you tell
me what I should do?'

Arnold asked--"
"She'll walk with you

if you turn her slowly."

"'Can you tell me
what I should do?'

Arnold asked, after he explained
that he was unhappy."

"I'm not having
this place smell of piss

at Little Simon's funeral.
You hear me?"

"The fights became
more frequent and quarrels,

and snitching each
other's food."

"'Fuck ya, fuck ya'

for 'I love you. I love you'

or 'Help me. Help me.'"

"So Packet followed
his mother about the Maritimes."

"Always, he'd come back
to his part of the river."

"Always, he'd come back
to his part of the river."

"...to his part of the river."

"In the spring,

there was the pleasant smell
of soil and earth."

"And she hoarded things
like a chipmunk might.

Her trailer was filled--"

"He lay flat
on his back with the tarp

over him,
smelling his own fear..."

"When he was bullied
on the street, he said yes.

That's just what it's like."

"They turned
to the left and began to walk,

just as slowly, ever so slowly."

"'Are we lost, Papa?
Are we?'

'Don't be frightened Georgie.
No. We can never get lost.'"

People sometimes
mistake the idea

that I'm writing about poverty
and desperation.

I'm not going to shun the fact
that I do write about it.

Of course I do.
But I'm writing about

the absolute greatness
of the human soul.

And we all have
the same greatness.

And it is our obligation
to use that.

That's a real art, eh?

When you get a fly,
you can tell who tied it, eh?

Yeah.

- You can tell who tied the fly.
- Oh, yes. Yeah.

I'm going to put a little
head cement on it.

You know the definition
of a fisherman, eh?

- What is it, sir?
- Well, it's a jerk

on one end of the line
waiting for a jerk on the other.

That's pretty well it.

- So that's it.
- Yeah.

- And there you go.
- Thank you, sir.

- There's your bug bow.
- Thank you.

That's a beautiful bug.

"My first fishing
foray was along the bank

of a small brook
to the northwest of Newcastle,

on the Miramichi.
A sparkling old brook

that Lord Beaverbrook
took his name from.

It was Saturday in May of 1955

and I was not yet
five years of age.

I had four worms in my pocket.
They smelled of the dark earth

near my grandmother's
back garden

where they had come from.

And all worms smell of earth,

and therefore all earth
smells of trout.

That was long ago, when fishing
was innocent and benevolent.

Fishing even then could take me
out of myself,

far away from the worry
of my life, such as it was,

and into another life,
better and more complete.

I have learned since
that I would have to argue

my way through life,
that I was going to become

a person who could never leave
to rest the idea of why

things were the way they were."

:
"It was once said on CBC radio

by a professor from Ottawa
that Mary Cyr had met the poor,

but she had never really
known them.

But that was not
true about her.

In fact, she had
met the poor everywhere

and was more knowledgeable
about them

than were a host of devoted
middle-class activists."

"In this world,
there were things

one was required to like,
or at least to accept.

Mary Cyr did not seem able
to do that as well as most.

Nor did she seem to care."

My mother
was hanging out the clothes.

And it was a windy day.

And some of the sheets
got caught up in the line.

You know, she says,
"Well I'm going to go out

and fix that." And so she
threw on her sneakers

and she didn't tie the laces.
She just ran out

and she tripped over the lace
and fell from the porch,

onto her stomach,
which was, unfortunately,

my head.

And, uh...

And within the next hour,

she realized she had
to go to the hospital,

because she was going
to give birth.

And so I was born
two months premature.

I weighed three pounds.

By the time I was four,
I was walking around

and you know,

I used my right side
far more than my left.

I still do.

"I was looked at
a lot when I was young.

Poked and prodded.
People wondered about me.

Wondered if I would live,
or how I would if I did,

would I be the same
as they were.

That was the big crisis
in their life,

unknown by me
for quite some time.

How would I ever be
like other people?

Because for a long time,
at least until I was about five,

I simply assumed I was.

My parents especially
wanted me to be as others were.

My mother was desperate
to include me in everything.

But there is a wonderful
indication that the oddballs

in the end..."

"My parents especially
wanted me to be as others were.

My mother was desperate
to include me in everything.

But there is a wonderful
indication that the oddballs

in the end are the ones
that sooner or later

make all the difference.

It always did puzzle me

how those who commend
Saint Francis

or Saint Joan of Arc
still cringe at the fact

that their own child
might have a vision

to do something
out of the ordinary.

I did try everything.
And it never bothered me

very much at all.

But my left side bothered
certain other people,

who then told others
it bothered me.

That is, they took their fear
of my being different

and placed it at my door.

And I saw the fear
of my being different

in others quite early,
because some people had it

when dealing with me.

Why did they fear me?

Well, concerning my mother

this came out of guilt
for having fallen

on the day I was born,

and causing my calamity.

It remained a block between us.

My mother's guilt
is understandable

but not warranted,
and I should have told her

so many years ago
that there was absolutely

nothing for me to forgive.

What my mother did give me
was a love of the written word,

and I suppose that was worth
at least

one fall down the stairs."

It also worried her

that I wouldn't be able
to make out in life.

When I decided to be a writer,
this was a horrendous thing,

because she-she probably felt
that I was going to...

She probably thought

that I was going
to starve to death anyway.

And then to become a writer?

Well, that just added to it all.

So I was certainly
going to starve to death.

So I think she was
extremely worried,

because I knew
from the time I was 14,

what I was going to be.
And she always thought,

"Well, you'll be that,
but you'll be a teacher first."

Well, there was no way.

"I often wanted
to enter the world

of the stained glass

to find myself walking
along the purple road,

with the Mount of Olives
behind me.

I suppose because I wanted
to be good,

and my mother
wanted goodness for me.

I wanted too
to escape the obligation

I had toward my own destiny,

my family, my sister and brother

who were more real to me
than a herd of saints."

"It was now July.

The screen door let in a breeze
that was almost forlorn.

The street was hot, though,

and the great shrubs
had turned brown at their tips.

Andrew was at the age
where he was beginning

to discover
that intellectual beliefs

did not always match action

and that sins
were sometimes overcome

by personal attributes."

When I was 16,
I was trying to write,

so school was not
important to me.

I didn't agree
with the English teacher I had.

And I didn't think that...

he was saying the right things
about the books.

And I was reading
different books.

I made 28 on my English exam.

Or something.

It wasn't very high.

And uh...

And then I was caught reading--

Writing poems in class.

The teacher read one
of these poems to the class.

So I threw a chemistry book.
I didn't throw it at him.

But he said I threw it at him.
I threw it at the wall.

But anyway, it doesn't matter.
He...

So he took my poems
to the principal.

Or he... whatever.

And these poems
were pretty bad.

But I thought they were
pretty great at that time.

I thought, like Shakespeare.

But they weren't great.

So the school board were there.

And they were reading my poems,

and what I said
about the English teacher,

all that, and stuff.

And they said, "Well, you know,
he has a real problem."

My parents were sitting there
with the school board.

And they said, "Well, he's got
to go see a psychiatrist."

I had just started
going out with Peg.

So I phoned Peg, and said,
"Do you want to go to Moncton?"

She said, "Sure! Why do you
have to go to Moncton?"

I said,
"Oh, they think I'm crazy."

"So do you want to come?
We'll get a hamburger."

"Sure! I'll come."

Maybe she was crazy, right?

And I was in the psychiatrist's
office for about

a half hour or so
and they called my parents in.

The psychiatrist said, "Uh...

your son is brilliant."

I'm not saying that
about myself.

It's what he said
to my parents, which...

which made them
a little happier, I think,

than they were on the way down.

But then I had to go back
and get the strap

and be expelled
for the rest of the year.

So I was forced to see
a psychiatrist, and given...

And beaten, to be allowed access
to a place I never wanted to be.

I loved the movies.

I went every chance I got
to the theatre,

because first of all,
I could get in free.

Because of my limited mobility
on my left side,

I could never skate.
So I'd go to the movies,

and that's where I found solace.

"Her features
had changed

since her husband's death.

She seemed closed off,

more solitary than ever.

In her mid-twenties
and a young mother,

she was beautiful,

though somewhat tougher
since her husband's death.

Her money held no pleasure.

She was very stern
with herself,

yet was kind to almost
everyone else and to Walter."

My grandmother
was a very...

forceful presence in my life
for a long time.

She had a great deal
of strength and integrity.

And I admired her very much.

My grandmother had to come up

against a lot in her life

when she was
running the theatre.

First off, she lost her husband.

They... They met in 1911.

He was a travelling musician.

He had his degree
from the Royal Conservatory.

He needed someone to accompany
him on the violin in Newcastle.

And he called for players
to come out and audition.

And one was Janie McGowan
with her fiddle.

And he said,
"Can you read music?"

And she said, "No, but I can
play anything you can."

And she was an 18-year-old girl.

So they got married.
They ran the theatre.

They ran, you know...

They started
the theatre.

Yeah, they started
the theatre;

one of the first
in the Maritimes,

if not the first.

"Walter had
done nothing in the last

few weeks but find things
out about her enemies.

He walked back and forth,

banking to the left

and blowing smoke
from his oversized cigar.

He told her that it was
a consortium of friends

that showed a complete
and unswerving contempt for her.

How this contempt
was manufactured?

Easily, indeed.

A widow like Janie McLeary

would know nothing
about the movies

fine and decent people wanted.

And why? Because her father
was old Jimmy McLeary the drunk.

She knew nothing about business,

and would be better
taking care of her children,

the way a woman should."

She was
an amazing woman.

And so was my other grandmother.

My other grandmother
on the Adams side,

they tried to foreclose
on her house

and take over her house too.

And she kept them at bay
with a double-barrel shotgun.

So she was no slouch either,

when it came to protecting
her own property

and her own people.

So I grew up in the midst
of very strong women.

The porch is gone,
but the fireplace,

the fireplace is probably
all redone and everything.

No, it's the same.

- Come and look through here.
- Is it?

Hi!

You can see the fireplace.

Oh, yeah. God Almighty.

"'So now I will
mention that boy

from the Miramichi' John said,

'The one with his pockets
stuffed with poems

as he hitchhiked
through the dark.

The one who was the uncle
of those children,

and who became their stepdad
after Ida died.

He was writing a novel
about downriver people.

A novel about the world
he had grown up in.

He was writing a novel
about you, your family,

Gaby May and her family.'

She was what beauty was about.

'Sir, you said you would
take me fishing.'

Those words still seemed
to sing in the trees above them,

to lilt and measure out
of some deep reservoir

of humility and love."

I started out
writing poetry.

And I never thought
I'd be a novelist.

I didn't think I was interested
in being a novelist,

which is the strangest
thing in the world,

because the first thing
I ever read

that really interested me
as a writer

was Oliver Twist,
which was a novel.

But I thought I'd be a poet.

I used to hitchhike
to Fredericton

with poems in my pockets,
and stuff.

And uh, I'd come
to the McCord Hall group.

So when I went to McCord Hall,
they were all professors.

I mean, I liked
every one of them.

You know, in some ways,
I thought they were great.

In other ways,
I've got to tell you,

that I was very
different from them.

Um, first of all, um...

I was going to be a writer.

And they were professors,

and the younger kids there

were going to be professors.

For a while, you know,
I wasn't taken serious at all.

And I wrote these awful poems,

and then short stories,
and awful short stories.

And then I was going
to write this short story

about this boy who shoots a cow.

And it ended up being
The Coming of Winter.

So that was the novel.
And then I realized that,

well, that was my calling,

such as it was,
was to be a novelist.

And when I was at St. Thomas,
one of the professors

told everyone that, you know,
that he was my teacher.

He was my mentor, uh,
that he taught me how to write,

and that I wouldn't have
been able to write

The Coming of Winter
were it not for him.

So I saw how writing
attracted people to you

in a way to gain some
attention to themselves.

And so when you see professors
do that and you're 21, 22,

you realize that human nature
is human nature.

And it doesn't matter how many
doctorate degrees you have.

But I was the only one
who was a writer first,

last, and forever.

It's a deep commitment.
It was also...

Um...

It was also very
hard on myself

and-and...

and-and she who must be obeyed.

Peg.

Because you know,
when I said, I said as a joke,

but it wasn't really a joke,
that first night I met her,

um, you know,
the very first night I met her.

And uh, and I drove her home.

And I said,
"What are you going to do?"

And she said, "Well I'm going
to graduate and go to, um...

go to Toronto and get a job."

I said, "Well you know,
you don't have to go to Toronto

to get a job. Get a job here."

And I mean, you know,
Peg came from, you know,

a family with a widowed mother
and nine children.

Of course she wanted
to get a job.

She was at work
when she was 17, really.

And I said, "I'm going
to be a writer."

And she said, "You are?" I said,
"Yes, I'm going to be a writer."

And...

that kind of damned us both,
didn't it?

I mean, we were both
damned by that.

The world she entered with me
was not guaranteed.

There was no paycheque
at the end of the week.

There were years and years
of struggle,

which I didn't know.

But I was prepared to do.

I had finished
The Coming of Winter,

and I was starting Blood Ties
and I said, "This is crazy."

And I quit university.
And then she was out of work.

And we bummed around,
and we went out west.

I wasn't happy out West.

I wasn't happy at all out West.

And we moved to Newcastle,

and that was no good.

That was not a good place for me

when I was writing
Lives of Short Duration.

I drank an awful lot
for a long time.

But I mean, most of the people
I knew back then

were heavy drinkers.

I started drinking very young.

I started drinking
when I was 14,

and I quit at 32.

By the time I was 18,
I was smoking two packs a day.

And then I went up to three
packs for the last ten years

of my smoking.

But then I started
chewing tobacco,

which was even worse. So...

So, there was no getting around

that I had an addictive
personality.

I mean, if I went
to pick flowers,

I'd probably be picking 4,000.
You know what I mean?

I just had this
addictive personality.

I couldn't stop doing
what I was doing.

Uh, so, that was me.

Drinking was uh, was reward.

I could write for a week,
and then I could drink

on the weekend.

And I wouldn't have
to think of all these thoughts

in my head,
and the characters

and where they wanted to go
and I could just black them out.

"He would sit
in his tavern,

chairs with
transparent ashtrays,

like ghosts that have spoken."

"...like ghosts
that have spoken."

"The discarded
materials of a generation

...stunk in his mouth..."

"...and there was a smell
of rubble and dust

from the liquor store
they were expanding."

"...from the liquor store
they were expanding."

And Lives
of Short Duration

was an extremely hard
book to write.

I mean, it was because I knew
what I was writing.

I was damning
the coming society, in a way,

which I didn't want to do.
But I...

But I saw the old world
being chopped to pieces

for no reason. And I...

And you know, maybe I was wrong,
but I had to write that book.

"'Rance' he said,
'You awake?

How can you get any sleep
in this fucking place?'"

"I'm looking for
a man tonight."

"And there
was talk of a McDonald's

fast food hamburger restaurant."

"Little Simon was sent
by the social workers

to a brick house in town."

"God helps
the Social Services."

"And if any of you
fuckers happen to see

a man, let me know, will you?"

I was afraid of the book.

I was afraid
of what I was writing.

"He lay flat on his back

with a tarp over him."

"He dressed and left
the hospital, walked out,

once the nurses
left the desk,

down the exit steps,
and into the grey night."

It was a long struggle
to get it done.

And I did not know
how to end that book.

"On the radio
came talk of unemployment.

And in the paper, an article
by a social worker..."

"...smelling his own fear,

like the smell
of his own blood."

"...on the disturbing
plight of youth."

"Bradley, you little jeeser,
where are you?"

And all these characters
kept coming and coming.

And a lot of it,
I threw in the dump.

It didn't work.

"It isn't as if a man was born
with a chunk of fathers."

There were things coming
because of mass media

and because of the influx
of the new popular code,

the new popular ideas
of the world,

and how people
were reaching for things,

and leaving what was essentially
important to their...

to their own nature behind,

because they were reaching
for a brass ring

that didn't really exist.

And there, that became
the dismantling of family life

in Lives of Short Duration.

"And it always
came over the fields,

the trees being broken down
by graders, the dust,

the new homes on shale beds

with cement foundations.

One after the other."

"When his father
hit him,

he hit him across the face
and sent him sprawling

under the kitchen table.

And when he stood up,
his father hit him again,

hard on the other
side of the face,

and again sent him sprawling.

Wasn't there compassion in that,
in compulsive violence?

And couldn't he still
smell his father's hand?"

"Haven't I been
a good father?

Haven't I been
a Jesus good father?"

"Georgie, you just
shut your god-damnable mouth.

We're having a party."

"Lois had always
been nice to him..."

"Don't be
frightened. Georgie..."

"She brought him
fruit and striped pajamas."

"...we can
never get lost."

"Little Simon,
standing in his underwear...

...in the white room,
with his two pairs of socks."

"On and on.
Children in cars.

Lois, going to the discotheque
to drink zombies in a glass..."

"You promised me
a good time!

You promised me a good time!"

"...and toking with
the boys in the back corner,

as they eyed her
uplifted breasts..."

"You could see

the rose tattoo
above her left breast."

"...and the beautiful
slant of her belly.

It was all the same."

"She'd had three children
by three different men."

"...get a wet cloth

- and clean that up."
- "She lived in a trailer

with a woodshed
on the back."

"Now, go on, now."
"And you could hear

her yelling at her kids
all the time."

"Little Simon
shook his head.

His face, hands coarsened
by various addictions.

His breath smelling
of unpleasing amphetamine."

"So Packet lived in the night.

And he lived constantly

like all men of the river,
with memories."

"And the smell
of food rose over

the ditches..."
"...a steel rod..."

"...and over the wild
flowers and onto the road..."

"Emma Jane,
what was she doing?"

"...mingling
with the smell of gas

and the empty barns
and buildings..."

"Oh, papa..."
"...with their dark

virginal quality."
"...papa."

"And the houses
with their lights on

for the evening."

"He went into
the woods in the early morning.

It was warm,
so the snow would melt.

And he found a nice quiet place,

and sitting on a cedar fell,
rolled a cigarette."

"The north
of this province..."

"Houses like ideas."
"...having to bring

people in to set up
businesses

and having to pay them
to make them stay..."

" Straggly corpses
from one end to the other."

"...until
the trees are gone..."

- "Oh, papa, papa...."
- "Thousands of acres downed

and nothing planted,

and the men looking around
in absolute bafflement."

"Great Expectations
Hair Salon.

For the man with the means
to move in the groove."

"We're part of the stew now.

And it's their recipe,
gentlemen."

"And it is what we wanted,

what we bragged about having,
until we succeeded..."

"He put Little Simon's
and Packet's head

into the toilet bowl,
one at a time,

and flushed the toilet,
when they were youngsters."

"He could see Packet's hair
swirling in the whirlpool."

"And Packet
took the beer and drank it.

And it ran down
both sides of his mouth."

"He slapped
Little Simon's hands.

The God-awful screams."

"Oh, I've had
the odd bad dream,

but nothing like Pack."

"The day Packet left
for out west

was the day Old Simon
left the hospital."

"Death came
from massive loss of blood

and shock,
almost instantaneously..."

"'You leave
my brother alone,'

she'd yell on the telephone."

"...The bullet cutting,
scalding through the aorta."

"Then he took her
back to the car

and laid her
in the back seat..."

"Why wouldn't he stop?"

"She saw the ceiling light,

and a bug caught in it..."

"Because if you're hurting
someone then you stop..."

"...a small bug,
like a black fly.

'Help me go home,' she said.
'Help me go home.'

'Where's the purse?
Where's Mom's purse?'"

You were going
completely

against current there.

Yes, I was. Yeah.
I was going against current.

Yeah, there's no question.
There's no question.

And I-I mean, there was
other books coming out

that were funny.
And they were,

they were hopeful. Um...

And they were considered
hopeful and funny,

and uh, and life-affirming.

And I was writing this book
that was considered hopeless

and non-life-affirming.

But I think it was
just the opposite.

When I have something to write,

it's beyond being
driven or determined.

It's something
far deeper than that.

And have I taken on society
over this? Yeah, I think I have.

I think I have taken on...

probably more than I could chew.

But uh, but anyway,

I-I've...

I've written what I felt
I had to write.

My idea of rural life
was entirely condescended to

by uh, by certain critics.

And part of it was because
they didn't know that

sense of place was more
than a location

because they would say,
"He has a real sense of place,"

in his regional backwater.
You know?

In his regional, tepid backwater

filled with wild game and...

and electric eels.

You know? He knows his stuff.

But when he gets into
the real world, you know,

the world of uh, urban Canada,
he doesn't know anything.

This is, I mean,
this is essentially

what they were saying, okay?

I'm fooling around.
But essentially,

they were saying
if you lived in the city,

you would have more experience,

but you and I know,
that that was never true,

never true at all.

It's because of this early
frivolousness,

when describing my work,

that made me, uh,
more determined

to do my work the way
I saw it should be done.

But there is a trick
to the word, "depressing".

And there is a trick
to the word, "regionalism."

What it says is this work

really has nothing
to do with real people.

It doesn't have to do
with real people.

Because what we're
afraid to do is say,

"Richards is writing
about the spirit of man...

He's writing about
the soul of man."

Because we don't want
to deal with that.

Every book I've done,

it refutes the idea

of the hopelessness
of humanity

by the greatness
of the characters.

"Dad left before
Percy was three.

I carry a picture of Percy
on his third birthday;

Dad's chair is empty.

So he must have been gone.

I tried for a time
to be Percy's father.

I took him for walks,
in his wagon,

and we would stop along
our lane to collect his bugs.

Percy had four jars filled
with grasshoppers and crickets,

caterpillars and snails.

He'd wait for me to come home
from fishing, jar in hand.

He'd open the front door
and run to give me a hug."

We're all born
with that greatness.

And it's how we exercise that
that makes humanity worthwhile.

How are you, John?

: So are you
still writing, Dave?

Oh yeah,
I'm still working away.

I've been getting by, Johnny.

John bought a new house on...

Trapper Newman
or Robert Newman

was a great friend of mine.
Um...

Some people thought of him
as a hard luck case.

I uh, I loved the guy.

He's called Trapper
because he had big hands.

And he was a brawler.
I mean, he'd knock you out

with one punch.

One day, he phoned me.

He says, "You're the only one
I can talk to about this."

He said, "I just read
The Life of Balzac."

He said, "Do you know
anything about Balzac?"

I said, "Yeah, La Comédie
humaine" I said, "I read it."

He said, "It's wonderful."

So we met at the tavern
and we talked about it,

and he became a fast friend.

He used to visit me and we drank
an awful lot together.

And then he went away.

And he came back to me.

And uh...

he helped me stop drinking.

And if it wasn't for him,

I probably would have
still drank.

And I probably wouldn't
have lived. And he told me.

He said, "You've got one
or two more years left."

He said, "You're going to die
in some way,

if you don't quit drinking."

And he was very
humble about it.

And very truthful.

And so he helped me
stop drinking.

Years later, a professor told me
that I should quit writing.

That I, you know, that I did
the work I could do.

And I should quit writing.

In essence, if I had
to quit writing,

because this very well-educated
professor at a university

who knows all about literature
told me,

then 50 or 60 characters
that I gave

to Canadian literature
would never have been...

never have been written,
never have been created.

Trapper Newman,

in helping me to get
off the bottle,

kept me alive,

and allowed me to create
60 characters.

So he's certainly more important
in my life than that professor.

And I think,
with all due respect,

he's more important
to Canadian literature

than that professor.

The characters that stand
against the odds

for personal integrity
will always win the day.

People will always come back
and want to read about them.

And the best ones will teach
the world something.

"Jerry had never
known truth,

but he had conceived it himself

like some great men
conceive of truth

and chisel it into the world.

And it was his
and no one else's.

He was like some great soul

cast out and trying to find
shelter in the storm.

His father had a plate
in his head

and would want to fight.

His father would stand
with his shirt out,

weaving back and forth,

his right fist cocked a little,

back against the wall,

and the dry earth,

the smell of hay,

tumbling with the crickets

and smell of summer

and all the world jostling
in trumpets of song.

A mentally unfit melancholy man

along a road
with a little boy by the hand.

Then you know truth.

You don't know it before then."

My main thing
is the characters.

It's the wonder
and the graciousness

and the greatness
and the silliness and the...

and the self-centeredness,

and all of that
in my characters

that I'm concerned about.

"Now I wish
to tell you

that the decrees
against my father

were not constant or even
at that time inevitable.

Many months could
go by without one.

I am telling you of
the occasions that I remember.

I also remember
walks in the woods,

and picnics and fishing trips
up Aaron Brook in the spring

where Dad would speak
about poetry

and Walt Whitman and Thoreau;

yet what I say here is something
to measure my father by.

He did not know that he,
and not Thoreau,

was the real article,

or that his civil disobedience

went to the very soul of man."

"In August
that same year,

on a particular windy
warm night, just after dark,

she was seen carrying
a huge bear trap

toward her enemies' house.

They came to her cottage,
the RCMP.

She was planning to set
this bear trap

and leave it on the steps
two cottages away,

in order to get the rich girls
who'd made fun of her friend

Debby Dormey's stutter,

a little girl who lived
on the upper road,

near the highway;

lived her life in three rooms

with a small bathroom
in the hall;

a girl Mary Cyr had suddenly
befriended, and treasured.

It was the first time she was
in the RCMP register,

as she would describe it,

and it would be
the first of 27 times.

It was the beginning of her war
against conformity,

but of a very
specialized sort of war,

a kind of clandestine one.

One where she was
the silent observer

of the disastrous world."

If you don't know
your characters on the inside,

you don't know them very well.

I know why Lois was left alone.

I know why she was
sexually assaulted

in Lives of Short Duration.

I know why she loves her kids.

I know why she loves her kids,

although she can't handle them.

I knew Adeles all my life.
I grew up with Adeles.

"When the Canadians
lost a game,

she would go about the house
like a ghost refusing to eat,

and prayed,
her lips moving slowly:

'Oh God, let Pete Mahovlich
get a goal.'"

"For Adele who had
always loved hockey,

and especially
the Montreal Canadiens,

this 1972 series between
the Canadians and the Russians,

was the one spiritual happening
she could think of."

"We were
all going to make the NHL

when I was ten or eleven.

In those years, long ago,

the weather was always
more than it is now.

There was more of it.

More snow, more ice, more sky.

More wind. More hockey.

We were all friends
of the Foley boys,

there were seven of them.

One of our goalies was a girl.

Another was a huge boy
with fresh-pressed pants

and the smell of holy water,

who believed in Santa Claus
until he was 13."

And that's when I, as a kid,

would begin to give up my idea
that I would ever make the NHL.

I used to think,
"Well, they might be still

looking for me," when I was 12.

But by the time I got
to be about 13,

I realized they weren't
really looking for me.

They were looking for guys
like Bobby Orr.

I don't know why.

But it seems that's the way...

And that's when I became
a writer.

And I wrote about hockey

and find it passionately
and intrinsically

involved in Canadian life.

"Another boy, Michael,
had all the talent in the world

but did not own a pair of skates
until he was 12.

And then only a broken-up,
second-hand pair

with the blades chipped
that he got from a pile

in the Foleys' basement.

Michael rarely played organized
hockey, organized anything.

They didn't have the money.

He grew up in the truest
sense alone.

He would appear out
of the shadows

at the end of the lane
after supper,

with his jacket undone,

and buttons missing off
of his shirt,

his overboots unzipped
and flapping and torn.

In his house, rats ran
along the walls

and there was a cot behind
the stove where he slept.

There probably were feelings
in him even at that time

that there was no way out.

Poverty has a smell that
has nothing to do with dirt.

It has the smell of darkness,
of evening,

of leaves in the earth."

There's a very poignant thing
that happened in Michael's life

in the book and in real life,

is he won 200 dollars on Bingo
before Christmas one time.

And I simply assumed,

and so did others, that he would
get his hockey skates.

Well, he wasn't going
to get his hockey skates.

He was going to buy
his grandmother a dress,

and his, you know,
brother a coat.

I never understood why a person

would look down upon a person
who didn't have money.

I could not understand that.

It is why I have my problem
with the modern world,

that belief that change can come
from physical things,

that it can come from material
and physical things,

and that if we all have
the right job

or the right plot of land,

that's not where equality
comes from.

It's not where human dignity
comes from.

It only comes from the soul
of the individual.

They, he, and her,
have to chart their own course.

"He had no idea
where to go.

He went outside and followed
the gravel drive

down to the road,
bent over and kissed it.

He went to see Billy the priest.

'Can you tell me
what I should do?' Arnold asked,

after he explained
that he was unhappy.

The priest told him that
he knew many people who were.

Arnold said
that this might be true.

'Yes, many people feel this way.

But one must be true to oneself,

and in this way, find God.'

Arnold felt ashamed
at the word 'God.'"

When I began to see

how people could destroy
their own humanity

and the humanity of others,

I began to believe that faith
was essential to humanity.

The idea of the regenerative
force of faith;

man and women's implicit
search for faith,

even if they decried it
at the same time,

becomes more and more standard

in the orthodoxy of my work.

"John Delano went
and sat in the back

of the church,
and stared at the Blessed Virgin

and the cross on the altar.

There was the faint smell
of ancient obligation,

the memory of 10,000 souls,

these devotions that did not
matter to many anymore.

But that John in madness
went back to,

prayed and fasted and thought
about more than most,

although he was a person

who had been a bad candidate
for any of it.

He knew, after solving cases
for almost 35 years,

he'd not been able to prevent
one murder.

And over those years,

he had dealt with 77 of them.

Still, he felt that
sitting here,

at the back of Saint Rose
of Lima,

was every bit as logical

as sitting anywhere else
in the universe.

It was every bit as logical
as spinning above the earth

in a space station,

floating without gravity

in a cylinder above
the Pacific Islands.

He had blood on his hands
from solving murders,

and he felt unblessed
because of the work he did.

There was in the human
dimension the damned truth:

that a man too eager
to accuse someone

commits the same crime
he accuses others of.

Self-righteous exposés

of man's inequities

show the inequity

of the self-righteous."

With the character
John Delano,

and I've dealt with him
in ten novels,

there was always this idea

that there was much
more to him,

um, much more to him,

emotionally and with integrity

than people gave
him credit for.

"The person writing
was religious,

or at least believed
in the import

of more cosmic forces
in our lives.

And the incident had plagued him
enough to write to Delano.

And John knew why:

He was a very well-known
RCMP officer, that was true,

but he had also lost a boy
years ago, his own son.

He had never solved
his own son's case.

It had driven him to despair."

I had no idea that John Delano
would be a police officer.

I had no idea
that he would appear again

after my first few books.

But, that he forcefully
comes back,

I think is essential
to the canon of my work.

I empathize with him completely,

especially in the later books,

uh, because he goes from being
somewhat of a town punk

to becoming a great man.

And he becomes a great man
because of the force of love.

So it is a journey for him.

And it's a journey for me too.

"On Thanksgiving
Saturday there was a dance,

and I came home drunk.

Elly said that Dad had phoned.

She told me he would be home
for Christmas.

She never told him
she was sick.

Never that I was drunk.

She had never been drunk.

I, on the other hand,
had taken to being

what my neighbours
thought I was.

For, once I became what they
had delighted in saying I was,

they feared me.

Still, our house belied
my monstership.

I wasn't even a thief
in my heart.

I sought not darkness
but light."

It's a very difficult thing
to write about faith,

intentionally and seriously,
when you live in a world

that has, in so many ways,
just simply given it up,

and think it's not important.

There is a desire to belong
to things

that at times
you can't belong to.

And so you have to step away.

You have to be your own
man or woman. You have to be.

And we don't always succeed.

But we hope that we succeed
at the best point in our lives.

"In so many books published

it is all a package
of social concern

and neighbourly wisdom now,

like crystals of instant soup.

The trick is to pretend
it's your wisdom

as you step up
to the podium to read.

Carry this handbook guide
written out for you,

and don't misplace it with all
the others in the crowded room:

A single mother suffers.

Men do not understand women.

A drunken father is brutal.

Fights in police cars are bad.

Ignorance and violence
are always male.

Racists are always white.

The age of intellectual
comfort has come.

Like instant coffee
in a Styrofoam cup,

it's always all there,
ready to mix up.

It takes a lot
of encouragement to swallow.

But the payoff means you belong
to the inner circle,

the compassionate ones
of gentle Autumn book launchings

who are bound to agree with you
on what true suffering means."

The Turtle, The Handbook
and The Dark Night Air

came out of isolation;

not only physical isolation,

but a spiritual isolation from
the other writers that I knew.

It seemed that so many of them
were going on in a direction

that, which I thought
would be not lasting,

that there were deeper,
more treasured truths

that were important,

that they either
did not comprehend

or did not want to comprehend.

Whether I could comprehend them
in my work or not,

at least I knew
there was a problem

that I had to try to address.

Still, I realize now
that literature through the ages

does not very often favour
those who have the handbook,

though they hold on to it
like a treasure.

But literature favours in
the end Emily Bronteë's torch.

The torch illuminates the ones
who remain steadfast

in searching the foul night,

either in laughter or in tears,

searching,
and knowing what it is

they are searching for.
That's the key.

All around, everywhere...

there will be cold and darkness.

I'll say this:

There is no shame
to recognize it as such.

The world is and must be
and always has been

a brutal, mad and godless place

filled with priceless moments
of hilarity,

sacrifice and love.

That is what the torch is for.

That's the reason for it.

To search this out."

I would like
for you to talk to me about

how suffering finds
its place in your work

and the necessity of suffering.

I wish I could explain
suffering, in a way.

Um...

Without suffering,
there is no spiritual evolution.

It allows empathy,
and it allows contrition,

and it allows spiritual growth.

But today's mantra
is to eradicate suffering,

without realizing
who it is who suffers.

And that's a big deal,
because the idea

that we know the sufferers
and who suffer,

and therefore we can eradicate
it for them,

is sometimes based on
a very narrow falsehood.

"In the left-hand
corner of his room,

beyond the window that stared
out at the road,

Arnold managed to poke
at the hornets with a broom.

Another fight.

That's all life was about.
If one thought of it enough.

After supper this evening,

his girlfriend
had left him again.

He saw her walk across the road.

What was he to do?
He kept his courage.

Courage that the social workers
told him he must have to live."

"Randy had become
a little bully,

and though he was smaller
than most of the other cubs,

would pick up anything
to hit them.

Craig came to see them about it
and seemed upset over it.

'Well,' Arnold said,

'did you know that in
the foster home he was beaten

by the bigger boys
and ordered about?'

Mabel said,
'He's just getting even now!'

'Yes,' Arnold said,

'He's just getting even,
that'll teach them.'

But that night,
they changed their minds.

'What did you hit that other
cub with?' Mabel yelled.

'A stick!' So Mabel didn't
know what to do about it,

so she slapped him with a belt
until her stomach hurt.

So that took some
of the pain away."

"Juliet has driven here
to see how Randy is;

Juliet, the social worker.

I sit on the cot-spring
praying to my mother,

praying to her dirty white arse,

and the washbasin that has
loosened its atoms in the heat,

so I can smell it along
with the spit from weeds.

I listen like a criminal
to the guilt

seeping through
the house boards, and crawling

belly down across the hot porch.

Guilt at the edge
of our trees."

"I caught my mother crying.

Her hands busily tried
to fix the clock radio,

and her tears came
down her face.

It made me nervous.

This road is in trouble.

No one treats the other
with respect.

My mother sniffs
and her hands tremble

as she twists the dial.

There are many ways of crying,
I know them all."

"One day, he took
Randy's clothes to the dump

and burnt them.

The clothes Randy had had on

when he went to the hospital
covered by spots of blood,

and cut open by a nurse,
were the last to be burnt.

Then he went home,

and after listening
to the hornets for ten minutes,

he got an idea of how
to be rid of them.

He burnt the house
to the ground."

Our duty to the poor
will never end.

No matter what social program
you have,

our duty to the poor,
and to the oppressed,

will never end.

That's the duty of humanity.

That's the duty
of men and women.

Without Peg, I probably wouldn't
have gotten my work done.

I probably wouldn't have
written my books.

Without her, I probably
wouldn't have made it.

I can't see my having
a literary career without her.

How are you doing?

There you are,
you old son of a bitch.

- How you been?
- Good.

How you been, buddy?

- Good. Good.
- You're looking good.

Hi, Peter. Hi, Robert.

- How you doing?
- Hey, Peter. How you doing?

I consider
the friends I grew up with

my real friends.
And I consider them

my real friends because
they don't give a damn

who I am. They're my friends.

You know, they're proud of me
if I write books.

But they don't care for,
you know,

whether I've become a senator.
I don't even think of myself

as a senator and neither
do they, I don't think.

He was there, and this girl,
about 14 or so.

He kept grabbing hold of her,
up swinging her around.

He was going, "Come on!
Dance with me!"

And then she'd get away
from him.

And he did it twice, eh?

Second time he did it,
Trapper looks at him,

and he says,
"I'll dance with you."

Happy Birthday to you!

Happy Birthday, dear David!

Happy Birthday to you!

Yeah.

Well, thank you very much.

Long, long,
long, long, long, long!

I know, I know.

Why are there so many trees?

Why so many trees?

Well, it's nice
to have trees isn't it?

- Yeah.
- Yeah, well these trees...

Why is there
so many plants?

Well, it's nice
to have plants too.

You know, if you lived
in the city

where your daddy grew up,

there was hardly any trees

and there was hardly
any plants.

Yeah, my son,
taking over my life.

Want to try that?

Yeah, fish right
along that bar, John.

- Okay.
- See that bar?

"I can't think
of one moment

where we look at someone
in love and awe,

where they aren't in some
great respect childlike.

Those who are at their best,

when they are,
are most often like children.

When we see our loved ones
acting not childishly,

but childlike,
we realize why we love.

But it is more than just
realizing why we love.

In fact, these qualities
allow us to love

both that person and ourselves.

And the truth about love,
as Saint Faustina said,

is that 'Love has only one
measure, to be measureless.'"

"She did not know
when she discovered

that it was time to go.

Debby Dormey's mother
had taught her the secret

without ever meeting her once.

For when you do go,
you do not have to say goodbye.

If you are brave enough,

you just have
to someday walk away.

Years ago, the Miramichi writer
who she liked

but who she could never read,

told her that they both
were the kind of people

who did not belong.

He said you couldn't
fight that, ever,

for they will not allow us
safe passage

to the end of the night.

Which meant, and he smiled:

'That you and I
will leave them,

so suddenly
that it will take a while

for them to catch their breath

and realize we are
no longer here.'"

I don't know what'll happen
to my work in the future.

I think it might last.
I think some of it'll last.

Um, but I did it because
I love the Miramichi.

I did it because
I love the people.

I wouldn't have written a word
if I didn't love the people.

I wouldn't have written a word
if I didn't find them...

I didn't find in them
something sanctified

and something of beauty.

And uh, and I hope I wrote
about them

with compassion and love,
because that's how I feel.

Subtitling: difuze