Unsolved Narratives in Howard Norman's "I Hate to Leave this Beautiful Place"

Literary analysis essay on Howard Norman's personal essay book, "I Hate to Leave this Beautiful Place"

Unsolved Narratives in I Hate to Leave this Beautiful Place

 

Everyone knows how stories are meant to be told; there’s a beginning, a middle, and an end; there’s a conflict that is meant to be resolved; by the end of the story, any and all questions the reader could possibly have should be answered. These guidelines formed the standard for Western storytelling. In Howard Norman’s I Hate to Leave this Beautiful Place, he highlights five major events in his life as he experienced them, with a few life changing relationships thrown into the mix. Howard Norman deviates from the standard Western storytelling strategies in his memoir through the use of unsolved narratives when describing the relationships he encountered throughout his life.

In the first chapter of Norman’s memoir, his relationship with his brother’s girlfriend, Paris Keller, remains largely unsolved. From the very first description of her, it’s clear that the author has feelings for Keller. It’s also clear that she is very promiscuous, supported by the graphic t-shirt�"reading “EXIST TO KISS YOU” (1)�"she promptly removed and put in the dryer to reveal her waiting for her clothes to dry “naked from the waist up” (1). The next time she’s brought up, she paid for three-fourths of the author’s first car, test drove it for him, and transferred the title to him, despite him being unable to drive at the time. Moreover, the scene where she takes him to the movie theater raises even more questions about their odd relationship. She insists on taking him to see Zorba the Greek, batting down his worries about his brother caring that his girlfriend is buddying up to his younger brother, and only convincing the narrator when she suggests that they pay for their own tickets. Her graphic tee, once again, suggests her promiscuity before the scene plays out in full; this time reading “ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK” (26). As if his feelings for his brother’s girlfriend weren’t complicated enough, her giving him his first sexual experience in that movie theater supplies the “wildness of incident” (99) that goes against classic Western storytelling. Immediately after this experience, they never talk about it which creates another weird situation that doesn’t get solved, much like her standing half naked in his living room. From the reader’s perspective, she just continually causes conflict for the narrator, which is proven after the movie situation when Howard Norman realizes that Paris was the one who sent the letters he had written�"and never intended to send�"to the fathers of his peers. Why? For the sole purpose of causing trouble. All the questions the reader has about their strange relationship are left entirely unanswered, compared to the Western standard of storytelling that would make a point to complete the picture the narrator provided with some sort of definitive ending to his ties to Paris.

From the outside, the narrator’s relationship with Mathilde also seemed to be an uncanny mystery that doesn’t get to be solved. While Norman is devastated by his girlfriend’s death, it’s later pointed out to him by a coworker’s friend, Ellen, that “neither of [them] looked very happy” (75). This assessment of their relationship doesn’t affect him in any way. He continues to go visit the sight of the crash to keep himself from thinking irrationally about the entire situation. While Ellen’s perceptions of the relationship don’t phase the narrator, they challenge what the reader had assumed, up to that point, to be a loving one. Howard Norman admits that he remembered their relationship how he wanted to; he wanted to remember the good times and act as if the bad never happened, and that’s how he portrays the two of them in their conversations before the plane crash. Ellen, on the other hand, points out that they were an odd couple; “I wondered what she was doing with you” (75). To an outsider, Mathilde was unusual and “exotic-looking” (75), where Norman was plain and didn’t mirror her quirks in any way. The reader could understand the effort that they each put into the relationship through the conversations that Norman provided. For example, the scene where they’re talking about Norman’s experience at Woodstock, Mathilde challenges him with questions�"suggesting that “if you remember Woodstock, you weren’t really there” (59)�"before realizing that Norman was slightly taken aback by her attack on how he experienced the festival and tried to make it up to him by saying “I’d have wanted to sit in the bathtub with you…. I’m glad you had a nice time” (59).

Other than his remembrance of their relationship to Ellen, Norman doesn’t want to talk about the plane crash or Mathilde after her death. He goes on through the book describing other situations and, even when he gets to the site of the crash, avoiding talking about what happened. He writes about thinking about her as he goes about his life and how much she would enjoy the places he found himself in, but “less and less as the days went on” (83). That is the last thing about Mathilde the reader gets; like Paris, her and everything associated with her is subsequently dropped after the chapter is over. It’s evident in the text that he tried to limit thinking magically as he coped with the death of his loved one through the use of Robert Frost’s words “the best way out is always through” (83), but nothing is explicitly given to the reader to prove that there wasn’t more behind his coping. Therefore, the actual nature of their relationship is left open-ended for the reader to ponder as he moves onto the next event in his life.

As far as unresolved narratives in this memoir go, the “Grudge Poem” and “The Visitor Put in a Snow Globe” both represent the depth of the conflict between Howard Norman and the angakok and allude to the way the narrator left things when he left Pangnirtung. First off, the “Grudge Poem” sets the scene for the conflict for the entre chapter: grudges become bigger than what actually caused them. This theme essentially is the sole existence of the angakok. He is the shaman of the Pangnirtung community and is highly respected as a healer or wise man. That being said, the angakok is filled with hatred for Norman from the second he enters the community because of a cultural grudge that only he remembers; as Norman states, “I may well have been a surrogate for every Caucasian who ever set foot in Pangnirtung” (102). Norman tries not to take the insults personally, as every member of the village tries to tell him, but insists that “such in-your-face assaults cannot be made less frightening by placing them in the context of historical rage” (103). After all, Norman simply found himself in the region by trying to preserve their culture through transcribing their folktales, which would be considered a good thing to most people whose cultures are dying due to lack of passing down traditions. The angakok, on the other hand, refused to see his actions as helpful because of a grudge passed down through history that he will not let go of.

When Norman transcribes “The Visitor Put in a Snow Globe,” he has decided to let the conflict go unresolved. Their brief encounter in the store where the angakok threatens to place Norman in a snow globe of his choice makes Norman accept that he will never gain the trust of the angakok because of this historical grudge, which is evident when he states “whatever battle we were having, he had won it” (111). Before leaving the village, he transcribes that last folktale from the cemetery caretaker, Jenny Arnateeyk, and realizes that leaving is the only way to appease the angakok. Naturally, the story reflects on the treatment that he was given while in Pangnirtung; an outsider, sentenced to live in his own world within the village, under constant supervision from the angakok until the villagers pity him enough to release him from the snow globe and he realizes he would never be able to stay while under such scrutiny. While Norman felt he had a job to do in the community, the angakok pushed him out without dropping his angry grudge and Norman didn’t have any other choice than to let the grudge go unresolved as he left for his next opportunity.

Howard Norman’s brother is yet another relationship whose ending remains questionable. In the beginning of the memoir, he’s stealing cars for the sole purpose of getting to church to ask for forgiveness for the sins he’s committed. When he reappears later in the memoir, he’s on the run from the authorities and wants the author to “smuggle him over the Canada border” (119). He doesn’t ask this of his brother once; he asks at least five times before he’s brought in to jail for mail fraud and tax evasion. He argues that “people can change” (127) by referencing the amount of times the two brothers were in contact while the one was trying to escape being arrested, as if that wasn’t the only reason they talked that summer. The different tactics that Norman’s brother uses to try to convince him to aid a criminal slowly become more and more manipulative, starting with comparing Norman to Robert Frost�" “[Robert Frost would] fix up a horse and sleigh and take that brother through hellfire and ice storms into Canada” (133)�"and eventually bringing the narrator’s family into the mix. It’s apparent from Norman’s writing that him and his brother had two very different opinions concerning where their relationship stood. His brother thought they were as close as they were “when [Norman] was three and [he] was six” (133), while the narrator was more realistic as he realized they were only talking because his brother was in trouble. While his attitude does become more sympathetic once his brother was arrested, Norman’s relationship with his brother is obviously on the rocks, but it is never resolved and left open ended as they entertain the idea of him visiting once he is released. 

On the contrary, the narrator’s relationship with Halley Shagran proves to have the standard Western storytelling components. The opposition would argue her roll in his life proves to be helpful and serves a definitive purpose, starting the moment they met and ending with her showing Norman that being afraid of death does nothing but make you afraid of the inevitable. In addition, they would suggest that Halley’s presence in Norman’s memoir answers all the questions readers may have about his previous relationships because of the lesson her photography teaches him. In her mind, “life…has a spiritual affirmation and so does death” (182). Through her photography of death in nature, she teaches Norman that death is something natural and transitory, something that must happen for new things to come�" “turning into new stuff” (185), in her opinion, while Norman prefers to think of the subjects in her photographs being “on [their] way to being reincarnated” (184). This idea relates to every unanswered relationship that Norman had found himself in in this memoir: old things have to pass for new, better things to come along. Although her view point of death bringing about new things does help him begin to get over the Vazirani filicide that occurred in his home, it doesn’t answer his complicated relationship with Paris, the violent death of Mathilde, the angry grudge of the angakok, or the long-distance phone calls with his brother while in prison. It’s true that Halley obviously does have an impact on him when it comes to accepting certain things in his life, but she also makes him see the nature preserves he once saw as places for life as sights of death. Therefore, Halley, while resolving Norman’s grief where Vazirani is concerned, creates another unsolved conflict in the narrator’s life before the end of her story.

Throughout each stage of his life, Howard Norman found himself in the midst of a new relationship, be it romantic or by blood. As he took each one in his stride, complications arose and they left him for their own reasons. His memoir, while highlighting key stages in his life, glosses over some of the finer points in his relationships. Through his use of unsolved narratives such as these, the narrator leaves the reader in the dark with internal conflicts that seem to never be answered. In this way, Norman deviates from the standard storytelling ideals readers are accustomed to because of his denial to rescue the people who affected his life by giving them an unclear ending in I Hate to Leave this Beautiful Place.