Howard O’Hagan. The Woman Who Got on at Jasper Station (1977)

     Howard O’Hagan. The Woman Who Got on at Jasper Station (1977) Talonbooks reissued this collection, and it seems to have had a moderate success. This copy was originally shelved in the Mount St Joseph Separate School library, and contains many pencilled notes. These are of the “what you need to know for the exam” variety, unfortunately: there’s no indication of what the note taker actually thought of the tales.
     I don’t think much of them. O’Hagan is a good craftsman, and clearly wrote for a market. I read three stories thoroughly, and skimmed the others more or less carefully. The older tales have a serious, portentous tone, and deal with unsophisticated people living in times and places far removed from the city dweller or academic who presumably bought the magazines in which the stories appeared. Such tales were popular in the less pulpy fiction magazines of the 1930s, since they grant the illusion that one is hearing stories of “real life”. And of course they attract the high school English teacher, since they give occasion for discussion of themes. What would a high school English class do without themes!
     In the very first story, The Teepee, a white narrator sleeps with a Native woman; but her husband, when he comes to visit the narrator’s camp, all but invites the narrator to service his wife when he’s away. “Heavy!” as 1960s student might say. The most recent stories are clearly aimed at more modern tastes. The Love Story of Mr Alfred Wimple is a satirical glance at what drives the moneyed classes, the same lust for status and women as what drives the less dollar-obsessed ones, it seems. The title story, last in the book, describes a doctor’s wife returning home to a village in the bush near Jasper, and briefly thinking about a casual affair with a sailor on his way to Victoria.
     O’Hagan writes obliquely, suggesting rather than telling or showing. This is his strength. Even his first-person narratives display a reticence at odds with that mode. This method of storytelling works quite well, because it engages the reader’s curiosity. What is really going on here? is the question that keeps us reading. Again, such tales are attractive to the high school English teacher, since they afford opportunities for “close reading”. But in the end, the answers to that question are at best merely satisfying. I don’t get the sense of insight into a character or way of life, despite O’Hagan’s choice of material. That choice implies that the stories will be minor revelations at least, but they aren’t. The stories claim more meaning than they have. ** (2008)