The Double Hook

Canadian Author Unknown
Reviewed by Dan Brady

This novel poetically explores the problems of human paradox. Choice versus conformity, life versus death, novelty versus familiarity, fate versus freedom, physical versus spiritual, pedantic versus poetic, materialist versus mythical are some of the poles between which human consciousness is stretched. The fiddler, the coyote, the fisher woman and the child serve as symbolic clues to unlocking of the perplexing plight of a young man in search of his identity.

The old woman, as earth mother, fishes for food and for meaning in the muddy shallows of life, her poverty matched only by the paucity of her catch. The coyote comes and goes at critical moments; he poses as a sorcerer, a stealer of the fire of fortune and life, as the magician who adroitly transforms consciousness, as the ultimate arbiter of life and death.

Felix, the indolent musician, Felix the cat, the lucky one, the happy one, is the mysterious choice to perform the salvific act of midwifery; it is the poetic soul who witnesses and affirms the promise of new hope at the birth scene of William's child. And, ultimately, it is the child, likewise named Felix, who redeems the sin of the father, who becomes the newborn star of hope, born in his own Bethlehem of poverty and uncertainty. It is the birth of Felix (the new Felix) whose innocence holds out for hope for a new tomorrow and a faith that Fate's coyote can be controlled even if never killed. Coyote stands as life's alpha and omega, as the forces of Fate which envelope the life of every man from birth to death. He is the double hook from which on cannot escape while in search of freedom from fear on the trail to triumph. Wherever wonder walks, despair lurks. This story explores the circle game of life; it reveals the necessity of retracing one's memories; and it affirms the impossibility of avoiding a homecoming, a return to one's roots, to the window of wonder and awe where, in death, one is born again.