Paul QuarringtonRecensioni

Classic Quarrington fun! He died way too young

This book (& movie) turned me into a Paul Quarrington fan. I got into this because The Rheostatics did two albums called "Whale Music".

This is a choice from a member of my bookclub, otherwise I doubt that I would ever had read it. And, had I been in a different mood, I probably would not have liked at all. But, there is something as “the right book at the right time”, and I did laugh lots in a moment when I needed to find a book that would make me laugh.

The characters are quite stereotypical, but humour is by nature stereotypical characterization. And Quarrington’s humour is fresh, non-cliché. It lacks a certain depth in plot and characters, but there is great originality in its humour, so 3 stars it is.

I did not enjoy this story at all. The writing was competant and kept me reading until the end, but the ending was dark. I think the description is misleading - I found no hope and no redemption.

In addition I found the language and sexual description much more vulgar (and I use that word for its original meaning) than I normally partake in (I read mostly older literature).

This story screams Canadiana and hockey history. While I enjoy watching hockey, I have no historical knowledge of the greats of yesteryear, so the name dropping meant nothing to me. What I did enjoy is the first person narrative, Percy's florid perspective (and hazy memory) as the King of the Ice, and how Quarrington tells what is in essence a rather bleak story in a poignant, entertaining way with wry humour. I did not find the characters overly loveable, but I do appreciate Percy - now an aged and infirm resident in a senior's nursing home - and how his hazy memories stir up emotions of both pride and regret. My favorite parts of the story include the monks who taught young Percy about hockey while he was in reformatory school. When they show up unexpected at his hotel room in New York... well, you will just have to read the book to find out more.

Overall, an interesting and entertaining CanLit story told with humour and pathos.

I read this as my sports themed book for the 2017 Book Riot Read Harder challenge. it was a slow read for me because I have very little interest in sports, but it was well written and the characters were fairly interesting.

[SPOILER] The ending, an easy transition to an earlier memory of hockey under a full moon, was fantastic.

While I wouldn't rate this book as highly as some others, it was good and some of the characters were very interesting. Desmond Howl, the protagonist, is a victim of the 60's rock n roll generation. He's done every illegal and legal drug going and he supplements them with quantities of alcohol and food. Into his life comes Claire from Toronto. Desmond believes Toronto is a planet in Alpha Centauri and thus Claire is an alien. (Seems like a fairly good description of a person from Toronto to me.) Desmond is composing his magnum opus, Whale Music, but he's still grieving the death (perhaps suicide) of his brother with whom he formed the Howl Brothers band. Various wacky characters drop by but Claire keeps sticking around. I would recommend this book to anyone who can remember the 60's or even wishes they remember the 60's.

This was a good book but not a great book I would say. I'm still not sure why it beat out Not Wanted on the Voyage in the 2008 Canada Reads unless it's because the judges thought something humourous should win. And yet it's not laugh out loud funny. More the kind of wry grin of recognition funny. It is certainly Canadian unlike the other two books by Quarrington that I have read, Galveston and Whale Music, both of which largely take place in the USA.

This book will definitely appeal to hockey fans but I think the message is broader in scope than that. Leary, like most people at the end of their days, has things to be proud of and things to regret. He has outlived almost all of his friends but sees a way to make amends. I'd like to be able to make amends to some people and I imagine most people would. So I'll be pondering that message for a while. In the meantime maybe I'll have a glass of Canada Dry ginger ale!

Seeking God, Quince Marmalade and the Fabled Albatross on Darwin's Islands

My four-star rating might be generous, especially since I've been pretty critical with other books I've read this year. There were certainly a few things I didn't like--under-age groupies and the tired idea that descriptions of nude male corpulence make for automatic humour-meets-honesty--but at the same time this book really read well. It was hard to put down, even when I told myself I would stop the next whale-heading chapter-segment.

I got here by way of the Rheostatics, as I think many readers did. I didn't listen to them much in high school and it's only been the past year that I've been paying them more attention, yet somehow a lot of their music really takes me back to my teenage headspace and I can't say why. This book brought me there too, what with the elements of depression, psychosis, and self-medication that were a frequent part of conversations. And the way that these people are drawn to one another, Claire drawn to Desmond because, I think, they can share this knowledge of not being 'normal,' of not being okay. The co-morbidity of depression and substance abuse in Desmond struck me, especially in how you can tell those around him want to simplify it into one or the other when really you can't.

I would've loved this book as a teenager too, especially with my more significant appreciation of classic rock bands and culture. It's the fact that I find that culture toxic now that made me uncomfortable, but that makes this book relevant to the current zeitgeist of pulling apart previously well-protected celebrities guilty of abuse in the past because it very much taps into that scene.

My first read of any Quarrington, the book was a real discovery. Can't remember how I acquired the used paperback--perhaps when I heard the author had died, I visited the used store--but after it lay around the house for a year or two I finally decided to check it out. What a fun read! Creative, page-turning, hockey-loving (I think that's a prereq, but it may not be), the book is as Canadian as a novel gets, or let's say as hockey-fond. Based no doubt on some storied real character, the main protagonist is a whirlwind of touchstones-just-out-of-reach: Is it The Rocket, Lafleur (no--pre-him), a bit of Béliveau, or based on someone from still earlier? It's like a Picasso pastiche of some hockeyman's perfection. A fine read.

From comedy to pathos in a scant few pages...tragedy haunts us all. What we make of it determines our stories, in this case finding a reason to live.½

2.5 stars

Percival “King” Leary was a hockey superstar in the NHL in the early 20th century. He is now in a nursing home and has been asked to star in a ginger ale commercial with a young, current NHL star. In this book, King looks back on his life in hockey and with his family and friends.

I think it was supposed to be funny (having won the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour). Hmmmm, not for me. In fact, I found it kind of boring. Not necessarily because of the hockey. I don't watch hockey, anymore, but when I was younger I was a big fan. That being said, the parts I (eventually) found more interesting were more the memories of his family. But, not interesting enough for me to say I liked it, or even that I found it “o.k.”. Also, the end was a little odd, I thought.½

Paul Quarrington's last book as we was diagnosed with lung cancer. Read this if you: (a) like Canada and/or Toronto and/or its suburbs, (b) like music including the blues, gospel, rock, and other forms, or (c) like good writing. Paul's last book is obviously tinged with sadness (how could it not?) and nostalgia, but it is important to note that his humor is as strong as ever here.½

Another winner from Mr. Paul Quarrington, whose awesomeness I came to much too late. This lively tale is the first-person narration of Percival "King" Leary, former hockey legend and now "agèd and infirm" resident of a seniors' home, soon to be the star of a ginger ale commercial. Along the way he tells his life story, with his memories of the past intruding upon the present. Hilarity ensues.

I knew I would get along splendidly with this book for two reasons: one of Leary's teams is called the Toronto Maple Leaves, and when I opened the book to slip in the library due date receipt, the page I landed upon began with a loud burp, rendered most elegantly by Quarrington's onomatopoeia. I am secretly five years old in the humour department, so onomatopoeic burps and statements like this make me make very undignified faces on the bus as I try not to laugh out loud:

"...ginger ale is the boy for me. It's sweet and bubbly and makes your toenails curl. If you down a whole can, you can belch in a truly horrifying way, like a dragon about to eat a maiden." (p. 3)

Leary's narrative keeps the reader moving along and chuckling throughout, perhaps laughing out loud if an observation or just plain bizarre scene catches you off-guard. It also kind of reminded me of the narrator of Barney's Version, by Mordecai Richler, except the chronology is easier to follow and there are no footnotes. But if you liked that book you might enjoy this one, especially if you're a hockey fan as well, as I'm sure there are other references I missed in the text. But even if you're not a hockey fan, the cast of characters is quite lively, and the narrator charming in a older-fella-who-can-say-what-he-wants kind of way. Recommended for those who like their Canlit on the funny side.

There are storms, and then there's weather. In Galveston, Paul Quarrington gives us weather. Assorted locals, storm chasers and accidental tourists converge on Dampier Cay, seeking redemption, celebrity, sun,sea sand and sex, or just getting on with their lives. Some stories unfold over time, others remain enigmatic, as hurricane Claire plays hard to get and then rages across the island, leaving some unchanged and others altered forever. Galveston might be seen as a novel of redemption, with two lost souls playing out the final hand in their game, or it might be seen as a collection of random occurrences, much like the weather. Either way, much of the description is vivid and lively and the characterisation clear and engaging. I'm not sure the novel really flies - perhaps it's a bit too random for that - but it's a bracing ride.

An entertaining, informative and emotional-without-being-mawkish book that is a fitting sendoff to the late Paul Quarrington. This book was originally intended as "Notes on Music" or the history of the song, but Quarrington's diagnosis of Stage 4 lung cancer added a different thematic twist, the notes on "Life". Music was a key part of Quarrington's life, and here he shares anecdotes about his vaunted youth as a bluesman from Don Mills, his friendship with songwriter Dan Hill, and of course his band Porkbelly Futures. He also manages to slip in plenty of interesting musical tidbits about various popular bands, give a sort of condensed history of popular music, and even introduce technical concepts that would normally fascinate only the hardcore guitar geek (but here they become quite readable).

Humour is never far from the surface in this book -- it is stated that the tumour is afraid of laughter, so Quarrington is determined to laugh and make that sucker flee. The tone is self-deprecating but still lighthearted, and I personally found his onomatopoeic representation of a soundcheck quite amusing. Other situations are rendered amusing by the matter-of-fact delivery, while still others are made by the clever turns of phrase. (I had to laugh at his comment about how he, being 56 and dying of lung cancer, would glare at elderly people, especially if he saw them drinking, smoking, or eating the wrong foods.)

Quarrington writes well with a good eye for detail; for example, he describes the fluid that is aspirated from the lung (or environs?) as being the same brown as English bitter, as if he had been drinking so fast that in his haste he poured a few pints down the wrong hole. He brings well-known music figures to life with judiciously chosen traits, such as Richard Bell (keyboardist for The Band)'s penchant for telling really horrible jokes.

And because this was Quarrington's last book, it ends with a brief but very touching postscript written by a drummer friend of his, as well as the lyrics to his last two songs. (The book also comes with a CD that has these songs on it.)

If you're a Quarrington fan already, this book is a must-have. It also comes recommended for music fans who like colourful, readable memoirs, or people who are sick of all those doom and gloom cancer memoirs -- this one celebrates life, and music, which some would argue IS life.½

A highly entertaining novel that will surely delight music lovers, particularly those who like classic rock. The protagonist is Desmond Howell, who was the heart of a successful 60's-era band with his chronologically younger but in deeds much older brother, Danny. At the time the story begins, Danny is dead and Desmond is a recluse, living off "whiskey, pharmaceuticals and jelly doughnuts", as the back cover states, and composing Whale Music -- songs for the whales that swim by his house. The story begins with Desmond discovering a young woman sleeping on his couch, an event where his life starts to change.

Desmond's first-person narration is engaging, funny and rings true, right down to the short-term memory loss that he suffers as the result of frying his brain with booze and drugs. He is discursive but also very economical in places: he paints a very clear picture of his attitude toward his parents by the simple choice of modifier, saying "my" mother, but "the" father. The other characters are also very vividly drawn, although their portrayals may be slightly biased by the narration.

Beach Boys fans may be intrigued by the parallels between Des and Brian Wilson. Indeed, the band itself makes it in some form onto the page: the fact that there are brothers at the heart of this five-piece ensemble from California that sings about girls and cars in the 1960s and has a rivalry with the Beatles (a scene that I must admit made me uncomfortable because I wasn't sure whether to be amused or not). Even some of the family life is similar, what with Des/Brian's brother dying (in the water; it's a bit of a stretch though) and their father being a modestly successful songwriter who was not a fan of his sons' sound but still tried to be their manager and take control. Even the part where they go to India reminded me of when the Beatles and the Beach Boys went to India to study with the Maharishi.

With all of this going on, readers are bound to be entertained. But be warned, it's pretty raunchy too, in that there are a lot of naked ladies and sexual exploits. Still, this is a novel about drugs and rock 'n' roll, so really, you shouldn't be surprised that there's sex to complete the triad.

Recommended for: music fans and survivors of the 60s.
Next steps: the film Whale Music, for which Quarrington wrote the screenplay; Canadian band The Rheostatics, in particular the albums Whale Music (inspired by the book) and Music from the Motion Picture Whale Music, which is the soundtrack to the aforementioned film.

Fun read for those who appreciate hockey history.

A clever writer.

Desmond defies cliches, even all those ones about drug-users, fat people, and rock stars. For that, I appreciate this book. The whale music sings on in my soul. My complaint is that the endless humour gets to me after a while, but that might just be because I, personally, am a grouch by nature.

Read Fall 2008. Library. Good read. Rather predictable, but still I hung in there. Good writing.½

very short. i'm not a fisher so maybe that's good.

Zeigfried and Roy filtered through Paul Quarrington. Fantastic.