A Map of Glass - Jane Urquhart [143]
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
During the four years that passed while I was writing this novel, a great number of people helped and encouraged me, both personally and professionally. In particular I would like to thank Mieke Bevelander, Pat Bremner, Anne Burnett, Liz Calder, Adrienne Clarkson, Ellen Levine, Allan Mackay, Ciara Phillips, Emily Urquhart, and Tony Urquhart. Pertinent bits of valuable information, or inspiring thoughts, were provided by Mamta Mishra, Rasha Mourtada, and Alison Thompson, as well as by archivists at the Library and Archives Canada and the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes at Kingston, Ontario. Without Pat Le Conte I would not have been able to finish the novel in comfortable surroundings. Without the luck brought to me by a certain multiple of three, there would have been much less joy.
Several publications were also very important to me, especially John K. Grande’s essays on earth sculpture and the two wonderful volumes describing the Calvin Timber Business on Garden Island: A Corner of Empire by T.R. Glover and D.D. Calvin and A Saga of the St. Lawrence by D.D. Calvin. The imaginary timber empire described in the central section of A Map of Glass is very loosely based on the Calvin business, but all characters and events are purely fictional. Another book I found helpful was Great Lakes Saga by A.G. Young. The phrase “the ugliest species of watercraft ever to diversify a marine landscape” used on this page and this page was borrowed from this volume.
I would also like to thank the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) for information concerning tactile maps and the Perth County Historical Foundation for information on the Fryfogel Inn.
I am very grateful to Heather Sangster for her careful attention to details.
I would like to thank my much loved late father, Walter (Nick) Carter, who was a benign, careful, and highly respected mining engineer and prospector, and whose affection for his profession led to my own, admittedly now diminished, knowledge of the mining world.
Finally, a special thank you to my editor, close friend, and best adviser, Ellen Seligman.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR READING GROUPS
1. Jane Urquhart doesn’t title individual chapters, instead she divides her novel into three large sections: “The Revelations”; “The Bog Commissioners”; “A Map of Glass.” Look at each of these sections and discuss why it is given that particular title. The name of the second section, “The Bog Commissioners,” is at first mysterious because Joseph Woodman only stayed in Ireland as a bog commissioner for less than half a year. But something of the mentality or attitude he demonstrates in Ireland travels with him to Canada, and it informs other characters too. What is that attitude, and how does it play out in the novel? When discussing the name of the last section, “A Map of Glass,” also consider why Urquhart chose that as the title of the book.
2. The epigraph of the novel tells us that the “logical, two dimensional picture” provided by a diagram, plan, or map “rarely looks like the thing it stands for.” Which characters make maps or diagrams? What function do they serve? How do they relate to some of the book’s central concerns? What makes a “true” map?
3. In the short preface [See this page], where we meet Andrew walking in the snow as an older man, he ruminates on many of the novel’s important themes and ends by saying, “I have lost everything.” Now that you’ve finished the novel, reread the preface and identify the issues, and even the words, that will dominate and unify the book.
4. Renaissance poets and playwrights were obsessed with what they called Mutability, or change. So is Jane Urquhart, who broods in most of her novels over a lost, pristine landscape and the smaller, more human settlements of the nineteeth century. Change is the central theme in A Map of Glass, affecting everything from forests and shorelines to human memory. List some of the irrevocable changes detailed in the book. What are some of the natural symbols Urquhart uses to underscore this