Hard times on the family farmThe Master of Jalna, published in 1933, is the fourth book of 16 in Canadian author Mazo de la Roche’s series of Jalna novels (the fourth novel to be published but the tenth novel in the Jalna chronology, because of all the prequels). These books take place mostly in rural Southern Ontario, along the shores of Lake Ontario. The Jalna novels are in the family drama genre, much like Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women series, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie books, or the old TV show The Waltons. Sometimes the Jalna books venture into romance novel territory, but like the aforementioned examples, they can’t really be classified as romance novels. The family that stars in these books is the Whiteoaks. Their farm is named Jalna. The “Master” in this case is Renny Whiteoak, the eldest brother who manages the farm (The parents died prior to the first novel). As this novel opens, Renny is now married to his brother’s ex-wife, and they have a toddler daughter.
While the last Jalna novel, Finch’s Fortune, ventured as far as England, this installment in the series takes place entirely on the Jalna estate or its near environs. Wayward brothers Finch and Eden have returned from Europe to the family manor, wherein resides the Whiteoak siblings and their spouses, children, elderly aunt and uncles, and a few servants. The family’s circle of friends is limited, which means just about any woman the Whiteoak brothers meet is a potential mate. The dramatic events in this book are the universal dramas of many families: marriages, births, illnesses, deaths, funerals. This novel also brings in the element of financial hardship. The Whiteoaks are land-rich but cash-poor, and Renny, in his role as manager of the farm, is having trouble making ends meet. The family might have to sell some of its beloved acreage. It’s kind of hard to take such financial woes seriously, however, considering that this large family owns a lot of property, few of them work, and they always seem to indulge in lavish feasts of food and drink. A couple of the family members are actually borderline wealthy. The Whiteoaks have never been filthy rich, but they enjoy a prestige as a founding family of the region. Because of this, they often come across as having an inflated sense of pride and entitlement, particularly the elder generation.
Whether intentional or not, masculinity is a recurring and overt theme in these books. De la Roche uses the Whiteoak brothers to compare and contrast competing conceptions of masculinity. I expanded on that in my review of Finch’s Fortune, so I won’t go into it too much here. Though a woman herself, and possibly a lesbian, de la Roche really doesn’t give equal time or importance to her female characters. As the title indicates, Renny is the main focus of this book. He’s always seemed to be the author’s ideal of a man’s man. His marriage is far from ideal, however, as he and his wife Alayne are positively rude to each other throughout the book. Alayne was depicted sympathetically in earlier books, but her she’s just a constant whiner.
Much like a television series, the pleasure of the Jalna books comes from just seeing what these familiar characters are up to, even if it’s nothing earth-shattering. The other main attraction here is the atmosphere. These novels take you back to a wholesome, idyllic time and place in Canadian history. I recently made a visit to the Niagara region of Southern Ontario, where the farms extend right up to the shore of the great lake. Nowadays, this countryside is mostly occupied by wineries and tourism, but driving through the area it’s not hard to imagine what Jalna might have been like a century ago. The storytelling in these books is almost an afterthought, and mostly predictable. The first novel, Jalna, is quite good. The second and third books, however, did not impress me much. I’m glad I hung in there for this fourth novel though, because The Master of Jalna is an improvement over the last couple installments.
From Jalna to England and back
Finch’s Fortune, published in 1932, is the third book published in the Jalna series by Canadian author Mazo de la Roche. (Because of prequels, it is the ninth book chronologically.) To recap the basics for those just tuning in: Jalna is the title of the first book in the series and the name of a farm in southern Ontario. The family that lives on that farm are the Whiteoaks, which is also the title of the second book. At the end of Whiteoaks, Finch Whiteoak inherited a hundred thousand dollars from his grandmother. In Finch’s Fortune, he spends it.
The novel opens with the family throwing Finch a 21st birthday party, even though many of the Whiteoaks still resent the fact that grandma left all her money to him. Finch was never quite comfortable in his own skin, and he is even less so now that he has come into his wealth. He thinks a man of means should see more of the world, so he decides to make a voyage to England to visit his aunt, and he generously invites his elderly uncles along for the trip. After a brief stay in London, he spends the better part of a year at his aunt’s sedate country home in Devon. There he meets a fellow houseguest, his cousin Sarah, who might be a marriage prospect for Finch if the two hit it off.
Of all the Whiteoaks, Finch seems to be the one with whom de la Roche herself most closely identifies, which is likely why this is the second consecutive Jalna novel to focus mostly on him. That’s unfortunate because Finch is the most boring and frustratingly meek character in this entire family saga. He appears to be a semi-autobiographical embodiment of all the author’s youthful insecurities, which may have been great catharsis for her but doesn’t prove enjoyable for the reader. Finch’s annoying qualities can best be expressed by quotations from his older brother Renny: “You’re always afraid!” “You’re twenty-one, and you act like a girl in her teens!” “I’ve never known anyone so absolutely incapable of enjoying himself.” Such is the protagonist of Finch’s Fortune. In Whiteoaks, his sexual preference was in question, but this novel confirms that he is not gay. Even so, all he seems to have learned on his trip to England is a disdain towards women.
When not concentrating on Finch, the focus of the plot shifts back to Jalna and the dysfunctional relationships there. Alayne, an outsider who married into the Whiteoak family, was a sympathetic character in the previous novels, but here she turns into a bit of a shrew. Her marital troubles with Renny are the main concern of the Canadian portions of the novel, which isn’t much of an improvement over Finch’s perpetual melancholy.
The Jalna series is like a cross between The Waltons and Wuthering Heights. Its homey depictions of life on a Canadian farm make it appealing, but it often succumbs to emotional histrionics, with plotlines that are straight out of a romance novel—not a trashy romance novel, but rather something like the less satisfying works of Pearl S. Buck. There’s certainly nothing terrible about Finch’s Fortune; there’s just nothing exceptional about it either. From beginning to end, it is surprising how little forward momentum is generated in this lackadaisical novel. The book just coasts along inconsequentially to the next installment in the series.
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Canuck Dynasty
Whiteoaks, or Whiteoaks of Jalna, is the second book in the Jalna series of novels by Canadian author Mazo de la Roche. Whiteoak is the name of a family, and Jalna is the name of their farm in southern Ontario. Over a period of more than three decades, de la Roche published 16 novels in the Jalna series, which became immensely popular in Canada. When all the sequels and prequels are taken into consideration, this is the eighth book in the chronology of the Whiteoak family, but the second to be published. The first book, simply entitled Jalna, was a charming slice of Canadian life that introduced the reader to some interesting characters. Whiteoaks, unfortunately, ventures more into soap opera histrionics and makes for a far less satisfying read.
Whiteoaks picks up shortly after the conclusion of the first novel. Life goes on as usual at the Jalna farm, where horses, apples, and big family dinners are the main concerns, except that some members of the family are still licking their wounds from the romantic turmoil that took place in the previous book. The whereabouts of brother Eden, who took off when his marriage fell apart, are still unknown. His wife Alayne has returned to her former life in New York, though she still feels a sort of psychic connection drawing her to Jalna. Some marital bonds survived the last book, bringing about the arrival of new babies to the Whiteoak clan. The primary focus of Whiteoaks, however, is the prospects of 19-year-old Finch. Music is the one love of his life, but his older half-brother and guardian Renny, who wishes Finch would pursue more practical pursuits, has forbidden him to practice music until he gets his grades up. Meanwhile, Finch strikes up a friendship with Arthur Leigh, a wealthy boy from his school. For the first time in his life, Finch feels the pull of a life outside the confines of Jalna, but the more he struggles to be his own man the more he only inspires disappointment and disdain in his family members.
One problem with this book is that the Whiteoak clan consists mostly of males, and de la Roche just isn’t that great at writing male characters. Renny is a red-headed Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, Piers is a macho redneck, Eden is a womanizing egotist, and Finch is so sensitive and effeminate it seems as if de la Roche couldn’t make up her mind whether he’s gay or straight. Though the book was published in 1929, Finch’s friendship with Arthur Leigh is either a throwback to antiquated depictions of male friendships from 19th century romanticism or de la Roche has a definite problem writing from a masculine perspective. (Of course, there are also plenty of male authors who can’t write realistic women.) Even Finch’s two elder brothers question his sexual preference, proving that this homosexual subtext isn’t merely a figment of the reader’s imagination. The point is not whether Finch is or isn’t gay, but rather that he is unrealistically written. What’s worse, he mopes and whines his way through much of the book. Perhaps in the next novel de la Roche will find a better direction for the character, but in this novel his relentless insecurities, failures, and emotional outbursts add up to one depressing protagonist.
There’s still a fun family dynamic among the Whiteoaks at times, particularly when the 101-year-old grandmother is involved. It seems odd, however, that although the men in the distinguished Whiteoak clan would be considered “catches” in their town, their prospects for romance are so limited that they have to resort to chasing after their siblings’ spouses and servants. This volume of the Jalna series veers a little too far from realism into melodrama. I hope the next book recaptures some of the charm that made Jalna so enjoyable in the first place.
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Showcase of Canadian literature circa the World Wars
Published in 1958, Cavalcade of the North is a volume of fiction and essays by 26 Canadian writers, edited by George E. Nelson. Prior publication information is not provided for every entry in the collection, but for the roughly half that do include copyright notes the original publication dates range from 1912 to 1956, with the majority falling in the 1940s and ‘50s.
Among the 26 works included here are two full-length novels. Hugh MacLennan’s 1941 novel Barometer Rising is a gripping dramatization of the tragic Halifax Explosion of 1917, in which a ship full of munitions destined for European battlefields exploded in the city’s harbor, leveling entire neighborhoods. The second novel, Jalna by Mazo de la Roche, was originally published in 1927 and became the first book in an extensive series chronicling the multigenerational saga of a farming family in southern Ontario. This Cavalcade also includes one novella-length work, The School on the Little Water Hen by Gabrielle Roy, about a family residing on a remote island in northern Manitoba and their quest for a decent education. Fortunately, all three of these longer works are very good, and they alone amount to almost 450 pages of worthwhile reading.
The remaining shorter works vary greatly in quality, and not all are fiction. A few are stories from the history of Canada, such as “Vignettes of French Canada” by Thomas B. Costain, an assortment of biographical sketches from the 17th and early 18th centuries; “This Stubborn Breed” by Joseph Lister Rutledge, concerning the Acadians in the 1750s; and “The Awakening” by Bruce Hutchison, about Canada’s entry into World War II. Also in the nonfiction category is “Read!” an essay by Lord Beaverbrook about self-education and individualism.
Of the remaining fictional selections, two of the best are related to World War II. In “The Czech Dog” by W. G. Hardy, a Canadian woman befriends a Czech refugee and former member of the anti-Nazi underground, while “Resurrection” by Thomas H. Raddall is a thriller about shot-down pilots trapped on the coast of Greenland. “Four Men and a Box” is a brief but excellent tale about jungle explorers in an unnamed, exotic locale. Closer to home, Patrick Waddington delivers a charming, Twilight Zone-ish yarn about a mysterious forgotten neighborhood in Montreal, “The Street That Got Mislaid.” “The White Mustang” by Edward A. McCourt is a John Steinbeck-ish story about a mythical white horse, while “The White Musky” by Scott Young (Neil Young’s dad) is a fisherman’s tale about a mythical white fish. The scope of the selections cover a wide variety of settings, populations, and walks of life. Canadians of French and British extraction get about equal time, with a wee bit of the Irish thrown in. Only one story features First Nations characters: the Jack London-esque “A Prairie Vagabond” by Sir Gilbert Parker.
Had such a collection been published a half century earlier, one probably couldn’t have discerned much difference between Canadian, British, and American literature. By World War II, however, a distinctively Canadian literature had begun to come into its own, drawing from the British and French cultural traditions but with healthy doses of homegrown North American individualism, boreal naturalism, and nationalistic pride. This maturing Canadian style is showcased admirably in this collection. For American readers with little knowledge of the literary scene north of their border, Cavalcade of the North is a very good introduction to the world of Canadian letters. Not every story is great, but the volume is full of fortuitous discoveries. I will definitely be reading more of MacLennan, de la Roche, and Roy.
Stories in this collection
(Novel-length works have been reviewed individually. Click on titles below.)
Barometer Rising by Hugh MacLennan
Rigamarole by Morley Callaghan
Mrs. Golightly and the First Convention by Ethel Wilson
A Prairie Vagabond by Sir Gilbert Parker
The Worker in Sandalwood by Marjorie Pickthall
The Czech Dog by W. G. Hardy
Read! by Lord Beaverbrook
Jalna by Mazo de la Roche
Dieppe by Lionel Shapiro
The Princess and the Wild Ones by W. O. Mitchell
Resurrection by Thomas H. Raddall
The Street That Got Mislaid by Patrick Waddington
We Hire a Witch by Kenneth McNeill Wells
The Awakening by Bruce Hutchison
The Movies Come to Gull Point by Will R. Bird
The School on the Little Water Hen by Gabrielle Roy
White Musky by Scott Young
Vignettes of French Canada by Thomas B. Costain
The Little Ghost by Gwen Ringwood
The Speculations of Jefferson Thorpe by Stephen Leacock
Some Are So Lucky by Hugh Garner
Beating the Smuggling Game by Thomas Chandler Haliburton
This Stubborn Breed by Joseph Lister Rutledge
The White Mustang by Edward A. McCourt
Four Men and a Box by Leslie Gordon Barnard
The Wake by Patrick Slater
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Classic Canadian family saga
Though little known south of the border, Jalna is an immensely popular novel in its native Canada. The book was originally published in 1927. Over the course of the next three and a half decades, author Mazo de la Roche would follow it up with nine sequels and six prequels, resulting in a 16-volume Jalna series that has sold tens of millions of copies. Perhaps the closest equivalent to the series in American literature might be the Little House on the Prairie books, but Jalna is more modern in time period and more modernist in literary style. Rather than Laura Ingalls Wilder, de la Roche’s writing is more reminiscent of Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, or Pearl S. Buck.
This first Jalna book introduces us to the Whiteoak family, who live on a farm in southern Ontario. The family is comprised of six siblings and half-siblings ranging in age from 38 to 9. Their parents are deceased, so the eldest brother Renny is the acknowledged head of the clan, but two elderly uncles and a 99-year-old grandmother also reside in the household. Jalna is the name of the family’s estate, which sits on the shores of Lake Ontario. It was named after a city in India where the late patriarchal grandfather served with the British Army. In this first book, the Whiteoaks seem neither poor nor well-off as far as farming families go. They appear to enjoy a prominent position in the local community due to their distinguished family history. Two of the older brothers, Renny and Piers, manage most of the duties on the farm. Their sister Meg, a spinster, manages domestic matters and mothers the youngsters. Brother Eden has just begun a career as a published poet, while younger brothers Finch and Wakefield attend school. Uncles Ernest, a lifelong bachelor, and Nicholas, divorced, are eccentric old fellows, and Grandmother is still active, opinionated, and cantankerous as she approaches her centenary.
Jalna is heavy on atmosphere and light on plot. The entire first half of the book is spent simply introducing us to all the characters. Then some family members get married, which brings new characters into the fold, and a few friends and relatives come by for a visit. The bulk of the text is devoted to illustrating the personality quirks of all these individuals and the interpersonal dynamics between them. What little there is of plot veers toward soap opera romance and defies belief. By the time the narrative commits such offenses, however, the reader is so charmed by Jalna and the Whiteoak family that one is complicitly willing to overlook the sensational excesses of the potboiler plot just for the pleasure of spending time with this ensemble cast. While Jalna is certainly no idyllic paradise, the real strength of the novel is the inviting way that de la Roche picturesquely describes this Ontario homestead. By the end of the book, you’ll want to live there.
The Literary Review of Canada once called Jalna “the quintessential Canadian novel.” As an American reader, I can neither confirm nor dispute that claim. However, as a Canadaphile tourist and dabbler in that nation’s literature, art, and music, I really enjoyed living vicariously through this Ontario family for a few brief years in the 1920s. There’s definitely a uniquely Canadian tone to the book that brings with it a breath of fresh air from the Great White North. Though I doubt I’ll make it through all 16 books, this certainly won’t be my last visit to the Jalna farm.
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