By Kimberley Gilmour
Some Hellish
by Nicholas Herring
Goose Lane Editions (2022)
Some Hellish submerges the reader into the culture of coastal people and the fishing industry on the shores of Canada. It is a novel of visual details, and a cutting through of tough philosophy cords similar those in the novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Accordingly, Nicholas Herring has named the protagonist as Herring. Thus, the “I” of the author is quite a
subtle turn of events of the “I” of the text. Where do the author and the narrator differ or remain the same during a study of the synthesis of these two variables? The characters eat triangle tuna sandwiches, leer at women, and use brash comments. Meanwhile, the details of the novel are about ships, bait, work, and play. Yet, the fascinating insertion of philosophical overtones throughout the novel is superb. Moreover, Herring contemplates his family values, labour, friends, well-being, and passionate fisherman’s voice. The character, who is Herring’s pal, Gerry, comments in writing, “I’m in hell” (104). Thus the winds are high at times, the ships are leaky, the lobster are tearing the gaspereaux to smitherines, and the materials are getting heavier and heavier as age presses onward.
Socrates prompts the reader to ask, “Who am I?” Furthermore, morality texts press the reader to also ask, “How should I live?” For example, Sartre insists that the action of the “I” suggests that all people should also choose this action. Herring gives up some of the crass language of the sailor for thoughts about family values, friendship, and the environment that he finds himself within. Herring’s integration of these gentle canons amuses the reader, and tends to shape Herring as a paradox: gentle and brash. Yet, these so called canons are not the hegemony. The text is clearly a paradigm of Herring’s mind and contextual life as a fisherman.
Herring’s protagonist is like the star gazer, Thales of Miletus; and he has his head in the stars and mind within micro modules of utopias. the reader meditates upon seagulls, waves, docks, fish, and the flora and fauna surrounding wannabe sea dogs. Moreover, Herring senses the impressions and ideas of the events of his life like the Plato’s great philosopher Protagoras. For, man is the measure of all things in this example of the one and the many. It could read as poststructural, postmodern, or even as a fancy stream of consciousness text. Yet, we are reminded of the heart of the poetical tale as he, “couldn’t carry a tune in a goddamn bucket” (230). The excess of activities in this novels include alcholism, death, drinking and driving, and stereotyping the roles of women. This prompts the reader to compare these ideas to James Joyce or even Hemingway. This is a shark of a novel, a diamond in the rough, and leaves the reader to ask, “What next?”
Kimberley Gilmour is a freelance writer who is published in the Antigonish Review, ARIEL, and also the Windsor Star. She is currently reviewing ‘Holly’ by Stephen King and ‘Egg Island’ by Sara Flemington.