No Fixed Address: An Amorous Journey (Reprints Series)

by Aritha van Herk

Book Overview

Winner of the Writers' Guild of Alberta Award for Fiction Nominated for the Governor General's Award for Fiction Arachne Manteia is a road rider, a traveling sales rep who drives a classic Mercedes... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0889951837
• ISBN13: 9780889951839
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: Red Deer Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.6" x 5.1"

Customer Reviews

"Threads to and from the web" in Aritha van Herk's 'No Fixed

This is a book report from graduate students in the Netherlands (College for Adult Education in Zierikzee) on Aritha van Herk & #61501;s NO FIXED ADDRESS: AN AMOROUS JOURNEY (1986) We made use of the Seal paperback, printed by McClelland & Stewart Limited, Toronto in 1987 (page references NFA-1) and the reprint by Red Deer College Press, Red Deer, Alberta in 1998 (page references NFA-2)NO FIXED ADDRESS is the fourth book by Aritha van Herk that we have analyzed in class. Like her previous novels JUDITH (1978) and THE TENT PEG (1981), and her fictional autobiography PLACES FAR FROM ELLESMERE, A GEOGRAFICTIONE; EXPLORATIONS ON SITE (1990) , NO FIXED ADDRESS (NFA) deals with a woman on the move, challenging boundaries of male dominated space and place. All four books are situated in the west and north of Canada with a travelling saleswoman as the protagonist of this book roaming west and north in a black Mercedes. A female infiltration and inscription has begun. Aritha van Herk & #61501;s work is particularly interesting to us after her successful performance with her musical assistant Brian Stanko in Zierikzee in November 1996. Born in Canada, van Herk has close ties with her parents & #61501; native country Holland, from which her family emigrated after World War II. Van Herk reads and understands Dutch well and after a few days in Holland speaks it fluently. The richness of her roots is visible in all her work. In NO FIXED ADDRESS it ranges from obvious references to the & #61505;snot rag & #61504; red handkerchief (NFA-1: 41);(NFA-2 : 30) Dutch wooden shoes (NFA-1:145); (NFA-2 : 117) and Dutch cafe (NFA-1: 191); (NFA-2 : 155) to underlying structures of narrative examples of the Dutch-Calvinist bible with its sumptuous array of traditional stories. Like mythology, which van Herk draws freely from, these stories try to explain the world and shed light on social interactions. In NO FIXED ADDRESS we meet Arachne Manteia, only daughter of teacup reader Lanie and (unskilled labourer) Toto. Unwanted by her mother, Arachne from an early age is often left alone and later spurns the socialization of motherhood. No dolls for her but sets of clothespins representing two armies, attacking and decimating each other; a game she played with her father,. (NFA-1: 39; NFA-2: 27). Arachne is rebellious in her youth and leads the Black Widows gang. Like biblical David she conquers the strong Goliathan attackers. (NFA-1: 193; NFA-2: 156). Leaving school early, she becomes a busdriver in Vancouver, meets cartographer Thomas, who left his precious maps in her bus. Maps are important for Arachne; like words they resemble an extra-textual reality, whether landscapes or objects, which are both constructions. Arachne goes beyond maps and words. Arachne drives Thomas to his hometown Calgary in her black 1959 Mercedes. She inherited this car from Gabriel, one of her mother & #61501;s teacup reading clients. Like the b