The colony of unfulfilled dreams

The colony of unrequited dreams is a novel by Wayne Johnston , in 1998 under the English title The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Alfred A. Knopf in Toronto appeared.

This Newfoundland saga is about the people of Newfoundland. Newfoundland was a colony of the British Empire until March 31, 1949 . It tells the story of the unhappy love between Joe and Fielding. Joey Smallwood (1900–1991) was the first Prime Minister of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador . The plot of this novel of the century spans the period from his childhood to his old age, more precisely until March 17th, 1989.

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At Bishop Feild College in St. John's

Joe Smallwood , son of a drunkard, is allowed to attend Bishop Feild College in St. John's . He suspects that he owes this to his grandfather, the shoemaker. Joe works his way up from the second worst student to the second best in his class. But he can't be the best because Rector Reeves doesn't give him enough character points . Joe's father is so angry about this that, after the certificate has been handed out, he shakes the iron school gate, rioted and loudly insulted the principal when he was completely drunk.

In the neighborhood of Feild there is also the Bishop Spencer College for girls. From this the tall Sheilagh Fielding is introduced to the reader . Fielding, as she is called in the book, is a year older than Joe. Sometimes she just goes over into the feild and wages wars of words against the laughing boys who are rallying around their leader, the young Prowse . In these verbal battles, the Fielding is twice defeated by the quick-witted Joe. For this she wants revenge. She waits two years with her revenge, writes first-person narrator Joe.

Then an anonymous letter addressed to the local newspaper Morning Post lands on Headmaster Reeves' desk. In it the writer complains about the untenable conditions in the Feild. The writer has arranged everything so that Joe must be suspected of authorship. Fielding confesses to being a scribe and flies from Spencer College. Principal Reeves is convinced that Joe was behind the letter, but has no proof. Joe leaves the feild voluntarily.

What Joe and the reader only learn towards the end of the novel: Fielding is pregnant by Prowse. In the highly embarrassing questioning, the mother-to-be names her strict father as the child's father Joe, because she does not want to marry. Prowse, the grandson of judge DW Prowse, is a good match; Joe, the poor eater, on the other hand, a very bad one. Fielding's father wrote the anonymous letter because he wanted revenge on Joe. Hines , photographer at the Morning Post , made sure Reeves got the letter on the table.

Agitation for socialism on Newfoundland

As a journalist for a local newspaper in St. John's, Joe no longer enjoys being a court reporter . He has the editor-in-chief transfer him to a seal catcher and writes stories about Newfoundland dogs who leave the fishing ship every day on the orders of the captain, balance on the ice from plaice to plaice to kill seals and peel off the animals' tan fur. The seal hunt is described as the struggle for survival of the men involved. The captain won't let Joe overboard. It's too dangerous on the ice for a slender landlubber. Joe has a key experience: In the event of a storm, a whole fishing team perishes on the ice, just because a tight-lipped captain does not let the strangers (from his point of view) on board and send them to their ship and thus to doom.

Joe and the Fielding become socialists and do educational work with the fishermen and dock workers of St. John's, some of whom are a few times older. The two agitators lack life experience.

Five years out of the country

Joe goes to New York as a reporter . Fielding follows him there as a reporter. On the one hand, Joe does not want to be dominated by urges and wants to remain independent. On the other hand, he loves fielding very much, but cannot articulate it. Finally Joe manages to propose an awkward marriage. The fielding gives the applicant a basket and gets out of sight.

What Joe and the reader only learn towards the end of the novel: The Fielding gives birth to twins - Sarah and David - in New York . Fielding's mother - who lives separately from Fielding's father in New York - takes the newborns away from the daughter, poses as their mother and sends the young mother back to Newfoundland forever.

Joe has been out of the country (outside of Newfoundland) - mostly in New York - as a newspaper reporter for five years. His descent is unstoppable and ends on the park bench as a comfortable place to stay. There he is picked up by Hines, who made a career as a Pentecostal in New York . Hines wants to make Joe a Pentecostal. Joe manages to escape, and he ends up in his beloved Newfoundland - but on the west side of the island.

Crossing Newfoundland on foot

His hometown of St. John's is on the east side. Joe has no money for the long train journey there (more than 500 km). He defends himself internally against starting the journey, because then he will inevitably come home empty-handed. As soon as Joe has stepped back on earth, there is hardly any talk of his economic hardship. Joe continues his previous union work. He organizes a union of the Newfoundland Railroad Line Managers. For this purpose, Joe makes the way home on foot on the sleepers of the track from marshals to marshals and wins the marshals for the new union. In October, just before a storm, he is not allowed into a station guard's house and marches to the next. On the way, Joe gets caught in a snowstorm, from which Fielding, the track keeper who does not let him in, rescues him on the trolley and picks him up in the little house. Joe and the Fielding can't find each other. After suffering from lung disease that lasted for several years, the Fielding is crippled and prefers hermitages.

Family man Joe

But Joe returns home to St. John's. The 25-year-old is just arriving for his youngest brother's birth, moves out and publishes several daily newspapers that devour his modest means. Joe meets Clara. The couple get married and have a son.

The Fielding reappears in St. John's. In addition to the first-person narrator Joe, she also has her say - across the entire length of the novel - in letters and a brief history of Newfoundland. The letters are mostly addressed to Joe because she loves him. Joe hires Fielding as a journalist, but fires her again because she also writes for the competition. In addition, fielding is inconvenient as an employee. She has her own mind.

Joe converts to liberal

In 1928 Joe came to the conclusion that socialism was not the right thing for Newfoundland after all and became a member of the Liberal Party . He is about to serve Sir Richard Squires , chairman of the Liberals, and manage the upcoming election in Humber County. Joe's campaign is a huge success for the Liberals. The hoped-for reward Joe from Sir Richard does not materialize. But Joe continues to follow the Liberals through thick and thin. He even goes so far as to denigrate Fielding, who saved his life in the snowstorm, by warming up the old story in an open letter with the anonymous letter that Fielding claims to have written from the long way back in school . The Fielding had become enemies with Sir Richard in the election campaign. It seems the Fielding doesn't hold this Open Letter against Joe. Because she asks him to her room when he seeks good weather from her. Then she lends a hand with to save Sir Richard in front furious Newfoundland mob that the politician in 1932 for the high unemployment caused by the global economic crisis , blamed. But the Fielding takes revenge with an evil article by caricaturing the rescue of Sir Richard.

Joe gets another constituency from Sir Richard, but, as expected, loses the next election. The Liberals of Newfoundland are powerless to face the economic crisis. Representatives of the British Crown have to take charge of the reins in their old colony, Newfoundland.

In the interior of Newfoundland

Joe withdraws, does union work on the Newfoundland island groups. Their residents have no money at all; so cannot pay a union fee.

Opponents of the British

Back in St. John's, Joe is invited to a festive evening reception by Lord Hope Simpson, governor of the British colony of Newfoundland. Joe gets drunk and tells the British the truth. The dislike of guest and host is mutual. Joe is put in the fresh air.

The Fielding is on alcohol rehab in a Salvation Army hospital . Joe goes to her. Although the patient maintains her boyish tone, she finally confesses to Joe that she is happy about the visit and, as it were, hands him two letters as thanks. In one, Rector Reeves tells the Fielding that he is leaving Newfoundland forever. The other is that anonymous letter to the Morning Post that Fielding claims to have written. Joe can no longer believe that she should have been the sender. He suspects his own father. The suspicion cannot be confirmed.

The officer

Joe, the wandering patriot , moves through Newfoundland and always gets to know new parts of the country and new inhabitants. Back in St. John's, we are now writing 1943, Joe meets Fielding in the cinema, accompanied by a handsome young US officer. The cavalier takes care of the severely disabled. Joe gets a little jealous.

What Joe and the reader only learn towards the end of the novel: The officer is Fielding's son David. When David fell in Europe a few months later, the Fielding wondered: Maybe David would still be alive if she had told him that she was his mother; maybe then his life would have been different.

Much later, Joe visits Fielding in her rented room. The woman is drinking again. Joe takes care of the fielding. In her room he helps the dead drunk to undress. Not much is missing - he almost crawls under her covers, but he holds back.

Joe, the premier

After the war, the British want to get rid of their Newfoundland colony. Joe has made a name for himself as a pig farmer, but remains well known in Newfoundland political circles as a man popular with the rural population. So he also becomes a member of a Newfoundland two-man delegation that wants to sound out the confederation question in Ottawa . In the referendum of July 22, 1948 (p. 478), the Newfoundlanders decide in favor of the confederation with Canada. Joe becomes the first Prime Minister of the new Canadian province. Canada now stretches from the Pacific to the Atlantic .

Joe works hard, but also surrounds himself with some false advisors. For the most part, foreign investors are turning out to be charlatans. The poison syringe Fielding (p. 494) injects poison against the freshly baked premier in its poison column. Joe takes her on a trip to Europe on the advice of one of his advisors. While the Fielding is away, this advisor ransacked the journalist's room at home in St. John's. Your diaries are being found. All secrets of the Fielding are now revealed to the reader.

Newfoundland

Strengths of the book are the description of the wild nature as well as the city of Newfoundland.

• Photos from Newfoundland's Gros Morne National Park (p. 151) to (p. 161) in the second part of the double volume: Karl-Heinz Raach, Werner Krum, Peter Mertz: Canada and The Most Beautiful National Parks in Canada . Munich 2003, ISBN 3-7654-4048-5
• Sketch of the center of St. John's (p. 63) in: Paul Franklin and others: Canada . Pp. 61-67. Starnberg 2006, ISBN 3-928044-51-6

German editions

• Wayne Johnston: The Colony of Unfulfilled Dreams. Novel. (German by Barbara Steckhan, Maria Zybak and Robert A. Weiß) Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-455-03688-0 ; Ullstein-Taschenbuchverlag, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-548-60068-9