The Razor's Edge

Heather Paul is a new Canadian Writer. She tells the story of Serena Palmer, a visual artist in her 20s trying to find self and centre in the Fictive Canadian town of Mariposa (yes, a homage to Stephen Leacock’s creation). When you first meet her something has happened to her and she is on an operating table having what seems to be an out of body experience. That’s the mystery. What happened? The story of that takes on a spiralling form and we circle around her time working at the MNC, an institute for extreme autism, her work as a waitress at The Queen’s Tavern, her journey through Australia, and a trip by car across the Canadian west into, you guessed it, bear country. So what happened at the MNC? At The Queens? What did she find in Australia? And how does she wind up in Emerge. If you think it’s a grizzly story, your wrong. It’s a delightful comedy with a hell of a serious core in it. Heather Paul seems to be a metaphysical writer, a new breed of narrative so far as I can tell. She has her finger on the pulse of the New Age contemporary world, and her non-linear history gives you, the reader, many aha moments. However, there is a secret to be found hidden in the metaphysical style on her poetic narrative through symbolism coming just at the right moment of crisis and climax. It’s impressive, and it’s new. I think, Heather Paul has created a new Canadian classic. Not a duplicate of any other writer I have read, and not your run-of-the-mill story-telling either. It’s great. Don’t expect to finish this one in a day. You won’t. It took me three weeks and I enjoyed every minute of it. It’s crazy!

I decided to read Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge as a companion piece to a just released novel by new author, Heather Paul, Safety in Bear Country. At the centre of both books there is a reference to Maharishi Ramana, and so I linked the two novels as companion pieces. Maugham had reputedly visited the Hindu saint in his lifetime and transcribed his impressiin in the Edge. What a rare experience and treat to be given this literary master’s interpretation of the enlightened experience of the spiritual master that everybody talks about in New Age circles today. Razor’s Edge is in my mind a more accessible novel than Maugham’s Of Human Bondage which I am currently reading. His writing voice is the epitome of every great British actor's voice coming out of the 1950s. Think Herbert Marshall and you’ve nailed it. Anyway, Maugham is surprisingly modern in terms of his sensibility. If you haven’t read it, put it on your list. And put Safety in Bear Country on your list. It will blow you away.