Fugitive Pieces
Encyclopedia
Fugitive Pieces is a novel by Canadian
poet Anne Michaels
. First published in 1996 (1997 in the UK), it was awarded the Books in Canada First Novel Award
, the Trillium Book Award
, Orange Prize for Fiction
and the Guardian Fiction Prize.
It is written in two sections, called Book I and Book II. The first follows the story of Jakob Beer, who as a Jewish child in Poland
narrowly escapes being killed by the Nazis
. He is rescued by a Greek
geologist, Athos Roussos, who adopts him and takes him to live on Zakynthos
in Greece. After the war
the pair emigrate to Toronto
. The novel follows Jakob's life as he marries and goes through life. The second book is written from the perspective of an admirer of Jakob's poetry, Ben.
The novel is written in a poetic style with persistent layers of metaphor, often called forth via Athos Roussos. Roussos' paleobotanical
research involves peeling back physical layers of archaeological strata as well as temporal layers of change and decay. The novel explores themes of trauma, grief, loss, and memory, as well as discovery both personal and scientific.
The novel has been made into a feature film
produced by Robert Lantos
through his Toronto-based Serendipity Point Films Inc. It opened on the opening day of the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival
. It is directed by Jeremy Podeswa
based on his original screenplay adaptation of the Michaels novel. It stars Stephen Dillane
as Jakob Beer and Rade Šerbedžija
as Athos.
. Athos secretly takes him to Zakynthos in Greece. Athos is also a geologist, and is fascinated with ancient wood and stones. Jakob learns Greek and English, but finds that learning new languages erases his memory of the past. After the war, Athos and Jakob move to Toronto, where after several years Jakob meets Alexandra in a music library. Alex is a fast-paced, outspokenly philosophical master of wordplay. Jakob and Alex fall in love and marry, but the relationship fails because Alex expects Jakob to change too fast and abandon his past. Jakob dwells constantly on his memories of Bella, especially her piano-playing, and they end up divorcing. Jakob meets and marries Michaela, a much younger woman but one who seems to understand him, and with Michaela's help he is able to let go of Bella. Together they move to Greece into the former home of several generations of the Roussos family.
The second part of the book is told from the perspective of Ben, a Canadian professor of Jewish descent who was born in Canada to survivors of the Holocaust. In 1954 the family home in Weston, Ontario is destroyed by Hurricane Hazel
. Ben becomes an expert on the history of weather, and marries a girl named Naomi. He is a big admirer of Jakob's poetry and respects the way he deals with the Holocaust, when Ben himself has trouble coping with the horrors his parents must have endured. At the end of the novel, Ben is sent to retrieve Jakob's journals from his home in Greece, where Ben spends hours swimming in Jakob's past.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
poet Anne Michaels
Anne Michaels
-Background:Anne Michaels was born in Toronto, Ontario, in 1958. Michaels attended Vaughan Road Academy and then later the University of Toronto, where she is an adjunct faculty in the Department of English. Her first book, The Weight of Oranges , a volume of poetry, was awarded the Commonwealth...
. First published in 1996 (1997 in the UK), it was awarded the Books in Canada First Novel Award
Books in Canada First Novel Award
The Amazon.ca First Novel Award, formerly the Books in Canada First Novel Award, is a literary award given annually to the best first novel in English published the previous year by a citizen or resident of Canada. It has been awarded since 1976....
, the Trillium Book Award
Trillium Book Award
The Trillium Award is given annually by the government of the Province of Ontario and is open to books in any genre: fiction, non-fiction, drama, children's books, and poetry. Anthologies, new editions, re-issues and translations are not eligible. Three jury members per language judge the...
, Orange Prize for Fiction
Orange Prize for Fiction
The Orange Prize for Fiction is one of the United Kingdom's most prestigious literary prizes, annually awarded to a female author of any nationality for the best original full-length novel written in English, and published in the United Kingdom in the preceding year...
and the Guardian Fiction Prize.
It is written in two sections, called Book I and Book II. The first follows the story of Jakob Beer, who as a Jewish child in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
narrowly escapes being killed by the Nazis
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
. He is rescued by a Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
geologist, Athos Roussos, who adopts him and takes him to live on Zakynthos
Zakynthos
Zakynthos , also Zante, the other form often used in English and in Italian , is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the third largest of the Ionian Islands. It is also a separate regional unit of the Ionian Islands region, and the only municipality of the regional unit. It covers an area of ...
in Greece. After the war
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
the pair emigrate to Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
. The novel follows Jakob's life as he marries and goes through life. The second book is written from the perspective of an admirer of Jakob's poetry, Ben.
The novel is written in a poetic style with persistent layers of metaphor, often called forth via Athos Roussos. Roussos' paleobotanical
Paleobotany
Paleobotany, also spelled as palaeobotany , is the branch of paleontology or paleobiology dealing with the recovery and identification of plant remains from geological contexts, and their use for the biological reconstruction of past environments , and both the evolutionary history of plants, with a...
research involves peeling back physical layers of archaeological strata as well as temporal layers of change and decay. The novel explores themes of trauma, grief, loss, and memory, as well as discovery both personal and scientific.
The novel has been made into a feature film
Fugitive Pieces (film)
Fugitive Pieces is a 2007 drama film directed by Jeremy Podeswa, who also adapted the film from the award-winning novel of the same name written by Anne Michaels. The film tells the story of Jakob Beer, who is orphaned in Poland during World War II and is saved by a Greek archeologist...
produced by Robert Lantos
Robert Lantos
-Life and career:Lantos was born in Budapest, the son of Agnes and László Lantos, a mechanic and truck company owner. Lantos spent much of his childhood in Montevideo, Uruguay, where his family had fled after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956...
through his Toronto-based Serendipity Point Films Inc. It opened on the opening day of the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival
2007 Toronto International Film Festival
The 2007 Toronto International Film Festival was a 32nd annual film festival held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It ran from September 6, 2007 to September 15, 2007. The lineup consisted of 349 films from 55 countries, selected from 4156 submissions...
. It is directed by Jeremy Podeswa
Jeremy Podeswa
Jeremy Podeswa is a Canadian/American film and television director. He is best known for directing the films The Five Senses and Fugitive Pieces . He has also worked as Director on the television shows Six Feet Under, Nip/Tuck, The Tudors, Queer as Folk, and the HBO World War II miniseries The...
based on his original screenplay adaptation of the Michaels novel. It stars Stephen Dillane
Stephen Dillane
Stephen J. Dillane is an English actor. He won a Tony Award for his lead performance in Tom Stoppard's play The Real Thing.-Early life:...
as Jakob Beer and Rade Šerbedžija
Rade Šerbedžija
Rade Šerbedžija , occasionally credited as Rade Sherbedgia in some English-language productions, is a Croatian actor, director and musician of Serb origin. He was one of the most popular Yugoslav actors in the 1970s and 1980s. He is now internationally known mainly for his supporting roles in...
as Athos.
Plot summary
In the first part of the book, Jacob Beaer is a 13 year old child of a Jewish family living in Poland. His house is stormed by Nazis; he escapes the fate of his parents and his sister, Bella, by hiding behind the wallpaper in a cabinet. He hides in the forest, burying himself up to the neck in soil. After some time, he runs into an archaeologist, Athos, working on BiskupinBiskupin
The archaeological open air museum Biskupin is an archaeological site and a life-size model of an Iron Age fortified settlement in north-central Poland . When first discovered it was thought to be early evidence of Slavic settlement but archaeologists later confirmed it belonged to the Biskupin...
. Athos secretly takes him to Zakynthos in Greece. Athos is also a geologist, and is fascinated with ancient wood and stones. Jakob learns Greek and English, but finds that learning new languages erases his memory of the past. After the war, Athos and Jakob move to Toronto, where after several years Jakob meets Alexandra in a music library. Alex is a fast-paced, outspokenly philosophical master of wordplay. Jakob and Alex fall in love and marry, but the relationship fails because Alex expects Jakob to change too fast and abandon his past. Jakob dwells constantly on his memories of Bella, especially her piano-playing, and they end up divorcing. Jakob meets and marries Michaela, a much younger woman but one who seems to understand him, and with Michaela's help he is able to let go of Bella. Together they move to Greece into the former home of several generations of the Roussos family.
The second part of the book is told from the perspective of Ben, a Canadian professor of Jewish descent who was born in Canada to survivors of the Holocaust. In 1954 the family home in Weston, Ontario is destroyed by Hurricane Hazel
Hurricane Hazel
Hurricane Hazel was the deadliest and costliest hurricane of the 1954 Atlantic hurricane season. The storm killed as many as 1,000 people in Haiti before striking the United States near the border between North and South Carolina, as a Category 4 hurricane...
. Ben becomes an expert on the history of weather, and marries a girl named Naomi. He is a big admirer of Jakob's poetry and respects the way he deals with the Holocaust, when Ben himself has trouble coping with the horrors his parents must have endured. At the end of the novel, Ben is sent to retrieve Jakob's journals from his home in Greece, where Ben spends hours swimming in Jakob's past.
Sources
- Eugene Benson and William Toye, eds. The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1997: 753-754.
- W. H. New, ed. Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002: 740.