Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Sign of Jonah
    Unavailable
    The Sign of Jonah
    Unavailable
    The Sign of Jonah
    Ebook225 pages3 hours

    The Sign of Jonah

    By Charlie Canning

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Notable Book, 2016 Shelf Unbound Competition for Indie Books

    Charlie Canning writes intricately-contrived fiction with all the creative exuberance of Gabriel Garcia Márquez—delivered, paradoxically, in deadpan “just the facts” style. His previous novel, The 89th Temple, drawn from his PhD research and excerpted in KJ 78 (see also KJ 65), dealt with juvenile offenders, hikikomori shut-ins precipitated into taking the Shikoku 88-temple pilgrimage as correctional therapy. Thoughtful social commentary, brought resoundingly alive by an almost manga-esque crew of characters and a walking-pace plot.

    His new book, The Sign of Jonah, ostensibly dealing with various intrigues that surround a disputed salvage attempt on a Japanese WW-2 warship off an island in the Philippines, is so character-driven that the plot seems simply an excuse to dive into the back stories and interactions of the novel’s multitudinous cast, the expatriate and local inhabitants of the island. The narrative’s unblinking scrutiny is cinematic in detail, but with none of the urgently-accelerated tropes of a cut-to-the-chase blockbuster action-movie. It’s more like channel-surfing a bank of surveillance monitors, zeroing in on successive individuals of interest. No heroes, no villains. Just stranger-than-fiction footage of imagined lives and interactions, in total 3D verisimilitude, with empathy for all.

    Reflecting the author’s obvious primary interest, much of the interpersonal action is intercultural—but in far more interesting ways than simply contrasting locals and foreigners. On Bato even itinerant divers from elsewhere in the archipelago appear as beach-partying strangers who speak other languages, and perhaps communicate best through song. Church, business (legal and extra-legal), and the military are revealed as interlocking worlds with divergent modus operandi; the expats (from Japan, Switzerland, Germany, China, the U.S.A., Australia) who have washed up on the island’s shores are not stereotyped, nor are their motivations, interestingly. Another aspect of interculturality essential to the book’s setting in Filipino society is a constant interplay between the separately-defined social roles and expectations of men and women—even within marriages. Cultural conflicts are observed, not judged.

    The 89th Temple dealt with apparent misfits created by pressures inherent in a supposedly homogenous society. The Sign of Jonah explores a far more multifaceted society in which everyone seems to find their natural place, while inventing their lives moment by moment—as we all do in “real life”— much like the process of an author creating a precisely-imagined parallel-universe work of fiction.

    —Ken Rodgers in Kyoto Journal 87.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCharlie Canning
    Release dateOct 23, 2015
    ISBN9781495180330
    Unavailable
    The Sign of Jonah
    Author

    Charlie Canning

    Charlie Canning teaches Japanese literature and film at Syracuse University.

    Read more from Charlie Canning

    Related to The Sign of Jonah

    Related ebooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Royal Pretenders

      Dec 3, 2021

      The Royal Pretenders
      7 min read

    • Article

      Native Nevada

      Jun 6, 2023

      Native Nevada
      7 min read

    • Article

      Nantucket Doesn’t Belong to the Preppies

      Aug 30, 2021

      Photographs by Amani Willett I caught the fast ferry from Hyannis to Nantucket, 30 miles off the coast of Massachusetts. As the boat plowed the waves, I was taken aback by my first view of the island. I could see it all at once, end to end, 14 miles

      12 min read

    • Article

      Who Survived To Adulthood?

      Nov 12, 2021

      If there’s one question I’ve struggled over with my Irish-born Riboldis, it’s the most fundamental of all. Who lived? Who died? My 3x great-grandparents Joseph and Catherine baptised eight children at St Michael’s Church, Limerick, but seeing as ther

      4 min read

    • Article

      Peace Comes With A Smile

      Nov 11, 2019

      Peace Comes With A Smile
      8 min read

    • Article

      Let The Light SHINE

      Nov 23, 2023

      Let The Light SHINE
      13 min read

    • Article

      Table Talk

      Sep 1, 2022

      Table Talk
      10 min read

    • Article

      Books With The Most Impact

      Mar 15, 2022

      Books With The Most Impact
      8 min read

    • Article

      Pitcairn’s Prison Mail

      May 8, 2020

      Pitcairn’s Prison Mail
      5 min read

    • Article

      What Is The Philippines' 'Holy Week'? A Look At The Religious Fervour In The Easter Lead-up

      Mar 29, 2024

      Judas Iscariot was clearly enjoying himself even as he expressed despair while a cackling Satan gloated as Roman soldiers arrested Jesus Christ. "I became teary-eyed," 28-year-old Maria Fedy told This Week in Asia after watching the scene play out at

      4 min read

    • Article

      Where I Was From

      Mar 4, 2024

      In the May 1935 issue of the American Mercury, William Faulkner published one of the few pieces of fiction he set in California, a short story he called Golden Land. Golden Land deals with a day in the life of Ira Ewing Jr, age 48, a man for whom “25

      13 min read

    • Article

      Bounty Hunting

      Jul 19, 2021

      Bounty Hunting
      5 min read

    • Article

      In The Footprints Of The Ancestors

      Mar 2, 2023

      In The Footprints Of The Ancestors
      11 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Oct 1, 2020

      Like many people, I have found much pleasure and escapism in reading during lockdown, so I was delighted to see your list of 36 recommended summer reads in your August issue. Having just finished Claire Tomalin’s brilliant Samuel Pepys: The Unequalle

      4 min read

    • Article

      Reviews

      May 31, 2022

      Reviews
      3 min read

    • Article

      Boorowa Hotel

      Aug 20, 2020

      Boorowa Hotel
      8 min read

    • Article

      A Legacy Of Hope And Glory

      Jun 9, 2021

      DESPITE my birthplace in the Mississippi Delta and my early years in schools whose teachers tried hard to educate the children in the poorest state in the Union, I reckon I had a head start when I arrived in Suffolk as the bride of a farmer. White ch

      3 min read

    • Article

      Books With The Most Impact

      Mar 15, 2023

      Books With The Most Impact
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Modest Man

      Oct 17, 2019

      The Modest Man
      5 min read

    • Article

      Spanish Conquest

      Mar 1, 2023

      Spanish Conquest
      3 min read

    • Article

      Storming the Mission

      Jan 4, 2022

      Storming the Mission
      8 min read

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Dec 1, 2023

      O for a beaker full of the warm South … -John Keats, “Ode to a Nightingale,” 1819 On the Sunday in December 1941 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, a group of College Board officials happened to be having lunch together in Princeton … talking, as

      3 min read

    Reviews for The Sign of Jonah

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words