Marilyn Bowering is a Canadian novelist and poet in Victoria, B.C. Her recent work More Richly in Earth, part memoir and literary investigation of an 18th-century female Scottish Gaelic bard, was longlisted for both the Saltire and Hubert Evans prizes. She is the librettist for Marilyn Forever (Gavin Bryars).
In The Unfinished World, Pearl traces her grandmother’s last journey and recovers handmade ancestral dolls, in a world of diminishing prospects for love, purpose, and belonging. The dolls unlock stories— from the ancient world to current west coast North America— that transform Pearl’s life and offer hope for an evolving relationship to other species.
Interviewed by Nancy Pearson
Nancy Pearson (NP): The Unfinished World takes readers on a journey across centuries as Pearl seeks to understand her grandmother, Nora, and, ultimately, herself. Nora tasked Pearl to write the story of each doll that she used to play with as a child, all of which are hundreds of years old. She reluctantly agrees, but then Nora’s unexpected death propels Pearl into a landscape of grief and storytelling that take her into places of historical, emotional, spiritual, and family connections, and her place within these. Could you expand on the theme of self-discovery as a way to structure the novel.
Marilyn Bowering (MB): The structure came at the end of a long process, and the process was very organic as I worked to find what was niggling at me and what I wanted to explore in the novel. Ultimately, I found that each story had something to help Pearl make a decision about how to get out of the mess she’s made of her life. They propel her in directions which will unfold, by the end, as a much stronger sense of personal identity and connection to all life. The stories show fundamental patterns of behaviour in ancestors and other people she’s linked to, and play out in what they have to do with her.
NP: One element of this novel that resonates with your debut novel, To All Appearances a Lady, is the inclusion of magic realism. A ghost guides the protagonist in the first novel. In The Unfinished World, however, the magic realism is more subtle and relates to Pearl’s unwitting influence on the natural world: the fish that trail close behind her at the fish farm, in the river and the ocean. The dolls themselves and their stories also build on the sense of reality being altered, suspended or mythologized. Could you elaborate on the role of this technique in the creation of Pearl’s story.
MB: Magic realism for me is like the other end of a metaphor. You start with something real—and all my books, including this one, are rooted in historical fact. But you extrapolate from that, and you can get somewhere interesting. The technique heightens reality and, in this case, Pearl’s interest in other species seemed like an expression of her inner reality. She’s already doing things which show this through her little company, writing a blog about seafood and trying to tie it to her generation’s environmental awareness; and be an influencer and make money. But her ‘gift’ (how fish are attracted to her) puts her way out in front of anything she’s comfortable with, although it is rooted in human physiology to the extent that we have a common ancestor in fish.
NP: The novel also invokes several myths. The Edenic myth came to mind for me while Pearl is staying on Nootka Island, an idyllic community where she is embraced by the people. However, she is ‘cast out’ by troubling events that lead her to another isolated place where her grandmother had established a refuge house, a place of healing and integration into community for refugees. What role do you see for mythology in modern literature and the key role of women in them?
MB: I wasn’t thinking specifically of the Eden myth, although I see how that works. I guess I think of it as more like little pools of tranquility and peace in a world which is completely chaotic, and often horrific. In the first story, the Philosopher’s Tale, Theano and her poet friend have a discussion – in the midst of a natural disaster – about which stories matter. Theano is encouraging her students to record memories of the people who have died and, in that way, to be able to remember them so that their individual stories are not lost. And the poet is arguing that those stories don’t matter.
Mythology in modern literature is important as a distillation of human experience, but personal stories counter, contextualize and can override them. We can re-think the role of women in them. One of the myths that comes up is that of Demeter and her daughter Persephone kidnapped by Hades. That’s the tug of war between the underworld god and the goddess of fertility and life. All the stories take place in an atmosphere a bit like that, in some cases during war or forced immigration or immigration for other reasons. Nonetheless, the characters retain some control over their choices. Part of Pearl’s journey is to discover that she has agency within the confusion of her own times.
I’ve always been interested in how people navigate this. In my novel, Visible Worlds, it played out against what was happening in World War II and was drawn from family stories. How people create relationships, find love, or fail and try again to live meaningful lives in the midst of mass chaos – I think it really matters.
NP: There are several different threads woven throughout the novel’s braided format, with one of the more significant being the salmon and the threats of fish farms and mining. Salmon are sacred creatures in Indigenous cultures. Could you elaborate on how these modern, environmental issues became a defining element for the novel.
MB: Salmon are emblematic of what has happened environmentally generally and of our shift from taking for granted a natural abundance that would never end to finally understanding that there are consequences to things that we do. I grew up on the west coast and, of course, part of my childhood was going fishing. Our family was never very successful, but it was part of the culture. The salmon’s cycle seemed like a kind of magic – its navigation to find its way back to its birthplace, which is just amazing. And how threatened it is by practices like overfishing, habitat destruction, fish farms, and even hatcheries despite some of their benefits.
Thinking about it was natural to me. The salmon’s life cycle, its life story, is one to follow – Pearl’s literal journey mimics it in the way she finds her way to the source of her identity. And it is embedded in her love affair with Cliff, who’s working hard to restore the instinctual, trying to teach fish to be fish, as it says in the novel. The story of salmon is fundamental, and we live within it as part of it, whether we understand it or not.
NP: Pearl’s grief for Norah spurs her to learn more about her grandmother and her family history, and also to question her own life motivations. One doll character’s statement that “The role of the soul is to question itself,” seems to be central to Pearl’s struggles and the novel as a whole. Do you see that as a fair statement?
MB: Yes. Pearl’s world has fallen apart through her failed relationship and other misjudgments. Her lack of care over how or who she spends her time with has led to real consequences. And the consequences begin through her shock at her grandmother’s death because she had not expected it and was not alert to what it would mean to her life. But it does provide an opening, and there’s enough of the foundation that Nora had given to Pearl, for Pearl to have a thread to follow and not consign that foundation to the junk heap of things that didn’t matter anymore because they weren’t immediately important or wouldn’t help her career.
NP: One final question: I read your debut novel thirty-five years ago. Since then you have published extensively – poetry collections, novels, and even an opera. I’m wondering what your thoughts are on how your career has evolved over the decades and how the publishing world has changed. It’s my understanding, for example, that agents and publishers really want writers to have a social media presence to build their platform.
MB: I would say that I’ve had opportunities and was given encouragement by teachers and others, and how important encouragement is. When I began publishing there was an openness to new voices, an interest in getting away from American and British dominated publishing. I’ve been advised along the way that I shouldn’t publish in different genres and should write follow-ups to successful work instead. But it always seemed to me that the impulse or intuition or inspiration when it comes is worth following, and to try to make something that you feel is worthwhile. Finding time and resources to do this isn’t easy.
Now it’s harder, I think. The way most people come to books appears to be quite different, all to do with social media, but books still do go hand to hand. A lot of the books I read are recommended to me by people I see. Writers now, young writers, feel compelled to develop a public presence and profile that they must tend, or risk being forgotten, and that risk is real. I think that must be very hard and wearing. I worry that writers pay a toll for it, but I’m afraid I can’t suggest an alternative, except through making sure they have a trusted community and support for their work independent of promotion.
Publishers are always looking for the next big book. So, they’re not so willing (I’m thinking of the bigger publishers) to support a writer throughout a career. You know, to see if they have a readership that develops with them. It’s more like if you don’t make it on that first book, well, you might get a second chance. Books, these days, have a brief life-span. Writers I know have struggled with how to reinvent themselves and how to reach any kind of readership at all. There’s little print reviewing. There are online niches, and platforms that appear and disappear. I get the feeling that everyone is trying to solve the riddle of attention. I could mention other problems – copyright violations and exemptions, piracy, and AI, for instance, which make it difficult for writers to earn income from published work, but there are positives too, like enduring book clubs and festivals. The independent bookstores are great and seem to be surviving after what was a quite lengthy period when they might not have. Their support of writers and their own local and regional writers is invaluable.
NP: That’s a really significant change over thirty-five years.
MB: There was a period when writers would come to me and say, “What’s the secret? How is this done?” Well, you know, there is no secret. But if you could submit your work to an agent, if you could get an agent to represent you that was a big step, it still is, but it’s tough for agents and publishers to make money. Still, strategies that worked in the past are working now. Writers getting together to publish each other – which is how House of Anansi and Coach House began. Now this is often online or through co-ordination of self-published books.
NP: Marilyn, that was my last question. Do you have anything to add?
MB: I hope something I’ve said has been helpful and thank you for your questions. Thank you for your care in reading. I should say that the key to most things is memory. Don’t let it go.