The mark of a true artist is the ability to take the ordinary and make it extraordinary. For a musician, it is a simple note. For an artist, it’s a stick of graphite, and to a writer, it’s life. Case in point is ‘Someday Forever’, by John Moelaert.
Someday Forever is a literatical land made up of many things, from tugs at heartstrings and the exposure of corporate greed, to sexual predation and obsession. Perhaps I’m biased because the author’s a BC boy, but I think not, because good work transposes global geography, and exists on a separate and distinct plane of existence.
The story line follows the life of Canadian, Lorne Vincent, a soul who is torn and shattered, yet persists in his struggle for success despite overwhelming odds. No, he doesn’t fly to the far reaches of the universe to save entire galaxies, nor does he cavort with royalty as he conducts espionage. Lorne, in many ways, is more of a reflection of the dreams of all born burdened with exterior reproductive parts, and who frequently confuse them with an organ of thought. It is a nostalgic combination of society’s good, bad and ugly, that stirs one’s emotions like a turbo Whirlpool electric mixer with afterburners.
The attention to detail in this pagination of imagination gives away the decades that John spent wearing out keyboards before they went digital. As a former newshound, Moelaert has remarkably transitioned from fabricating fact to fiction, and it gives his style a sense of accuracy and attention to detail that grows rarer by the day. As a narcissist, I set out to intentionally grow bored of a story about someone else’s life, after all (yawn), how could it possibly top mine? I believe that it was about chapter three, when I realized that the entertainment of the book was far more about style than story. There is an expression that a truly great singer can ‘sing a phone book’, and Someday Forever is a perfect literary example of that type of talent.
If you’re looking for a book to call home for a while, Someday Forever is a great choice. It meets you at the door like police officers at 4:30 am with serious expressions on their faces, as it casts treble hooks into your consciousness, preparing to breech the walls of your mind. It drags you willingly into a web of humanity struggling to break free of bonds that strengthen as they flounder. Someday Forever parallels reality, at times too closely for comfort, turning recliners into coaches, and beds into bunks on a runaway train of pain hurdling through tunnels of time.
Then, as I turned the last page, it suddenly occurred to me that I had failed to become bored. I’ll be damned if Someday Forever, by John Moelaert, didn’t distract me so much, that for the briefest of time, it overrode my desire to think of myself! Its written rhythm must have methodically induced a state of hypnosis, for time became metronomed beats measuring minutes before I could return to the realm within its pages. Regardless, it was a great read that took me on a journey from the 1930s through to today, and demonstratively exemplifies that while many things in this world change, people rarely do.
To order your copy of Someday Forever, by John Moelaert, contact Dr. Gary W. Lea, agent for Mr. Moelaert, by email at glea@shaw.ca.
Bookworm Rating:
Book Review By: W. Lewis, Publisher at The Northern Star
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
John Moelaert has been a published author since 1958. He was born in Holland in 1930 and came to Canada in 1951. He studied philosophy at the University of Alberta, and creative writing at the University of British Columbia. His articles have been published in newspapers and magazines across Canada, as well as in the U.S., Japan and Costa Rica.
Several of his short stories have won prizes, including first prize for the Canadian Authors Association contest: Donovan versus Donovan a.k.a. When Love Ends. He is also the former editor-publisher of the ‘Canadian Conservationist and Insight’. During the late 1970’s he served as a participant in B.C.’s Royal Commission of Inquiry into Uranium Mining and wrote the 1980 report, ‘Uranium Mining Is Not in the Public Interest’. His book, ‘The Cancer Conspiracy’, exposes the politics of cancer and continues to be a timely eye-opener.
His writing and photographic assignments have taken him to 30 countries, from Stockholm to Rome, and from the Northwest Territories to Southern Chile. In 1998, the Government of Peru invited him to produce a photographic essay to promote tourism in that fascinating Latin country. His extracurricular involvements include being the founder of The B.C. Wildlife Park at Kamloops.
