The Icelandic Canadian - 01.04.1988, Blaðsíða 18

16
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
SPRING, 1988
also a master of his mother tongue. Since
he was four years old he played chess and
had studied the game assiduously. He felt
no disgrace at being a farmer who stepped
in dung every day. He kept his eyes uplifted
to Elsja, the fabled mountain, whose deep
purple always gave promise of God and
better days. Because Hastings knew none
of those things he was not prepared for the
old sheep farmer’s play.”
Jonasson accepts Hasting’s challenge
for a second game. “The game went on:
two strong men locked in the silent clash of
wills. Hastings broke out in a sweat. His
imagination told him he could not lose,
but reality impinged on his brain. He knew
deep down he was gradually, mercilessly,
being forced to yield. An old sheep farmer
from an unknown island was pressing hard
to undo him.” I am not going to tell you
how the game ends. If you want to know,
you must read the story. It will be a rich
experience.
“Battle” is not just another competent
machine-made story. It is a good story. All
the details play their significant part. The
atmosphere is authentic, the dialogue is
natural. It is well balanced. It moves with a
steady pace from its opening to its end. A
good beginning is strengthened by a good
ending. It merits a place among memorable
Canadian short stories.
Music has always meant a great deal in
Paul’s life. He never had any professional
training as a musician but, when he was
growing up, he was saturated with music
and song. He learned his notes with his
letters. He taught himself to play the piano
by watching how others did it. He has
written some 300 songs which range over
three fields — the popular, the serious and
the religious. Four of his songs have been
published — “Sara’s Carol,” “This is the
Homeland that I love,” “Bury My Heart at
Wounded Knee” and “This is the Love.”
He has written the words and music of a
children’s operetta, also a three act musical
comedy.
He has never lived on a Fantasy Island
level. He is down to earth. He knows that
there is no comforting escape from reality.
He realizes, with Wordsworth: “But in the
very world, which is the world of all of us,
— the place where, in the end we find our
happiness, or not at all.”
Deep in memory’s hold, I suspect that
Paul Sigurdson has many pleasant memo-
ries stored away; that, through the years, he
has been able to extract much happiness
from life; that he has found many meaning-
ful satisfactions. May I name three: First
there has been the love, and the compan-
ionship, of his wife. Second, his pride in his
family of five children — Signy, Stephen,
Gus, Sara and Sylvia. Third, the delights
he has found in his own mind and in crea-
tive labor. Since, as a small boy, he scrib-
bled with a short pencil on odd scraps of
paper, Paul has always enjoyed writing. He
has never been on an assembly line. He has
never written against time, under a feeling
of compulsion, but only when the spirit
moved him. “The delights of creativity are
highly rewarding,” he once said, “and very
often creative energy is self-rejuvenating.”
He never let the act of writing become a
burden to him.19
He has always lived on good terms with
nature. He has always preferred the country
to the city. The outdoors has a fascination
for him. When he retired from school
teaching, he built a house, swiftly converted
into a home, a few miles east of Morden on
a truly beautiful site. His home nestles
among low undulating hills which give the
lie to the libel that Manitoba is all flat
prairie. From his front porch, in summer,
he can watch the flowers in bloom in his
wife’s garden, and, winter and summer, he
can feed a great variety of wild birds whom
he looks upon as friends.
With the years, Paul has grown steadily
in depth. Now in his sixty-first year, he
gives no sign of any intellectual stagnation.