The Untempered Wind


Read by Bruce Pirie

(4.6 stars; 17 reviews)

Upon publication of “The Untempered Wind” in 1894, Joanna Wood quickly rose to international prominence, becoming in the next few years the most highly paid fiction-writer in Canada. In this novel, we find a detailed picture of village life. The narrative weaves through a variety of character types: the refined and the coarse, the humble and the self-righteous, the virtuous and the vicious. All these types are measured according to their treatment of Myron Holder, a young unwed mother — a “fallen woman” in the eyes of this “spiteful, narrow-minded village.”

An early reviewer extolled Wood as Canada’s Charlotte Brontë, because of her sympathetic treatment of a disadvantaged woman trying to forge an independent life. An even more apt comparison might be to Thomas Hardy: like Hardy's characters, Myron is buffeted by cruel, relentless Fate — the “untempered wind” of the title.

In “Silenced Sextet” (a 1993 study of once-popular Canadian women writers who subsequently dropped out of the public eye), Joanna Wood is seen as an important figure in the development of realism in Canadian literature: “No nineteenth-century writer better presents the sound, smell, and feel of day-to-day village life in this country.” - Summary by Bruce Pirie (11 hr 40 min)

Chapters

Chapter 1 10:45 Read by Bruce Pirie
Chapter 2 19:14 Read by Bruce Pirie
Chapter 3 18:58 Read by Bruce Pirie
Chapter 4 24:52 Read by Bruce Pirie
Chapter 5 40:05 Read by Bruce Pirie
Chapter 6 22:55 Read by Bruce Pirie
Chapter 7 23:21 Read by Bruce Pirie
Chapter 8 37:18 Read by Bruce Pirie
Chapter 9 20:04 Read by Bruce Pirie
Chapter 10 25:46 Read by Bruce Pirie
Chapter 11 39:54 Read by Bruce Pirie
Chapter 12 33:20 Read by Bruce Pirie
Chapter 13 37:58 Read by Bruce Pirie
Chapter 14 46:14 Read by Bruce Pirie
Chapter 15 39:37 Read by Bruce Pirie
Chapter 16 37:22 Read by Bruce Pirie
Chapter 17 36:30 Read by Bruce Pirie
Chapter 18 26:56 Read by Bruce Pirie
Chapter 19 22:40 Read by Bruce Pirie
Chapter 20 33:58 Read by Bruce Pirie
Chapter 21 32:41 Read by Bruce Pirie
Chapter 22 27:17 Read by Bruce Pirie
Chapter 23 29:34 Read by Bruce Pirie
Chapter 24 12:54 Read by Bruce Pirie

Reviews

beautiful sad story


(5 stars)

Well written with wonderful descriptions of sights, sounds and people. Excellent reader!

Rather sad story Thank you Bruce


(5 stars)