'Irma Voth' by Miriam Toews
Miriam Toews was born in Steinbach, a small Mennonite community in Manitoba, Canada. If, like me, you’ve heard the term Mennonite before but have absolutely no idea what it means or what kind of lifestyle it involves, here is a brief explanation: ‘Mennonites formed themselves in Holland five hundred years ago after a man named Menno Simons became so moved by hearing Anabaptist prisoners singing hymns before being executed by the Spanish Inquisition that he joined their cause and became their leader. Then they started to move all around the world in colonies looking for freedom and isolation and peace and opportunities to sell cheese.’ And, given that this is not some sketchy Wikipedia definition but a direct quote from Irma Voth, I must assume that it is accurate.
Irma Voth was published last April and is Miriam Toews’ sixth book overall. The eponymous heroine is, like Toews, a Mennonite, only she and her family have fled their native Canada for another Mennonite colony in Mexico’s border country, where Irma has, to everyone’s bemusement, decided to marry a Mexican named Jorge. From page one it is clear that theirs is a loveless marriage, with Jorge abandoning Irma and leaving her with nought but new batteries for her flashlight - how very thoughtful - however Irma is soon offered an opportunity to escape. When an independent filmmaker comes to town with the intention of shooting a documentary about the Mennonites and their quiet way of life, Irma lands a job as translator to the film set, juggling English, Spanish and German. This unique opportunity affords Irma a look at the many lives she could be living beyond the Mennonite perimeter, and one night she takes the ultimate risk and flees her close-knit community, taking her two younger sisters - one teenage, one newborn - with her.
That’s the plot pretty much taken care of, but what really sets Irma Voth apart from anything I’ve read before is the telling, not the story told, fascinating though it may be. As a stylist Miriam Toews is a true original and even in the book’s darker moments, of which there are a handful, her prose retains an effortlessness that I cannot liken to anything I have read lately. In Irma Voth the sentences flow freely, as do the descriptions that come with them, and for this reason I suppose the book is quite an easy read, though that’s not to impugn the author’s skills in any way - quite the opposite in fact. To be able to communicate such huge sentiment in such light, free-flowing sentences is a tremendous talent and one that must be keenly read in order to be appreciated fully. Furthermore, the voice of Irma Voth herself is pitched perfectly between naivety and inherent intelligence: yes, she is rather sheltered for a nineteen-year-old, even a married one, but she is wise enough to know that there is an entire world out there just begging to be discovered.
Irma Voth won’t be to everyone’s liking, I’m sure, for it is unconventional. The writing is not in any way self-conscious (the majority of paragraphs begin with 'I’ which, even in first-person narration, I’m told is a big no-no) but for some reason it works. The simple phrasing and run-on sentences may seem a tad jarring at first also, especially if, like me, you’ve been reading more conventionally styled novels. But, again, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and Toews’ writing occasionally calls to mind the spontaneous prose style advocated by Jack Kerouac and his Beat-y cohorts. All in all I really enjoyed this book, a pleasingly peculiar tale of redemption and escape, an obscure little gem.
This piece was originally published on alisonlaurabell.tumblr.com in August 2012.