Barometer Rising by Hugh MacLennan

SANWAL RCI

(4.8 stars; 5 reviews)

"Barometer Rising" Canada's most famous explosion   Barometer Rising By Hugh MacLennan Adapted For Radio By Rita Greer [Allen]   "Canada's most famous explosion - Halifax, December 6, 1917 –  became in the skillful   hands of author Hugh MacLennan an  integral part of one of the best-known Canadian  novels,  "Barometer Rising." The tragedy and devastation of this  great disaster has been  arranged as the climax to a tangled  story involvingHalifax people, all of them living under the  strain of World War I. . . ."     December 6, 1917 dawned clear and sunny in Halifax. Before darkness fell, more than a thousand people would die, with another thousand to follow. Nine thousand more would be injured and maimed in the biggest man-made explosion the world had ever seen. The Halifax Explosion website brings together a wide range of resources from CBC Television, CBC Radio and CBC.ca; from major research bodies, community groups and individuals. https://www.cbc.ca/archives/topic/the-halifax-explosion Rita Greer [Allen] "Rita Greer Allen, writer, broadcaster and artist, was born Marguerita Foulger Wayman in Erith, Kent, England, on 25 September 1918. . . .In collaboration with her husband Robert Greer Allen, who worked for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) radio during the [Second World] war, Rita wrote and submitted dramatic radio scripts for broadcast with some success, with a number of scripts broadcast on Trans-Canada Network radio program "Stage 45". In the early 1950s, the Greer Allens returned to Toronto, and Rita began her prolific freelance scriptwriting career, writing and researching her own radio scripts for the CBC, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). . . .Her writing for radio included scripts for documentary series "As children see us", and dramatic adaptations of "Barometer rising" and "The Duchess of Malfi". . . .Rita Greer Allen died in Toronto on 30 May 2010."    Barometer Rising is an allegory of Canada's shift away from the political and cultural influences of colonial, Imperial Britain to a decolonized independence and emergent national consciousness throughout the course of the First World War. The mythological template of Homer's Odyssey is clearly in evidence throughout the book; the tale of a hero's return and redemption is also the narrative of a culture's coming of age. Protagonist Neil MacRae returns to Nova Scotia from the battlefields of Europe, where his body, mind and reputation have been battered. His morally bankrupt Anglophile uncle, Geoffrey Wain, the former colonel of his regiment, has blamed him for the failure of an attack and MacRae is under threat of prosecution and execution for cowardice. While MacRae and Penelope Wain, who is the colonel's daughter and MacRae's former lover, seek to clear his name, Col. Wain seeks to bury the past and profit from the opportunities the war presents. The Explosion literally blows the old order apart, disintegrating its cynicism and hollow ideals, and affording MacRae the chance to emerge an active hero for a new generation and a country on the brink of renewal. At the end of the novel MacRae and Penelope Wain are poised to depart from "old" Halifax for the dynamic potential of the westward regions of the country. Program info: pdf Radio Canada International 1960

This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.