Visible Worlds

Marilyn Bowering’s novel Visible Worlds (1998) follows three families in Winnipeg and the three generations of war that shaped them irreparably. The narrative weaves together settings in Canada, the Soviet Union, Germany, and Korea. The main characters are Nate Bone, whose death at a football game in 1960 begins the book, Albrecht Storr, the novel's primary narrator, and a woman named Fika, whose story seems distant from Nate and Albrecht's until Albrecht pieces the puzzle together. The book is about the lasting traumas of war, betrayal, and guilt, as well as memory and the power of historical connection through decades.

The book begins in Winnipeg in 1960. Albrecht Storr is at a football match where he watches his lifelong friend and childhood neighbor, Nate Bone, die. Nate's death sparks a flood of memories, stories, and tragedy that tie Albrecht to Nate, and both of them to a young woman named Fika.

Fika's story, introduced just after Nate's death, at first seems tangential to the central narrative. She is walking across the North Pole by herself, a tough woman searching for freedom after decades of persecution and hunger in the Soviet Union. Fika is also looking for her family, who were taken from her by the Nazis in World War II.



Albrecht picks up the narrative, explaining some of the connections between himself, Nate, and the Soviet woman, Fika. He goes back to 1935, when he, his twin brother, Gerhard, and Nate were neighbors in Winnipeg. Albrecht and Gerhard, the children of German immigrants, inherited differences from their parents—while Gerhard shared his mother's love of German music, Albrecht appreciated life in North America. Gerhard soon goes off to study music in Germany before the war, and Albrecht stays home to marry a girl down the road.

Soon, the boys find themselves torn apart by war. Forced into the German army, Gerhard soon disappears into a labor camp in the Soviet Union. Nate and Albrecht, meanwhile, are in Korea, fighting an entirely different battle. All of this is set against the backdrop of a strange kidnapping that Nate undertook as a child. Nate, whose baby sister burned to death when he was a child, compulsively snatches a neighbor's baby to try to repair the loss. Later, after becoming a POW in Korea, Nate exchanges babies again—this time, he exchanges his own “deformed” child for a healthy adopted one.

Eventually, Nate and Albrecht both return to Winnipeg, both severely damaged from their personal histories and experiences of war. The magical backdrop of their childhoods—Nate's father ran away with a tiger tamer and Albrecht's mother and father were obsessed with German culture, personal magnetism and fortune tellers—is traded for a more sobering reality.



Eventually, Albrecht ties together the knots between himself, Nate, and Fika; between three wars, many countries, and three decades of residual pain. All the while, Fika's perseverance through the harshest conditions on the planet offers interplay between madness and love, resilience and suicide. Each of the characters struggles with the past, and each finds ways to move forward – toward new life, death, or another country altogether.

Marilyn Bowering is a novelist, poet, and playwright. Visible Worlds, her second novel, followed her acclaimed book To All Appearances a Lady. Visible Worlds was short-listed for the Orange Prize. Bowering has also written a number of books of poetry. Her work has been translated into Spanish, Finnish, German, Romanian, Russian, Greek, and Punjabi. Raised in Victoria, B.C., Bowering has since lived in Greece, Scotland, Spain, and other parts of Canada. She currently lives in Vancouver, B.C.