Rating: 
Summary: Engrossing
Review: As much as I love reading, I often get bored of books whose writers use unnessesary language just to satisfy thier own vanity. This is not one of those books. The imagery and personification of the characters is spot on without being pretentious. I found myself angry at the characters at times, which is only a testiment to Wayne Jonston's ability to involve the reader throughout the narrative. I was fancinated by the stark images of Newfoundland's rough landscape and history. Having never visited Newfoundland, I feel a first hand experience of the place which is similar in feeling to my experience of India during Rohinton Mistry's "A Fine Balance". Overall, a very enjoyable read.
Rating:
Summary: Solid, engrossing, interesting
Review: Describing this novel will almost certainly minimize its tremendous power. A fictionalized first person of a key Newfoundlander's life, coupled with intercalary chapters which are a satiric history of Newfoundland, sounds like one of those heavy tomes worthy of a Canadian TV mini-series rather than a good evening's read. But this book is a powerful, solid read, the kind of read one imagines cannot be obtained in a modern novel. Smallwood, Newfoundland's first premier upon its confederation with Canada, is portrayed in a variety of situations throughout a long life, some historical and some fictional. But this novel does not bear the cobwebs of the "fictional history" genre. Instead, the book's two major characters--Smallwood and Sheilagh Fielding--seem as real as life, flawed and fascinating. This book is vibrant and alive, straightforward, believable,and wholly warm and human. The parts of the book based on actual history are much more fantastic than the parts of the book which are pure fiction. The book explores some interesting ideas--the twin pursuit of compassion and ambition, the persistence of love over time, and the effects on the protagonists of constant self re-invention. The reader comes away with a sense of place as to Newfoundland, with that feeling of having "known" the characters,and with an abiding respect for a gifted novelist. This is one of the truly great novels I've read.
Rating:
Summary: Solid, engrossing, interesting
Review: Describing this novel will almost certainly minimize its tremendous power. A fictionalized first person of a key Newfoundlander's life, coupled with intercalary chapters which are a satiric history of Newfoundland, sounds like one of those heavy tomes worthy of a Canadian TV mini-series rather than a good evening's read. But this book is a powerful, solid read, the kind of read one imagines cannot be obtained in a modern novel. Smallwood, Newfoundland's first premier upon its confederation with Canada, is portrayed in a variety of situations throughout a long life, some historical and some fictional. But this novel does not bear the cobwebs of the "fictional history" genre. Instead, the book's two major characters--Smallwood and Sheilagh Fielding--seem as real as life, flawed and fascinating. This book is vibrant and alive, straightforward, believable,and wholly warm and human. The parts of the book based on actual history are much more fantastic than the parts of the book which are pure fiction. The book explores some interesting ideas--the twin pursuit of compassion and ambition, the persistence of love over time, and the effects on the protagonists of constant self re-invention. The reader comes away with a sense of place as to Newfoundland, with that feeling of having "known" the characters,and with an abiding respect for a gifted novelist. This is one of the truly great novels I've read.
Rating:
Summary: Near Masterpiece
Review: Had heard the book read several times on the CBC and had even reserved it at the library more than once but never got around to reading it. After the last CBC reading I decided I had to get the book and read it. Very difficult to imagine how this book could be improved. Hard to bear the knowledge that there is a person on the planet who could create a book of this quality (envy showing). Brilliant really. Probably not to everyone's taste as it chronicles the life of a minor Canadian figure but if you can get beyond that, this is a master work.
Rating:
Summary: Unforgettable
Review: I have had the good fortune to live and travel in Newfoundland, so I was excited to read Wayne Johnson's unforgettable book, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams. I loved the book for its amazing characters and its haunting landscapes. I was particularly fascinated with Smallwood and Fielding, and find myself wanting to know much more about the real life and history of Joey Smallwood. I grew up in Nova Scotia and knew of Smallwood only as some mythical person, the Only Living Father of Confederation, who dragged Newfoundland kicking and screaming into Canada. This book gave me a sense of the real man behind the myth, and Smallwood is as unforgettable as his province. Even though I lived at one time in a remote outport on White Bay, I never fully understood the outporter's perspective on Canada until I read this book. The book is beautifully sad and desperate, but it is also hilarious in places. It holds its own with other recent books I have read about this special place: Howard Norman's The Bird Artist and E. Annie Proulx's The Shipping News. For the reader interested in reading more about Newfoundland, I would recommend Ray Guy's humorous You May Know Them As Sea Urchins, Ma'am and Claire Mowat's The Outport People. My all time favorite Newfoundland book remains Cassie Brown's Standing into Danger. The Colony of Unrequited Dreams portrays the generosity and courage of the ordinary Newfoundlander, but Standing into Danger captures the spirit of a people who have nothing and who are willing to give everything.
Rating:
Summary: A haunting masterpiece
Review: I read The Colony of Unrequited Dreams on a long trip to Newfoundland, finishing it on the edge of St. Mary's Bay in Nova Scotia at midnight the day before the ferry left. So, I came to Newfoundland with the novel still defining it for me. As the ferry came into Port Aux Basque, there was little but rock and darkness and the flashing of the lighthouse on the point--so little in fact, coupled with a sense of so much space, that this book was able to expand and fill the country before I could see it with my own eyes. The next morning, then, the great green rock mountains and the everpresent sea were hung about with words from the novel. So it stayed for a month. It is a haunting, rich, wonderful book, one that so fully is of Newfoundland that there was, at least for me, no distinction between book and place. It is rare work that can capture any place clearly. It is a rarer one that acts as a lens, making a land more wodnerful, more haunted by ghosts of people and times that I had never guessed were there.
Rating: 
Summary: how much is true? who cares!
Review: I read this novel 40 books ago. I still think about it. Wayne Johnston pulled me right into his wild, stark, exotic Newfoundland, where I found two unique characters with an ever tense and often wacky relationship. Johnston's writing is clean and crisp and never conceited. His landscape is frozen and beautiful. And his humor is dead-on. While the well-done SHIPPING NEWS gets all the Newfoundland publicity, that book doesn't quite measure up to this masterpiece. For fiction at its finest, visit A COLONY OF UNREQUITED DREAMS.
Rating:
Summary: A REQUITED READ
Review: I read this novel 40 books ago. I still think about it. Wayne Johnston pulled me right into his wild, stark, exotic Newfoundland, where I found two unique characters with an ever tense and often wacky relationship. Johnston's writing is clean and crisp and never conceited. His landscape is frozen and beautiful. And his humor is dead-on. While the well-done SHIPPING NEWS gets all the Newfoundland publicity, that book doesn't quite measure up to this masterpiece. For fiction at its finest, visit A COLONY OF UNREQUITED DREAMS.
Rating:
Summary: Very, very good.
Review: Perhaps I'm a little bit biased towards this novelization of the life of Joey Smallwood. No, I'm not from Newfoundland. No, I'm not a historical fiction buff. No, my name's not Joey. But as I read along, a sneaking suspicion entered my mind. I did a little bit a family research, and it turns out that I am distantly related to the character of Prowse, who could be loosely described as Smallwood's arch-enemy. Admittedly, it is a tenuous relation (three generations by marriage), but still, very cool. And of course, it helps that the novel is one of astonishing quality. COLONY tells of the slow rise of Joey Smallwood, from his very humble beginnings to his eventual election as Newfoundland's first premier. Now, I don't know anything about the history of Newfoundland. I don't believe the book is meant to be a technically accurate representation of Smallwood's life. This is not a biography. What COLONY is, is a vastly entertaining look at the twists and turns that can occur in the life of one man. As in John Irving's best novels ( I kept thinking of THE CIDER HOUSE RULES as I read along), COLONY is an epic view of a tiny subject. As Smallwood's life progresses, the story becomes more and more enriched with characters and themes and regrets and promises. What Smallwood does with his life is miraculous, and sometimes awe-inspiring. I don't mean to imply that Smallwood is a saint. But his flaws and delusions only serve to heighten his triumphs and failures. As I said, I don't know how much of COLONY is factually true. Did he have an ongoing unrequited love affair with his childhood friend and nemesis Fielding? Are the motivations behind his actions accurate? In the end, it doesn't matter. This isn't meant to be a treatise on the political background of a premier. This is a story, and a damned fine one. And it is obvious after reading it why, for all his mistakes, Joey Smallwood is a widely beloved figure in Newfoundland.
Rating:
Summary: imaginatively conceived & brillantly executed anti-epic
Review: This is a brave and imaginative piece of work; it impossible to catagorize -- is it historical fiction, an anti-epic with beautifully rendered scenes of naturalistic realism, or a brillant pseudo-biography? It's all these things, and more. Johnston's story of Smallwood and Fielding works on every level, and there are rich rewards for any lover of sparkling prose and satisfying storytelling. Particular sequences of the book will stay with the reader: the disasterous seal hunt, Smallwood's walk across Newfoundland, and the frozen sea beneath his feet the winter he attempts to unionize the colony's fishermen. Anyone who has grown up in one of the former British colonies will instantly recognize the atmosphere of irony and sense of arrested possiblities that pervades this story. The most remarkable thing about this book is its spot-on combination of wit and melancholy. Though it is ultimately a deeply sad book, an ode to a Newfoundland that never stood a chance, _Colony of Unrequited Dreams_ is also one of the funniest books you will read.
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