The Origin of Species by Nino Ricci

It is no wonder that The Origin of Species, a novel by Nino Ricci, won the 2008 Governor General's award for best English-language fiction.  It features a quintessential Canadian protagonist, Alex Fratarcageli, who is so emotionally repressed and lacking in self-esteem, so passive and frozen in obsessed inactivity, that the reader occasionally wants to pick a stick and whack the pages in an attempt to get him moving - somewhere, anywhere.

Based on the title, I had expected a novel that was technical, touching on Darwin and the theory of evolution.  Instead, I found a work of fiction that delved as deeply into its main character's mind and daily life as Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment focussed onto the thoughts of Raskolnikov.   Indeed, the reader knows much more about Alex than his family, his friends, or even his Freudian therapist.

Strangely enough, though Alex never seems capable of proaction, of taking any sort of control of his life, he does fall into various exotic adventures, including a trip to the Galapagos where he becomes the thrall of a demented biologist Desmond, a virtual captive on a decrepit fishing boat embarked on a surreal tour of the origins of life.  

This incident somehow frames Alex's pursuit of a doctoral thesis, complemented by his pratfalls with the various women in his life, culminating in the accidental creation of  a child. 

And yet the reader understood, much before Alex does, if he ever does, that his essential character is kind and generous.  He feels guilty over Desmond's death, despite the despicable treatment at his hands.  He is genuinely concerned for the safety of Maria, a El Salvadorean refugee, long after his lust for her body has been rejected and dissipated over time.  He becomes the admiring and helpful companion of a young woman, who has has such verve and love of life despite a sentence of Multiple Sclerosis, and watches her body waste away towards death.

Fatherhood eventually, after much dithering and introspection, provides the impetus for a seeming growth spurt of maturity.  However, it is not quite believable given all the meandering that came before.  

It was also weird to read the copious descriptions of the famous and not-so-famous landmarks and denizens of Montreal,  ascribing an paranormal flavour to the familiar scenes.

This is an emotion that pervades the novel.  The sense of familiar viewed from an objective distance, where it is easy to judge, and difficult (though not impossible) to garner empathy for its self-described pathetic hero.