The Building of Jalna

The Building of Jalna 

by Mazo de la Roche
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"The Jalna series consists of sixteen novels that tell the story of the Canadian Whiteoak family from 1854 to 1954, although each of the novels can also be enjoyed as an independent story. In the world of the Whiteoaks, as in real life, people live and die, find success and fall to ruin. For the Whiteoaks, there remains something solid and unchanging in the midst of life's transience--the manor house and its rich surrounding farmland known as "Jalna." The author, Mazo de la Roche, gave the members of her fictitious family names from gravestones in Ontario's New Market cemetery, and the story itself balances somewhere between fact and fiction." --Goodreads

I came across this series as part of my Readers' Advisory project. This first book was written in the 1940s and looks back to the 1850s in both Ireland and Canada. I enjoyed the book, but it was a bit slow. I also found the main character, Aldeline, difficult to sympathize with. I don't plan to continue with this series, but am glad that I read it as it is probably typical of both its time and genre.

This book is on my Readers Advisory Reading List, and I am counting it toward both the Canadian Reading Challenge and the Historical Fiction Challenge.