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''The Watch That Ends the Night'' is a novel by
Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...
and
academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...
Hugh MacLennan John Hugh MacLennan (March 20, 1907 – November 9, 1990) was a Canadian writer and professor of English at McGill University. He won five Governor General's Awards and a Royal Bank Award. Family and childhood MacLennan was born in Glace B ...
. The title refers to a line in
Psalm 90 Psalm 90 is the 90th psalm from the Book of Psalms and the opening psalm of Book 4 of the psalms. Uniquely among the Psalms, it is attributed to Moses. It is well known for its reference in verse 10 to human life expectancy being 70 or 80 ("thr ...
. It was first published in
1958 Events January * January 1 – The European Economic Community (EEC) comes into being. * January 3 – The West Indies Federation is formed. * January 4 ** Edmund Hillary's Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition completes the third ...
by Macmillan of Canada.


Plot summary

George and Catherine Stewart share not only the burden of Catherine's heart disease, which could cause her death at any time, but the memory of Jerome Martell, her first husband and George's closest friend. Martell, a brilliant doctor passionately concerned with social justice, is presumed to have died in a Nazi prison camp. His sudden return to Montreal precipitates the central crisis of the novel. Hugh MacLennan takes the reader into the lives of his three characters and back into the world of Montreal in the thirties, when politics could send an idealist across the world to Spain, France, Auschwitz, Russia, and China before his return home.


Title

The title is a reference to a line in
Isaac Watts Isaac Watts (17 July 1674 – 25 November 1748) was an English Congregational minister, hymn writer, theologian, and logician. He was a prolific and popular hymn writer and is credited with some 750 hymns. His works include "When I Survey the ...
' ''
Our God, Our Help in Ages Past "Our God, Our Help in Ages Past" is a hymn by Isaac Watts in 1708 that paraphrases the 90th Psalm of the Book of Psalms. It originally consisted of nine stanzas; however, in present usage the fourth, sixth, and eighth stanzas are commonly omit ...
'': A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun. This echoes the theme of mortality that is central to the plot of the novel. The hymn and the psalm as a whole contrast the brevity and struggle of human life with the eternity of God (and, in Christian interpretation, of life everlasting after death).


Reception

The novel was a Canadian bestseller for almost four months in 1959. MacLennan received $70,000 in film rights. Robertson Davies declared "The Canadian novel takes a great stride forward." It is considered to be MacLennan's best novel, and an important Canadian novel. The novel earned MacLennan the Canadian
Governor General's Award The Governor General's Awards are a collection of annual List of awards presented by the Governor General of Canada, awards presented by the Governor General of Canada, recognizing distinction in numerous academic, artistic, and social fields. Th ...
for literature. A passage from the book was adapted for use in the song "
Courage (for Hugh MacLennan) "Courage (for Hugh MacLennan)" is a song by Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip. It was released in February 1993 as the third single from their 1992 album ''Fully Completely''. The song's bracketed title references author Hugh MacLennan, beca ...
" by Canadian rock band
The Tragically Hip The Tragically Hip, often referred to simply as the Hip, were a Canadian rock band formed in Kingston, Ontario in 1984, consisting of vocalist Gord Downie, guitarist Paul Langlois, guitarist Rob Baker (known as Bobby Baker until 1994), bassis ...
. The paraphrase comes in the song's last verse: There's no simple explanation
For anything important any of us do
And yeah, the human tragedy
Consists in the necessity
Of living with the consequences A number of elements from the novel are believed to reflect MacLennan's life. Catherine Stewart is believed to have been inspired by MacLennan's first wife, Dorothy Duncan, who was dying of the same ailment Catherine suffers from while MacLennan was writing the novel. Another major character, Jerome Martell, is generally thought to have been inspired by
Norman Bethune Henry Norman Bethune (; March 4, 1890 – November 12, 1939; zh, t=亨利·諾爾曼·白求恩, p=Hēnglì Nuò'ěrmàn Báiqiú'ēn) was a Canadian thoracic surgeon, early advocate of socialized medicine, and member of the Communist Party ...
, a claim the author denied. MacLennan's biographer, Elspeth Cameron, points to
F. R. Scott Francis Reginald Scott (1899–1985), commonly known as Frank Scott or F. R. Scott, was a lawyer, Canadian poet, intellectual, and constitutional scholar. He helped found the first Canadian social democratic party, the Co-operative Commonwe ...
and Samuel MacLennan, the author's father, as models for Martell. However, Mr. MacLennan, in a 1965 newspaper article referring to his neurologist, Dr. Reuben Rabinovitch of Montreal wrote: “When my novel, ‘The Watch That Ends The Night,’ appeared, it was widely believed that its doctor-protagonist, Dr. Jerome Martell, was modeled on the famous Dr. Norman Bethune. He wasn't, for I never knew Bethune. But Martell's way of dealing with his patients was Dr. Rab's way. This is not to suggest that Martell was modeled off him; he wasn't. But if I had not known Dr. Rab, I could never have understood Dr. Martell." Dr. Martell's life history was also notably quite similar to that of Dr. Rabinovitch. Douglas Gibson, Hugh MacLennan's friend and publisher, wrote: "Hugh later suggested that a real-life model for Jerome Martell was actually Frank Scott, the poet,
McGill Law School The Faculty of Law is one of the professional graduate schools of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the oldest law school in Canada, and continually ranks among the best law schools in the world. The faculty is known for it ...
scholar, and leader of Montreal left-wing politics who became one of the founders of the CCF party."


References

*
Brian Busby Brian John Busby (born August 29, 1962) is a Canadian literary historian and anthologist. Born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, he attended John Abbott College and Concordia University. Busby began his writing career writing daytime soap operas a ...
, ''Character Parts: Who's Really Who in Canlit'', Toronto: Knopf, 2003. p. 163-164, 171, 245. . * Hugh MacLennan, noted Canadian author, pays tribute to the late Dr. Rabinovitch, in Canadian Jewish Review, October 22, 1965. Citing a Letter To The Editor in the Montreal Star newspaper. {{DEFAULTSORT:Watch That Ends The Night, The 1958 Canadian novels Novels by Hugh MacLennan Governor General's Award-winning fiction books