Oh, Canada: Ford's novel appeals to wide range of serious readers

Opinions at book group on Richard Ford's Canada were overwhelmingly positive, ranging from exalting, I think led by JRo, calling it the best fiction he'd ever read about the alienation of a young man, trying to find his way in a difficult world, to those on the less positive end, mostly me and JRi, who admired the writing and the introspection of the novel but found it very difficult to abide the improbabilities of the plot - I in particular concerned about how Ford essentially abandoned his plot, moving the novel in the second part completely away from the characters and situation he so carefully established. Can anyone really accept that a 15-year-old boy would never make any attempt over a lifetime to find out what happened to his parents? Can anyone explain why the crazy man Remlinger would have wanted the narrator, Dell, as a witness to the double-murder? Other examples as well - but, still, the novel is full of beautiful passages - again, I think that Ford is one of our best chroniclers of geography - and a lot of smart rumination: it's almost like an anti-novel, there's are significant plot elements, but Ford folds the novel inside out and instead of building up the plot he wears it down: the two central crime scenes are not even witnessed by the narrator, Dell; rather, Ford tells everything by nuance and indirection. Dell sees the world as if through a haze, making him a very unusual narrator to be sure. I noted in discussion that most first-person novels about the adventures of a young person are quite distinctly written in the voice of a young person, e.g., Huckleberry Finn, Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird; there are exceptions in which an older narrator looks back on events of his or her youth (not talking here about a full life story such as Copperfield - only about novels that cover as short span of time): e.g., So Long See You Tomorrow, among the greatest. Ford takes that stance as well, an older narrator looking back - though he does very little with that triangulation; it's surprising that he doesn't build toward a revealed knowledge at the end, esp in the 3rd section when Dell meets up with his estranged twin sister, now on the verge of death. Canada is an unusual, almost unique novel - appealing, if our group is evidence, to a wide band of serious readers, with enough true plot and strong characterizations to keep all engaged, but also plenty of high romance to give the novel a style and a careful, deliberate pace.