conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a book about Calum, McDonald, Scottish with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this book could be 'No Great Mischief'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide a plot for a book about Calum, McDonald, Scottish with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction.. Start with the sentence 'No Great Mischief: The novel opens in the present day, with successful orthodontist Alexander MacDonald visiting his elderly older brother Calum in Toronto, Ontario'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: No Great Mischief: The novel opens in the present day, with successful orthodontist Alexander MacDonald visiting his elderly older brother Calum in Toronto, Ontario.\nThe novel explores the emotional bonds of family through flashbacks to their childhood in Cape Breton Island and young adulthood spent in the mines of Northern Ontario, clan history dating back to 1779, and present day interactions between the two brothers and a sister.\nThough written primarily in English, Scottish Gaelic and French are used in dialogue and songs.\nThe novel also mirrors Canadian history as a whole, taking its title from James Wolfe\'s assertion in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham that Scottish soldiers should be sent into battle because "they are hardy, intrepid, accustomed to a rough country, and no great mischief if they fall".\n[237] The enduring linguistic and cultural tensions that have defined Canadian society are also reflected in the novel; during their time working in the uranium mines of Elliot Lake, the brothers are frequently in conflict with their francophone coworkers.\nThe novel explores the themes of brotherhood and the conflict between the rise of individualism and family in the post-modern world.\nAlex loves his alcoholic brother, Calum, despite his problems because Alex sees the potential in Calum.\nAlex lets his brother die in peace and with dignity even though he is a convicted murderer and alcoholic.\nThe author uses Alex as an example for all human beings.\nMacLeod wants the reader to realize that "all of us are better when we\'re loved" and that forgiveness and love for humanity are the only weapons humans have against the destructive forces of evil.\nCalum is posited as a contemporary clan chief of the McDonalds defending the lost cause of Gaelic culture.\nHis defence of Highland values parallels the devastating consequences of the Highland support for Charles Stuart in the 1745.\nThroughout the book Calum defends clan values in spite of the personal consequences.\nHis distant Californian nephew, who has no idea of these values, steals from the Quebec miners.\nCalum\'s defence leads to murder and hard time, while the nephew blithely returns to California.\nCalum becomes the beaten alcoholic shell of a formerly strong man due to his reflexive support of the old clan values that have long since vanished as guiding principles, even among his own direct family.\nThe title, "No great mischief if they fall", is found most easily in Findlay,T, "Wolfe in Scotland in the \'45 and from 1749 to 1753".\nLondon: Longmans, Green and Co, 1928,\xa0226.\nAn earlier use of the citation that MacLeod used for his title appears in Gibson, John "Traditional Gaelic Bagpiping 1745-1945".\nMontreal and Kingston: MQUP, and Nat.\nMus.\nScot, 1998,\xa059.