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As I was saying on Monday, this Friday is Canada Day. As a way to celebrate, I will post a few reviews of Canadian short stories during the week and attempt to finish my tour of Canada through short stories (you can find links to all the stories I have reviewed here).
“Where Is the Voice Coming From?” is my second story from Saskatchewan and was written by Rudy Wiebe and published in 1974. It is probably one of the most famous Canadian stories and I had meant to read it for a long time. I have seen it so many times mentioned in essays that I consider it as an essential Canadian read.
I am sorry to report that I did not enjoy reading it. I started it about three times and read it in two sittings, something I avoid doing with short stories. I cannot figure why it did not appeal to me. I enjoy reading about this story, but not reading it. I found the writing quite alienating. Maybe is it because of the longish descriptions? or the fact that it seems to oscillate between essay, history and fiction?
In this story, the narrator begins by stating that “[t]he problem is to make the story”. He then discusses some historical facts about the Indians and how they were hunted down by the police. He insists on the difficulty to represent history through language. He also highlights the vagueness of the facts provided by the records, as well as the discrepancy between the photo and the official descriptions provided as a search warrant for ”Almighty Voice”. Therefore, the story highlights the difficulty in recording history, but also emphasises the fact that the history we are offered is provided by the voices of white dominant group, thus not allowing for the Indians to give their own version.
These are themes I would usually enjoy considering in stories. However, I could not get into this story and I know that I will have forgotten about it very soon. I will probably give it another try at another time, and maybe I will then be able to appreciate it. Have you read it? What did you think of it?
Second Words: Selected Critical Prose is the first of Margaret Atwood’s collections of critical prose pieces. The pieces in this collection are miscellaneous and range from the simple book reviews to book introductions to essays on topics as varied as Canadian humour, Canadianism or being a woman writer. If you like Atwood, it will give you a good insight into where she is coming from.
I read it from cover to cover (for study purposes) and this might not be the best way to do it, although, as the pieces are organised into three chronological periods, it gives you a good idea about where Atwood stood in each period. The collection spans the years from 1960, when Atwood was at Victoria University, to 1980, when she had already become an established writer. She herself explains that the logic behind her organisation:
“The first, or Rooming House, runs from 1960 to 1971, during which I moved about fifteen times, always to places with a lot of stairs to climb and inadequate heat. It was during this time that I was developing some of the ideas set forth in Survival. The second, or Dugout, period runs from 1972 (or publication of Survival) to 1976, and covers a time when I was being attacked a lot; much of what I wrote then was in response to some of these attacks, the more intellectually serious ones, I think . . . It also corresponds to the peak of cultural nationalism and the popularization of feminism.
The third period, which has no name yet, runs from 1976, in which I published Lady Oracle and had a baby, thus becoming instantly warm and maternal and temporarily less attacked, to the present [1982]. It covers my growing involvement with human right issues, which for me are not separate from writing. When you begin to write, you deal with your immediate surroundings; as you grow, your immediate surroundings become larger. There’s no contradiction.”
The reviews can become a little tedious when read one after another. It is the same as when reading book blogs: you rarely read all the reviews you come across. I read them all because I did not want to miss a thing. Since Atwood’s writing is good, and funny at times (although she is more serious in her reviews than in her essays), they are enjoyable – albeit, if you space them a little. Her reviews are actually enlightening in considerations of her own writing and they also give a good sense of the context in which the books were written and thus of Atwood’s own context (for contemporaneous books). For instance, her reviews of Adrienne Rich’s work provide a glimpse at Atwood’s position regarding feminism. They are also an excellent way to discover the work of authors unknown to you and to, perhaps, raise your interest to works you would not have considered reading before, as is the case with any review. As they feature some Canadian authors, such as Gwendolyn MacEwen, Audrey Thomas and Timothy Findley, but also Canadian magazines, they are also a kind of commentary on the state of Canadian literature at the time.
The essays are typical Atwood; they are witty and thoughtful. Some of them are autobiographical, while other consider contemporaneous issues. For instance, a piece like “Travels Back” recounts Atwood’s early book tours in some remote town (a topic also evoked in her short story “Lives of the Poets”, but also considers what writing means to her. In fact, many of these essays examine various aspects of writing: “On Being a Woman Writer: Paradoxes and Dilemmas” and “Writing the Male Character”, for instance. Others examine Canadianness, and Canadian literature in particular, as well as the relations between the US and Canada.
I might look at these essays more closely in the future, as I really enjoyed reading them, but for now, I will share a few quotations with you.
“‘They’ had been taught that they were the centre of the universe, a huge, healthy apple pie, with other countries and cultures sprinkled round the outside, like raisins. ‘We’ on the other hand had been taught that we were one of the raisins, in fact, the raisin, and that the other parts of the universe were invariably larger and more interesting than we were.” (“Nationalism, Limbo and the Canadian Club”)
“If I create a female character, I would like to be able to show her having the emotions all human beings have – hate, envy, spite, lust, anger and fear, as well as love, compassion, tolerance and joy – without having her pronounced a monster, a slur, or a bad example.” (“The Curse of Eve – Or, What I Learned in School”)
“How much better if children could be chosen, and loved for what they are, not viewed as an inadequate substitute for a ‘career’ or some kind of parasitic burden?” (“Adrienne Rich: Of Woman Born”)
“Occasionally our critics get a little heavy and start talking about the human condition, but on the whole the audience prefers art not to be a mirror held up to life but a Disneyland of the soul, containing Romanceland, Spyland, Pornoland and all the other Escapelands which are so much more agreeable than the complex truth.” (“Amnesty International: An Address”)
“If a man depicts a male character unfavourably, it’s The Human Condition; if a woman does it, she’s being mean to men.” (“Writing the Male Character”)
As I was saying on Monday, this Friday is Canada Day. As a way to celebrate, I will post a few reviews of Canadian short stories during the week and attempt to finish my tour of Canada through short stories (you can find links to all the stories I have reviewed here). Today, I have reached Saskatchewan with a story by Sinclair Ross (1908-96).
“The Lamp at Noon”, which is the title story of a collection published in 1968, is a typical Prairie story in which the setting becomes a kind of character in the story. The dust and wind o the dry Prairie landscape during the Depression are leitmotifs in this story and they literally drive the characters mad.
“She wanted him now, the assurance of his strength and nearness, but he would stand aloof, wary, remembering the words she had flung at him in her anger, unable to understand it was only the dust and wind that had driven her.”
The story is set during a period of dryness and the land has not produced food for a few years. The atmosphere is suffocating because of all the dust that gathers on the furniture and Ellen cannot leave the house because there is nowhere to go. The infant has problems breathing and keeps crying. However, Paul does not want to move to the city. He is too attached to the land and too proud to receive what he calls “charity” from Ellen’s family. The couple is torn by the situation created by the landscape. Eventually, Paul begins to understand Ellen’s position, although he finds it difficult to admit it. However, it is too late and when he gets home, Ellen has left, taking the child with her. He organises a search and is finally the one to find her.
“The child was quite cold. It had been her arms, perhaps, too frantic to protect him, or the smother of dust upon his throat and lungs. ‘Hold him,’ she said as he knelt beside her. ‘So – with his face away from the wind. Hold him until I tidy my hair.’”
This is a very evocative and poignant story. One can feel the love Ellen and Paul have for each other, but the landscape stands between them. Space is often mentioned when discussing Canadian literature and I think this story is a perfect example of its importance.
When I decided to do this Canadian tour through short stories, I was stuck for a few provinces / territories, but John at The Book Mine Set came to the rescue. For the Northwest Territories, he suggested ”Show my Yours” by native writer Richard Van Camp, which you can actually find online (you can also read John’s review here).
At the heart of this story is a call for peace amongst people despite their differences. The narrator explains how by wearing a leather necklace with a picture of himself as a baby he escaped bullying. Following the incident, his aggressors began wearing a similar necklace with their own baby picture and shook hand with him. Everybody then started following this trend. The baby pictures become peace symbols reminding us of our innocence when we were born.
“Whites, Natives, Inuit — oh we all laughed together when we saw each other and there are just so many beautiful babies inside us all.”
The story is framed by an episode in which the narrator and Shawna look at the Northern Lights. Shawna mentions that customs regarding Northern Lights are different in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, thus again emphasising that we are all the same even though we have different beliefs. We are still all humans in front of this mystery that is nature, no matter how we interpret it.
There is also an elusive love story between the narrator and Shawna packed in this very short story. They seem to have been in love for a long time, but have always been separated either by other relationships or by location; however, their relationship seems to be strong and lasting and transcends their separation. It reinforces this feeling of love amongst people.
The story is thus at once universal in its emphasis on our common humanity and equality in the face of nature, while at the same time retaining some strong native characteristics. The prose is quite poetic and I liked the evocation of the northern lights. It is a peaceful story which screams for happiness. However, a shadow still hangs in the possibility that Shawna might leave again. Yet, I believe that this possibility highlights the strong bond between the two characters even in the face of spatial separation, thus stressing once more the fact that no matter where we are on earth we are all part of the same human community.
Canada Day being next friday, I have decided to post more Canadian short story reviews during the week in order to celebrate and to finish my tour.
Short Story Monday is hosted by John at The Book Mine Set.
The sad news came in yesterday: Anne Fitzgerald from the Cork Animal Care Society unexpectedly passed away.
You might remember my two recent posts about the CACS. Although I had spoken a few times to Anne on the phone, I only got to meet her in person ten days ago at the volunteers’ fair in Cork and had been in touch with her since. They say that Anne was an inspiration and she was for me. A few days after the fair, she sent a cry for help: she needed someone to foster two kittens as she needed space for some new-born kittens. That’s how I offered to foster for Daz and Suds.
Daz and Suds, two of the many kittens rescued by Anne
I again saw her a few days later as I met her in East Cork to go to collect a mother cat with her two-day old kittens at the vet and bring them back where they belonged (read the story here). She had to go back the following day to collect that mum’s sister, who had been neutered. She rang me that evening, she was happy. The mum and her new-borns were doing well, her sister had been spayed and gone back to the garden where she belonged to and the sister’s four kittens were being rehomed by the vet and had had their sore eyes sorted. A success story as she liked them. Anne was also happy because the woman who had rung her about these cats insisted to pay the vet bill. It was not a question of money, it was the fact that with it more kittens would be saved, but it was also a proof that some people cared and were ready to help making this world a better place for animals. I’d like to imagine that she went away that night peacefully thinking that the animals could rely on other people to continue her work in helping the animals.
The new-born kitten we collected at the vet. These ones were lucky, they still had their mum. How often did Anne have to be the surrogate mother for less lucky kittens? (photo from the CACS facebook page)
Saying that Anne cared is not enough. Anne was devoted to animals, she lived with them and for them. No matter what time of the night, what day of the week, Anne was there for them. She was always on the go, on her way to rescue distressed animals, and even when at home, she would never stop as she had so many kittens to care for.
When she stepped into my car on Friday, Anne was carrying a big cardboard box. She turned to me with a smile and said: “do you want to see what I have here?” Of course I did! She opened the box and there was a tiny ginger kitten about two weeks old. As I was driving, she got a bottle of cat milk out and syringe-fed the kitten who then went for a long nap while we were tending to the other cats and kittens.
Yes, Anne was an inspiration for all of us. We won’t be able to replace her, but we must continue the amazing work she was doing by putting our efforts together.
This is my small tribute to Anne (read Albert’s wonderful tribute on the CACS website). The last couple of days have been very sad for the animal world, but we must keep going on….
RIP Anne, you are sadly missed (photo, courtesy of Anne)
It was not easy to find a story from Nunavut. I soon gave up in trying to find a short story proper and decided to try to find some legend or myth instead. Even then, it was difficult. The tales and myths are often associated with the people rather than the territory itself. At first, I found a collection called Tales from Nunavut, Stories from Nunavunga by Jacques L. Condor. It seemed perfect; however, when I looked closer, I realised that Condor wrote these stories after spending time with the people of the west coast of Alaska, which is a bit far away from Nunavut itself. You can also find Inuit tales from Greenland and Labrador. I must admit that I got a bit confused as I do not now the culture well enough to make the distinctions. Finally, I managed to find a website offering tales, legends and myths from the Inuits of Nunavut (it might overlap a bit with the Northwest Terrritories, but the two were only officially separated in 1999).
Inuit Art Zone website has a page dedicated to Inuit legends. The page actually presents myths of origin/creation. The first myth on the page is the “Legend of Sedna”, which explains how the white men and the Indians were created, but also the sea mammals. Sedna, the daughter of a hunter rejected the suitor offered by her father. Feeling dishonoured, the father told her to marry the family dog. She was impregnated and, in anger, the father sent her to a remote island where she gave birth to dog-children and human-children. The dog-children became the ancestors of the white men, while the human-children became the ancestors of the Indians.
Eventually, the daughter was rescued by a trickster figure: the fulmar who appeared to her under the form of a handsome sailor, ut later transformed into a bird. One day, the father came to rescue his daughter, but as they were escaping on the sea, the fulmar caught up with them. To save himself, the father threw his daughter overboard, but as she was clinging to the boat, he cut her fingers one by one, each becoming a different sea mammal.
Finally, the daughter sank at the bottom of the sea where she was later joined by her husband, Dog, and she became a goddess. Sedna is thus the one who rules the sea, but also decides to release the sea animals so that the Inuits will not starve.
I read a few of the other stories on the page, and what struck me most is the fact that animals and humans are treated as equals. Also noticeable is the presence of shape-shifters. I particularly liked the “Origin of the Raven”. Two birds decided to paint themselves to become more beautiful, but as one would not hold still, the other poured black paint all over him and this is how the raven came into existence.
One story also caught my attention on a site that gathers Inuit tales from Greenland: “Imarasugssuaq, who ate his wives”. This tale is a variant of the Bluebeard tale. In this story, the husband fattens his wives with salmon before eating them. As with the Bluebeard tale, the husband marries the sister of his previous wife and she also has many brothers. While he is away, she manages to go outside and eat some snow, thus slowing down the fattening process. One day, as she is now able to move, she makes a speaking dummy and hides (as in Grimm’s version, the wife is here represented as clever). When the husband comes back, the speaking dummy claims she cannot move and the husband stabs her. The wife escapes and, furious, the husband chases her. She manages to save herself by transforming into a piece of wood. The tale ends with a dinner party at the brothers’ place where the husband comes looking for his wife and is mocked and finally killed.
The similarities between this tale and the Bluebeard märchen are unmistakable; even the dinner motif is present. Yet, this tale retains obvious Inuit characteristics. I wonder if any research has been made on the topic. It would be interesting to see the relation between the two.
This is te first time I have read Inuit tales and it reminds me of the time I was introduced to Greek myths. However, I found these tales more naive in a way. They are certainly enjoyable and I look forward to reading more.
If you are interested in reading more Inuit tales, you can look at the two websites I have already linked to. There is also a book of Inuit legends available online or you can order books from a Nunavut publishing company, Inhabit Media.
Short Story Monday is held by John at The Book Mine Set.
On my way from Birmingham to Paris, I went to passed through London where I took the Eurostar (very comfy!). I had been to London before, kind of… More exactly, I had been to Stansted and Gatwick airports before, and once, on my way from one airport to the other, I got to smoke a cigarette outside Victoria station! This time, however, I walked from Euston to King’s Cross and had the opportunity to snap a few shots.
I will be back to London in September and will stay there for three days, so I should have more time to explore this busy city.
St Pancras Parish Church, near Euston station
A detail of St Pancras Parish Church
Hotel St Pancras, between the British Library and King’s Cross
Still the same building, I’m not sure if it’s still the hotel though
A detail of St Pancras building
The clock tower of St Pancras building
Arriving in Birmingham: the air shuttle; very cool!
You might remember that I went away for a little while in April. My first destination was Birmingham. How exciting! Not really, it was my second time there and I was still not impressed by the town. However, the reason why I was there was a lot more exciting: the British Association for Canadian Studies annual conference.
The Bullring by night; 8pm and the streets are empty...
Clock tower, University of Birmingham
Luckily for us, the conference was taking place outside the city at the University of Birmingham and we were also staying on campus. It was so much more pleasant than the city with birds, trees and flowers…
Thus, for three days, I listened to interesting papers on Canadian studies. I mostly went to the literature panels, although I now regret having missed some of the other panels. That’s the problem with big conferences like that: they have a few panels running at the same time and one has to make difficult choices.
As always, it was great to meet people with a similar interest and sit back to listen to them talk about their research. I was part of a panel on Atwood and was pleased to see that the three of us were dealing with the “minor” genres: poetry and short fictions. It was all the more surprising that the theme of the conference was “Peace and (In)Security: Canada’s Promise, Canada’s Problem?” and one would have expected some of Atwood’s latest novels to be discussed.
Panel on Atwood; drawing by Heather Spears
The keynote addresses were varied. Professor Stephen Royle (Queen’s University) presented a lecture sponsored by the Eccles Centre (British Library), which was entitled “Insecurity in Canada’s past: James Douglas keeps the peace on Vancouver Island”. Dr. Susan Hodgett (University of Ulster) gave a presidential address and delivered a presentation on her latest project, which involves the use of Sen’s capability approach to evaluate social attainment of immigrants in Canada. I was not familiar with her work, but her lecture was interesting and really approachable. Professor Claude Denis (University of Ottawa) gave a lecture entitled “Canada-US armour for a happy place? Building ‘perimeter’ security withoutMexico”, which discussed North-American relations after 9/11. Finally, Professor Louis Balthazar (University of Laval) also discussed Canada-US relations in his presentation, “Canada’s Continental Destiny and Quebec’s Americanité Confronted with American Security Obsession”. He emphasised in particular why Quebecers felt less threatened by the US because of their distinctive culture.
There was also a presentation by the novelist Kate Pullinger entitled “(In)Security, and Belonging in The Mistress of Nothing and Flight Paths”. After briefly discussing The Mistress of Nothing, for which she won the Governor General’s Award, and the research she did for the novel, Pullinger focused on the future of publishing and the new media available to writers. She discussed new forms of literature, such as her digital novel Flight Paths, which is a community project associating writing to images and music and is hosted on a website. Pullinger has espoused new forms of media for literature; you can see all she is involved in here. However, she insisted that there is room for all kinds of forms in literature and that new media do not mean the end of the traditional book.
Our evenings were equally busy and on the first night there was a poetry reading. Poetry is not my favourite genre, but I usually prefer to listen to it than read it and I really enjoyed the readings by Roz Goddard, Heather Spears and Kim Trusty.
Roz Goddard
Roz Goddard, a local poet, read from her collection How to Dismantle a Hotel Room and had us in stitches; I couldn’t believe that poetry could be so fun!
Heather Spears
Heather Spears, a Canadian artist living in Denmark, was more serious and her poems had you thinking. One of the poem she read was especially poignant: it was about her experience of being asked to draw stillborn babies.
Kim Trusty
I also connected with the poetry of Kim Trusty, a Canadian based in Birmingham. She read poems that are quite ordinary and could be about you or me. In one of them, the speaker tells us about her failure in relationships; how she falls in love but always ends up bruised and on her own with her cats. It was humourous and sad at once, but then I realised in shock that it was about me!
The BACS conferences are also known for organising great book displays. Indeed… a whole room filled with books connected to Canada and most of them actually coming from Canadian publishers. I had a hard time choosing only a couple; I wanted to buy everything! Next time, I might take an extra luggage!
New books
Overall, it was a great experience and I hope I will be able to assist to the 2012 edition, which will be on sustainability. It will be hosted in Cambridge; I have never been there, so this is the perfect excuse!
University of Birmingham
Last December, Amy at My Friend Amy sent me this novel as part of the Book Blogger Holiday Swap. She had noticed my interest in Canadian literature and told me how moved she had been by this story. I am glad she shared it with me, but my feelings about it are quite mixed.
Kim Echlin’s novel (novella?) The Disappeared, which was a finalist for the Giller prize in 2009, is a first-person narrative addressed to you, Anne Greves’s partner. It is a kind of memoir relating her passionate and painful relationship with Serey, a Cambodian refugee whom she fell in love with when she was sixteen.
The novel opens as a short story with a short episode that happened thirty years previous to the time of narration. Such an opening draws the reader directly into the narrative, but also has the effect of confusing us. Indeed, it is immediately interrupted and it is only much later in the novel that we discover the context of this episode. Following this opening is a first-person narrative addressed to “you,” whom is soon revealed as being Serey, a Cambodian refugee the narrator met and fell in love with in Montreal when she was sixteen. The narrative is broken, shifting from present suffering to past events, while also being interrupted by flashbacks providing us with a short history of Anne Greves (the narrator). The chapters are often short and begin and end abruptly, thus adding to the fragmentation created by the temporal shifts. This narrative structure, which attempts to convey Anne’s grief, is in itself interesting as it demands efforts from the reader. Little by little we are able to put the jigsaw pieces together and understand the story and the motivation behind Anne’s narrative.
Most of the first part, except for the digressions afore-mentioned, focuses on Anne’s relationship with her lover until the day he decides to go back to Cambodia to look for his family after the reopening of the borders at the end of Pol Pott’s dictatorship. A decade elapses before Anne takes a plane to go there and look for him. The second part is then set in Cambodia and relates Anne’s search for Serey and their life together. It also tries to convey the unspeakable: Serey’s silence is in stark contrast with Anne’s pouring of words through the telling of her story. It attempts to render the incomprehension between the two lovers: how can this Westerner understand the suffering endured by Cambodians like Serey who are the victims, directly or indirectly, of the Khmer Rouge genocide?
This novel addresses a sore reality – Pol Pott’s dictatorship and the years of suffering that followed it - and it is often heartbreaking and powerful. It is a story of loss, Anne’s own losses, that of her lover and unborn child, and the losses of all the Cambodians whose family members have disappeared literally or figuratively through political treasons. However, I found Anne’s egocentrism too irritating at times. Echlin is at once trying to narrate a tragic love story and a historical tragedy. I find that too often the former undermines the latter in this narrative of grief.
Little did I know when I went to help recruit volunteers for the Cork Animal Care Society (read my post here) that I would end up fostering for them a few days later! I already have four cats, so fostering kittens always seemed like an imposssibility.
These last couple of days, updates from the CACS haven’t stopped, more kittens are coming in every day. Some of them are very young and need intensive care: bottle-feeding new-born kittens is a hard job. However, there is only so much space the current fosterers can offer. They urgently needed a fosterer for two six-week old kittens so they could take in a new-born kitten and a two-week old kitten who needs to be bottle-fed. A case of life or death. What could I do?
Of course I offered to help! I am not working this week and the living room is unoccupied most of the time, so no excuse! I can only look after them for a week as I’m going away to a conference next week, but at least it will leave a bit of time to find another fosterer.
Daz and Suds
Daz and Suds (named so because they love fresh laundry) arrived this afternoon and settled without any trouble. They quickly went exploring their room and we had a lovely cuddle time together!
Wow! New toys!
Don’t they look like they already own the place?
This cushion has always been a favourite with kittens…
