[First published in Quill & Quire, October 2010]
Love on the Killing Floor
by Trevor Clark
Now or Never Publishing
ISBN: 978-0-97395-588-0
The unnamed narrator of Trevor Clark’s new novel is a white male in his thirties, adrift in Toronto. A professional photographer, he is separated from his wife and living apart from his young daughter. As the novel opens, the narrator is the only passenger on a Scarborough bus in the early hours of a morning in 1992. The bus gets pulled over by police, who are investigating a series of brutal rapes. They question the lone passenger about his recent whereabouts before allowing him to continue his journey.
The early 1990s was the period before Paul Bernardo was identified as the Scarborough Rapist, and the novel’s beginning is a haunting reminder of the crimes. It also sets the novel’s paranoid tone, which is fraught with racial and sexual discomfort. The story follows the narrator as he drinks in bars with long-standing acquaintances, hooks up with women, works at a portrait studio in a mall, and visits his daughter.
The narrator downplays conflicts with friends, his employer, and his ex-wife, while his discomfort with racial minorities is amplified to the point that it becomes his defining feature. His racist impulses are challenged when he meets a beautiful, sexually powerful black woman who introduces him to the city’s non-white bourgeoisie.
The strength of the novel lies in the fact that Clark portrays this coupling credibly and does not provide pat refutations of the narrator’s less savoury traits. By the novel’s conclusion, the narrator has confronted some of his prejudices but remains stubbornly committed to others.
Told in clear, understated prose, Love on the Killing Floor is a rare, sharp work of social realism, providing a vivid portrait of Toronto at a precise moment in time. The novel’s frank exploration of race in contemporary Canada will leave many uncomfortable.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Rudy Wiebe
[First published in Quill & Quire, September 2010]
Rudy Wiebe: Collected Stories, 1955–2010
University of Alberta Press
ISBN: 978-0-88864-540-1
Rudy Wiebe’s reputation is based on his novels and non-fiction, which have focused on Aboriginal themes and his Mennonite heritage. Though he is not widely known as a short story writer, a half-century’s worth of his efforts in this genre have now been collected in a single volume.
Divided into four sections, the 51 entries in Collected Stories showcase Wiebe’s diverse concerns. The first section, which is the most lively, includes tales of warriors, Chiefs, and the First Nations’ experiences prior to the imposition of restrictions on their land and freedom by the Crown. The other sections include stories on Mennonite history, Western Canada, and more personal character sketches. In one story, a writer discusses poetry with a potential mistress. In another, set in 1980, the voice of long-dead Alberta Premier William Aberhart castigates contemporary citizens of Rose Country for wasting their wealth. There’s even a fictional interview with Wiebe in which the Saskatchewan-born writer claims to be English.
Aesthetic critics (notably John Metcalf) have long claimed that Wiebe’s fiction betrays a wooden ear and strained earnestness, and these stories show that this claim has a certain validity. Wiebe’s parents spoke Low German, which has no word for “fiction”; the only categories for stories were “truth” and “lies.” One cannot help but notice how much of his fiction is based in fact, and wonder if the Mennonite binary view of literature hasn’t remained foundational. Elsewhere, Goethe’s German Romanticism is clearly a dominant influence, one that aligns with an interest in pre-contact Aboriginal cultures and a clearly evident sensitivity to the marginal, the weak, and the natural world.
Wiebe is one of Canada’s powerful myth makers and storytellers of the past half-century. He has not, however, been an innovator of the short story genre. His best work is full of action and adventure and grounded in historical context. Psychological or linguistic complexity is not his forte. He is a great storyteller, but not a writer of great short stories.
*
Or below.... unedited by Q&Q. Just for interests sake.
Reviewed from uncorrected proof
I once saw Rudy Wiebe speak about growing up in a Mennonite family. His parents spoke Low German, which had no word for “fiction.” The only categories for stories were “truth” and “lies.” He also spoke about how Geothe’s engagement with German geography and history inspired him to use his own similar influences as a subject of his writing.
The Great Chiefs of the prairies, for example, drew his attention, and he won his first Governor General’s Award for The Temptations of Big Bear. A second Governor General’s Award followed for A Discovery of Strangers, which is also grounded in historical fact and explores the relationship between First Nations and those who came later.
Wiebe’s reputation is based on his novels and non-fiction titles, which have focused on Aboriginal themes and the writer’s Mennonite heritage. Though he is not widely known as a short story writer, a half-century of his efforts in this genre have now been collected. They show a continuity of interest with his other works.
Divided into four sections, the 51 entries in the Collected Stories showcase a writer with multiple selves. The first section captures tales of warriors, Chiefs, and adventures of First Nations before the limitations imposed by the Crown through the treaty process. This section is the most lively. The other sections include stories on Mennonite history, Western Canada, and more personal character sketches.
In one story, a writer discusses poetry with a potential mistress. In another, set in 1980, the voice of long dead Alberta Premier William Aberhart castigates contemporary citizens of Rose Country for wasting their wealth. There’s even a fictional interview with Wiebe in which the Saskatchewan-born writer claims to be English.
Aesthetic critics (like John Metcalf) have long claimed that Wiebe’s fiction betrays a wooden ear and a deathly earnestness. One cannot help but notice, for example, how much of Wiebe’s fiction is based on fact and wonder if the Mennonite binary truth/lie hasn’t remained foundational. There is little indication in these short stories that Wiebe has engaged the influences of literary modernism, apart from some judicious quotations from Kafka.
Goethe’s German Romanticism clearly sustained itself as Wiebe’s dominant influence, one that aligns with an interest in pre-contact Aboriginal cultures and a sensitivity to the marginal, the weak, and the natural world.
Weibe is one of Canada’s powerful myth makers and storytellers of the past half-century. He has not, however, been an innovator of the short story genre. His best work is full of action and adventure and grounded in historical context. Psychological or linguistic complexity is not his forte. He is a great storyteller, but not a writer of great short stories.
Rudy Wiebe: Collected Stories, 1955–2010
University of Alberta Press
ISBN: 978-0-88864-540-1
Rudy Wiebe’s reputation is based on his novels and non-fiction, which have focused on Aboriginal themes and his Mennonite heritage. Though he is not widely known as a short story writer, a half-century’s worth of his efforts in this genre have now been collected in a single volume.
Divided into four sections, the 51 entries in Collected Stories showcase Wiebe’s diverse concerns. The first section, which is the most lively, includes tales of warriors, Chiefs, and the First Nations’ experiences prior to the imposition of restrictions on their land and freedom by the Crown. The other sections include stories on Mennonite history, Western Canada, and more personal character sketches. In one story, a writer discusses poetry with a potential mistress. In another, set in 1980, the voice of long-dead Alberta Premier William Aberhart castigates contemporary citizens of Rose Country for wasting their wealth. There’s even a fictional interview with Wiebe in which the Saskatchewan-born writer claims to be English.
Aesthetic critics (notably John Metcalf) have long claimed that Wiebe’s fiction betrays a wooden ear and strained earnestness, and these stories show that this claim has a certain validity. Wiebe’s parents spoke Low German, which has no word for “fiction”; the only categories for stories were “truth” and “lies.” One cannot help but notice how much of his fiction is based in fact, and wonder if the Mennonite binary view of literature hasn’t remained foundational. Elsewhere, Goethe’s German Romanticism is clearly a dominant influence, one that aligns with an interest in pre-contact Aboriginal cultures and a clearly evident sensitivity to the marginal, the weak, and the natural world.
Wiebe is one of Canada’s powerful myth makers and storytellers of the past half-century. He has not, however, been an innovator of the short story genre. His best work is full of action and adventure and grounded in historical context. Psychological or linguistic complexity is not his forte. He is a great storyteller, but not a writer of great short stories.
*
Or below.... unedited by Q&Q. Just for interests sake.
Reviewed from uncorrected proof
I once saw Rudy Wiebe speak about growing up in a Mennonite family. His parents spoke Low German, which had no word for “fiction.” The only categories for stories were “truth” and “lies.” He also spoke about how Geothe’s engagement with German geography and history inspired him to use his own similar influences as a subject of his writing.
The Great Chiefs of the prairies, for example, drew his attention, and he won his first Governor General’s Award for The Temptations of Big Bear. A second Governor General’s Award followed for A Discovery of Strangers, which is also grounded in historical fact and explores the relationship between First Nations and those who came later.
Wiebe’s reputation is based on his novels and non-fiction titles, which have focused on Aboriginal themes and the writer’s Mennonite heritage. Though he is not widely known as a short story writer, a half-century of his efforts in this genre have now been collected. They show a continuity of interest with his other works.
Divided into four sections, the 51 entries in the Collected Stories showcase a writer with multiple selves. The first section captures tales of warriors, Chiefs, and adventures of First Nations before the limitations imposed by the Crown through the treaty process. This section is the most lively. The other sections include stories on Mennonite history, Western Canada, and more personal character sketches.
In one story, a writer discusses poetry with a potential mistress. In another, set in 1980, the voice of long dead Alberta Premier William Aberhart castigates contemporary citizens of Rose Country for wasting their wealth. There’s even a fictional interview with Wiebe in which the Saskatchewan-born writer claims to be English.
Aesthetic critics (like John Metcalf) have long claimed that Wiebe’s fiction betrays a wooden ear and a deathly earnestness. One cannot help but notice, for example, how much of Wiebe’s fiction is based on fact and wonder if the Mennonite binary truth/lie hasn’t remained foundational. There is little indication in these short stories that Wiebe has engaged the influences of literary modernism, apart from some judicious quotations from Kafka.
Goethe’s German Romanticism clearly sustained itself as Wiebe’s dominant influence, one that aligns with an interest in pre-contact Aboriginal cultures and a sensitivity to the marginal, the weak, and the natural world.
Weibe is one of Canada’s powerful myth makers and storytellers of the past half-century. He has not, however, been an innovator of the short story genre. His best work is full of action and adventure and grounded in historical context. Psychological or linguistic complexity is not his forte. He is a great storyteller, but not a writer of great short stories.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Jim Smith, Patrick Lane
I was despairing for a new book to read, disappointed by the gossipy coverage of the latest "Giller Scandal," and turning over again in my muddled brain for the upteenth time questions about what is literature, what isn't, and who cares.
I care, clearly, though I don't understand why I can still get so enraged by the idiocy of "book news." The Giller Prize every year seems to spark much stupidity.
Hooray, books are being given front page news.
Hooray, a book award show is on TV.
Boo, every year there seems to be more commentary about the selection process, the jurors, the conflict between large and small publishers, etc., than there is about ... what?
What is it that I'd prefer to be given prominence in the major media?
This is my muddle.
Oprah's Book Club has generated ongoing controversy for seeming to promote books as a form on therapy, the major theme of Oprah's media empire being personal redemption. And my spine stiffens when I hear people speak about liking a book because they:
- identified with the protagnonist
- found the characters likeable
- related to the problem the protagonist had to covercome
The shortfall here, of course, is that there is no analysis (perhaps no comprehension) of literature as language-made. That is, no arguments are often put forth about the author's use of language (complex, simple, good, poor).
Difficult language is sometimes described as "poetic" (Ondattje gets this label frequently), an oversimplication. Poetry is obscure and prose that is difficult must be good and, therefore, like poetry, is the false argument often put forward.
John Metcalf has made a career of reinforcing the need for more vigorous criticism of the language used by our writers. But there is more. There is also genre analysis. How does one book related to others similar to it. There is also ... well, all sorts of different kinds of analysis.
Depth, however, isn't what the major media are good at. They are known for the opposite.
Superficiality.
So I don't feel betrayed (pace Andre Alexis) when the major media can't produce decent literary analysis. They never have, and they never will.
Yet it irks me.
Here are some recent links on the recent "Giller Scandal":
- Toronto Star: Good luck trying to buy a copy of the Giller Winner
- Nigel Beale: Susan Swan accuses Giller judge of conflict of interest
- NOW: Giller Gossip Grates
- National Post: Great art can't be rushed
- Globe and Mail: I want my Skidsrud and I want it now
- rob mclennan: MINE MINE MINE NOW NOW NOW
Stray related thoughts. A couple of weeks ago, my six-year-old step-daughter avidly explained to me the difference between fiction and non-fiction (a concept she had learned that day in school). "Non-fiction is real," she said, "and fiction is made up."
Later she asked me if Shrek was fiction or non-fiction.
"Fiction," I said. She pondered this.
"Right," she finally agreed. "Because there's no such thing as a talking donkey."
After 9/11, it was common to hear that sales of fiction were down. Sales of non-fiction were up. People wanted to make sense of the "new normal." I challenge the underlying assumption that non-fiction better explains the world (pre- or post-calamity).
For one, the other thing that people were doing post-9/11 was returning to poetry. Interest in Auden's September 1, 1939 surged (click on link to hear that poem read by Dylan Thomas).
But more generally we interpret the world through language, frame it with stories, turn sequences of events into narratives. Facts are meaningless outside of context. Context is meaningless without the movement and ordering of time.
Cause/effect, in other words, is fiction.
It is what we make it up to be.
A reader of George W. Bush's memoirs, for example, could come to no other conclusion.
Shrek is to non-fiction what the Bush White House was to the events in Kafka's TRIAL. That is, a manufactured reality that locked in its own pre-determined conclusions. It could have been different, given a different set of imaginative gifts.
Or as Bob Dylan said, "If I can think it, it can happen."
Which brings me to Jim Smith's Back Off, Assassin! New and Selected Poems (Mansfield Press, 2009) and Patrick Lane's Witness: Selected Poems 1962-2010 (Harbour, 2010).
These two "selected" collections round up the careers of two significantly different poets. Smith's book is edited by the evil genius Stuart Ross, whom I have previous described as "Canada's leading literary surrealist." Smith shares Ross's attraction for the well chosen odd juxtaposition. Another feature of the book is an attraction to radical political positions (i.e., Sandanistas good, Ronald Reagan bad), a quality I found endearing and which ignited within me waves of nostalgia. (Where did I put that Clash CD?)
Smith and Ross have mixed old and new poems non-linearly. That is, having not read Smith before (he's been publishing since 1979) I had no idea which were "selected" poems and which ones were "new," except to infer from clues in the content (like references to the Nicaraguan class struggle). The approach means the naive reader (me) can approach all of the content fresh, and I did, and I enjoyed it. It left me, frequently, befuddled, but no more so than when I make my daily scan of CNN.
Perhaps you can see where I'm going with this.
Reality is absurd, so the absurdists are the true realists.
Patrick Lane's Witness disappointed me. Many of the poems are about animals. They seemed like Ted Hughes lite. There were poems of youth, work, hardship, violence - earnestly told, yes, but shimmering like non-fiction. They were too real; they didn't spark with imaginative weirdness.
At least, not to me.
Without imaginative weirdness, how can I trust that they are true?
Donkeys do talk, you know.
http://thenewcanlit.blogspot.com/
Friday, November 19, 2010
Book Publisher's Crisis
A report by Gordon Lockheed on Dooney's Cafe:
Are we approaching some sort of cultural Armageddon that will wipe out our book publishing industry while transforming Chapters/Indigo into a purveyor of cultural bric-a-brac and scented candles in which a few novels aimed at the diminishing stock of novel-reading little old ladies occupy a small corner of the floor?
Discuss.
Are we approaching some sort of cultural Armageddon that will wipe out our book publishing industry while transforming Chapters/Indigo into a purveyor of cultural bric-a-brac and scented candles in which a few novels aimed at the diminishing stock of novel-reading little old ladies occupy a small corner of the floor?
Discuss.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Matt Lennox
It is a rollicking collection of eight short stories, written in the adventure vein of Cormac McCarthy or Joseph Conrad.
It is literary, but delightfully unselfconscious about its artfulness. The stories are gripping, the language imaginative, the intelligence of the author radiant.
Caveat. I published the title story in The Danforth Review in 2006. It was the author's first publication, and it later landed in that year's edition of Best Canadian Stories.
Since then, Lennox has served with the Canadian Armed Forces in Afghanistan and is now apparently a student at the University of Guelph.
Not the usual pedigree of a small press author, eh? (Student, yes; soldier, no.)
It's a pity more fuss hasn't been made about this book. I only discovered it existed when it was long-listed (and later short-listed) for the 2010 ReLit Award. (Stuart Ross won.)
Travel is the common element in these eight stories. The opening (and title) story takes place in Australia. A Canadian youth is taken in the outback by locals/friends and he attempts to kill a kangaroo. Animals and violence (explicit and implied) and also common elements. The narrators/protagonists are young men seeking challenge, seeking definition, seeking to test themselves against the large, mysterious forces of the world.
The book includes a series of linked stories about Canadian friends traveling through India. In one, they get help from a local, who turns out to be from North Toronto.
Men of Salt, Men of Earth ends with a 68-page story (a third of the book) about a young man who joins friends in Mexico on a trail well off the beaten path. The story shows the protagonist in his sales job in Toronto -- succeeding in a corporate culture of macho vigor -- and then transported to the back of beyond. Living as if on the edge of reality.
Or is the whole point that it's a Conradesque quest down the river, seeking the authentic?
Lennox has written a startling debut collection that conjures up Heart of Darkness and All the Pretty Horses. He is not the usual small press author, and this is not the usual small press book.
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