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.

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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.

Jim Smith, Patrick Lane

Earlier this week, I was thinking about writing a blog post called "Literature WTF."

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

Or equally if they disliked a book because of the opposite reasons: found the characters unlikeable, etc.

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

Sigh.

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/

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.

Matt Lennox

Matt Lennox's Men of Salt, Men of Earth (Oberon, 2009) is the type of book William Deverell recently argued we ought to celebrate more in Canada.

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.

David Adams Richards

This past weekend, I finished reading David Adams Richards of the Miramichi: A Biographical Introduction by Tony Tremblay (UTP, 2010). The Globe and Mail also reported (Sept 4, 2010):

... some prominent economists and policy makers are now suggesting the real problem [with the economy] isn't lack of consumer spending - it's that the unemployed don't have the right skills to fill the jobs that are open.
   These people are now theorizing that the financial crisis has altered the structure of the U.S. labour market, perhaps permanently (print edition, B1).

The connection between the Richards biography and the Globe's report on the U.S. economy is this: Tremblay's portrait of Richards returns again and again to Richards' fury at how "liberalism" forced change on the lives who lived in New Brunswick, particularly those who lived along the Miramichi River (and particularly in the 1960s and 70s).

The "structure" of the economy changed and established ways of being and living fell away. The two paragraphs from the Globe a similar story - and suggest Richards' charting of the stresses of economic transformation on the working poor could well be an anthem of our time.

Ironically, however, his work has often been marginalized as "regional" in focus. If the U.S. economy is just another "region" now in our multipolar world, then Richards' work deserves the label "universal."

A confession. I haven't read any of Richards' novels. Tremblay's biographical introduction introduced Richards' work to me - but readers familiar with Richards' work will learn much, too. From the historical sweep of the Miramichi region going back to the first European settlers, to the portraint of multiple generations of Richards' family, to the articulation of the literary politics of New Brunswick and Canada during the early years of Richards' career, this book has much to recommend it.

Tremblay ends his biography in 1989, with Richards' first GG win (for Nights Below Station Street), which culminates all of the hard work, struggle and ambition Richards committed to his literary career up to that point. That moment, however, from the point of view of 2010, is about the midway mark of Richards' publishing history, so there is much biography left untold (though Tremblay draws heavily on Richards' nonfiction of recent years to ground his arguments about Richards' literary methods and motivations).

One of those later nonfiction books is God Is: My Search for Faith in a Secular World (Doubleday, 2009). (G&M review here.) Tremblay, repeatedly,  makes it clear the extent of (conservative) Catholicism's influence on Richards. "Like Dostoevsky," Tremblay writes, "Richards felt that the best alternative to ... bourgeois liberalism was a form of Christian autocracy" (267). A wry smile came to my lips, therefore,  as the book ended recounting Premier Frank McKenna's party for Richards' GG win. McKenna's liberal economic transformation of New Brunswick was grounded by the kind of "intellectual" "theoritical" "philosophizing" Richards "instinctively" despised (quotations mine).

In the early 1980s, Tremblay tells us, "Richards was becoming increasingly reactionary" (283); he believed in "the ethical superiority of spontaneous action over calculated intent, which is always more ideologically laden" (313).

Myself, I don't believe this latter conclusion holds water. Isn't spontaneous action likely to be driven by unspoken, unconscious, unarticulated "ideological intents"? Isn't it better to speak about what's behind the motivation, while also confessing to the imperfect nature and/or understanding of the motivation?

Richards' fiction is strengthened by his generous empathy, particularly for those with lesser than the rest; it also rests on the Catholic conclusion about the unknowability of the human heart. His fury at social workers and other "liberal" "socially progressive" theories and economic/government programs and strategies comes from the same place. You can't help people, he might say, by telling them that they must change who they are. Social work, in this view, is fundamentally un-Christian (or un-Catholic, in some interpretations, at least).

But what about the novels? Are they really about economic philosophy?

No. Tremblay suggests no such limit. In fact, he provides much close reading of Richards' early work, focusing on the characters, their immediate needs and actions. He quotes Richards repeatedly on the author's "love" for his characters and his desire that his readers feel the same. Again, it is hard not to think of Christ the Shepherd, caring for his flock, each unique, each desired, each protected within the fold no matter what.

Tremblay's spirited reading of Richards' early work makes a strong case for its ongoing significance, if not appeal. Perhaps his "introduction" will lead to other reassessments of Richards' output. The economic shocks of the 21st century have arguably only added to the relevance of Richards' vision. Liberalism, it is always worth reminding ourselves, doesn't lead to perfection (nor does any other political philosophy). And critiques of modernism that defend the value of the individual are always valuable.

Are the novels themselves any good? I'm now motivated to find out for myself.

http://thenewcanlit.blogspot.com/

Darwin's Bastards

Last spring, I went to the schoolyard to pick up my six-year-old step-daughter from senior kindergarten, this book in hand: Darwin's Barstards: Astounding Tales from Tomorrow, selected and edited by Zsuzsi Gartner (Douglas & McIntryre, 2010).

The kids thought the cover was fantastic. "What is that?!"

The book was the centre of a throng, and witnessing the chatter of the SKs on this subject was a pleasure to behold.

Mutants clearly invigorate the six-year-old mind. Equally, many of the 23 stories collected in this anthology invigorated mine.

Divided into four sections (survivors, lovers, outliers, warriors), this book throws down the gauntlet of what a short fiction anthology in Canada can be.

For one, while all of the authors are Canadian, this isn't a book any high school student could claim in boring. For two, Gartner has achieved that elusive balance, one that has stymied her peers for decades - an anthology that effortlessly blends the literary and the popular, genre fireworks and pointy-headed big ideas.

My personal favorites:

• "There is no time in Waterloo" by Sheila Heti
• "Survivor" by Douglas Coupland
• "Notes from the womb" by Anosh Irani
• "This is not the end my friend" by Adam Lewis Schroeder
• The introduction by Zsuzsi Gartner

Other stories in the collection provide fierce competition for the above. Authors include: Lee Henderson, Stephen Marche, Yann Martel, Timothy Taylor, Mark Anthony Jarman, Jessica Grant, Elyse Friedman, Annabel Lyon, William Gibson, Heather O'Neill, Pasha Malla, and Neil Smith. And others.

"There is no time in Waterloo" by Sheila Heti imagines a world in which everyone consults their mother before taking any action. "Mother," however, is metaphor; it's a hand-held device, really. The device predicts the probability of various outcomes. Waterloo, Ontario, is the site of the action. Also the home of RIM and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. Princess Avenue, where I spent layabout time in the 1980s and early 1990s, features in a prominent role.

"Survivor" by Douglas Coupland is set in the middle of the Pacific on a tiny island, where the n-th season of the CBS hit reality show "Survivor" is being filmed. Meanwhile, nuclear war ends life elsewhere. The "survivors" are survivors. Outwit, outlast, out play.

"Notes from the womb" by Anosh Irani is narrated by a foetus. The story ends at birth.

"This is not the end my friend" by Adam Lewis Schroeder is set roughly 50 years in the future. The USA has melted down into zombieland. Obsessed with celebrity trivia, it has suffered social collapse. To prevent a similar crisis, the Canadian government has outlawed celebrities and built a barrier between the Great White North and its southern neighbour. The story follows the trip of a musicologist, who is researching "rock stars." Travelling with his neice and nephew, he visits Feist, who is living in a remote location in a trailor.

The introduction by Zsuzsi Gartner is charming, funny and intelligent.

Darwin's Bastards is an anthology for every bookshelf.

Some reviews:

• Globe and Mail (March 26, 2010)
• National Post (March 26, 2010)
• Toro (April 8, 2010)
• Straight.com (April 22, 2010)
• Los Angeles Times (May 23, 2010)
• Montreal Gazette (June 11, 2010)
• The Tyee (June 18, 2010)
• Broken Pencil (Aug 5, 2010)
• Geist (Aug 11, 2010)

Even a dissenting one:

• Quill & Quire (April 2010)

Other links:

• The Movie

Kenneth Sherman

Andre Alexis provoked what amounts to a shit storm in Canadian letters today when he published an essay in the July 2010 issue of the Walrus titled, The Long Decline. What was in decline? The art of literary criticism.

First, I agree that the contemporary art of literary criticism is one or two notches above pathetic.

But, second, I think this is a perpetual state. Good criticism is rare, rare, rare. The quality of criticism doesn't go up and down with the cultural tide. Good critics transcend their contexts.

Northrop Frye, Alexis rightly states, was one of them. The decline of newpaper inches devoted to book reviews, Alexis wrongly states, is not indicative of a decline in criticism. It is indicative of the pressures of international capitalism to be "efficient" and capture the "mass audience."

Yes, we are all nostalgic for The Globe and Mail's book section. However, one only need turn to the robust (online) responses to Alexis's essay to know that his lament for the the loss of "conversation" is premature.

I can't say this captures all the links related to this subject, but here is a generous helping:

• The Walrus's list of responding links
• Nigel Beale: The ‘woefully incompetent’ and ‘pugnacious’ André Alexis
• Jeet Heer: John Metcalf is not the enemy
• Ryan Bigge: Snark Vs. Legitimate Criticism: Reprint of National Post Article on Canadian Book Reviewers
• Gordon Phinn: Comment
• Steven W. Beattie: A matter of taste: revivifying CanLit criticism
• Paul Wells: The smoking pile of rubble where André Alexis used to be
• Zach Wells: Reviewing with Andre
• Kim McArthur: Response
• Kate Carraway: Andre Alexis manages to be elegant and brutal and correct

Alexis has responded in at least two places that I found:

• To Nigel Beale
• To Zach Wells (you need to scroll down into the comments section)

Gosh, I don't know what all of this brohaha amounts to, but some of it is interesting.

I'm not going to go to the bother of attempting to articulate that "some" here. You may tempt it out of me after a couple four beers.

BECAUSE the topic of this post is Kenneth Sherman, the author of a book of literary criticism published by Porcupine's Quill  in 2009 that has been woefully ignored.

Is there a decline in literary criticism? There's a decline in interest in decent literary criticism, that's for sure.

Sherman's book is What the Furies Bring (Porcupine's Quill, 2009), and as far as I can tell online it's been reviewed sparsely:

• Toronto Star (Nov 29, 2009)
• National Post (Dec 18, 2009)
• Foreword Reviews (Feb 2010)

See also:

• Excerpt in Geist
• 10 Questions with Kenneth Sherman (Open Book Toronto)

I read this book last fall, and I can only confess now that I cannot do it justice. So I will begin with the trivial: This book contains no essays on Canadian literature. Is that, perhaps, the reason for the resounding critical silence?

On the one hand, I would have liked to have read Sherman's commentary on Margaret Atwood's writings. Sherman has collected  remarkable selection of essays on (post)apocolyptic writing. Elements of Atwood's ouvre certainly fit within this subject. I experienced Sherman's lack of engagemenet with Atwood as a loss.

On the other hand, I deeply appreciated Sherman's engagement with the wide variety of subject matter that he does present. The book is, in part, a response to 9/11, but it is much more. It is proof that one can read deeply in the 21st century. That there can be continuity within contemporary life with deep subject matter. That our literary inheritance offers more than gossip, subjective gotcha reviews, and despair.

For example: Read and weep (and laugh)

Here is a quotation from Michael Greenstein's Toronto Star review:

Allusive yet restrained, Sherman's poetic voice engages well-known writers, such as Primo Levi and Anne Frank, and more obscure figures, such as Nahman of Bratslav and Varlam Shalamov, whose stories of the Soviet Gulag make him the "poet of the frozen Inferno."

The cover image of this book, based on George Raab's etching Lone Pine, tells us much about the style and substance of these essays. Bare horizontal branches of a solitary tree reach out, as if seeking companionship; like a work of sculpture, the pine is defined by the spaces between its branches. Although the landscape of this stark image is set in Ontario, the scenery has universal ramifications.

In similar fashion, Sherman's lyrical essays define and are delineated by bleak landscapes and by other writers who have witnessed and survived the Holocaust or Stalin's death camps. Each essay is a quiet dialogue with the dead, who are resurrected on the page, while the reader listens to the conversation between the essayist and his subjects.

This book shows that however much criticism in general may suck, its supposed decline is not yet fatal. It is a book that ought to tempt every reader with literary aspirations, everywhere.