Previously in this series: Every Irish Novel Ever. This post was brought to you by @askmullan.
1. Will the Cod Return, Or Must We Move to Toronto?
2. Only the Jews Know Montreal
3. The Next Three Chapters Are Set in the 1830s Bush For No Reason But Then We’ll Be Back to This 1970s University Women’s Studies Department
4. She Briefly Considers Moving to the States For Her Career But Then Realizes She Must Stay With Her People
5. O Cabbagetown!
6. I Remember When There Was LOADS of Cod and We Played Scottish Reels to Entertain Ourselves
7. In Which Blondes From Westmount Fail to Sleep With You
8. This Children’s Toy That Holds Great Meaning For You Will Be Broken Like Your Spirit
9. You Thought It Was Me Talking To You, But It’s Been My Sister All Along, I Am Dead Because of a Man
10. Magical Realism But It’s Just Gothic Southern Ontario Having, Like, Two Magical Elements
11. Things Are Kind of English Here But Not For Everyone
12. The Hero Has a Thousand Faces But They All Look a LOT Like Robertson Davies
13. Sex Farm Woman: All of These Albertan Crops Are Metaphors For My Empty, Yearning Vagina
14. We Forgot to Include an Incestuous Backstory But That’s What the Second 1200 Pages Are For
15. Will the Grasshoppers Move On, Or Must We Move to Toronto?
16. You Have Stolen My Heart and Will Now Steal the Deed to Our Land While I Sleep, Handsome American
17. You Think You Could Have Toughed It Out In the Bush? You Can’t Even Make Butter Tarts From Scratch
18. This Novel Has Been Specifically Written to Prove That Canadian Literature Is Worthy of Your Attention Now Give It To Me
19. Arctic Foxes and Prairie Dogs I Have Met Or At Least Read About
20. I’m Going to Reform These Sex Workers and It’s Not Going to Make Me Question My Own Convictions In the Slightest
21. Things Get Worse and Then You Have an Illegitimate Child With a Man From Outremont Who Doesn’t Really Love You
22. It Doesn’t Really Matter, You Can Tell By the Emily Carr Painting on the Cover That This Novel Is Important
23. A Woman Has Sex With a Bear or a Unicorn And No One Thinks This Is Particularly Odd
24. The Cry of the Loon Echoes the Cry of My Heart Which Is as Stony as the Land I Attempt to Till
Tags: alice munro, anne-marie macdonald, books, canada, canadian novels, gabrielle roy, margaret atwood, mordecai richler, something something canada, timothy findley
Oh no. No, not Bear. Please not again noooooooo
in related news, I am laughing harder at this, silently, weeping, than I have laughed at anything since the naked guinea pig post.
Bear was the BEST. It provided so many hours of library giggles for me and my friends.
YES! And I think I’ve read most of these.
“Winter Is Cold; Now Give Me My Award”
“French People Are Earthy And Inferior Yet Somehow Know The Secrets of Life”
“Upper-Middle Class White People Have Silent Struggles And Wear A Brave Face In Toronto”
“Newfoundland: An Enigma”
Also, let’s all play “which novel is which?” Number 4 is “Emily Climbs” by L.M. Montgomery. Your turn!
2 is every Mordecai Richler novel ever.
I was really upset when Emily chose not to go to the States with Janet Royal because Janet Royal was a total lesbian and they could have had a great time together in New York, writing by day, going to all the secret lesbian parties by night.
If Emily had gone to the States, Emily’s Quest would have been a novel about how thrilling New York parties and social scenes are, and dancing and generally having a balls-to-the-wall good time, instead of what it was, which was “Emily almost marries an incredibly creep, pines away for a guy who doesn’t seem that great, and loses all her friends. She nearly attains the epic goal of Becoming a Solitary Witch Devoted To Her Craft, but then gets married anyway, whatever, the end.”
(this comment got long because I have a lot of feelings about the Emily books)
Dean was SUCH A CREEPSHOW, oh my god. When I read the books as a kid I didn’t pick up on it at all, but then I reread them a few years ago and was astonished by how intensely creepy he is and how early that creepiness manifests. Remember this part from the day they met?
“Emily Byrd Starr–Starr should be your first name. You look like a star–you have a radiant sort of personality shining through you…”
“Do you mean that you think me pretty?” asked Emily directly.
(…) “Stars are prismatic–palpitating–elusive. It is not often we find one made of flesh and blood. I think I’ll wait for you.”
“Oh, I’m ready to go now,” said Emily, standing up.
“H’m. That wasn’t what I meant. Never mind.”
DUDE SHE IS THE CHILD OF YOUR FORMER CLASSMATE AND LIKE 12 YEARS OLD, YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS TELLING HER THAT YOU WILL “WAIT FOR HER” WHAT THE HELL!!!
On the other hand, I stopped liking Teddy because he was such a monumental idiot in Emily’s Quest. He has known his entire life that his mother is deeply troubled, emotionally and psychologically. She is deeply paranoid that she’ll lose him and so jealous of everything else in his life that she drowns his cats because she thinks he loves them more than he loves her. Yet knowing all this, Teddy decides the best way to declare his love to Emily is to write it down in a letter, give the letter to his super possessive mom, and ask her to pass it on? And then YEARS LATER he’s like “Oh shit she never gave it to you? How weird, I am totally astonished that she could do such an underhanded thing.” WHAT WERE YOU EXPECTING, YOU MORON.
Dude, I KNOW, right? Dean is a HORRIBLE creep. I guess you can SORT of argue that it wasn’t AS creepy a hundred years ago, and it is a story theme that pops up periodically (in a much less creepy sense) in other books, but ugh. UGH. The part about “I will teach you about the love-making now, if you are ready for the teaching” UGH UGH SKIN CRAWLING AWAY.
Dude, I never liked Teddy, for being a ridiculous flake, and also very pompous and full of himself once he goes to Montreal, and Ilse is no prize either, and they just treat each other horribly and it just very much depressed me. (I am actually rereading this series right now and wow, how many awful people are in these books? A LOT.)
I love this thread so much, and agree with EVERYTHING. Everyone is terrible, except maybe for Emily’s family and Janet Royal.
I just finished A Tangled Web, and it’s amazing how many horrible people there are in that book, too. But that one was somehow 1000 times more satisfying than the Emily books. Go figure.
I adore A Tangled Web, and everyone is awful in a different way, but something about the Emily books leaves me so deeply dissatisfied with these “friends.” What friends, indeed.
I love A Tangled Web right up to the end, where a dude just drops the n-word out of nowhere. I know things were different back then and it wasn’t nearly as frowned-upon, but still, yeeesh.
Oh, god, yes, that’s jarring. I wish modern editions would take that out. Especially because the rest of the “sailor” dialect is so bizarre sanitized…
Ever read Kilmeny of the Orchard (also by LMM)? Hyper racist book all about “breeding,” where a Roma boy (or Italian, it’s not exactly clear) attempts murder because “that’s what’s in his blood.”
Oh geez, Kilmeny is nothing compared to some of Montgomery’s short stories that take place on the prairies. If you ever wanted to read some super-racist depictions of Natives, that’s…the place to go, boy.
Also, I think the boy in Kilmeny is Italian–they say it pretty explictly a couple of times?
I think it is Italian, yeah. So many refs to his “shifty” eyes and whatnot.
Whereas Eric is perfect white boy.
ALSO. Wtf with his dad not approving of the marriage until he sees how beautiful she is? Yuck.
I have created an IntenseDebate account just to participate in this thread because I am so pleased to discover others who know A Tangled Web.
I think A Tangled Web is more satisfying because everyone sort of gets what they deserve whereas people kind of get let off the hook in Emily.
Also, agree with everything everyone else has said about Dean Priest. Eww.
I remember a passage from one of the Emily books where her aunt was like “I’ll send you to college but you have to promise not to write any fiction because SIN” and she angsted for three pages and then vowed. And actually abstained.
And I was like “…dude, just promise, sound sincere, and write whatever you want. What, do they have a chip in your head?”
At which point I realized that I would never get along with the 19th century. Or at least I’d be the flirty girl who died of TB in the third book.
This exchange takes place just a few paragraphs after the bit I quoted in my first reply:
“What worries me about writing novels,” confided Emily “is the love talk in them. I’m sure I’ll never be able to write it. I’ve tried,” she concluded candidly, “and I can’t think of anything to say.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll teach you some day,” said Dean.
“Will you–will you really?” Emily was very eager. “I’ll be so obliged if you will. I think I could manage everything else very nicely.”
“It’s a bargain then–don’t forget it. And don’t go looking for another teacher, mind.”
*claws own eyes out*
LMM, why on earth did you choose to write a scene where a pre-teen girl is “very eager” to have a man in his late 30/early 40s teach her “love talk”? Auughghhghghghghhhh.
I have SO many feelings about the Emily books because I read them first as an adult. EVERYONE IS TERRIBLE, BUT JARBACK PRASTE IS AS TERRIBLE AS EVERYONE SAYS HE IS.
WHY ARE PEOPLE LETTING EMILY HANG OUT WITH DEAN?
Because Dean was a rich and erudite man and also they were somehow RELATED, which is really the icing on the cake.
Welcome to L.M.Montgomery’s works. Filled with rather terrible people.
(*coughs* Pat of Silver Bush)
HATE PAT
HATE HER
Just reread the Pat series. Did not get better with age.
This is why Valancy Stirling is the best LMM heroine ever.
PAT FALLS IN LOVE WITH A HOUSE.
WITH A HOUSE.
The blue castle is the best, I concur heartily
Every child in Emily of New Moon desperately needed a social worker. Every child.
Even the adults could have done with one. I don’t understand why nobody dragged Ilse to one side and said, “Look, you clearly don’t want to marry Teddy, shall I go and tell everyone the wedding’s off?” rather than standing by while she smashes wedding presents and cries and talks about wanting to lie on the floor and scream.
“Look, it totally sucks that your wife ran away with her own cousin and left you alone with the baby – even though actually, she fell down a well and died and it was 12 years before anyone figured it out – but that is still not a reason to criminally neglect the aforementioned baby.”
… wait… were people drinking water out of that well the entire time? CORPSE WATER? THEY DRANK ILSE’S MOM?
This just occurred to me. Damn it, LMM.
I hated Ilse, even though it’s not logical to hate a child with no bringing-up, but mostly because she was such an abominable bitch to Emily. “Oh, tee hee, I’m off to Montreal to become bright and sparkly and wealth! Oh hello, I’m back, and I’m going to marry the boy you’ve loved since you were a child, and ignore the one I love! Be my bridesmaid! Put up with my senseless rages and fits and indulge my childish screeches! Tra-la, out the window I go!”
The man I have secretly loved since I was a child sent our mutual friend a professional photograph of him. This photograph is proof that he overcame his squalid, dirt-poor background because he is so driven, smart and ambitious, and was taken at a considerable expense for a young man at the early stages of his career. Obviously the best thing for me to do is to cut the eyes out of the photo – which does not belong to me! – and complain about how I can’t stand him for showing off.
ILSE. IS. THE. WORST.
I always like to shout out Emily Climbs for having the most bananas first kiss of all time. It begins because she’s locked in a chapel in the middle of the night with a madman who wants to “stroke her face,” so naturally she calls her crush with her psychic powers. Once he’s fended off the crazy guy they pause to collect themselves and have a tender moment in a graveyard. Then Teddy’s Freudian dog-killing nightmare of a mother appears out of nowhere to yell at them.
That’s cray man
Yessss that was a beautiful moment. It was nice to see Teddy’s crazy mom being the rational one for once (or as close to rational as anyone gets in these books) while Teddy and Emily are totally deflated because their explanation of “We have a psychic bond of twoo wuv and I heard her calling to me from miles away” makes no damn sense.
Hey, how come no one has mentioned Perry? He totally rocks. And he becomes Prime Minister. What’s not to love? And he’s totally wasted on Ilse, who makes about as much as a Prime Minister’s wife as, say, Margaret Trudeau?
Perry was a stand-up guy and I hated how the girls (especially Ilse) were constantly criticizing him for his bad grammar and his occasionally unrefined manners. He grew up penniless in a slum! Cut him some slack! Tilting your bowl to make sure you get the last drop of soup at dinner isn’t the worst etiquette crime in the world.
Huh? What part of “Perry totally rocks” did I express wrong? :^)
(Actually, I didn’t mean to reply to you specifically; I was just trying to get down to the bottom of the Emily comments, because my first attempt stuck my comment somewhere weird, in the middle of Reobertson Davies)
I was agreeing with you that Perry is awesome.
Oh, whew! Yeah, who, besides Ilsa, couldn’t adore him?
Is #9 the Blind Assassin? I’m not sure because I got rid of my copy (I hate Margaret Atwood novels; I am the worst aspiring Canadian ever and probably only my love of L.M. Montgomery’s works will redeem me). And YES that is totally Emily Climbs!
I LOVED The Blind Assassin, I should re-read that one!
12 is most definitely the Fifth Business series, right?
I like most Margaret Atwood and love the Blind Assassin, but I did not recognize #9 at ALL, which probably goes to show why I’ve read that book like 3 times and been surprised by the plot twist each time.
Yes, but I think it’s also Alias Grace a little bit.
I am right there with you hating Margaret Atwood novels. It is very sad, I am going to have to sit through at LEAST two more of them because some people here like them. 🙁
Oh, and #17 is probably The Canadian Settler’s Guide by Catherine Parr Trail.
I imagine #19 is blanket Farley Mowat? Also, “Newfoundland: An Enigma” should be the provincial motto.
When I first read it, I could have sworn that there was definitely a Margaret Lawrence book on the list, but now I can’t figure out which one. Anyone?
14 is Fall On Your Knees (probably?)
That post about “Bear” has been cropping up on my tumblr dash again and every time I just start giggling. A BEAR. AN ACTUAL BEAR.
Help! I don’t understand and I hate being on the outside of jokes!
There is a novel called “Bear” about a woman who has sex with an actual bear. And it won the highest praise in Canadian literature. NSFW. Not safe for LIFE.
This is next on my to-read list and I am SO EXCITED.
Mainland Canada Is Garbage And Even The Other Maritime Provinces Are Deeply Suspect: No Place In The World Could Ever Be As Great As PEI
She Married A Hot Farmer Instead Of An Ugly Rich Guy And Lived To Regret It
Emigrating To New France As A Teenaged Girl And Marrying A Total Stranger Worked Out A Lot Better Than Expected
Sure, I Will Raise 12 Children By Myself While You Spend 6 Months A Year In A Logging Camp
So You Lost Your Legs In A Logging Accident
I Thought The Iroquois Were My Friends, But Then They Up And Scalped My Wife
I would read the crap out of #1, it is totally true* and I am in fact headed to PEI in a few weeks.
*so not true, love you, Perth and Eagle Lake! (and everywhere else I’ve been in Canada)
Please tell me these are all a series. I think they’re a series.
3 and 6 are both from Jeanne, Fille du Roy which I had to read in high school. Jeanne is a high-spirited 16-year-old orphan who chooses to emigrate to New France because her only alternative is joining the order of the convent where she grew up. She marries this guy twice her age who is very cold and brusque to mask his deep, deep man-pain, because his first wife was killed by a Native raiding party (who also burned down their house for good measure). Jeanne survives a second Native attack and realizes her gruff old-man husband loves her after all because this incident finally prompts him to show some concern for her.
I seriously fucking love that novel even with all the deep, deep man-pain. My copy’s titled “The King’s Daughter”… or “A King’s Daughter”? Either way, once every few years I get the urge and re-read it. SHE IS SO DAMN SPIRITED.
I read that after I wrote my article on the Filles du Roi here and someone referred me to it in the comments. Everything you say is 100% correct. Especially the man pain.
Oh, and 2 and 4 are from Les Filles de Caleb by Arlette Cousture but I’m not sure how well-known that book is outside of Quebec.
The main character, Émilie, is a village schoolteacher who is courted by two men: Hot Farmer Dude (who is also her student, but whatevs) and Ugly Schoolboard Superintendent. She picks the first guy because she wants to climb him like a tree, whereas the second is cross-eyed (but uh, also really smart and rich, I know who my first choice would be).
Fast-forward many years later and they have 12 or 13 kids and Hot Farmer Dude is now Alcoholic Unemployed Dude. He’s off half the year to work in logging camps (and drink his wages), while she has to rely on the local church’s charity and send the older kids off to work. (One girl has to go all the way to Vermont, which is a tragedy, because AMERICANS.) Meanwhile, one of her friends has married Ugly Schoolboard Superintendent; he worships the ground she walks on, and she lives in the lap of luxury in Montreal.
LOOK AT YOUR LIFE, LOOK AT YOUR CHOICES.
Oh man, this reminds me of when I lived in PEI and I stayed with these Newfoundland transplants and they complained about how rude and unfriendly islanders are compared to Newfies.
And I was like….you precious beings….please never sully yourselves by visiting Ontario.
Six Months of Winter Then A Harvest Where Someone Proposes (It’s Rejected)
Number 18 = every story taught in Canadian undergraduate university English programs.
We Moved To Toronto And Everyone Else Including That Bastard Did Too
My Relative Died Then We Encountered That Moose In The Clearing And Now It All Makes Sense
I’ve Been To Coquitlam But I’ve Never Been To Me
COQUITLAM! My hometown! Ah, Coquitlam, how do I miss thee; Coquitlam Centre, Como Lake and Mundy Park, The Frog And Nightgown Pub, my old stomping grounds will always remain close to my 1980’s heart.
Mine too! There’s a novel that mentions Coquitlam? What is it pray tell? I must read it at once!!
My personal rickroll is getting people to read Bear. I keep recommending it, hoping people won’t look into the plot before they start. I just say it’s a ‘Woman Alone in the Wilderness’ novel.
I am not as successful as I would like to be.
Aww, Robertson Davies. I have a soft spot for “World of Wonders”, but everything else…
Hey! I loved #9.
“9. You Thought It Was Me Talking To You, But It’s Been My Sister All Along, I Am Dead Because of a Man”
I just read this one last week! Oh Margaret.
I obviously need to read more Canadian literature.
(One of the most heavily Canadian books I’ve ever read was written by a Scottish women who’d never been to Canada, apparently.)
Can’t. Stop. Laughing.
Sidebar – who else really hated Roughing It In The Bush? I found Susanna Moodie to be an insufferably smug narrator. There was such an overwhelming sense of her own superiority over the Native peoples and the other immigrants in her corner of Ontario – basically everyone who’s not middle-class British like her is depicted as lazy, shiftless, dishonest and mooching off the charity of the neighbours. And her poor children, they look so British, their cheeks are as bright and pink as an English tea-rose, but oh, they will never be able to gaze upon the rolling green fields of the motherland, what a tragedy. Ugh.
I just want to go back in time and take her face in my hands and say gently, “Sue, nobody held a gun to your head and made you emigrate, and also your survival depends on the support of your neighbours, so maybe try not being so damn stuck-up all the time.”
Susanna was not only a terrible pioneer but a jerk. I wanted to slap her. She was so snotty to everyone. How could she write those thoughts in her head down? Blargh!
After reading Sisters in the Wilderness I had a fair bit of sympathy for Susanna. No one held a gun to her head to make her emigrate, but they certainly told her a lot of lies about what life was like, and then she was stuck alone with her depression and her kids and her poverty in the middle of nowhere with her artistic ambitions largely squashed. From what I remember, her husband was also kind of useless, lost them what little money they had, and also never around. She didn’t have Catherine’s sunny can-do make-friends personality, and I have some sympathy for her being bitter and angry even if it made her someone I wouldn’t want to be around.
I’m going to have to read that. I found her own writing insufferable but that would explain A LOT.
Well, your mileage may vary, as she definitely makes things harder on herself and is contrasted with Catherine being all “I love trees! I love snow! Oh golly gee the house burned down with all our possessions but we might make it to the neighbour’s before we freeze to death! 😀 😀 :D” all the time. I’m a backwoods kind of person myself, but I have some sympathy that it would be it’s own kind of hell for an urban, emotional, artistic social butterfly.
Roughing It In the Bush was the worst. I took a graduate course in Canadian Lit in the 80s, when there wasn’t all that much of it, and some of it was really dire (Grain, anybody?) but Susanna definitely stood out for direness. Smug, entitled, and superior, as you say. Also, REALLY poorly written.
THIS IS AMAZING. *standing ovation*
“In Which Blondes From Westmount Fail to Sleep With You” !!!!
(Westmount is certifiably The Worst.)
Having attended high school in Westmount, I can attest to this being true.
Edmonton Westmount or Somewhere Out East Westmount? Having lived in Edmonton Westmount I agree, but being in Alberta makes me suspect that every time a place name is mentioned, if I say anything about it the response will be a condescending, “oh, we mean the Ontario (Place). It’s the REAL (Place). You have a (Place) out west too? How quaint.” …when the Ontario (Place) is named after some (Place) in Europe/the UK anyway, and is therefore not even the original.
TL;DR Less Ottawa More Alberta
Tl; Still DR I’m not actually Albertan or even Canadian but apparently I have THOUGHTS about this
Montreal Westmount is the only true Westmount. Accept no substitutes from provinces that didn’t join Confederation until the 20th century!
I assumed it was the Montreal Westmount (having never lived west of Ontario [I know, I know] I genuinely didn’t know there was one in Edmonton), but I’m more than happy for it to be a blanket All Westmounts Are The Certifiable Worst sort of affair 🙂
Same with Americans saying “Vancouver” and being like “oh, you guys have a Vancouver of your own? How cute, but I was referring to the town in Washington, obviously, since no one would ever think of the little-known Canadian hamlet with that name”
“14. We Forgot to Include an Incestuous Backstory But That’s What the Second 1200 Pages Are For”
OMG WHYYYYYYYYYY
Bonus: many of these also apply as descriptions of Canadian folksongs. At least there are definitely a few particular Great Big Sea songs that are premised on “the cod is gone.”
And about 50% of all the songs by Stan Rogers.
OK, I know a “they replaced whaling with oil shale” song, and a “the northwest passage didn’t pan out” song.
Oh! Little Fish for Japan! “industrialization leads to the loss of freedom and autonomy and the degradation of the environment, but everyone else is richer, so we’ll drink”. But the cod’s still there, it’s just not the smelt.
! Make or Break Harbour! How could I forget!
Make or Break Harbour confuses the hell out of me. So cheery and also so full of lamenting.
My girlhood friend was much more sexually aware than I was. Now we both lead prosaic lives.
Alice Munro is that you
see, my first thought was cat’s eye
Needs more about the immigrant experience, or did I just have to read too much prairie literature?
No, you’re right. I’m a Canadian Studies Major from Manitoba who studies in New Brunswick and the immigrant/non-immigrant literature divide happens at Thunder Bay. East of it, we do not know of these ‘immigrants’ you speak of (exemptions for Torontonians and Montreal Jews). West of it, everything is an immigrant/children/great-grandchildren of immigrants story. Always. Forever.
Number 22 is so real. Every Can Lit novel I ever had to read in school had a Group of Seven painting on the cover. I still have some on my shelf here.
I Grew Up Here But Then I Left and Now I’m Back and Nothing Is the Same
I own Bear. (It was for schooll! But obviously I kept that craziness that WON A FREAKING GOVERNOR GENERAL’S AWARD. Oh, the ’70s.)
I need to know which one involves having sex with a unicorn though.
Not Wanted On The Voyage. Sex is a polite term for what happened there.
I haven’t read that since high school. Must reread.
Not Wanted on the Voyage. Tif.
Boy with the Maple Leaf Tattoo
In which the reader must seek out someone with a PhD to locate the climax of this short story
The cold, desolate winter is a metaphor for our marriage.
Just going to leave this here: http://sarabynoe.com/2014/06/11/saywhapodcast30/
Thank you! Also, love the Robertson Davies picture. Epic Canadian beard.
When I was an English major and had to do Canadian lit all the time, I really enjoyed how you could tell the story’s setting by which manner of tragic workplace-related death the characters suffered. (Lookin’ at you, Alistair MacLeod.)
HE IS THE BESTTTT, tho
I love him! Seeing him on my textbook list always made me look forward to classes. But I’m still really sad that when I was reading The Lost Salt Gift of Blood for the first time I didn’t take a shot every time someone died in a way that reflected the primary industry of their province, because that would have made for a really great drinking game.
It was such a lost to the Canadian literary scene when he died earlier this year. So sad.
If anyone ever has the chance, see (or stage!) the directed reading of No Great Mischief. It is amazingly powerful.
Every Canadian comic sketch: Will the beer hold out or will we have to go to Toronto, eh?
I definitely want to read at least half of these now. Does anyone have any suggestions for a repentant English Lit major who didn’t realize that Canada’s publishing industry expanded beyond Anne of Green Gables?
I loved Galore by Michael Crummy, if magical realism is your thing. Also, Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese, even if hockey is not your thing. Note, neither of those are on this list but they’re two of my favourite Canadian lit books.
Stanley Park by Timothy Taylor!
Also – Going Down Swinging by Billie Livingston — this one and the above are Vancouverites writing stories set in Vancouver (my bias ids showing 🙂 )
The Wars by Timothy Findley is really good. It falls under the Prairie Towns Are a Good Way to Discover your Inner Pain, and Also WWI is When We Became a Nation category.
Also Diamond Grill by Fred Wah is amazing. It’s half-memoir thing about a Chinese Canadian family running a diner in the 50s. I.
Further down the thread reminded me, if you’re going to read Findley, AVOID Not Wanted On the Voyage. It’s…it’s the unicorn sex one.
Okay…I LOVE Not Wanted on the Voyage…it has unicorn…issues…and they are…troubling, yes. It’s also hysterically funny and anti-establishment. Mrs. Noyes is the best!
(spoiler alert)
Not Wanted on the Voyage is wonderful, yes, but the scene where the unicorn is used as an object of rape (let’s call it what it is) is so disturbing.
I started reading that in high school. Didn’t make it past the cannibals. Glad I didn’t, though I’m slightly curious. That book was disturbing.
Everyone raves about the English Patient, but I like In the skin of a Lion better…they are linked novels, obvs. I really like some of the earlier T. Findley books, particularly Not Wanted on the Voyage and Headhunter. A Colony of Unrequited Dreams is a must read and Elizabeth Hay’s Late Nights on Air is another (like A C of U D) which captures a particular region really well (Yellowknife and southern Northwest Territories). I also recommend The Kiss of the Fur Queen by Thomson Highway, Green Grass and Running Water by Thomas King. If you like urban fantasy, Charles de Lint has a ton of (quite Canadian) books and for science fiction, there is Peter Watts, making space (and our future) as grim as the prairie winters of yore…
Crap..this was supposed to be a reply to KatyDidn’t, but I must have stopped/restarted/goofed somewhere…sigh…
All de Lint all the time! I foist him onto people given the slightest provocation.
I am late to the party, but this list has some great suggestions: http://www.cbc.ca/books/books100.html (includes excellent representation of queer, poc and women writers)
Also, anything by Amber Dawn, like Sub Rosa or How Poetry Saved My Life.
Joseph Boyden, Michael Ondaatje, Anne Michaels, Lawrence Hill, Tamara Faith Berger.
“Men Have Taken Over the Country and Now I Must Struggle to Regain My Reproductive Agency, As Well As the Right to Wear Colours Other than Red”
Well, now I’m inspired to once more start reading Roughing it in the Bush only to abandon it 10 pages in, because, good god.
Read ‘Sisters in the Wilderness’ instead!
The accuracy of numbers 14 and 18 is hurting me.
Let’s not forget:
25. It’s cold out and we just lost another giant-headed baby.
26. Bingo, Canada’s sport of choice!
27. My parents made me marry this guy with land but then I cheated on him with an Anglophone doctor. Race treason!
28. The only people who truly appreciate New France for its beauty are the English. Also, lots of sled rides.
Literally crying with laughter over “It’s cold out and we just lost another giant-headed baby.” I am a terrible person.
#19: Too soon.
How about, I Left a Warm Colorful Country Full of Strife to Be Among These Cold, Inscrutable People and Everything I Do Is Wrong
LOLLLLL
“It is 1950-something and I am a small-town girl who is heading for a Big Life in Toronto. Big Life involves having an affair with my husband’s friend. Or did I just think about it? Either way, it is now 40 years later and I am alone, but has anything really changed?”
“You Thought It Was Me Talking To You, But It’s Been My Sister All Along, I Am Dead Because of a Man”
Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin?
Can someone steer me towards the book(s) where a woman has sex with a bear or a unicorn and its not particularly odd?
Timothy Findley’s Not Wanted on the Voyage, I think.
It’s “Bear”, by Marian Engel.
Yes. It’s two different books, not the same woman, same book.
Because that WOULD be odd.
Go Away
I’m Afraid He Can’t Come to the Line As He’s Dead
Catherine, I Dislike You
You’re Aware That I’m Slightly Hearing Impaired?
We’re All Vexed With The Bloomsbury Set
My Uncle Was Quite Fond Of The Queen Mother
You Have Stolen My Flatware
We Built A Sod House
Which one is #5?
Hugh Garner’s “Cabbagetown”
It Is The War, And I Am Very Cold And Covered In Mud
It Is Another War, And I Am Still Cold And Covered In Mud
YES, my only complaint here is that there isn’t enough War Talk, which is the #1 topic of Canadian Olds. Especially (for some reason) WWI.
The Prairie Is Cold And Unforgiving And That Is Why I Am Sleeping Inside My Horse
“Let me explain to you how the 1927 Church Union destroyed my small town”
Also, I’m just going to say that I love how many people on this thread are discussing “Bear” I love the Toast.
I Thought Twin Solitudes Had to Do With My Being Married to a Man But In Love With a Woman Who Is a Separatist And I Actually Have a Twin Who Does Not Talk
A Painfully Nuanced Description of the Twelve Protestant Denominations in My Humble Village and the Catholic Family We Look Down Upon.
YES. Also see “categorical differences between Presbyterians and Methodists and why 1927 was the worst year ever”
“Gothic Southern Ontario Having, Like, Two Magical Elements” – my autobiography, featuring the time we had a seance at the graveyard behind my friends house (the ministers daughter) and were Pretty Sure we actually made contact with our collective Graveyard Boyfriend (the boy who died in the 1840’s when he was thirteen, like we all were, probably of something tragic, so we brought him flowers all the time.) Middlesex County: a spooky place for spooky kids.
This is clearly the place to share The Canadian Literature Game, invented, it is rumoured, by Margaret Atwood: simply take the title of any work of Canadian literature, and substitute the word “moose” for any word in the title. Hence: As For Me and My Moose, Moose Rising, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Moose, Beautiful Moose, and of course, that Canadian classic, Moose. This is best played in the university pub, with a bunch of English Lit grad students, and a lot of beer.
Yes she invented it, in her novel Life Before Man. I particularly like A Jest Of Moose and its variant A Moose Of God.
Ah, thanks for the provenance. I think I had stopped reading Atwood’s fiction by then. Her fiction has never really done much for me, but I consider her poetry essential.
I Moved To The West Coast But It Will Never Be My Real Home
And:
Tall Trees And Anomie in West Van (We Are Perpetually Young)
Because of the horribly Toronto-centric nature of most of the previous comments and even the post itself (yes, yes, the Prairies and the Maritimes also show up, FINE) the West Coast demands further representation.
The Trees Here are Very Big and Malign, the Slugs are Big Also
The Rainforest May Consume Us; Fortunately We Are British
It Is Very Dark in the Forest and Now We Must Cut Down a Tree and Build a House in the Stump
Do Roses Really Bloom in December? How Is It That There is No Snow?
The Constant Rain is Driving Me to Madness
So Many Gophers, Such Incessant Wind, No Rain in Sight.
I didn't realize George Lucas wrote canlit.
And You Call *Us* Savages? Seriously, Whitey?
this is the first time I've read comments that were actually better than the article. We must have learned something by reading all that CanLit:)
I think Canadian Fiction, and our reaction to it, can be summed up by an interview the CBC did with Margret Atwood in the 60s.
Reporter: Margret, your stories make me very sad.
Atwood: Oh. That's too bad.
Reporter: ….you elicited in me a strong reaction.
Atwood: Oh. That's good.
http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/arts-entert…
I'm rereading these books this week and SO MANY THINGS I HAD FORGOTTEN. What a TOTAL CREEP. "Oh, did you really think you could write? I was just humouring you as a child! All your hard work that your FAMILY NOW RESPECTS YOU FOR? Oh, you dear sweet child, how little you know of the world.."
And also "I love to see a woman smiling to herself. Her thoughts must be innocent and pleasant." Bite me, Dean. Did you know that a woman can have thoughts independent of PLEASING YOU? And nobody would ever want to please you ANYWAY because YOU ARE THE WORST?
Your lameness is not why you have no friends, Dean, it's your HORRID SELFISHNESS AND SUPERIORITY COMPLEX.
Emily should have married that Japanese prince, tbqh
She really should have. Andrew was a drip, Dean was a creep, Teddy is a douchelord who almost marries her best friend, the other dudes are all so unimportant it doesn't matter, the only one who seems normal-ish is the Japanese prince, and he could take her out of that landscape of horrible people.
She really should have. Andrew was a drip, Dean was a creep, Teddy is a douchelord who almost marries her best friend, the other dudes are all so unimportant it doesn't matter, the only one who seems normal-ish is the Japanese prince, and he could take her out of that landscape of horrible people.
Weather Is Symbolic on the Prairie
Can you do Every Greek Epic Ever? That would be awesome. 🙂 I love these posts!
Life on the Margins is Hard, Then God Makes It Strangely Acceptable.
‘The Six-Fingered Belt’ or ‘Why I Left Owen Sound.’
Faeries control Ottawa. But no ones notices.
Charles de Lint, amirite?!
This Started Out As A Children’s Book But Quickly Dissolved Into A Modern(ish) Bestiary
A Memoir
Everyone Out Here Is Outdoorsy, Except That Guy
Nobody Here Is Outdoorsy, And It Sucks Because I Am The Outdoorsiest Person
Those Damn Americans
Those Damn French Canadians
Those Damn English Canadians
Hey Look, It’s Some Indians
Problems? It’s Trudeau’s Fault
My Childhood Will Remind You Of A Painting You Once Saw In A Folk-Art Museum, Except More Racist
My Parents Came To This Country With Five Dollars
It’s Really Cold And We’re Snowed In But Hell, It’s Better Than The Old Country (Somehow)
Everyone’s Baba Keeps Trying To Hook Me Up With The Neighbour Boy
You forgot two:
I Escaped Slavery Only To Find Canadians Are Racist Too
First Nations People Are Marginalized And Ignoring That Isn’t Making It Go Away
“He Saves a Nun From Falling to Her Death and Years Later She Accidentally Becomes His Lover”
“Soon to be a major CBC production starring Megan Follows as a plucky, headstrong character with a can-do attitude.”
Stiffy: Sex in the icehouse after your grisly death.