Issue archives

#203 (Winter 2009)
Home, Memory, Self

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Editorial

Margery Fee

• Home, Memory, Self (p. 6 - 9)
• Subjects: Journals

Articles

Katie Mullins

• Questioning Comics: Women and Autocritique in Seth's It's A Good Life, If You Don't Weaken (p. 11 - 27)
• Abstract: Show/hide

  This paper explores modes of autocritique in Seth’s picture novella It’s a Good Life, If You Don’t Weaken. As part of Seth’s endeavour to pay homage to the comics tradition, his female characters challenge ethical problems in the history of comics by evoking the counter-traditions that emerged in response to these issues. The result is a critical depiction of comics history, which is fraught with rebellious attempts to oppose its misogynistic and myopic tendencies. This autocritique not only highlights the central character’s limitations and his potential to move beyond them, but also motions towards the need for modern comics to address important ideological concerns, and for readers to think critically about comics and their broader implications. In this way, It’s a Good Life inspires a progression away from negative ideologies and encourages a critical awareness when both reading and creating graphic narratives.

• Subjects: Graphic Novel, History

Peter Jaeger

• "But Could I Make A Living From It": Jeff Derksen's Modular Form (p. 30 - 39)
• Abstract: Show/hide

  This article considers the Canadian poet Jeff Derksen’s writing, with a special focus on his long poem “But Could I Make A Living From It” (2003). One of the key features of this poem is its use of short, sometimes aphoristic units or “modules” as a scaffolding to articulate political struggles surrounding issues of subjectivity, citizenship, and the public discourse of Neoliberalism. The article situates Derksen’s use of modular form in relation to his interest in architecture, contemporary poetics, and literary theory, and then further investigates how the poem foregrounds contradictions among global, national, and local socio-economic conditions. Modular form provides Derksen with a means to practice a hybrid mode of theory / research / poetry which specifically focuses on Canada in relation to the neoliberal situation.

• Subjects: Poetry, Politics

Wendy Roy

• The Word is Colander: Language Loss and Narrative Voice in Fictional Canadian Alzheimer's Narratives (p. 41 - 61)
• Abstract: Show/hide

  A relatively long tradition of Canadian fiction addresses the effects of Alzheimer’s disease on language and narrative, including Jane Rule’s Memory Board (1987), Michael Ignatieff’s Scar Tissue (1993), Mordecai Richler’s Barney’s Version (1997), and Sandra Sabatini’s The One with the News (2000). These books all deal with the disease seriously, demanding that their readers recognize that Alzheimer’s causes its victims to lose not just the ability to remember life stories but also the ability to narrate them through written and, eventually, spoken language. This paper argues that while Alzheimer’s and its effects on human relationships are sometimes the main subjects of these Canadian books and at other times, as Sharon Synder and David Mitchell suggest about disability narratives in general, more clearly plot or narrative devices, all four works posit language as essential for life narration at the same time as they challenge the idea that loss of narrative ability necessarily signals loss of human selfhood.

• Subjects: Body & Health, Language/Linguistics

Amy J. Ransom

• Ce Zombi égaré est-il un Haïtien ou un Québécois?: Le vaudou chez les écrivains haïtiano-québécois (p. 64 - 83)
• Abstract: Show/hide

  Dans les ouvrages des écrivains haïtiano-canadiens on remarque la forte présence du vaudou, et du zombi comme métaphore de l’Haïtien aliéné aussi bien que de l’exilé haïtien. Cet essai analyse la fonction de ces figures dans des textes de quatre écrivains : Gérard Étienne (Le Nègre crucifié, 1974; La Pacotille, 1991; et Vous n’êtes pas seul, 2001), Émile Ollivier (Passages, 1985), Dany Laferrière (Le Cri des oiseaux fous, 2000) et Stanley Péan (La Plage des songes et autres récits d’exil, 1988; Le Tumulte de mon sang, 1991; La Mémoire ensanglantée, 1993; et Zombi Blues, 1996). Dans l’œuvre de ce dernier, qui rentre sous la rubrique de l’horreur fantastique, le vodou et le zombi fonctionnent à introduire l’élément insolite qui définit ce genre populaire. Cet auteur partage cependant le même intérêt de communiquer, d’écrire l’horreur indicible de la violence duvaliériste que les autres écrivains qui font l’objet de cette étude.

• Subjects: Caribbean-Canadian , Speculative Fiction

Jimmy Thibeault

• Fuir le regard de l'Autre ou apprendre à habiter l'espace d'immigration: la quête du Soi dans Ce pays qui est le mien de Didier Leclair (p. 85 - 102)
• Abstract: Show/hide

  La problématique identitaire associée à la littérature migrante renvoie souvent à un rapport d’incompréhension entre les communautés d’immigrants et d’accueil. Aussi, l’immigrant se sent souvent victime d’un regard qui le catégorise selon son origine ethnique. Mais cette catégorisation ne provient pas uniquement du regard de la société d’accueil, l’immigrant la retrouve aussi chez ses compatriotes qui chercheront en lui les signes d’un attachement à un lieu de reconnaissance. Chez Didier Leclerc, ce double regard est amené à se briser afin permettre au soi de s’exprimer non plus selon son appartenance à un groupe identitaire, mais plutôt dans son individualité et dans son humanité. Ce n’est que dans cette humanisation du soi qu’il sera possible pour l’immigrant d’apprendre à habiter l’espace d’accueil, sans pour autant nier son passé personnel. Cet article s’intéresse au processus par lequel le personnage, Apollinaire, parvient à rompre avec le regard de l’Autre (du pays d’accueil et de la communauté de l’origine) et à habiter son nouvel espace d’habitation.

• Subjects: Cultural Studies, Immigrant

Christa Zeller Thomas

• "I had never seen such a shed called a house before": The Discourse of Home in Susanna Moodie's Roughing It in the Bush (p. 105 - 121)
• Abstract: Show/hide

  This paper argues that Susanna Moodie’s Roughing It in the Bush relies on a complex discourse of home, which turns on two different and competing specifications: in the manifestation of home as house (and in the broader sense, as homeland), the discourse of home is cast as a failure of homecoming; in the manifestation of home as family, it deploys a narrativity that focuses on Moodie’s husband and children in order to reproduce a “home matrix” otherwise lost. This familial discourse serves as the basis for an attempted system of self-location, aimed at making herself feel “at home.” My analysis, however, finds that Moodie’s maternal and spousal narrativity fails her and that “home” in Canada, therefore, remains out of reach.

• Subjects: Home & Family, Settler Writing

Poems

Shane Rhodes

• Soundscape as Landscape #1: Peaceful, Unified, and Unarmed (p. 10)

Tom Wayman

• Letting Nature Run Her Course (p. 28 - 29)

Clint Burnham

• Dim Son (p. 40)

David Solway

• Master of Instruments (p. 62 - 63)

John Slater

• Snowball Effect (p. 84)

Tim Prior

• water (p. 103 - 104)

Shane Rhodes

• Circle the Wagons: In Ink: mediatation on Treaty Two (p. 122)

Book Reviews

Editing Archives (p. 123 - 124)

by Jody Mason

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Dry Water by Robert Stead, Jean Horton, and Neil Querengesser
2. Waste Heritage by Colin Hill and Irene Baird

Subjects: Authorship, Novel

Jésus de Nazareth - revu et corrigé (p. 124 - 125)

by René La Fleur

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Ceci est mon corps by Jean-François Beauchemin

Subjects: Novel, Religion

Une quête critique lacunaire (p. 125 - 126)

by Renald Bérubé

Book(s) reviewed:

1. La Quête érotique d'Yves Thériault by Mark Benson

Subjects: Authorship, Literary Criticism

Petites existences (p. 126 - 127)

by David Dorais

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Êtes-vous mariée à un psychopathe? by Nadine Bismuth
2. Jour de chance by Nicolas Charette

Subjects: Francophone, Short Fiction

Forms and Functions (p. 127 - 129)

by Alan Bradley

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Effigy by Alissa York
2. Remembering the Bones by Frances Itani
3. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

Subjects: Crime & Detective, Novel

Quelques bonnes nouvelles (p. 129 - 130)

by Stéphane Girard

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Enfance et autres fissures by Marie Cadieux
2. Le Bonheur est une couleur by Aurélie Resch
3. Mégot mégot petite mitaine by Johanne Alice Côté

Subjects: Francophone, Short Fiction

Obscur désir (p. 129)

by Yves Laroche

Book(s) reviewed:

1. La Rive solitaire by Denise Brassard

Subjects: Drama, Poetry, Quebec

178 secondes ou plus (p. 130 - 131)

by Laure Tollard

Book(s) reviewed:

1. 178 Secondes by Katia Canciani
2. R.I.P.: Histoires mourantes by Claude Forand

Subjects: Francophone, Gothic, Novel, Short Fiction

La fondation incertaine: uchronie et fantômes de l'histoire (p. 131 - 133)

by Stéphane Inkel

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Le livre des fondations: Incarnation et enquébecquoisement dans Le ciel de Québec de Jacques Ferron by Jacques Cardinal

Subjects: Novel, Quebec

The School of Life (p. 133 - 134)

by Gisèle M. Baxter

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Skim by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki
2. The Saver by Edeet Ravel
3. The Shepherd's Granddaughter by Anne Laurel Carter

Subjects: Children's Literature, Graphic Novel

Canadian Theatre of War (p. 134 - 136)

by Marissa McHugh

Book(s) reviewed:

1. a nanking winter by Majorie Chan
2. Canada and the Theatre of War: Volume 1 by Donna Coates and Sherrill Grace

Subjects: Anthologies, Drama, War

La dissidence comme auto-fiction (p. 136 - 137)

by François Paré

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Poils lisses by Tina Charlebois
2. Sahéliennes by Angèle Bassolé-Ouédraogo
3. Si longtemps déjà  by Rose Després

Subjects: Francophone, Poetry

La réalité et ses ailleurs (p. 137 - 138)

by Pamela V. Sing

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Certitudes by Helene Rioux and Madeleine Thien
2. Un enfant à ma porte. by Ying Chen

Subjects: Francophone, Novel

Beyond Repair (p. 138 - 140)

by Dorothy F. Lane

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Elysium by Pamela Stewart
2. Evidence by Ian Colford
3. The Cult of Quick Repair by Dede Crane

Subjects: Short Fiction

Disenfranchised Grief (p. 140 - 141)

by Dorothy F. Lane

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Happiness and other Disorders by Ahmad Saidullah
2. The Darren Effect by Libby Creelman

Subjects: Atlantic Canada, Indian/South Asian, Novel, Short Fiction

Autopsy of the Anatomy (p. 141 - 144)

by Graham Nicol Forst

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Interviews with Northrop Frye: Vol. 24 of Collected Works of Northrop Frye by Jean O'Grady
2. Northrop Frye's Fiction and Miscellaneous Writings: Vol. 25 of Collected Works of Northrop Frye by Robert D. Denham and Michael Dolzani
3. Northrop Frye's Notebooks for "Anatomy of Criticism": Vol. 23 of Collected Works of Northrop Frye by Robert D. Denhem

Subjects: Authorship, Literary Criticism

Les variations du monde (p. 144 - 145)

by Mariloue Sainte-Marie

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Lumière aux aguets by Marcelle Roy
2. Porte dérobée by Louise Deschênes

Subjects: Francophone, Poetry

Of Obscurity and Signposts (p. 145 - 146)

by Jesse Patrick Ferguson

Book(s) reviewed:

1. aubade by rob mclennan
2. Daughters of Men by Brenda Leifso
3. Palilalia by Jeffrey Donaldson

Subjects: Poetry

Is That a Joke? (p. 146 - 147)

by Tim Blackmore

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Hall of Best Knowledge by Ray Fenwick

Subjects: Graphic Novel

Artful Dodgers (p. 147 - 148)

by Donna Coates

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Crossing Lines: Poets Who Came to Canada in the Vietnam War Era by Allan Briesmaster and Steven Michael Berzensky
2. Erratic North: A Vietnam Draft Resister's Life in the Canadian Bush by Mark Frutkin

Subjects: Anthologies, Poetry, War

Recueil de nouvelles en traduction (p. 148 - 149)

by Patricia Godbout

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Nouvelle noirceur by Len Gasparini and Daniel Poliquin

Subjects: Francophone, Short Fiction

Lethal Chat (p. 149 - 150)

by Tanis Macdonald

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Brother Dumb by Sky Gilbert

Subjects: Life Writing, Novel

Fiction et réalité sociale (p. 150 - 151)

by Sophie Bastien

Book(s) reviewed:

1. La terre promise, Remember! by Noël Audet
2. Trois visions du terroir: récits et nouvelles by Andre Vanasse, C. H. Grignon, G. Guèvremont, A. Laberge, A. Rivard, and Josée Bonneville

Subjects: Anthologies, Francophone, Landscape/Space, Quebec, Short Fiction

Isn't That Funny? (p. 151 - 153)

by Lisa Close

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Drew Hayden Taylor: Essays on His Work by Robert C. Nunn
2. Humor in Contemporary Native North American Literature: Reimagining Nativeness by Eva Gruber
3. Me Sexy: An Exploration of Native Sex and Sexuality by Drew Hayden Taylor

Subjects: Essays, First Nations, Literary Criticism, Native Studies, Sexuality

Destination Canada: the Dream and the Nightmare (p. 153 - 154)

by Carrie Dawson

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Cockroach by Rawi Hage
2. Odori by Darcy Tamayose

Subjects: Immigrant, Short Fiction, Twenty-First Century

Teen Wives and Mothers (p. 154 - 155)

by Elizabeth Galway

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Sister Wife by Shelley Hrdlitschka
2. The Lit Report by Sarah N. Harvey

Subjects: Children's Literature, Home & Family, Young Adult

Charting Indigenous Pasts and Futures (p. 155 - 157)

by Keavy Martin

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Lines Drawn upon the Water: First Nations and the Great Lakes Borders and Borderlands by Karl S. Hele
2. Where the Pavement Ends: Canada's Aboriginal Recovery Movement and the Urgent Need for Reconciliation by Marie Wadden

Subjects: First Nations, Landscape/Space, Native Studies

D'un étang gelé aux étoiles (p. 157 - 158)

by Benoit Doyon-Gosselin

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Frères d'hiver by Michel Ouellette
2. Le Chuchotement des étoiles by Maurice Henrie

Subjects: Francophone, Novel

(Black) Community Historiography (p. 158 - 160)

by Maureen Moynagh

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Crossing the Border: A Free Black Community in Canada by Sharon Hepburn
2. Loyalists and Layabouts: The Rapid Rise and Faster Fall of Shelburne, Nova Scotia 1783 - 1792 by Stephen Kimber

Subjects: Afro-Canadian, Atlantic Canada, Diaspora, Ontario

Three Men and a Feminist (p. 160 - 162)

by Emily Carr

Book(s) reviewed:

1. My Human Comedy by Gerald Hill
2. Notebook of Roses and Civilization by Erin Mouré, Robert Majzels, and Nicole Brossard
3. Repose by Adam Getty
4. We Are Here by Patrick Friesen, Niels Hav, and P.K. Brask

Subjects: Poetry

Men in the Trees (p. 162 - 163)

by Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Early in the Season: A British Columbia Journal by Edward Hoagland
2. Listening to the Trees by A. K. Hellum

Subjects: British Columbia, Life Writing, Nature Writing

Two Women, Two Writers (p. 163 - 165)

by Veronica Thompson

Book(s) reviewed:

1. A Memoir of Friendship: The Letters Between Carol Shields and Blanche Howard by Blanche Howard and Allison Howard
2. The Staircase Letters: An Extraordinary Friendship at the End of Life by Carol Shields, Arthur Motyer, and Elma Gerwin

Subjects: Correspondence

Québec réécrit ses influences (p. 165)

by Ariane Tremblay

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Romanica Silesiana, no. 2: "La Réécriture dans la littérature québécoise" by Krzysztof Jarosz

Subjects: Literary Criticism, Quebec

Of Cottages and Women (p. 166 - 167)

by Julie Cairnie

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Ex-Cottagers in Love by J. M. Kearns

Subjects: Gender, Novel

Into Africa? (p. 167 - 168)

by Suzanne James

Book(s) reviewed:

1. The Uncertain Business of Doing Good: Outsiders in Africa by Larry Krotz
2. Where Bones Dance: An English Girlhood, An African War by Nina Newington

Subjects: Afro-Canadian, Cultural Studies, Novel

Questions de filiation (p. 168 - 169)

by Julie Gaudreault

Book(s) reviewed:

1. La rivière du loup by Andrée Laberge
2. Le fin fond de l'histoire by Andrée Laberge

Subjects: Francophone, Novel

L'historienne condition (p. 169 - 170)

by Maxime Prévost

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Historien et citoyen: Navigations au long cours by Yvan Lamonde

Subjects: Autobiography

Communities of Print (p. 170 - 171)

by Eva-Marie Kröller

Book(s) reviewed:

1. History of the Book in Canada: Volume Three: 1918-1980 by Carole Gerson and Jacques Michon
2. History of the Book in Canada: Volume Two: 1840-1918 by Yvan Lamonde, Patricia Lockhart Fleming, and Fiona A. Black

Subjects: Eighteenth Century, History, Nineteenth Century, Publishing

Narrating Tragedy (p. 172 - 175)

by Lisa Grekul

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Come, Thou Tortoise by Jessica Grant
2. February by Lisa Moore
3. Red Dog, Red Dog by Patrick Lane

Subjects: Novel

Mitraille littéraire et balles perdues chez Céline et Ducharme (p. 175)

by Stéphane Inkel

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Poétique de l'invective romanesque: L'invectif chez Louis-Ferdinand Céline et Réjean Ducharme by Marie-Hélène Larochelle

Subjects: Literary Theory

A Smashing Undertaking (p. 176 - 177)

by Lindsay Milligan

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Giant and Other Gaelic Poems / : Famhair agus dàin Ghàidhlig eile by Lewis Mackinnon and Lodaidh MacFhionghain

Subjects: British, Poetry

Drôles d'angoisses (p. 176)

by Kinga Zawada

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Roger Roger by Mélanie Léger

Subjects: Drama

Jeux d'esquive (p. 177 - 178)

by Nathalie Warren

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Le ciel de Bay City by Catherine Mavrikakis
2. Omaha Beach by Catherine Mavrikakis

Subjects: Quebec, War

Salutaire confession (p. 178)

by Caroline Dupont

Book(s) reviewed:

1. La terre sans mal by Melchior Mbonimpa

Subjects: Afro-Canadian, Novel, Religion

A Question of Representation (p. 179 - 180)

by Sarah Galletly

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Gwethalyn Graham: A Liberated Woman in a Conventional Age by Barbara Meadowcroft
2. Margaret Atwood: Essays on Her Works by Branko Gorjup

Subjects: Biography, Literary Criticism

Regards croisés sur l'?vre poliquinienne (p. 180 - 181)

by Emir Delic

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Lire Poliquin by François Ouellet

Subjects: Literary Criticism

Lectures en miroir (p. 181 - 182)

by François Ouellet

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Louis Hamelin et ses doubles by François Paré and François Ouellet

Subjects: Literary Criticism

De l'espace et du temps (p. 182 - 183)

by Emmanuel Bouchard

Book(s) reviewed:

1. L'étincelle suffit à la constellation by René Laubiès, Frédèric Benrath, Julius Baltazar, and Guy Cloutier
2. La Grande Sortie by Pierre Raphaël Pelletier
3. Sur le parvis des nuages by Marcil Cossette

Subjects: Francophone, Poetry

At the Centre of the Storm (p. 183 - 184)

by Susan Butlin

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Beaverbrook: A Shattered Legacy by Jacques Poitras

Subjects: History, War

Matrices et dédales (p. 184 - 185)

by Émilie Théorêt

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Dictature de la solitude by Joel Pourbaix
2. En haute rumeur des siècles by Robert Berrouet-Oriol
3. Le même souffle by Normand Glénois
4. Miniatures, balles perdues et autres désordres by Monique Deland

Subjects: Francophone, Poetry

« À l'endroit du noeud » (p. 185 - 186)

by Matthew Jordan Schmidt

Book(s) reviewed:

1. La Maison des temps rompus by Pascale Quiviger

Subjects: Francophone, Novel

Leftist Women Writers (p. 186 - 187)

by Louise H. Forsyth

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Comrades and Critics: Women, Literature, and the Left in 1930s Canada by Candida Rifkind

Subjects: Politics, Twentieth Century, Women's Literature, Women's Studies

À tire-d'aile (p. 187 - 188)

by Emmanuel Bouchard

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Les oiseaux se taisent et me regardent by Edgard Gousse
2. Un oiseau moqueur sur l'épaule by Martin Thibault

Subjects: Francophone, Poetry

History as Narrative (p. 188 - 190)

by Ryan Porter

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Coal Black Heart: The Story of Coal and the Lives it Ruled by Jean DeMont
2. The Old Lost Land of Newfoundland: Family, Memory, Fiction, and Myth by Wayne Johnston
3. The Wolf's Head: Writing Lake Superior by Peter Unwin

Subjects: Atlantic Canada, Ecocriticism, Regionalism

Grasping Ondaatje (p. 190 - 192)

by Sofie De Smyter

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Michael Ondaatje: Distance, Clarity and Ghosts. An Analysis of Ondaatje's Writing Techniques Against a Background of War and Buddhist Philosophy. by Joan Elizabeth von Memerty
2. Michael Ondaatje by Lee Spinks

Subjects: Literary Criticism, Novel, Religion, War

Women Who Roughed It (p. 192 - 194)

by Janice Fiamengo

Book(s) reviewed:

1. A Gentlewoman in Upper Canada: The Journals, Letters and Art of Anne Langton by Barbara Williams
2. Marie-Anne: The Extraordinary Life of Louis Riel's Grandmother by Maggie Siggins

Subjects: Biography, Correspondence, Women's Literature

Textual Paradoxes (p. 194 - 195)

by Valerie Raoul

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Nomade by Mila Younes

Subjects: Autobiography

Opinions & Notes

Niigonwedom J. Sinclair

• Inks of Knowledge, Permanence, and Collectivity: A Response to Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry (p. 196 - 200)
• Subjects: Native Studies