“When You Admit You’re a Thief, Then You Can Be Honourable”: Native/Non-Native Collaboration in The Book of Jessica
Abstract: A SUBJECT MUCH BRUITED ABOUT JUST NOW in Canadian literary circles is the question of the appropriation of Native materials ...
“Where Is My Home?” Some Notes on Reading Josef Skvorecky in “Amerika”
Abstract: i. TRANSLATION, in one form or another, has always been an issue in the reading of Josef Skvorecky’s fiction. Because ...
“Yes but . . . have you read his letters?”: Epistolary Correspondence with the Past in Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion
Abstract: In 1824, Walter Scott argued that the epistolary form was unsuitable for creating historical narratives. In contrast, this article argues that Michael Ondaatje, an author not usually associated with the epistolary form, self-consciously uses these epistolary ‘flaws’ in In the Skin of a Lion to create historical narratives that ask the reader how they know, and who they hear. Patrick’s initial role as a ‘searcher’ for a missing millionaire develops into a more significant pursuit of the threads of untold national stories through the letters given to him from the valise of Hana, the daughter of a murdered union activist. Patrick moves from being ‘a searcher gazing into the darkness of his own country’ towards a renewed knowledge of the political history of his nation. Through a complex layering of epistolary conventions, the novel calls upon the reader as epistolary recipient to rethink their present through a critical engagement with Canada’s past.
“Yes, but . . . have you read his letters“
Abstract: Abstract: In 1824, Walter Scott suggested that the epistolary form hindered the creation of historical narratives. In contrast, this article argues that Michael Ondaatje, an author not usually associated with the epistolary form, self-consciously utilises these epistolary ‘flaws’ to narrate the human histories of Toronto in In the Skin of a Lion. My reading shows how a close analysis of language and form reveals the importance of dialogue and communication in this novel: aspects which were admired by early book reviewers but quickly submerged by a sea of literary criticism eager to embrace the novel as a quintessentially ‘postmodern’ text. The epistolary lens directs our attention away from the much-discussed impossibility of locating historical truth, towards the possibility of corresponding or connecting with the past and witnessing truths for the future. The epistolary reading therefore casts a new light on our understanding of the novel, bringing solidarity, imaginative empathy and futurity to the fore.
“a dungeon every night and every day”: The Zany Neo-liberal Subject, Alcohol, and Poetic Agency in Catriona Wright’s Table Manners
Abstract: This article locates Catriona Wright’s Table Manners (2017) within a framework of cultural criticism that describes the neoliberal dissolution of boundaries between work and leisure time as well as Sianne Ngai’s conception of the zany subject. It locates in this reality the rituals of consumption that furnish Wright’s subject matter, finding that her depiction of alcohol consumption, specifically, at once sustains participation in this economy and denies her poetic subjects agency. Suggesting that Wright departs from common depictions of alcohol consumption in Canadian poetry, the paper argues that Table Manners registers a dynamic of neoliberal containment in its engagement with food culture as well as with a repetitious, consciously traditionalist poetics that forecloses any possibility of fulfillment in the development of one’s poetic craft. At the same times, its registering of neoliberalism at its most jarring, using its very curatorial tools, indicates a possibility of poetic agency.
“After Rain” Again: P. K. Page and the Labour of Others
Abstract: I simply don’t want to work for a living. I’d like to sit on a cushion and write a fine ...
“All I ever wanted was to keep them safe”: Geographies of Care in Comparative Canadian Fiction
Abstract: A comparative analysis of Catherine Mavrikakis’ Le ciel de Bay City and Ami McKay’s The Birth House shows how care practices and attitudes emerge in spatialized encounters and brings attention to how these representations are closely connected to the representations of lived space. Drawing on care ethics and space theory, this article interrogates how these two novels uncover, through human constructs and their spatialized relationships, different intersubjective strategies that lead to a certain level of comfort and livability, to the preservation, protection, and sometimes transformation of living spaces that affect and are affected by the presence and/or lack of care.
“Coming Home” Through Music: Cree and Classical Music in Tomson Highway’s Kiss of the Fur Queen
Abstract: This article examines the purpose of music in Tomson Highway's Kiss of the Fur Queen by exploring its connection to the growth and development of the protagonist and musician Jeremiah Okimasis. In considering the growth of Jeremiah's character, I explore ways in which the novel's Bildungsroman structure is both exemplified and problematized by Highway's use of Cree and Classical musical aesthetics, and investigate the development of Native youth identity as well as a Cree cultural home. What is ultimately revealed is a trickster poetics at work in the text, as demonstrated by music's ability to lure characters into and out of cultural spaces of belonging while also functioning as an essential method of Cree cultural survival.
“How a Girl from Canada Break the Bigtime”: Esi Edugyan and the Next Generation of Literary Celebrity in Canada
Abstract: Esi Edugyan’s experience with literary celebrity, prize culture, and publishing companies at home and abroad, has much to tell us about how new generations of literary celebrities are affected by the ascendancy of neoliberal economic policies that are shaking the publishing world. Unlike previous generations of Canadian literary celebrities such as Atwood and Ondaatje, who were drawn to alternative, small-scale modes of production (House of Anansi and Coach House Presses, respectively), Edugyan’s generation, beneficiaries of new social media and an explosion of alternative platforms for sharing their work, are, ironically, under greater pressure much earlier in their careers to leave smaller-scale outlets behind for mainstream success. As the story of Edugyan’s publishing history to date shows, the industry’s thirst for the kind of mainstream success that might keep their operations afloat (bestsellers bankrolling the production of more modest-selling books) has the effect of delegitimizing alternative modes of production. And when the winning of a major literary prize like the Giller or Man Booker opens the doors to lucrative publishing deals with major presses, this only serves to emphasize, by contrast, the conflicted positions out of which only a few of these new writers emerge. In the case of Esi Edugyan, this situation is complicated by the way in which her two novels to date—The Second Life of Samuel Tyne in 2004 and Half-Blood Blues in 2011—meditate on celebrity, greatness, giftedness and obscurity. Accordingly, my analysis will attend both to Edugyan’s experiences in the worlds of publishing, news media and prize culture and to her literary engagement with celebrity culture, for her novels open up spaces in which she may contemplate, even if indirectly, the complicated legacies of celebrity culture.
“I Carve My Stories Every Day”: An Interview with Richard Van Camp
Abstract: In this interview, the Dogrib author, storyteller, and educator from the Northwest Territories, Richard Van Camp, talks to a Belgian doctoral candidate, Sylvie Vranckx. The very first Dogrib author, Van Camp has been praised for bringing sophisticated new forms to contemporary Aboriginal, Arctic, and Canadian literatures. He talks extensively among other things about his comic book on sexual health, Kiss Me Deadly, and about his new collections of short stories, The Moon of Letting Go and the forthcoming Godless but Loyal to Heaven. By writing about the stories which break his heart, he highlights the impact of ongoing colonialism in the North, underlining the resilience of his characters and the complex moral issues surrounding evil and internalized violence in communities plagued by psychosocial despair. In striving to face “the hard issues” with words, he enlists the help of characters who walk into his life, such as his Dogrib Holden Caulfield Larry Sole and his “gladiators”: the philosophical thug Torchy and the ninja wannabe Bear. Van Camp compares his art to a process of carving which he practices every day, working on many different sculptures at the same time and polishing them with the help of tough editors. He stresses the ceremonial aspects of his narratives, by which he is “led into a field where anything could happen,” and reminds us that everybody’s words and actions carry good or bad medicine power. For him, stories can transform hardships and trauma into healing: they are “the best medicine” to teach, empower, and re-create.