14 November 2010

Heed Ye the Church Ladies!



Fifty-five years ago today, 14 November 1955, the Catholic Women's League launched its "Decency Crusade", descending on Ontario newsstands, drug stores and bookshops in order to end the sale of "corrupted and salacious" material. Theirs was an imported campaign, one that originated with Chicago's Msgr Thomas J. Fitzgerald, Executive Director of the National Organization of Decent Literature, who provided the ladies with a list of 300 objectionable publications.

What titles did they target? To Have and Have Not was one; John O'Hara's Ten North Frederick was another. Works by William Faulkner, John Dos Passos and George Orwell were also deemed indecent. Which ones? Who knows – the League clutched the list to its collective bosom, making certain that the titles remained secret.

Must say, I find the number of publications on their list – an even 300 – to be a bit suspicious. Why not 317? Where some titles bumped to make room for others?

Chair of the League's Education Committee, Mrs George Davis, revealed what she'd been told about the list in a 29 October 1955 Gazette article:



What I find particularly delightful is the image of the robed monsignor – who was also Director of the Council for Catholic Women – watching over a group of ladies ("each of whom must be a mother") as they scanned books in a hunt for salacious material.

It would seem that the Catholic Women's League's efforts weren't appreciated particularly. Their "Decency Crusade" was dubbed "Censorship Crusade" by the press, and it was pointed out that many of the books targeted had not only been "widely read", but were readily available in the local public library. In reaction perhaps, the League revealed the Crusade's new, true purpose. The Canadian Press reported that on the third day women heading out to scour book racks "were told that Communism has a hand in the need for their mission."

The Windsor Daily Star, 17 November 1955

Mrs Davis, who had made no previous mention of the Red Menace, spoke out: "We feel strongly that part of the Communist program is to undermine the thinking of our youth with this low-type literature so that they will become more susceptible to Communist material." The Education Committee Chair added that "exposing a generation of children to this printed smut does not broaden the freedom of our land. It only brings the citizens a step closer to Communism."

It's easy to laugh at the Decency Crusade today – and I do – but it should be pointed out that the League's sway was once significant. This was particularly true in Quebec, where they dictated what sort of bathing suits women could wear.


The Catholic Women's League's Decency Crusade lasted eight days. I imagine they rested on the Sunday.

11 November 2010

09 November 2010

Acknowledging Hugh MacLennan



Hugh MacLennan died twenty years ago today. I never met the man, though I did once nod reverently as we passed each other in an otherwise deserted university hallway. He smiled. I should have stopped. I've since learned not to let such opportunities slip by.


Another regret: I've never seen the screen adaptation of MacLennan's Two Solitudes. When offered the opportunity I chose Superman: The Movie. Christopher Reeve as the Man of Steel beat Stacy Keach's Huntly McQueen. This happened back in 1978 when I was still a young pup – shouldn't I be given a second chance? As far as I can tell, Two Solitudes never made it to Beta or VHS or LaserDisc or DVD. YouTube doesn't have so much as the trailer.


Is it any good? All I have to go on is the poster, a publicity photo, Macmillan's movie edition and a handful of contemporary reviews. It seems no one was particularly crazy about the film... "letdown" is the most accurate one-word summation, though Jay Scott provided a particularly detailed and damning review for the 30 September 1978 Globe and Mail:
Stylistically, Two Solitudes is pure Hollywood, Old Hollywood. It is not enough that we make exploitation films for the Americans: now we are copying their ponderous historical dramatizations, employing composer Maurice Jarre, the once-favored treacly symphonizer of those lumpen ethics. It is a characteristically Canadian irony that the dramatizations being Xeroxed no longer exist in their original form. Two Solitudes does not resemble any contemporary American film of quality as much as it resembles made-for-TV novels like Washington: Behind Closed Doors and Rich Man, Poor Man; it's a passionless political soap opera.
A few months later, Scott named Two Solitudes as one of ten worst films of 1978, while pointing to Superman was one the ten best.

Wonder if I'd agree.

05 November 2010

Susanna Moodie's Bloomers



A gift from a friend, this modest booklet became part of my collection just weeks after I was introduced to the bloomer by the ever-informative Bookride. Known first, I think, as "inadvertencies", these are double entendres mined from the Western Canon. The woefully neglected Edward Gathorne-Hardy seems to have been the first to recognize the bloomer when in 1963 he published Inadvertencies collected from the works of several eminent authors. He followed this three years later with An Adult's Garden of Bloomers: Uprooted from the Works of Several Eminent Authors.

And they are eminent. Here's Henry James with a little something from The Wings of the Dove:
Then she had had her equal consciousness that within five minutes something between them had – well, she couldn't call it anything but come.
James, it seems, gave growth to more than his fair share of bloomers. How's this from Roderick Hudson?
"Oh, I can't explain," cried Roderick impatiently, returning to his work. "I've only one way of expressing my deepest feelings – it's this." And he swung his tool.
"Contributed by the public", like An Adult Garden of Bloomers, A New Garden of Bloomers is oh so English: Charles Dickens, E. M. Forster, Thomas Hardy...

And then there's Jane Austen:
Mrs Goddard was the mistress of a school – not of a seminary, or an establishment, or any thing which professed, in long sentences of refined nonsense, to combine liberal acquirements with elegant morality upon new principles and new systems – and where young ladies for enormous pay might be screwed out of health and into vanity...
No Canadian bloomers, alas – and yet our soil is so fertile!



I had bloomers on my dirty mind when rereading – yes, rereading – Susanna Moodie's Roughing It in the Bush. And that's when I came across this:
At a few miles' distance from our farm, we had some intelligent English neighbours, of a higher class; but they were always so busily occupied with their farming operations that they had little leisure or inclination for that sort of easy intercourse to which we had been accustomed.
Too subtle? Well, it is a start. I'm sure that there are more colourful Canadian bloomers out there.

And what about Roughing It in the Bush? Can a title be a bloomer? Gathorne-Hardy never addresses the matter.

"How many fine young men have I seen beggared and ruined in the bush!" Moodie exclaims in her follow-up, Life in the Clearing. The same book features this reportage of her encounter with a group of evengelicals:
Most of these tents exhibited some extraordinary scene of fanaticism and religious enthusiasm; the noise and confusion were deafening. Men were preaching at the very top of their voice; women were shrieking and groaning, beating their breasts and tearing their hair, while others were uttering the most frantic outcries, which they called ejaculatory prayers.
Not really a bloomer, but I couldn't resist passing it on.

Really, there's a part of me that is still ten years old.

01 November 2010

Another Wreath for a Redhead



Wreath for a Redhead
Brian Moore
Toronto: Harlequin, 1951


Lady – Here's Your Wreath
Raymond Marshall (pseud. James Hadley Chase)
Toronto: Harlequin, 1953

29 October 2010

Limited Time, Limited Editions (6/6)

General Ludd
John Metcalf
Downsview, Ontario: ECW, 1980

Bought nearly a quarter century ago, it turns out that this, not No Man's Meat, was the first signed and numbered edition in my collection. That General Ludd was overlooked is understandable, I think; there's no real indication that this book is in any way unusual. What we have here is John Metcalf's signature, with a number in the upper right hand corner. This latter feature caused considerable confusion when it was purchased. No, not the price, but the number: 45 of 100 copies. Or was it 50 copies?

As I say, nearly a quarter century ago.

At the time I was a student at Concordia, the model for the novel's St. Xavier University. I'd been on a tear through Metcalf's writing after having being introduced to it by Harry Hill. Goodness, I miss Harry. A wonderful teacher, he features briefly – too briefly – in Metcalf's Shut Up He Explained (Biblioasis, 2007); all to do with "cottaging":
I'd heard the word used by the late Harry Hill, actor and raconteur, in one of his scabrous anecdotes involving a power failure in the lavatory of the Montreal Voyageur Bus terminal at Berri-de Montigny and the loss of his partial plate.
The binding of this General Ludd is by The Porcupine's Quill. I'm a great fan of the press – it has produced some of the finest and finest looking small press books this country has seen – but this design seems deathly dull; quite the opposite of the novel itself.


A quarter century ago.

That confusion at the cash took place in the Double Hook. Also gone.


The ladies of the Double Hook were wonderful booksellers, unlike these folks:


Not the limited edition, mind you, but the paperback. It's a new, unread book that is typical of used books and just might have some notes or highlighting. Oh, it might also be an ex-library book. Still, you'll be surprised. Just remember, it's a new, unread, used book.

This can be yours for only US$102.76 (shipping included!).

25 October 2010

Limited Time, Limited Editions (5/6)


Collected Poetry
Louis Dudek
Montreal: Delta Canada, 1971

"This first edition of 3,000 copies, printed by W. & G. Baird Ltd., established in Belfast since 1861, was printed in Northern Ireland. The test is set in 11/12 Baskerville, with section headings in 12 pt. Albertus. Printed on Clan Bulkrite. Cover and book design by Glen Siebrasse. Of this edition, 100 numbered copies are signed by the author."

The most attractive of all Delta Canada's books, I think, though this image hardly does it justice. My photographical limitations aside, the problem is that embossed title on the front cover. No ink, just glossy white paper. Commercial suicide? Not necessarily – consider the original pressings of The White Album.

Delta Canada co-founder Michael Gnarowski tells me that Dudek was less than keen, likening the shiny white book to a refrigerator. Siebrasse, on the other hand, was justifiably proud of the design.


The title design used on the jacket and boards is more easily made out on the title page.


Three thousand printed – seems such a high number in today's sorry market. You'll find only fifteen copies listed for sale online, none of which are numbered and signed. I bought mine for $75 back in 1994.

21 October 2010

This Just In...



... and arriving in bookstores: The Crime on Cote De Neiges by David Montrose. First published by Collins White Circle in 1951, it wasn't the first Montreal pulp noir (that would be Ted Allan's 1949 Love is a Long Shot) or the most famous (Brian Moore's Wreath for a Redhead), but it is better than both novels.

Chandleresque, says a friend.

The first book in the new Véhicule Press Ricochet Books series, I was honoured to have been asked to write the Foreword. Back then – August – you couldn't buy a copy of this 59-year-old pulp. A few have since turned up. All from the same Winnipeg vendor, they go for US$33 to US$59. "EXTREMELY RARE Number in the Canadian Collins WHITE CIRCLE Series; VERY RARE Title by this Author," he says. I agree, adding: EXTREMELY FRAGILE. By all means, purchase the first (while you can), but give a thought to Véhicule's C$12, acid-free edition.

Besides, it has that Foreword.

18 October 2010

Limited Time, Limited Editions (4/6)



As for Me and My House
Sinclair Ross
Saskatoon: Fifth House, 1994

"This is an edition of 250 signed and numbered copies, of which the first 25 copies have been presented to the author."

The rise of As for Me and My House from forgotten to canonical is as curious as it is controversial. First published in 1941 by New York's Reynal & Hitchcock, the novel was all but ignored by critics and book-buyers, yet there it was sixteen years later as title #4 in the fledgling New Canadian Library. The novel has been a part of the series ever since; "a landmark work... essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand the scope and power of the Canadian novel," says current cover copy. I won't disagree, but do wonder as to its place. How is it possible that sixteen years after publication, fourteen years after the author's death, Fifth House has yet to run through the 225 copies for sale? Evidence of a disconnect between the academic's canon and the public's classic, or just another sad reflection of the deflated market for things CanLit?

A bit of both, I think.


Ross was eighty-six and suffering from Parkinson's when he signed the sheets used in this limited edition. Copies can be purchased directly from the publisher.



Addendum: In her Twayne study of Ross, Lorraine McMullen tells us that just a few copies of the 1941 Reynal & Hitchcock edition were imported into Canada. One ended up in Bayfield Public Library, was discarded and, finally, rescued from a leaky, mice-infested barn by yours truly. The "Date Due" slip indicates that it was only once ever checked out of the library.

16 October 2010

The Talented Mr. Orenstein



Something for Saturday. Over at Fly-by-night, dedicated researcher Bowdler uncovers two illustrations by the late director Leo Orenstein, author of The Queers of New York. Good fun!