Showing posts with label Beattie (Steven W.). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beattie (Steven W.). Show all posts

18 July 2022

What Is a Canadian Fiction?


Several months ago, The Dorchester Review asked me to review David Staines' A History of Canadian Fiction.

Who am I to turn down an invitation.

Professor Staines' book was read at great sacrifice. Going through its 304 pages I ignored Stephen Henighan, a favourite critic, who shared his opinion of A History of Canadian Fiction in the pages of the Times Literary Supplement. A blind eye was turned to Stephen W. Beattie, another favourite, who reviewed the book for the Quill & Quire.

After submitting my review I read the two Stephens, sat back, and watched for more. I was more than rewarded with John Metcalf's newly published The Worst Truth: Regarding A History of Canadian Fiction by David Staines (Windsor: Biblioasis, 2022).

The Worst Truth quotes Henighan's TLS review, in which he makes this criticism of Staines:
He provides a useful introduction to Inuit literary culture, paying the 39,000 native speakers of Inuktituk an attention he denies to Canada's 7.3 million native speakers of French.
Well, the Spring/Summer Dorchester Review has now landed, bringing with it my review of Professor Staines' history, some of which adds to Henighan's observation:

How is it that a book titled A History of Canadian Fiction would exclude work written in French? Remarkably, Staines does not address this issue. In fact, he doesn’t so much as recognize the existence of Canadian fiction written in French. Of the hundreds of writers of fiction named in this book, we find two French names: Roger Lemelin and Gabrielle Roy. They first feature in a short list of “important people” who were once interviewed by Mavis Gallant and reappear as in another list of writers whose fiction Mordecai Richler had read. Roy’s name is in a third list, this of writers with whom Sandra Birdsell corresponded. 
     And that’s it. 
     The only mention of a work written in French appears in a nine-page "Chronology of historical, cultural, and literary events" that precedes the text itself. Next to the year 1632, we find: “Jesuit Relations, an annual, begins and continues until 1673.” But of course, they weren’t the “Jesuit Relations,” they were the Relations des jésuites.

More in The Dorchester Review.

And I have even more to say.

Invitations accepted.

29 January 2020

Published in the Age of Unravelling



Can it be? Not four weeks into the New Year and already a new Canadian Notes & Queries? A theme issue – "Writing in the Age of Unravelling" – it makes for some uncomfortable reading. Catherine Bush contributes an essay on representations of the climate crisis in fiction. Jacky Sawatzky writes on her memorial to the endangered giraffe. Jennifer Ilse Black and Waubgeshig Rice are interviewed. Andrew Forbes presents a cli-fi primer.


Credit goes to Guest Editors Patricia Robertson and Sharon English.

The issue's Dusty Bookcase concerns Hotter Than Hell, the 1974 Kiss album produced by Kenny Kenner and Richie Wise.

I jest. It's about the 2005 dystopian novel of the same title.


Political animals will remember Hotter Than Hell as the small press book the newly-elected Harper Conservatives made famous by silencing its author, government scientist Mark Tushington.

What intrigued me is that for all the coverage – The Globe & MailThe New York Times, The Scientist, et al – no one appeared to have taken the time to read the damn thing.

Well, I've read it. And now you don't have to.

Here's a typical passage:
The Eighteenth Guard (Pennsylvania) and Eighth Guard (New York) divisions, supported by the 1st Marine and 57th Urban brigades were attacking, The First Guard Division was being badly defeated in every sector. The 28th and 29th regiments were quickly pushed out of Abany and up the length of the Mohawk Valley. It was only then that we retreated into Utica that my forces could hold. Because of the inactivity of the IV Corps, I took a supreme gamble and withdrew elements of the 6th Armored Brigade from covering Montreal.
You're welcome.

Other contributors include:
Madhur Anand
Peter Anson
Nicholas Bradley
Yuan Changming
Stephen Fowler
Lise Gaston
Roger Greenwald
Mahak Jain
Joanna Lilley
JF Martel
David Mason
Catherine Owen
Seth
Roz Spafford
Erika Thorkelson
RM Vaughan
Mary Lou Zeitown
The issue also features the annual Book Review supplement.


Thirty-two pages of goodness, provided by:
Michel Basilières
Steven W. Beattie
Jeff Bursey
Andreae Callahan
Laura Cameron
Paige Cooper
Trevor Corkum
André Forget
Monique Giroux
James Granger
Brett Josef Grubisic
Katia Grubisic
Stephen Henighan
Dancy Mason
Rohan Maitzen
Rod Moody-Corbet
Rudrapriya Rathore
Patricia Robertson
Matthew D. Rodrigues
Mark Sampson
Jonathan Valelly
Derek Webster
Bruce Whiteman
Apparently, there's a sequel to Hotter Than Hell.

I'll leave it to others to explore.

Related post:

17 January 2019

A Novel Every Bit as Good as Its Title



The Fiftieth Anniversary Issue of Canadian Notes & Queries arrived in my mailbox this week. I should've received it last month. I blame Deepak Chopra – not the Ageless Body Timeless Mind Deepak Chopra, this one.

Being the Fiftieth Anniversary Issue, much of the focus is on books from 1968:
Les Manuscrits de Pauline Archange - Marie-Claire Blais
Sarah Bastard's Notebook - Marian Engel
I Am Mary Dunne - Brian Moore
The Shattered Plinths - Irving Layton
John Metcalf writes on the short story "Images" from Dance of the Happy Shades, Alice Munro's debut. Not to be outdone, I chose to review A Lover More Condoling, the first novel by then-Take 30 co-host Adrienne Clarkson. Despite her fame, it enjoyed one lone printing, and never appeared in paperback. As I note in my review, the novel isn't so much as mentioned in Heart Matters, Clarkson's 2006 memoir.


Might A Lover More Condoling be a forgotten treasure? Not wanting to spoil things, I'll say only that it has the most memorable sex scene I've read since Donna Steinberg's I Lost it All in Montreal.

Other contributors include:
Randy Boyagoda
Andreae Callanan
Scott Chantler
Paige Cooper
Trevor Corkum
Kayla Czaga
Rachel Décoste
Daniel Donaldson
Antony Easton
Jesse Eckerlin
André Forget
Stephen Fowler
Alex Good
James Grainger
Benjamin Hertwig
Doyali Islam
Tasneem Jamal
Anita Lehey
Sibyl Lamb
Tracey Lindberg
Rabindranath Maharaj
Rohan Maitzen
David Mason
Patricia Robertson
Mary H. Aurbach Rykov
Seth
JC Sutcliffe
Vit Wagner
Bruce Whiteman
Martha Wilson
The fifty-first year sees CNQ striking out in a new direction. "We decided a radical expansion of our reviewer estate was necessary given ever-shrinking critical space the nation's newspapers, online journals, and periodicals," writes editor Emily Donaldson.


And so, we have the very first CNQ book review supplement, with contributions by:
Michael Barrett
Michel Basilières
Stephen Beattie
Jeremiah Bertram
Jeff Bursey
Kerry Clare
Allison Gillmor
Monique Giroux
Alex Good
Brett Joseph Grubisic
Stephen Henighan
Amanda Jernigan
Tess Liem
Domenica Martinello
Dilia Narduzzi
Ruprapriya Rathmore
Mark Sampson
Sarah Tolmie
Jonathan Valelly
Derek Webster
Jared Young
If you haven't already, now seems just the time to become a subscriber... easily done through this link.

The Canada Post carrier who delivered this magazine to our rural mailbox chose not to fold it.

She is not paid enough.

Related posts:

13 October 2017

Talking Ricochet in Quill & Quire



Steven W. Beattie's piece on Ricochet in the brand new Quill & Quire is available free online. Some guy named Busby is interviewed. You can read it here.

Busby will be speaking at Bouchercon tomorrow at 5:00 pm.


10 December 2013

Bilious, Bitchy and Bedevilled by Spite? Not at All.



Just in time for Christmas, the new Canadian Notes & Queries is here. Seth provides the cover, along with a short tribute to the Maclean's illustrated cover. The magazine switched to photographs before I came along, but old issues lingered in our home. The 10 January 1952 cover by Oscar Cahén was a favourite. I think of it each dying year as winter moves in.


Here I am getting all nostalgic.

John Metcalf, not Maclean's, is the focus of this CNQ. Contributors include Caroline Adderson, Mike Barnes, Clarke Blaise, Michael Darling, Alex Good, Jeet Heer, Kim Jernigan, David Mason and Dan Wells. Cartoonist David Collier gives us a two-page adaptation of Going Down Slow. Roy MacSkimming, Christopher Moore and Nick Mount have interviews with the man, while I praise Metcalf's invigorating, irreverent Bumper Books.


But wait, there's more: a new short story from Kathy Page, four poems by Jim Johnston, along with reviews from Steven W. Beattie, Kerry Clare, Emily Donaldson and Bruce Whiteman.


I think all contributors will forgive and understand that my favourite thing about the issue is the collectable. A numbered, limited edition chapbook containing a new John Metcalf story, it's available only to subscribers.

And subscriptions are only $20.

And they make a great Christmas gift.

Here's how to order.

A bonus:

(cliquez pour agrandir)
The back cover of Carry On Bumping (Toronto: ECW, 1988).

Now, that's how you sell a book.