Showing posts with label Bennett. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bennett. Show all posts

07 February 2022

The Incomplete Repent at Leisure


A follow-up to last month's post on Joan Walker's Repent at Leisure.

Repent at Leisure
Joan Walker
The Star Weekly, 5 October 1957

The Star Weekly would like the reader to know that Joan Walker's Repent at Leisure is an award-winning novel.


Do not be impressed by this. In its day, the Ryerson Fiction Award was second only to the Governor General's Award, but it had little impact, nor did it receive much notice. Unlike most literary prizes, it was presented before publication, as detailed here in this old Winnipeg Tribune piece (which I expect is a rewritten press release):

27 June 1944
"Spy, detection and crime stories are ineligible," yet other genres were just fine? Seems unfair, especially when one considers that a good number of its fourteen winners – Here Stays Good Yorkshire (1945) by Will R. Bird, Desired Heaven (1953) by Evelyn Richardson, Pine Roots (1956) and The King Tree (1958) by Gladys Taylor, and Short of the Glory (1960) by E.M. Granger Bennett – fall neatly into the historical fiction category. 

I can't quite wrap my head around Ryerson's publishing strategy. Why hand off the novel's debut to the Star Weekly?


Even more curious, Repent at Leisure wouldn't arrive in bookstores until the second half of December. Was the idea to take advantage of last minute Christmas shoppers?

Star Weekly readers who loved Repent at Leisure and longed for more of Veronica and Louis's troubled romance were in for a treat because the "STAR WEEKLY COMPLETE NOVEL" wasn't the complete novel. In fact, the Star Weekly Repent at Leisure isn't half as long as the Ryerson Fiction Award winner.

  

While I'm sure it's possible to publish a 94,000-word novel in fourteen tabloid-sized pages, I very much doubt it could be read with the naked eye. 

How was it done? Cut the first two chapters to start.

This Repent at Leisure begins shortly after Veronica's arrival in Canada. There's nothing of her relationship with her parents, their concerns over her hasty marriage, or the descriptions of post-war air travel that this reader found so interesting. It opens instead with our heroine sitting, waiting her turn to meet with a customs officer.

Other cuts aren't as glaring, but they are obvious. I had some fun in comparing the two versions. This is the Ryerson version with the words cut in the Star Weekly struck out:

I like this scene because the Westmount Nash family come off as snobs of the highest order, which I'm certain wasn't the author's intent. They also seem so very English -– more so than the immigrant who has just arrived from London. Gone is the awkward and unnatural dialogue about the "Indian village Cartier found in fifteen-something on his first trip up the St. Lawrence;" which shouldn't have made it past Ryeson's editor.

The most interesting thing in comparing the two came in the discovery of additions made to the condensed version. Alan smokes whilst poring over the map in the Star Weekly edition. Margaret suggests that he's found only one Giroux Street because his map isn't up-to-date. Jane hands Veronica a cup of tea and a pink linen napkin. 

All minor changes, but mysterious given that the task at hand. And who did that task? Was it the author herself? The copyright notice suggests as much.

Might it be that the added bits are things the editor at Ryerson cut?

All this begs the question: Whatever happened to Joan Walker's papers?



16 May 2016

But Why Would You Want Him To?: The Very Strange Story of a Delusional Abandoned Wife



He Will Return
Helen Dickson Reynolds
Toronto: Ryerson, 1959

Newly-minted art school graduate Constance Manning faces the challenge of making a living as a portrait painter in Depression-era Vancouver, as detailed on the second page of this, Helen Dickson Reynolds' twenty-third novel:
"You know, Ivor, this pretty little girl has just been given a diploma by the Vancouver Art School. I'm afraid you're going to find this city a poor market for pictures, Connie, and this Depression doesn't help."
     "Don't be such a crape hanger [sic], John," his wife reproved. "Our new Art Gallery will give young artists a place to exhibit and sell their paintings."
     "Oh sure,"the doctor agreed amiably. "We're a young city, you know, Ivor. It's only forty-six years since this town was completely wiped out by fire."
     "Great Scott! It's inconceivable. The houses and gardens look so well established."
Pay no attention to crape hanger John and wife – this is their only scene – focus instead on Ivor. He of the title, Ivor Owen-Jones is a thin young Welshman with "jet -black hair brushed back from a good forehead, a well-shaped nose and sensitive, mobile mouth." This is the moment of their meeting... by which I mean the meeting of Constance and Ivor, not nose and mobile mouth.


In the months that follow they play tennis in Stanley Park, swim at Second Beach, visit the Pauline Johnson Memorial and take in cricket matches at Brockton Point. One afternoon by rustic Lumberman's Arch Ivor says something about maybe one day visiting Wales together. For a reason I cannot fathom, Constance interprets this a marriage proposal. Ivor seems equally dumfounded, but goes with the flow just the same. In the second chapter the young couple marry and move into a small bungalow in North Vancouver.

Life isn't easy for the Owen-Joneses – this is the Depression, you'll remember. Ivor has an indescript office job with a firm called Western Imports, while Constance gives art lessons and receives the occasional commission to do a child's portrait. Things would be a whole lot easier if only the groom would make use of his God-given talents. Ivor has a voice like Devonshire cream and an extensive repertory of traditional Welsh songs. Fussy Shaughnessey matrons look to hire him to perform at their soirées – "a refreshing change from the usual ballads and arias" – but Ivor takes offence in not being permitted to mingle with the guests. "Honestly, it was like the Middle Ages, when musicians ranked with scullions," he tells his bride.

The pair live frugally, affording poor Constance precious few opportunities to don her trousseau dresses. Things go from bad to worse when Ivor is fired on the very day Constance announces that she is pregnant. Her father gets him another job, but the firm goes bust just after the baby is born. Constance becomes pregnant again, and Ivor struggles to make ends meet as a door-to-door washing machine salesman. Must've been hell on the back. When the couple fall behind on their bills, losing their electricity, Ivor decides to apply for public relief:
He stared at the window curtained with raindrops. "I'll wait till the mail comes. I've made applications to firms with box numbers... there may be something. Anyway, it's a filthy day."
     The postman came with letters held under his glistening raincoat. He shoved one legal-looking envelope through the slot in the door. Ivor snatched it up.
     "It's from a legal firm in Wales." His fingers shook as he tore the stiff paper of the envelope. "My God, it's a will... Great-aunt Gladys has died... and left me a thousand pounds. I can't believe it."
I could believe it. I'd been waiting for Great-aunt Gladys to kick off ever since Constance had sent the old girl sketches of her babies.

Ivor races to the bank, leaving Constance in the dark with pencil stub and paper figuring out just how to make the inheritance stretch. He returns holding the deed to a farm outside Nelson. "I bought it at a tremendous bargain because the owner, quite an old man, has died recently, and the heirs want to wind up the estate."

Oh, dear.

The farm isn't quite as described. The Owen-Joneses manage to stave off poverty just long enough for Constance to give birth to a third child. When Great-aunt Gladys's money runs out, Ivor runs off, leaving behind a note promising that he'll return once he's found work. Constance carries on for several seasons, all the while expecting Ivor to walk through the door at any minute. If only he'd write. She eventually sells the farm, moves with her children back to Vancouver, and secures a position as an public school art teacher.

"The war years passed..." Yes, they did – and still no word from Ivor. Constance, cautious, manages to clothe and feed and her three children. No occasions now to dip into her trousseau. Straight-laced next-door neighbour Stephen Cochrane expresses interest, but is shot down: "Stephen, I am sorry, but I firmly believe that Ivor is alive and that in the course of time he will come back to me."

It was at this point I began to think Constance had become unhinged. After all, it had been more than eight years since Ivor had gone off in search of a job and he hadn't so much as sent a letter. In the fact of this, Constance's love and faith remain constant; she looks forward to the day he too will laugh at their children's antics.

Where once time crawled, then passed, it now flies. "Life went on fairly quietly until David's twenty-first birthday," begins the twenty-first chapter. What happens is this: David, her eldest, announces that he is going to marry a mousy pianist named Mona. The news brings on a dizzy spell. A few weeks later, daughter Faith earns a scholarship to study ballet in far off New York City. Another dizzy spell. Constance, who had demonstrated such fortitude in raising three young children, alone, is suddenly frail. When number two son Robert gets a job as pilot up north, Constance suddenly faces long evenings alone in a house that "echoes with emptiness." She fills her leisure time with visits to her elderly parents and taking shut-ins for drives. One particularly lonely night she decides to go to the cinema. There Constance takes in a bland feature, followed by a cartoon, followed by a travelogue in which she spots Ivor walking in Trafalgar Square.

You caught that, right? Ivor walking in Trafalgar  Square? I nearly missed it myself because I'd pretty much given up on his return. After all, he disappeared in the first half of the novel and hadn't been heard from since. Oh, there were times I thought he might turn up, like in the odd, overly-detailed description of  the VJ-Day crowd in chapter 18, but with just nine pages to go his reappearance was a real surprise.

On the next page, Constance manages to get a letter to her husband:


Come back and take care of me? When did Ivor ever take care of you, Constance? You were better off without him. That Welshman is a leach. The good folks at Western Imports will attest that he has absolutely no work ethic. Besides, what kind of husband buys a farm – sight unseen – without consulting his wife? For that matter, what kind of idiot buys a farm when he knows nothing about farming. For goodness sake, what kind of father refuses to sing for his baby's supper?

Ivor does indeed return. Before he does, "happy as a young bride," Constance shops for his favourite foods, a new tie and new socks. She picks him up at the airport. They embrace. All is forgiven. The next day they go off on what Constance describes as their "second honeymoon."

The ending is so very sudden and so very strange that I began to wonder whether it was all in Constance's head. Could it be that the omniscient narrator isn't? Might it be that this story is told by Constance herself? Is it all an abandoned wife's fantasy?

Nothing so interesting, I'm afraid. The sad truth is that He Will Return is just a very bad novel.

He will return? Sure, but only if you pay his way.

Note: Did not win the Ryerson Fiction Award.

Object: A 256-page novel in unattractive brown boards. The dust jacket illustration is by art school graduate Jon Nielsen. The back of the jacket takes the form of an advertisement for recent Ryerson titles by Will Bird, Ada Pierce Chambers, E.M. Granger Bennett, Gaie Taylor and Myron David Orr. Reynolds' previous novel, McBain's Brier Rose (1957), leads the list.

Access: Though the author's most common book, He Will Return is found in just fourteen of our university libraries. Library and Archives Canada doesn't have it, but the Calgary Public Library does.

The Canadian edition enjoyed one lone printing. The novel was published in the United States by Thomas Bouregy. Copies listed for sale online run between US$10 and US$30. I found mine six years ago at a London Goodwill. Price: $2.99.


Related post:

24 November 2014

The Dreams That Things Are Made Of



Farewell My Dreams [La fin des songes]
Robert Élie [trans. Irene Coffin]
Toronto: Ryerson, 1954 

Farewell My Dreams isn't a title I would've used; "The End of Dreams", the most literal translation, works just fine. No wispy romance, this debut novel is one of the most depressing and rewarding books I've read this year – and there are just thirty-seven more days to go.

Friends in youth, Marcel Larocque and Bernard Guerin enter middle-age connected only through respective marriages to sisters Jeanne and Nicole. No one is happy. Pudgy Marcel, a Montreal journalist, stares too long at his wife's youngest sister and dreams of past infatuations. Privileged Bernard, a lazy lawyer, wanders aimlessly, half-hoping that something will interest. When offered a seat in Quebec City, he goes through the motions, but stops in his tracks at the sign of the first obstacle. Meanwhile, the wives suffer.

Though the plot suggests otherwise, this is much more than a novel of mid-life crises. Démon de midi takes on new meaning as Marcel's mental illness, so very subtle in the early pages, comes to dominate his actions.

Six decades after first publication, La fin des songes remains in print; not so the English-language translation. I doubt this has anything to do with Irene Coffin, though her work is clumsy and talents ill-suited. The language is stilted, her dialogue peppered with words like "shall" and "forsooth".

Yes, forsooth.

Beaver Hall Hill is "Cote Beaver Hall" and Montreal's great commercial street appears variously as "Ste.-Catherine" and "Sainte-Catherine". The biggest gaff of all comes when the translator has Bernard announce that he is looking to be elected federally.

My advice? Read it in the original if you can. Read the translation if you can't. Either way, you'll be both depressed and rewarded.

A coincidence: Remember Douglas Sanderson's The Deadly Dames? Sure you do. That's the thriller in which a woman is killed by a streetcar rounding Peel and Ste-Catherine. Well, the very same corner features in La fin des songes:
He stopped a taxi which took him to the corner of Peel and Ste.-Catherine. The street-cars were making an infernal din and the crowd, as dense as at noon, flowed slowly. He landed in a tavern where smoke and bad lighting gave the beer drinkers a phantom-like appearance. It suited his mood well, but Bernard began to laugh. "I surely am not going to live in the atmosphere of detective stories."  
The critics rave: La fin des songes received the Prix David and has been described as the great novel of la Grande Noiceur. Reception of the English-language edition was enthusiastic – the exception being a critic I know only as "A.G.P.". Here he is in the 4 March 1955 edition of the Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph:
When the psychologically sound people must face a reality that continues to be fairly rugged and seek escape through the medium of fiction, to depress them with neurotic maunderings is to substitute a stone for nourishing bread.
The critic later provides these words of advice:
There is an abundance of material in French Canada for more cheerful and more constructive themes. Judged by the standards of Mr. Elie's [sic] literary school these may be less dramatic but, so far as I have been able to feel their collective pulse, the contemporary reading public, by a large majority, want to be amused and to laugh. At the very least, it would be interesting for him to provide this sort of escape by way of change of pace, if nothing more.
A.G.P. makes the mistake of identifying Bernard as "Bertrand". Pay him no mind.

Object: An attractive 213-page hardcover bound in pale blue cloth with burgundy print, my copy belonged to my father. The dust jacket sells other Ryerson novels by Ada Pierce Chambers, Will R. Bird, Gaie Taylor and E.M. Granger Bennett. I'm a proud owner of the Bird title – bought for a buck last year in London.

(Cliquez pour agrandir)
Access: John Glassco once stole a copy of the first edition from the Royal Edward Laurentian Hospital; you'll find it with most of his other books at Queen's University. A total of twenty-three Canadian libraries have copies of the Coffin translation.

Though uncommon. decent copies of the Ryerson edition begin at under ten dollars. One copy – and only one copy – of the American edition, published in 1955 by New York's short-lived Bouregy & Curl, is on offer for US$14,


La fin des songs is currently available from Bibliothèque Québécoise, For some reason, I prefer Fides' earlier  Bibliothèque Canadienne-Français edition, even though the building on the cover does not appear in the novel. I purchased mine through the mail from a Montreal bookseller who claimed it was signed by Élie.

It wasn't… and the condition was much worse than described.

07 January 2013

Anyone Care about the Ryerson Fiction Award?



It's not found in The Canadian Encyclopedia, The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature or W.H. New's Companion to Canadian Literature; the three-volume History of the Book in Canada limits mention to a single sentence; misnamed the "Ryerson Fiction Prize", fleeting reference is made in The Cambridge History of Canadian Literature – yet in mid-20th-century Canada the Ryerson Fiction Award was second only to the Governor General's Award. Authors were encouraged to submit manuscripts to Ryerson, which in turn would publish the winning work.

The Cambridge error is understandable. The award-winning titles I've seen invariably feature a page listing past recipients, similar to the one above from Evelyn M. Richardson's Desired Haven. Each repeats this bit of awkwardness:
THE RYERSON FICTION AWARD
The All-Canada Prize Novels
Most dust jackets add to the confusion in trumpeting "The All-Canada Fiction Award".

The Ryerson Fiction Award... The All-Canada Prize... The All-Canada Fiction Award... Whatever the name, it seems clear that by "fiction" Ryerson meant "novel." As for "All-Canada"? Well, our French-language novelists need not submit.

First presented in 1942, the award moved in fits and starts. There was no recipient in its second year... or its third... no award in 1946, 1948, 1951, 1952 or 1955 either. Some years saw the honour go to two titles. It was last presented in 1960.

Does anyone care about the Ryerson Fiction Award? Did anyone care about the Ryerson Fiction Award? I imagine the winners were delighted, but I see no evidence that it made much of an impression on the public. Only one title, Will R. Bird's Here Lies Good Yorkshire, enjoyed a second printing, and only five have ever appeared in paperback. The academics don't appear to have been much impressed. Writing in Queen's Quarterly, Desmond W. Cole concluded his review of 1958 winner Gladys Taylor's The King Tree:
If this is the "All-Canada Fiction Award" as the dust cover asserts, it has been a slim year for the novel, or at least for the publisher who has the presumption to imply that this is the best work of fiction published in Canada in the past year.
Edward McCourt's Music at the Close is the only title to have been included in the New Canadian Library. Tellingly, I think, the author used the opportunity to revise the text. NCL has since dropped the novel.


All I've seen of the first winner, G. Herbert Sallans' Little Man, is the little jpeg above. A shame. Going by bookseller Stephen Temple's description, Little Man is the Ryerson Fiction Award-winner I'd most like to read:
A novel covering four decades of Canadian life, set in Canada, France and Britain. "The author is merciless in his handling of shoddy Top Hats, fake Utopia Builders, spurious Abundant Lifers and Crack Pots of all sorts." – jacket.
"I remember when this was a very common book that no one wanted," continues Mr Temple. "It is surprisingly scarce, and saleable, in the market today. But it ain't no four figure book, not even close."

That last sentence appears to be a dig at an Oregon bookseller who demands an even US$1000 for a jacket-less copy in Fair condition. Mr Temple's, a Very Good copy in Good dust jacket, is being offered for US$85. My birthday is in August.

The thirteen other Ryerson Fiction Award-winners follow.

I've read one.

You?

Here Stays Good Yorkshire
Will R. Bird
1945
Day of Wrath
Philip Child
1945
Music at the Close
Edward McCourt
1947

Judgement Glen
Will R. Bird
1947

Mr. Ames Against Time
Philip Child
1949
Blaze of Noon
Jeann Beattie
1950
Desired Haven
Evelyn M. Richardson
1953
Immortal Rock
Laura Goodman Salverson
1954

Pine Roots
Gladys Taylor
1956
Repent at Leisure
Joan Walker
1957
The King Tree
Gladys Taylor
1958

Prairie Harvest
Arthur G. Storey
1959

Short of the Glory
E.M. Granger Bennett
1960