Showing posts with label Lambert (Shaena). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lambert (Shaena). Show all posts

30 January 2021

Erring on The Terror of the Tar Sands



A 1968 children's book, one of the most obscure novels I've read since beginning the Dusty Bookcase, The Terror of the Tar Sands came under fire at the 2012 International Symposium on the History of the Oil and Gas Industry.

I was not invited.

The criticism originated with oil historian Joyce Hunt, who took issue with the use of "tar sands" in its title:
Contemporary rhetoric creates fear in the minds of those unfamiliar with today’s vital energy industry as it puts on hold construction jobs and the economic hopes of thousands. The media and those opposing oil sands development constantly refer to Alberta’s oil sands as tar sands, a technically incorrect term.
Does that not seem a bit unfair? After all, "oil sands" is also technically incorrect. And let's not forget that "tar sands" was used for decades by the industry itself. Still is:


Hell, I grew up with ads for the tar sands, like his one, which featured in the 31 October 1977 issue of Maclean's:

cliquez pour agrandir

(Am I alone in thinking that a sitting MLA shouldn't be on Syncrude's payroll, never mind serve on its Management Committee?)

I'm not a fan of The Terror of the Tar Sands either, but my criticism has nothing to do with the title. You can read all about it in the new issue of Canadian Notes & Queries. My copy arrived today. You're a subscriber, right? If not, here's some of what you're missing, beginning with this cover by Seth:


Dan Wells' Publisher's Note introduces a new series, Shelf Talkers, bringing together recommendations from independent booksellers (among them, my old friend Ben McNally).


Rod Moody-Corbett writes on Percy Janes, whose House of Hate is both one of this country's most controversial and most neglected novels. Only in Canada is such a thing possible.


We have a fable from Pauline Holdstock and a short story by Shaena Lambert.


Bruce Whiteman contributes a memoir.


Other contributors include:
Ho Che Anderson
Michel Basilières
Steven W Beattie
Juliane Okot Bitek
Andreae Callanan
Laura Cameron
Sally Cooper
Steacy Easton
André Forget
Alex Good
Brett Josef Grubisic
Tom Halford
Jeremy Luke Hill
Mikka Jacobsen
River Kozhar
Allison LaSorda
David Mason
John Metcalf
James Grainger Morgan
Nick Mount
Shane Neilson
Rudrapriya Rathore
Patricia Robertson
Mark Sampson
Richard Sanger
Souvankham Thammavongsa
Phoebe Wang 
It all ends on page 88 with Stephen Fowler's remarks on this book:


But wait, what's this?

The same envelope containing the latest CNQ brought the very first issue of Bibliophile, which features the latest news from CNQ mothership Biblioasis. 


Subscriptions to Canadian Notes & Queries can be got through this link.

One last thing: It was through reading The Terror of the Tar Sands that I first learned of Project Cauldron, a 1958 proposal which would have seen nuclear bombs used to separate bitumen from the sands. Why were we not taught this in school? After reading up on it all, this illustration from The Terror of the Tar Sands doesn't seem so insane.


07 October 2016

Canadian Notes & Queries en couleur



The new Canadian Notes & Queries arrived in the post a couple of days ago. The first colour issue – after forty-eight years in glorious black, white and grey – 'tis truly a thing of beauty.


My contribution, this season's Dusty Bookcase on paper, was inspired by the centenary of Ted Allan's birth this past January. The Gazette did not recognize, but I did. Of all the Allan titles in my collection, the focus of the column was the one that had remained unread: Don't You Know Anybody Else? It's a slim volume of short stories, published in the wake of Allan's fraudulent Stephen Leacock Medal win. Disturbing, though perhaps not so much as his original Love is a Long ShotDon't You Know Anybody Else? it is one of those books sold as something it is not. 


In the same issue, I've contributed to a new feature: "What's Old: Notable CanLit reissues & offerings from the country's antiquarian booksellers". Still more retro goodness is to be found in Stephen Fowler's exhumation of Let's All Hate Toronto, a "narration, illustration and exhortation" by Jack McLaren.


Wish I could join in, but I can't... our daughter was born there. God Bless Women's College Hospital, I say!

Other contributors include:
Mark Callanan
Peter Dubé
Alison Gilmour
Amanda Jernigan
Shaena Lambert
Colette Maitland
David Mason
Shane Neilson
Diane Obomsawin
Laura Ritland
Patricia Robertson
Anakana Schofield
Seth
Patricia Smart
J.C. Sutciffe
Bruce Whiteman
Finally, it would be a great mistake to not mention Jason Dickson's interview with bookseller and poet Nelson Ball. I've drawn on Nelson's extensive knowledge of obscure CanLit so very many times in writing the Dusty Bookcase; what's more, he has provided me with many of the books covered here over the years. Just last week, Nelson sent me these two by Kenneth Orvis, the subject of a future CNQ Dusty Bookcase.


How's that for a tease?

Subscriptions to Canadian Notes & Queries can be purchased through this link.

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