The Dusty Bookcase: Ondaatje (Michael)

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06 July 2024

My Sixth and Final Canadian Book of Lists List: The Top 10 Things I Learned Through Reading and Researching the Canadian Book of Lists

Being the sixth post on

The First Original Unexpurgated Authentic Canadian Book of Lists.

THE TOP TEN THINGS I LEARNED THROUGH READING AND RESEARCHING THE CANADIAN BOOK OF LISTS

1. At time of composition, David Ondaatje was a student at Lakefield College School, an institution that features in CANADA'S 10 BEST INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS FOR BOYS*. Whether its position, #6, is a reflection of Messer Ondaatje's feelings toward his school is unknown.

Like David Ondaatje, I was at the time a teenage schoolboy, albeit in the plebeian public system. I remember much being made about Prince Andrew attending Lakefield. Low and behold, the book includes this uncredited, poorly reproduced photo.

2. David Ondaatje is the son of Sir Christopher Ondaatje.

3. Sir Christopher Ondaatje was the president of Pagurian Press, publisher of the book.

4. In 1979, the year after Pagurian published The First Original Unexpurgated Authentic Canadian Book of Lists, Sir Christopher teamed up with son David's writing partner Jeremy Brown to cobble together Pagurian's The First Original Unexpurgated Authentic Canadian Book of Sex and Adventure.

5. "K-K-K-Katy" was written by Geoffrey O'Hara who, like Arthur Stringer, was a Chatham boy.

Reading up on the song's history, I learned that in the 'twenties it had been appropriated by the Women of the Ku Klux with "K-K-K-Klanswomen."

My introduction to the song came through the folk group the Brother-in-Law.

My parents had all their albums, including The Brother-in-Law Strike Again! (1966), which features "K-K-K-Klansmen":

The Women of the Ku Klux Klan would not have been pleased.

6. In 1978 Rush was the best Canadian rock group.

Who knew!

The Band having disbanded the previous year, I would've thought it was either Teenage Head or Pointed Sticks, but THE 10 BEST CANADIAN ROCK GROUPS set me right. The list comes from Ron Scribner, President of Music Shoppe Agency. He places Heart, a group consisting entirely of Americans, at #2. Scribner's list of the THE 10 BEST MALE AND FEMALE CANADIAN VOCALISTS has Dan Hill in top spot and misspells Murray McLauchlan's name.

7. Leonard Cohen was a non-entity. He doesn't appear once in the book's 391 pages, nor does Tommy Douglas. Michael Ondaatje, David Ondaatje's uncle, is also absent.

8. Mary Anne Shadd does not feature, nor does Josiah Henson. Black Canadian history is ignored completely, and is similarly ignored in every review.

9. Kateri Tekawitha, Joseph Brant, Pauline Johnson, Francis Pegahmagabow, and Chief Dan George do not feature.

10. Before reading the Canadian Book of Lists, this Montrealer was forever pushing back against the claim that Toronto thinks itself "the centre of the universe." Now, I'm now not so sure.

* "Member schools of the Canadian Headmaster's Association only."

My First Canadian Book of Lists List:
Ten Lists That Have Aged Poorly (Featuring Barbara Amiel!)

My Second Canadian Book of Lists List:
The 10 Most egregious Errors (with Timothy Findley!)

My Third Canadian Book of Lists List:
The 10 Biggest Contributors (Featuring Claire Wallace!)

My Fourth and Fifth Canadian Book of Lists Lists:

It's a Man's World... an English Man's World

03 July 2024

My Second Canadian Book of Lists List: The 10 Most Egregious Errors (with Timothy Findley!)

Being the third post on

The First Original Unexpurgated Authentic Canadian Book of Lists.

THE 10 MOST EGREGIOUS ERRORS

1. THE 10 MOST ENJOYABLE CANADIAN BOOKS, a list provided by Beth Appeldoorn of Toronto's Longhouse Bookshop, includes "DIVORCE by Timothy Findley." The author never wrote a book titled Divorce. I'm certain what is meant is this:

2. THE TEN GREATEST CANADIAN EXPLORERS lists ten men, not one of whom was Canadian.

3. The second entry in the list of THE 10 MOST INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT SPORTS IN CANADA concerns the death of Harry Houdini:

Ignoring the skewed photograph and "Houdini—the world's greatest—magician—" weirdness, the man died in Detroit, nine days after the blow. Whether it caused his death remains a matter of debate.

What this has to do with sports is anyone's guess.

4. Speaking of sports! As mentioned in the first Canadian Book of Lists post, Bill Barilko did not die "almost immediately" after scoring the goal that won the Maple Leafs the 1951 Stanley Cup. This falsehood, unique to the Canadian Book of Lists, is stated twice in two pages devoted to 10 CANADIANS WHO DIED TOO YOUNG.

The championship game took place on April 21. The plane in which he was a passenger is thought to have gone down on or about August 26.

5. No list contains more errors than 10 CANADIANS WHO DIED TOO YOUNG; six of the ten entries contain errors of one sort or another. Pierre Laporte, who appears in the tenth spot, is not spared, nor is he spared further indignity. In 10 VIOLENT CANADIAN DEATHS, Laporte is given the title Member of Parliament when he was in fact a Member of the National Assembly. His body was found the the trunk of a car parked at the St-Hubert Airport, not the Montreal International Airport.

6. Emily Carr was never accorded the recognition she deserved, but she did not "live in poverty in a small shack in the woods in British Columbia, " as is claimed in 10 OF CANADA'S MOST ADMIRABLE WOMEN.

7. 10 INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT ESKIMOS AND INDIANS

An error in judgement.

8. Another error in judgement:

However could David L. Steiner know? I've never taken a course in psychiatry, so may be off base.

I did pick up on the misspelling of "University." Does that say something about my own intelligence?

Nice that he included a woman.

9. Wilfred? Inexcusable!

10. THE 10 BEST CANADIAN RECIPES features something called Joe Batt's Arm Fish Casserole, contributed by Peter Worthington and Ben Wicks. I'm not suggesting that it isn't yummy, rather that a dish in which the main ingredients are tins of tuna and shrimp, along with a package of tomato vegetable soup can't possibly be the third best Canadian recipe.

I may give it a try this weekend. Here's hoping it's better than Margaret Laurence's Cauliflower Soup.

My First Canadian Book of Lists List:
Ten Lists That Have Aged Poorly (Featuring Barbara Amiel!)

My Third Canadian Book of Lists List:
The 10 Biggest Contributors (Featuring Claire Wallace!)

Margaret Laurence's Cauliflower Soup

10 June 2013

The Year L.M. Montgomery Became Lucy Maud

The Canadian Bookman, January 1909

I have Erica Brown of the wonderful Reading 1900-1950 to blame for time wasted this past weekend. It was she who demonstrated just how much fun can be had with the Google Ngram Viewer, a tool used in charting words, names and phrases found in the 5.2-million books that the corporation has digitized.

Prof Brown, whose work focusses on the history of popular fiction, used the GNV to trace the rise of the term "middlebrow". I began with "Ontario Gothic" (as with all, click the graph to enlarge):

An interesting result, though one that should be viewed with a cautious eye. As Prof Brown points out, "5.2 million books digitized sounds great – and it is – but it isn’t everything, and it is skewed towards US publications." I'll add that the tool doesn't capture anything published after 2008, and that any ngram that occurs in fewer than 40 books will deliver a rather deceptive 0% flatline. Still, while not entirely accurate, I think it goes far in reflecting trends.

Here, for example, is a search that charts the shift away from "L.M. Montgomery" to "Lucy Maud Montgomery". Interesting to note that the two lines converge in the mid-nineties, when most of her work entered the public domain.