My Fourth and Fifth Canadian Book of Lists Lists: It's a Man's World... an English Man's World

Being the fifth post on

The First Original Unexpurgated Authentic Canadian Book of Lists. 

Susanna Moodie surrounded by men seems an appropriate image. The Canadian Book of Lists begins with 10 GREAT CANADIAN QUOTATIONS ON CANADIANS. She is the first woman quoted, though her words are attributed to "Susanna Moddie":

That Mrs Moodie is one of two women on this list is a bit unusual; she's usually her own. In David Crombie's 10 CANADIANS TO INVITE TO DINNER TO UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF CANADA AND ITS ROOTS the poor woman is made to share a table with Gabriel Dumont, John A. Macdonald, J.S. Woodsworth, Gilles Vigneault, William Van Horne, Stephen Leacock, John Diefenbaker, Ralph Allen, and André Lauredeau.

She is the only woman to appear on this list of my own making:

THE 10 MOST QUOTED CANADIANS IN
THE CANADIAN BOOK OF LISTS

1.   ROBERTSON DAVIES
2.   PIERRE ELLIOTT TRUDEAU
3.   JOHN DIEFENBAKER
4.   WILFRID LAURIER
5.   RENÉ LÉVESQUE

6.   JOHN A. MACDONALD
7.   STEPHEN LEACOCK
8.   HUGH MACLENNAN
9.   THOMAS CHANDLER HALIBURTON
10. SUSANNA MOODIE

It's skewed in that Trudeau, Diefenbaker, Laurier, and Macdonald were each accorded 10 GREATEST QUOTES lists. The Quebec premier has a similar list, but it is theme-driven: " THE 10 BEST QUOTES ON SEPARATISM BY RENE LÉVÉSQUE [sic]."

As noted yesterday, nineteen women rank amongst the 115 Canadian Book of Lists contributors. They far outnumber the three francophones:

• André Bardet of Montreal's Chez Bardet contributes his recipe for Chicken Supreme (though I have my doubts that that is what he called it). I wonder whether the chef knew it would end up in fourth place, after Joe Batt's Arm Fish Casserole, in an unattributed list titled THE 10 BEST CANADIAN RECIPES.

• As "Mme. Jehane Benoit," Jehane Benoît's contribution Grace de rôti, a recipe lifted from her 1970 The Canadiana Cookbook. Like the Canadian Book of Lists,  it is a Pagurian Press publication. both were published in paperback by Signet.   

• The third and last francophone contributor is the great Mark Lalonde. Every one of his contributions is pulled from A New Perspective on the Health of Canadians (Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services Canada, 1974), which was published when he was Minister of Health and Welfare.

 

I wonder whether any of the three were actually asked to contribute to this project?

In a 18 November 1978 piece for the Star-Phoenix by Nancy Russell, author Jerry Brown defends his work from those who label it "the Toronto book of lists": 

And so, today this Quebecer presents a second list:

TEN LISTS THAT FEATURE NO FRANCOPHONES

1.    10 GREAT CANADIAN QUOTATIONS ON FRENCH CANADA

          AND FRENCH  CANADIANS

2.    10 GREAT CANADIAN QUOTATIONS ON CANADA
3.    10 GREAT CANADIAN QUOTATIONS ON CANADIANS
4.    THE 5 GREATEST CANADIAN QUOTATIONS ON

          NATIONALISM AND NATIONALITY

5.    10 GREAT CANADIAN SPORTS ACHIEVERS
6.    THE 10 MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMEN IN CANADA
7.    THE 10 BEST CANADIAN BOOKS
8.    THE TEN BEST CANADIAN CHILDREN'S BOOKS
9.    THE 10 BEST CANADIAN ROCK GROUPS

10.  10 GREAT CANADIAN QUOTATIONS ON LOVE

Related posts:

My Canadian Book of Lists Lists: An Introduction

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 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.

Related posts:

My Canadian Book of Lists Lists: An Introduction

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

My Canadian Book of Lists Lists: An Introduction

The First Original Unexpurgated Authentic Canadian Book
   of Lists
Jeremy Brown and David Ondaatje
Scarborough: Signet, 1979
391 pages

The First Original Unexpurgated Authentic Canadian Book of Lists isn't terribly original in that it owes its concept, format, and very existence to The Book of Lists, David Wallechinsky, Irving Wallace and Amy Wallace's runaway American bestseller.

As a teen, I had a copy of The Book of Lists (1977) and its first sequel, The Book of Lists 2 (1980), but never bought the Canadian cash in. My guess is that I never saw a copy; it would've certainly appealed to my nascent patriotism.

Does the The First Original Unexpurgated Authentic Canadian Book of Lists contain "1001 AMAZING FACTS, QUOTATIONS, ANSWERS, OPINIONS, AND STATISTICS" as claimed on the cover?

Depends on how one counts, I suppose.  

Frankly, I think Signet was selling its authors short. The book features over 350 lists divided into twenty-one categories. At 43 pages, "Sports" is easily the longest. "Private and Confidential," five pages, dealing  with the bedrooms of the nation, is the shortest by far.

Nowhere near long enough and over all too quickly.

The longest, THE 16 GREATEST PROBLEMS FACING LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES IN CANADA, comes courtesy of His Honour Judge Philip Givens, Chairman of the Board of Commissioners, Metropolitan Police Force. The shortest, as short as a list can be, is credited to Claire Wallace, author of Mind Your Manners: 2 IMPORTANT ITEMS OF NATIONAL ETIQUETTE CANADIANS SHOULD RESPECT.

The majority, an even three hundred lists, have ten entries each. These alone suggest 3000 facts... or maybe not. The First Original Unexpurgated Authentic Canadian Book of Lists is at once a fact-checkers nightmare and a walk through a different time. Let's take a stroll through the first five:

1. 10 GREAT CANADIAN QUOTATIONS ON CANADIANS

The book's first list contains the first two errors: Northrop Frye is referred to as ""Northrup Frye." Susanna Moodie is "Susanna Moddie."

2. 10 CANADIANS WHO DIED TOO YOUNG

The errors in the second list are numerous. Norman Bethune was born in 1890, not 1899. The doctor was forty-nine when he died. John Sparrow Thompson, our fourth prime minster, was born in 1845, not 1844. Tom Thomson met his end at thirty-nine, not forty. Tim Horton died in February 1974, not September 1974. At the time of his murder, Pierre Laporte held two ministerial portfolios, not one. George McCuklagh, the publisger who married the Toronto Globe and Mail and Empire, did not die in an accident, rather he took his own life. Bill Barilko was killed more than four months after scoring his legendary goal, which I would argue was not "almost immediately after the game."

3. 10 PEOPLE MOST LIKELY TO INFLUENCE THE COURSE OF EVENTS IN CANADA

The book's third list comes courtesy of Peter C. Newman, then Editor of Maclean's. His number one is John Turner, after whom we find Conrad Black. Number three is Brian Mulroney: "Bicultural, brilliant, and beautiful, he is the dream incarnation of the Conservative party. Some day they'll realize it and he will become Prime Minister of Canada." This is, of course, the very same beautiful man who would one day tell Newman to go fuck himself.

4. THE 10 MOST EXCLUSIVE MEN'S CLUBS IN CANADA

An odd inclusion, particularly so early in the book, but given the focus on male opinion, mortality, and power of the previous three could male privilege be so far behind?

For anyone who cares, Toronto's York Club tops the list.

5. 10 WELL-KNOWN DIVORCED OR SEPARATED CANADIANS

1.   PIERRE ELLOTT TRUDEAU, prime minister

2.   RENÉ LÉVESQUE, Quebec premier

3.   FRANCIS FOX, former Solictor-General

4.   GORDON LIGHTFOOT, singer

5.   PETER WORTHINGTON, Editor-in-Chief, The Toronto Sun

6.   ADRIENNE CLARKSON, television performer, author

7.   CAROLE TAYLOR, former television star

8.   PETER C. NEWMAN, Editor, Maclean's Magazine

9.   LYNNE GORDON, broadcaster, head of Ontario 

         Women's Task Force

10. JOYCE DAVIDSON, television broadcaster 

This is another list that surprises, not because it comes so early, or is so random, but because it achieves something close to gender parity. Consider the previous four:

• three of the 10 GREAT CANADIAN QUOTATIONS ON CANADIANS were made by women;
• all 10 CANADIANS WHO DIED TOO YOUNG are men;
• two women feature in 10 PEOPLE MOST LIKELY TO INFLUENCE THE COURSE OF EVENTS IN CANADA, one of whom is the list makers's 14-year-old daughter;
• THE 10 MOST EXCLUSIVE MEN'S CLUBS IN CANADA.

I add that four of the forty persons featured in the first five lists are francophones. Not one would've then be termed "Indian."

This is indicative of the 350 or so lists that follow. It's not that The First Original Unexpurgated Authentic Canadian Book of Lists focusses on Anglo-Canada, rather that it is Toronto-centric. Consider 10 WELL-KNOWN DIVORCED OR SEPARATED CANADIANS: Peter Worthington, Adrienne Clarkson, Carole Taylor, Peter C. Newman, Lynne Gordon, Joyce Davidson... You get the picture.

Still, for all its faults, The First Original Unexpurgated Authentic Canadian Book of Lists inspires. And so, over the next four days, I'll be posting my own lists, each dealing with The First Original Unexpurgated Authentic Canadian Book of Lists. Carole Taylor, "former television star," will reappear in tomorrow's list. For now, I'll leave you with this.

Object and Access: A mass market paperback with the laziest and cheapest of designs. The interior apes The Book of Lists.  

The First Original Unexpurgated Authentic Canadian Book of Lists was first published in 1978 by the late Pagurian Press. I've yet to stumble upon a copy though one – and only one – is listed for sale online at $8.00. Likewise, just one copy of the Signet edition is listed. Price: $10.00. 

My copy was purchased three years ago. It set me back $2.00.

Happy Canada Day!

Related post:

On Addressing a Duke's Eldest Son's Younger Son

A Son's Lies My Father Told Me

Lies My Father Told Me

Norman Allan

Toronto: Signet, 1975

Back in May, I described novelizations of Canadian films as the rarest of things; I can think of only two, Whispering City and Lies My Father Told Me. This one is particularly interesting in that it was written by Norman Allan, son of novelist, playwright and screenwriter Ted Allan. We have here a son's version of his father's work.

Allan père did very well with this semi-autobiographical tale. What began as a short magazine piece, was adapted for radio, television, the cinema and, finally, the stage. Allan fis draws nothing from the original story – not so much as a sentence is similar – rather he follows his father's screenplay. Dedication is such that when the younger Allan does depart, as happens twice, one wonders whether he's not included a scene that was left on the cutting room floor. This is not to belittle his effort; the writing is tight and more than competent. The unabtrusive debut of a man who had never before published a work of fiction, it features some fairly strong imagery. Here David, the protagonist, races to feed his grandfather's horse:

I hurry along the balcony, three stories above the cobbled courtyard: three stories and a romance above Ferdeleh's stable there. A dozen dwellings, tenements of poverty, boxed and stacked: thirteen dwellings, counting Ferdeleh's, share the hemmed-in courtyard, their awkward wooden stairways sculpturing the skeletons of grotesque fairy castles. The gingerbread's all taken away, leaving only a matchstick grandeur...

I received Lies My Father Told Me as a gift back in 1976. In those dinosaur days – before Beta, VHS, DVDs and Netflix – novelizations such as these were pretty much the only way to revisit films. There were repatory theatres, of course, but I don't remember Lies My Father Told Me being offered. Television was as it is now: a crap shoot.

Jonathan Coe once described novelizations as "that bastard, misshapen offspring of the cinema and the written word". He's probably right – I agree with him on much else. But Lies My Father Told Me is the only novelization I've ever read... and I think it's pretty good.

Object: A very slim, mass market paperback with eight pages of stills from the film. Three pages of adverts provide much needed bulk. All movie-related, they range from an "exclusive movie edition" of The Three Musketeers to this biography of a hot star who had long ago gone cold:

The most interesting, I think, is the full-page push above for TV Movies.

"America's second largest indoor sport". How ribald.

Access: Six copies are currently listed online, five of which go for between one and six dollars. Only four of our university libraries hold the book – not one is located in Montreal. Patrons of public libraries are, predictably, limited to that serving the good citizens of Toronto. Library and Archives Canada fails yet again.

Related post: An Author Turns Thespian