Showing posts with label Sui Sin Far. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sui Sin Far. Show all posts

29 January 2024

On the Modern Library Mrs. Spring Fragrance



The Modern Library is very dear to my heart. I discovered the imprint as an illiterate Kindergartner looking through his late father's books. He'd owned a small number of editions, including Anna Karenina, ArrowsmithOf Human Bondage, and Eugene O'Neill's Nine Plays, each bearing his signature and a stamp with our Beaconsfield address. I liked that they were compact and uniform. I also liked the covers.

As a young adult, Modern Library's founders Albert Boni and Horace Liveright, became personal heroes. Firebrand, Tom Dardis's 1995 biography of the latter, had something to do with this, though I was already in their camp. As a university student, I sought out Modern Library editions of assigned texts, snubbing the cheap mass market paperbacks sold at the campus bookstore.

During those years I kept my spare cash in Winesburg, Ohio.

Ernest Boyd wrote the introduction to Winesburg, Ohio. Ford Maddox Ford wrote the introduction to A Farewell to Arms. Famously, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote the introduction to what was then the commercial flop known as The Great Gatsby. 

Because Modern Library's focus, like mine, is on the past, I've not kept up with the imprint, and so only recently became aware of its 2021 reissue of Mrs. Spring Fragrance and Other Writings by Sui Sin Far (Edith Eaton).

It made the heart proud for a second or two. Mrs. Spring Fragrance may be the only book by a Canadian on the today's Modern Library list, though you would not know this from C Pam Zhang's introduction. True, her contribution isn't large – roughly four pages in length – but you'd think that there might be room to mention of the author's birthplace (Prestbury, Cheshire, England) or the city in which she was raised, educated, lived most of her life, died, and is buried (Montreal, Quebec, Canada). She's instead presented as "North American."

The errors are egregious: Eaton’s mother was Chinese, not "Chinese British;" her "white American father" was in fact English. Sister Winnifred, who was inarguably the more successful writer, is ignored entirely.

I end by noting that Mrs Spring Fragrance, whom Zhang describes as "a Chinese woman thriving in San Francisco," lives in Seattle.

It's right there – "Seattle" – in the very first sentence of the very first story.

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05 December 2014

Done With Buying Books



For this year, at least. Not only will budget not allow, I'm running out of room.

I shouldn't complain.

These past eleven months have brought an embarrassment of riches – and at such small cost! Case in point, G. Herbert Sallans' uncommon Little Man, a book I've wanted for a ferret's age. Sure, the dust jacket isn't in the best condition, but online listings for jacketless copies run to US$1899. I bought my Sallans for three Canadian dollars. This happened back in July. I was taking advantage of a London bookstore's moving sale. The copy was originally marked at fifteen.


During that same visit, another bookstore yielded a pristine American first of Tony Aspler's The Streets of Askelon, the roman à clef inspired by Brendan Behan's disastrous 1961 visit to Canada. I'd been hunting it for a loon's age. Cost me a buck.

Little Man and The Streets of Askelon are two of the ten favourite books bought this year. What follows are the remaining eight:

All Else is Folly
Peregrine Acland
New York: Coward-
     McCann, 1929

A title that will be familiar to regular readers. After eight decades, All Else is Folly finally returned to print this year, complete with new Introduction by myself and Great War scholar James Calhoun. I won this particular copy, inscribed by Acland, in an eBay auction on the very day we completed our work.

Under Sealed Orders
Grant Allen
New York: Grosset &
     Dunlap, [n.d.]

A political thriller by my favourite Canadian novelist of the Victorian era, I've been saving this one for a snowy weekend. This may not be a first edition, but I'm confident that it's the most attractive. Six plates! Purchased for US$9.95 from an Illinois bookseller.


Illicit Sonnets
George Elliott Clarke
London: Eyewear, 2013

A collection of verse by an old friend, Illicit Sonnets stands out in George's bibliography as the first published in England. At the same time, it's typical of the high quality titles coming from ex-pat Montrealer Todd Swift's Eyewear Publishing. A poet himself, Todd dares publish verse in hardcover… as it should be.

The Prospector
Ralph Connor [pseud.
     Charles W. Gordon]
Toronto: New
     Westminster, [n.d.]

You can get pretty much any Connor title for two dollars. My problem is that I never quite remember what I have. This copy of The Prospector, bought in London for $1.50, turned out to be a duplicate. I thought I'd wasted my money until I noticed that it's inscribed by the author.

The Land of Afternoon
Gilbert Knox [pseud.
     Madge Macbeth]
Ottawa: Graphic, 1924

The subject of a forthcoming column in Canadian Notes & Queries, this roman à clef centres on a character based Arthur Meighen. It was a scandal in its day, and holds up rather well, even though many of its models are forgotten.

There Was a Ship
Richard Le Gallienne
Toronto: Doubleday,
     Doran & Gundy, 1930

Found in downtown London on Attic Books' dollar cart. If John Glassco is to be believed – evidence is slight – he took down this novel as Le Gallienne dictated in a semi-stuper. Either way, it's a pretty good story… by which I mean Glassco's. Le Gallienne's? I'm not so sure.


Fasting Friar
Edward McCourt
Toronto: McClelland &
     Stewart, 1963

I'd never so much as heard of Fasting Friar, before coming across a pristine copy – $9.50 – at Montreal's Word Bookstore. An engaging novel in which academic life and censorship intertwine, it proved to be one of this year's favourite reads. Still hate the title, though.

Mrs. Spring Fragrance
Sui Sin Far [pseud.
     Edith Eaton]
Chicago: McClurg, 1912

The only title published during Eaton's lifetime, I paid US$100 for this Very Good copy. This would've been back in the spring. Appropriate. Since then a Good copy has shown up for sale online at US$45.85.

Je ne regrette rien.


Update: Grant Allen's Under Sealed Orders now read.

07 April 2014

Remembering Edith Eaton and D'Arcy McGee



It's become something of a tradition here to acknowledge Thomas D'Arcy McGee on this day, the anniversary of his assassination. And I will. But it would be wrong to let this seventh of April pass without paying homage to Edith Eaton, who died one hundred years ago today.

Writing as "Sui Sin Far", Eaton has been described variously as "the first Chinese-American fictionist", "the first Chinese-American woman writer" and "the mother of Chinese-American literature", but these descriptions come from our cousins to the south. Pay them no mind.

The eldest daughter of Englishman Edward Eaton and his Chinese wife Lotus Blossom, she was born in 15 March 1865 in Prestbury, Cheshire, emigrating to Montreal seven or eight years later.

Eaton's earliest writing appeared in The Dominion Illustrated, The Montreal Daily Star and The Montreal Daily Witness. Both fiction and non-fiction, all show a great sensitivity toward the Chinese communities of Canada and the United States, as reflected in her modest memoir, "Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian", published in the Independent (21 January 1890):
I have come from a race on my mother’s side which is said to be the most stolid and insensible to feeling of all races, yet I look back over the years and see myself so keenly alive to every shade of sorrow and suffering that it is almost a pain to live.
Never a healthy woman, in her mid-thirties she left Quebec for more temperate California. The writer spent roughly a decade on the American west coast and lived briefly in Boston before returning to Montreal. A monument stands in her honour at Mount Royal Cemetery, in which D'Arcy McGee is also interred.

This year, a poem to the politician by Joliette's Louis-Thomas Groulx, written six days after the assassination.


Assasinat de l'honorable Thomas D'Arcy McGee — 7 avril 1868

I

O mon Dieu!… c'est horrible!… une assassine
     A tranché le fil de ses jours….
Mais son âme set allée à ta bonté divine
     Qui sourit aux martyrs – toujours.

     Il meurt ennemi du désordre
Et de ces hommes vile qu'on nomme Feniens.
     Prions pour ce martyr de l'Ordre,
Nous tous qu'il a servis, ô mes concitoyens.

Dieu veuille que son sang répandu par ses frères,
Ne tombe – encore tout chaud – sur leurs fils et sur eux.
Appraise, O doux Jésus, la haine et les colères
Qui vont semant le meurtre et font le deuil affreux.

II

Il ne reverra plus sa femme ni sa fille,
Ni son fils qu'il aimait d'un amour infini.
Tous vont pleurer, hélas! – Console la famille
Seigneur, et dis: enfants, votre père est béni.

La Nation prend soin de l'épouse chérie,
De la famille et du fils – tendre orphelin qui prie,
Il est pour chaque vie, une heure de douleur
Que je ne saurais pendre et qui bris le cœur.

Alors, heureux qui meurt: mais malheur à qui tue.
Des vivants et des morts, Dieu seul se constitue
Juge. Aussi, seul il a droit de vie et de mort
Sur tous. Caïn, – tuer d'Abel – en vain se tord.

De désespoir. Son crime est avec lui, sans cesse.
Et suivra, partout, soit qu'il coure ou bien cesse
D'Aller. Qu'il veille ou dorme, Abel agonisant
Sera, devant sa face, à toute heure, présent.

Caïn voudrait mourir de remords qui l'oppresse,
Mais son crime est si grand qu'il lui faudra longtemps
Encore, ouïr la voix douce mais vengeresse
Qui dit toujours: "Caïn, que te faisais-je, aux champs."

Il ne dormira plus le cruel fratricide;
Et le bon Dieu, pourtant, l'a pris sous son égide,
Disant: en quelque lieu qu'il aille – ce vilain –
Chacun reconnaîtra mon signe sur Caïn.

III

Que l'assassin se nome Eagleson ou White,
Ou de tout autre nom qu'on entend prononcer,
Son forfait odieux rend mon âme interdite,
Et c'est presque mourir, mon dieu! que d'y penser.

Le ciel saura punir une action si noire.
………………………………………………….
Maintenant que McGee a vu Dieu dans sa gloire,
Et que sa voix se mêle au séraphique chanr,
Regrette-t-il la terre où l'hommes est si méchant?

IV

A quoi me servirait de biaiser ou de feindre?
La pauvre humanité, certes! est bien à plaindre
L'homme détruit, Dieu crée, et la gouffre béant
Dévore ce que Dieu fait sortir du Néant.

Qui sondera, Seigneur, ce mystère insondable?
Je vois, partout, l'énigme écrite par ton doigt.
Toujours, ce que tu fais me parait admirable
Ce que tu laisses faire est indigne de toi.

Tu ne réponds jamais, quand l'homme t'interroge
Pourquoi m'as-tu donné l'entendement, la voix
Et la cœur, si ce n'est pour faire ton éloge?
Mais le ferai-je…. après le meurtre que je vois?

Ou donc regardais-tu, quand fut ourdi ce crime?
Quand tombait, sous le coup, l'innocente victime?
Comment as-tu souffert – toi si juste et si bon –
Que D'Arcy fût atteint par balle de plomb?

Je ne veux pas, Seigneur, que mon âme murmure,
Mais je dis: ton enfant trouve cette morte dure!…
………………………………………………….
………………………………………………….
Merci. --Dieu parle enfin. Vici ce que j'entends:
"J'ai pris votre martyr." – Et le bourreau? – j'attends.

"L'ivraie est dans le blé, la rose a son épine,
"Je fais une Merveille avec une ruine.
"J'appelle à moi le bon et j'attends le méchant
"Mais que le juge humain sévisse et attendant.

"Que vos lois aient leur cours. Mais que votre sentence
"Ne fasse pas périr la timide innocence.
"Faites que la justice atteigne l'assassin.
"Ce qu'il doit, qu'il le paie à son fatal destin.

V

"Meurtrier, tue encor, tue encore et te hâte.
"Toi, martyr, souffre encore, souffre comme Socrate
"Sans te plaindre et pardonne. Ils viennent les temps dûis
"Ou ma faux abattra comme des épis mûrs

"Les hommes – cœurs pervers – qui font de la malice
"Et leur unique étude et leur plus cher délice.
"Je sais qui fait le mal, et sais qui fait le bien
"Je vois l'être maudit qui fait le Fenien.

"Il est tout près de moi; je le sens, je le touche
"Peu s'en faut que son nom ne sorte de ma bouche
"Et si je n'avais pas horreur de ce gueux-là,
"Mettant le pied dessus, je dirais – le voilà.

"On dirait que le peuple – aveugle volontaire –
"Ne voit pas le serpent, avec sa tête altière,
"Qui se plie et s'allonge, et se promène et va
"Jusqu'aux pieds de son Roi qu'il enlace déjà."

Quoi, donc, est le serpent? Est-ce le Royalisme,
Ou la démocratie, ou le saint-Simonisme,
Ou l'Athéisme encore? – Dis, seigneur, qu'est-ce enfin?
" – Aucun de ces mots-là ne convient au Matin.

"Vous le verrez bientôt. Son ardente prunelle
"Vous illumine avec sa brillante étincelle.
"Il s'en vient du Midi, sinon de l'Orient
"Qu'il souilla comme il veut souiller tout l'Occident.

"Si je n'étais pas là, quand paraîtra la Bête,
"Le combat serait court, et sûre le Défaite.
"Mais je veille sur vous et sur le Trône, aussi,
"Et garde auprès de moi mon fidèle D'Arcy."

Joliette, 13 avril 1868

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