The Fugitive Bertrand W. Sinclair

Following Friday's post...

A couple of months ago, Vancouver's Ronsdale Press reissued The Inverted Pyramid, thus becoming the first Canadian house to in over eight decades to publish Bertrand W. Sinclair. Their choice was apt, I think. Sinclair didn't think of the novel as his best work – that would be Poor Man's Rock (1920) – but, as dedicated biographer Betty Keller tells us in Pender Harbour Cowboy, he'd hoped to be remembered for this "literary" novel.

First published in January of 1924 by Little, Brown, like The Hidden Places, The Inverted Pyramid is touched by the Great War. It tells the story of brothers Rod and Grove Norquay, and their divergent dreams for a family fortune that had been built on BC timber. Ronsdale describes the book as having been "a best-seller". An imprecise term to be sure, but still I can't agree. Back in 1923, Little, Brown had become so certain that the book would not be a best-seller that it sought to avoid the competitive Christmas market by postponing publication until the new year. There was no second printing, though A.L. Burt did produce one of its cheap editions. One could dismiss the relatively low sales as self-fulfilling prophecy – Little, Brown chose not to advertise the book – but evidence points to an overall lack of interest in this new, higher-brow Sinclair. Despite strong reviews, The Inverted Pyramid became the one novel that his agent failed place as a serialization.

"The Inverted Pyramid's poor showing in the bookstores had made him cautious about returning to literary novels in a hurry", writes Keller. "He opted to play it safe..." This meant falling back on pulp magazines – wells from which he drew until the 'forties, when they began to run dry.

It's interesting to consider that Sinclair's books, all novels, represent nothing more than a small percentage of his work. The pulps published over two hundred of his short stories; one encounters them from time to time in anthologies like Best Mounted Police Stories and Vancouver Short Stories, but they otherwise remain in the forgotten past.

Reading Betty Keller's very fine biography, one can't help but wish for a collection of Sinclair's stories. Let's not let another eight decades pass.

Carry On, Brith'ish Business Men!

This second part of my review of W.G. MacKendrick's The Destiny of the British empire and The U.S.A. now appears, revised and rewritten, in my new book:

The Dusty Bookcase:

A Journey Through Canada's

Forgotten, Neglected, and Suppressed Writing

Available at the very best bookstores and through

Biblioasis, Amazon, Chapters/Indigo, and McNally-Robinson.

Related post:

Onward, Brith'ish Business Men!

Uncollected McIntyre: Mars on Hogs

Five weeks after publishing "The Evolution of the Hog", James McIntyre returned to the pages of the Globe with this mysterious, seemingly untitled poem. His inspiration – "signals sent to us from Mars" – escaped the attention of the newspaper. I've been unable to find even one account of these historic messages from the red planet.

Eighteen hundred and ninety-four, in which this poem was written, is remembered by aresologists as the year in which Percival Lowell studied and sketched the canals of Mars. Could it be that the Cheese Poet was just a tad confused? Whatever the answer, Mars provided an opportunity to touch upon the First Sino-Japanese War, then in its first month, before turning yet again to the ravenous hog.

The Globe, 15 September 1894

Uncollected Mcintyre: The Hog Poet

James McIntyre published a good number of poems in the Globe, most of which have never been republished. The most interesting, "The Evolution of the Hog", published 7 August 1894, was part of a letter in which the poet writes of his maturation of thought concerning the merry, playful, doomed "sweet and tender swine".

JAMES M'INTYRE ON HOGS.

To the Editor of the Globe:

Sir,—In a poem published long ago I predicted the fall of wheat and the rise of the cow and the hog, but I, at the first, felt sad to see my prediction verified; but I am now fully reconciled, seeing the pretty, happy little pigs enjoying themselves along the roads in company with their mother sow and bringing a ten dollar bill each to their owner when they are six months old. It is a common thing to sell 50 of them in one year from a 100 acre farm, realizing $500 from this one source. Many of the improved breeds are like Jacob's sheep, ringstraked, speckled and grisled. The cheese and the pork are the concentrated essence of the farm, and the cows and hogs enrich the land. Sending bulky stuff like hay across the sea impoverishes the soil and brings but small returns in money. Feeding wheat to hogs, the best returns are obtained by chopping it and soaking it in whey or slops.

The Evolution of the Hog.

In these days of evolution

There's a wondrous revolution;

The hog is coming to the front,

And he can now contented grunt.

For every day he gets to eat

The very choicest kinds of wheat;

No more it pays wheat for to sell,

Only 50 cents a bushel.

Farmers find that the best combine

Is to raise good cows and fatten swine.

For on this point each one agrees,

There's nothing pays more like pork and cheese.

Hundreds of pigs you now behold

Where none were seen in days of old,

And little hogs now roam all over,

Happy, rooting 'mong the clover.

And merrily they do dance jigs,

So playful are these little pigs;

And dairymen it well doth pay

To fatten them upon the whey.

For the people love to dine

On young, sweet and tender swine;

For the hog doth lead the van

As the favourite food of man.

Some say land's going to the dogs,

But it's going into cows and hogs,

And there is no cause to mourn,

For they give good and quick return.

Small pigs, more playful than young lambs,

Soon they do make the sweetest hams;

When they are a few months older,

Delicious is their shoulder.

So, 'tis no wonder that the hog,

He is coming into vogue,

For he doth cheerful pay his way

And is entitled to his whey.

JAMES McINTYRE.

Ingersoll, August 4.

The Final Sigh

"The Heavenly Boy", read by Donald Winkler at the installation of the memorial plaque to John Glassco. The poet's last published verse, it appeared in the December 1980 issue of Saturday Night. Glassco died the following month.