The Reverend Cody Cover Cavalcade

On this sunny Sunday, the third post concerning Reverend H.A. Cody this month, all part of an effort to atone for ignoring the man these past fifty years. Of his twenty-five tomes, I've read only The Girl at Bullet Lake, reviewed here last week.

I'm not entirely adverse to reading another. Any suggestions?

The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature doesn't much help, nor does W.H. New's Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada. The dust jacket of The Girl at Bullet Lake offers eight suggestions. I've narrowed them down to three:

Under Sealed Orders
New York: Doran, 1917

"Mystery and intrigue in connection with a water-power scheme."

Not to be confused with the wonderfully entertaining Grant Allen novel of the same name.

The Touch of Abner
New York: Doran, 1919

"An amusing story of love and adventure."

The spiciest title in the reverend's bibliography.

The Master Revenge
Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1927

"A big, kindly-hearted, beloved man suffers for another's crime."

I'm guessing that crime has something to do with handsaws.

Has anyone else read Cody?

Related posts:

'Strangely Entangled in the Threads of Love'

Words on Writing for a Labour Day Weekend

'Strangely Entangled in the Threads of Love'

The Girl at Bullet Lake

H.A. Cody

Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1933

304 pages

Nine years ago, I suggested that Isabel Ecclestone Mackay's Up the Hill and Over features "the most improbable coincidence in all of Canadian literature." I haven't changed my opinion – not yet, at least – but I will say, without reservation, that H.A. Cody's The Girl at Bullet River has more coincidences than any novel I've ever read. The first comes in the first scene, in which protagonist Robert Rutledge's doctor prescribes rest and relaxation away from the big city:

“Bullet Lake will do you fine. And there is a snug house on the shore, known as ‘Bullet House.’ It is not a very poetical name, I admit, but that will make no difference, Si Acres will charge you something, but it will be worth it. There is excellent fishing there, too.”
      “Where is this wonderful paradise, doctor?”
      “It is not far away, only a few miles back from the river at Glengrow. You surely must know the place.”
     “I know Glengrow, for my sister lives there.”

There follows a steady stream of improbabilities. Their number is so great that they consume much of my review of The Girl at Bullet Lake, likely the first in 85 years, which was posted today at the Canadian Notes & Queries website. You can read it here:

Little More Than Coincidence

C'est gratuit!

Related post:

Ontario, Opium and Cocaine

The Dustiest Bookcase: I is for Irwin

The Dustiest Bookcase:

Short pieces on books I've always meant to review (but haven't).

They're in storage as we build our new home.

Patience, please.

Kak, The Copper Eskimo

Vilhjalmur Stefanson and Violet Irwin

New York: Macmillan, 1924

253 pages

Yes, I is for Irwin... and not for Stefansson. My reason for buying this book has everything to do with her and nothing to do with him. To be honest, I'm not much interested in Kak, the Copper Eskimo – I bought it because I saw it. The Violet Irwin book I really want to read is her first novel, The Human Desire (Boston: Small, Maynard, 1913). I've never come across a copy and have never read a review. All I know about The Human Desire comes from advertisements for the 1919 Hollywood adaptation.

Silent films took great liberties with source material. I don't know how faithful Hollywood's 1919 Human Desire was to Irwin's novel, but I'm interested in finding out.

The McGill Daily
10 October 1919

I've seen dozens of films at The Imperial – my favourites being The King of Comedy and After Hours – sadly, I was seven decades too late for Human Desire.

Fun fact: Kak, the Copper Eskimo was never adopted by Hollywood, but it was translated into Yiddish: Ḳeḳ - der ḳleyner esḳimos (Ṿilne : Naye yidishe shul, 1939). The only copy of which I know is held in New York at the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research.

Related posts:

The Critical Age: Thoughts on a Film I'll Never See

A Wild Olive of Nitrate

Jazz Age Castaways in a Lost Film

Gloria Swanson's Subway Scene