24 June 2021

Debout, Canadiens-français!


George William Alphred Chapman
13 December 1850, Saint-François-de-Beauce, Canada East
23 February 1917, Ottawa, Ontario
RIP

For la Fête de la Saint-Jean-Baptiste, this William Chapman poem from his critically-acclaimed Les fleurs de givre (Paris: Éditions de la Revue des poètes, 1912).

DEBOUT, CANADIENS-FRANÇAIS!

                         Nous sommes des fils de guerriers,
                         Et nos pères, pleins de vaillance,
                         Vinrent au bord d’un fleuve immense
                         Planter leurs étendards altiers.
                         Durant un siècle, sur nos plages
                         Ces lutteurs au bras redouté
                         Pour la France et la chrétienté
                         Déployèrent tous les courages.

                         Debout, Canadiens-français!
                         Luttons comme ont lutté nos pères!
                         Au milieu de races prospères.
                         Déroulons au vent du Progrès,
                         Qui souffle à travers les forêts,
                         Nos vieilles et saintes bannières!
                         Luttons comme ont lutté nos pères!

                         Debout, Canadiens-français!

                         Forts d’une foi que rien n’émeut,
                         Comme les Croisés, leurs ancêtres.
                         Ces preux, marins, soldats et prêtres,
                         Partout répétaient: «Dieu le veut»!
                         Jusqu’aux glaçons géants du Pôle,
                         De l’Équateur au Groenland,
                         Ils dirent, dans leur noble élan,
                         Les refrains bénis de la Gaule.

                         Debout, Canadiens-français!

                         Ils furent grands dans le danger,
                         Ils furent beaux dans les batailles...
                         Mais, hélas! la cour de Versailles
                         Céda leurs bords à l’étranger.
                         Orgueilleux, malgré la conquête,
                         Ces hommes au cœur de lion
                         Sous la bannière d’Albion
                         Ne courbèrent jamais la tête.

                         Debout, Canadiens-français!

                         Fidèles aux maîtres nouveaux,
                         Et toujours pleins d’ardeurs guerrières,
                         Pour chasser l’Aigle des frontières,
                         Nous avons suivi leurs drapeaux.
                         Des conscrits, altérés de gloire,
                         Vainquirent un peuple aguerri;
                         Et le nom de Salaberry
                         Luit comme un soleil dans l’Histoire.

                         Debout, Canadiens-français!

                         Le sang ne rougit plus nos prés;
                         L’astre du Travail y flamboie,
                         Et sur tous nos foyers en joie
                         La Paix répand ses fruits dorés.
                         L’Espoir de ses rayons inonde
                         Tous les cœurs et tous les cerveaux...
                         Demain nous serons les rivaux
                         Des grands peuples de l’ancien monde.

                         Debout, Canadiens-français!

Bonne fête!



Posted by Brian Busby at 6:30 AM 0 comments
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14 June 2021

The Dustiest Bookcase: O is for Oxley



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

North Overland with Franklin
J Macdonald Oxley
New York: Crowell, 1907
286 pages

I'm not sure what's going on here, but the image does remind me of this iconic cover:

I read Bear as a twenty-year-old, and have not revisited.

Do the two novels have much in common?

Doubt it. North Overland was Franklin was first published by the Religious Tract Society. My copy features this bookplate:

I'm a bit peeved. As a boy, my father, an Anglican, was awarded many books for regularity and punctuality at the Church of St John the Baptist, Pointe Claire, Quebec. Walter Scott's The Black Arrow was one, but the novel that made he greatest impression was Number 44 by Harold M Sherman.

Not only that, my father was presented pins recognizing these accomplishment to be worn proudly on his lapel.

I too was raised an Anglican. Regularity and punctuality were not rewarded at my childhood church – St Marys, Kirkland, Quebec – though we children enjoyed juice and cookies after Sunday School.

The 2011 Canadian Census records George Bee (born 1895) as the eldest son of David and Catherine Bee. The Bee family lived at 240 Gerrard Street, now home to the Virginia Hamara Law Office.


I can't quite recall how I came to have George Bee's copy of North Overland with Franklin in my collection, but am fairly certain that I picked it up somewhere in Ontario and paid no more than two dollars. I do remember thinking that the Franklin of the title might just be Sir John Franklin, and that Oxley had penned a fantasy in which the explorer had somehow overcome the terror of HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, and had made his way toward Rupert's Land.

But then it would've been South Overland with Franklin, right?

To be fair – to myself – I wasn't far off. The hero of North Overland with Franklin is the very same John Franklin, though Oxley's adventure imagines the explorer's ill-fated Coppermine Expedition, which ended over three decades before his ill-fated Northwest Passage Expedition began.

Because the former featured a murder, dinners made of boiled boots, and suggestions of cannibalism, North Overland with Franklin might make for an interesting read; remember, it  began as a Religious Tract Society publication.

That said, because I believe in placing books in the best hands, I'm eager to return this copy of North Overland with Franklin to the Bee family, whether it's a descendent of George Bee or of one of his siblings: Ethel (b 1894) and Edward (b 1899).

Please contact me in the comments or by email through my profile.

Posted by Brian Busby at 7:15 AM 0 comments
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11 June 2021

Love is a Long Shot on the Nose

The Calgary Herald, 29 September 1978

This weekend the 29th Toronto Jewish Film Festival presents Love on the Nose.

Do you know it?

I didn't before being contacted by the Toronto Jewish Film Foundation. A made-for-TV movie, Love on the Nose, aired on the CBC in September 1978... and then never again. The screenplay, credited to  "John Smith" (read: Ted Allan), tells the story of David (Saul Rubinek), a young Trotskyite who, thanks to his uncle (Paul Soles), lands a job at Keller's cigar store in Depression-era Montreal. The establishment is a front for a bookie joint, which allows David a good amount of time for on-the-job studies of Karl Marx.

Love on the Nose received glowing reviews; I've yet to find a critic who said a bad word. Much of the praise landed on Saul Rubinek. He played a character a decade younger than himself, though you'd never know it. Al Waxman was singled out for playing a crime boss, a character so very different than the Larry King we'd come to love on The King of Kensington. Reading the reviews, it's clear that to that point the critics hadn't recognized the actor's range.

Months later, the Windsor Star was still going on about it.

The Windsor Star, 9 January 1979

I was contacted by the Festival because of my writing on Allan this blog, in Canadian Notes & Queries, and in my most recent book. It was my pleasure to provide a short video postscript to the film in which I discuss Love on the Nose, its relationship to Allan's 1949 pulp Love is a Long Shot, and the lighter 1984 version published by McClelland & Stewart.

What I didn't mention – but should've – is that Love on the Nose is the best of the three.

Tickets for Love on the Nose can be purchased through this link.

You will not be disappointed.

Related posts:
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