Richardson's End

So big, so close, so powerful, and yet New York doesn't really feature much in Canadian literature. The city rarely serves as a setting, and not all that many of our notable writers have called it home – Arthur Stringer and Thomas B. Costain just aren't names we pay much attention to these days. Still, Ralph Gustafson spent much of the Second World War in Manhattan working for British Information Services. Brian Moore lived in the city for a few years – two of his finest novels, An Answer from Limbo and I Am Mary Dunne, feature New York as a setting. In Travels by Night, George Fetherling writes that the city served as something of a way-station between West Virginia and Ontario.

I'd argue that our greatest canonical connection properly belongs to Major John Richardson, he of Wacousta fame, who took up residence in New York in the autumn of 1849. On the surface it seems such a smart move; he produced several bestsellers. However, this did not translate into coin. After two years in the city, on 12 May 1852, Richardson died in his lodgings at 113 West 29th Street. Cause of death: erysipelas. John Dryden died of the disease, as did John Stuart Mill. Charles Lamb fell, cut on his face and succumbed to the malady. Richardson's erysipelas was brought on by malnutrition – in short, 'the first Canadian novelist' wasn't earning enough to feed himself. Richardson's funeral took place two days later at the Church of the Holy Communion, corner of 6th Avenue and West 20th Street. His body was then transported outside the city, presumably to be buried.

Richardson's lodgings are long gone, but the Church of the Holy Communion still stands. A beautiful Gothic Revival building, the vision of Anglo-American architect Richard Upjohn, it once counted John Jacob Astor and Cornelius Vanderbilt amongst its parishioners. Richardson was a steadfast follower of its rector, evangelical Episcopalian Reverend William Augustus Muhlenberg.

As a young man, I knew the Church of the Holy Communion as the Limelight, a dance club I would pass on what were then frequent visits to New York. The hedonistic playground of Michael Alig's coked-out Club Kids, a building Reverend Muhlenberg intended as 'an oasis of Christian activity in the city', it ended up at the centre of the Angel Melendez murder.*

The structure once known as the Church of the Holy Communion now serves as a clearing house for clothing samples. The days of debauchery and indulgence are past, but the sacrilege continues.

* Those possessing a morbid curiosity and strong stomach may have an appetite for James St James' Disco Bloodbath (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), an account of his time in the Limelight, and the Melendez murder and dismemberment. St James, a transplanted Indianan and former Club Kid writes, 'if its superficial that my response to murder is to stop wearing false eyelashes – then goddamnit – SO BE IT.' Goddamnit, indeed.

The American Version: The N Word

I arrive today in New York, my first foray into post-Bush America (until Jeb, that is). It's been several years since I last visited the city and, as expected, much has changed. Friends have left, taverns have closed (coincidence?) and Times Square is more offensive than ever. Many of the used bookstores I once frequented are gone – killed, I suppose, by the internet. And yet, the Strand has expanded. Go figure.

Always interesting to look for Canadian literature in the United States. There's something fairly Dickian in coming across a title one knows so well wrapped in a dustjacket that is utterly foreign. And then there are those works that have been given a different title for the American market; Richler's The Incomparable Atuk, known to Americans as Stick Your Neck Out, comes to mind. In the United States, Nino Ricci's Lives of the Saints is The Book of Saints, and The Selected Stories of Mavis Gallant is sold, misleadingly, as The Collected Stories of Mavis Gallant. A more recent title change involves Lawrence Hill's acclaimed The Book of Negroes, published as Someone Knows My Name south of the border. The author wrote about the rechristening, prompted by a nervous New York editor, in 'Why I'm not allowed my book title'. I spoil nothing by revealing that he concludes with a question: '...if it finds a British publisher, what will the title be in the UK?' The answer: The Book of Negroes, published earlier this year by Doubleday UK.

While the Brits kept the title, they adopted the oh-so-gentle image used by the Americans, which I find reminiscent of McClelland & Stewart's dull and dusky fin de millénium dustjackets (see No Great Mischief). I much prefer the frank Canadian cover. This is, after all, a story of slavery, struggle, savagery, revolution and war.

Related post:

The American Version: No Colours, Fewer Colors

National Poetry Month Bookend

The end of National Poetry Month. Can't say it was much different from March – at least not here in little Saint Marys. I close with this photo, taken yesterday, of 92 Wellington Street North. This Victorian Italianate, eight short blocks from the home of James MacRae, is the birthplace and childhood home of David Donnell, whose Settlements received the 1983 Governor General's Award for Poetry.

Cardinal Villeneuve's Folly

Les Demi-civilisés

Jean-Charles Harvey

Montreal: Éditions du Totem, 1934

Seventy-five years ago today Jean-Marie-Rodrigue Villeneuve, Archbishop of Quebec, had Les Demi-civilisés placed on the Index of Prohibited Books, thus ensuring that there will always be those who make a special effort to track it down. Not always an easy thing to do. While Cardinal Villeneuve's condemnation most assuredly helped spur sales – the 3000 copy print run sold out in a matter of weeks – it also meant that the novel, Harvey's second, remained out of print until 1962, when a revised edition was published.

In his 'CONDEMNATION DU ROMAN "LES-DEMI-CIVILISES"', the Cardinal cites article 1399, 3°, of the Code of Canon Law, which calls for the banning of works that 'purposely attack religion or good morals'. In fact, both are left unscathed; the reader finishes the novel with virtue intact. Harvey doesn't attack religion, but the Church. His demi-civilisés are not the uneducated, but their repressors: an alliance of clergy, politicians and businessmen.

The Globe and Mail, 30 April 1938

A pariah to some, a hero to others, Harvey did maintain a certain profile, and was sought out as a speaker. Pierre Chalout of Le Droit called him the 'grand-père de la révolution tranquille', yet during the final years of his life Harvey fell out of favour with a thud. His promotion of bilingualism and defence of federalism, as articulated in Pourquoi je suis anti-séparatiste (1962), alienated a great many Quebec intellectuals. Thirty-two years after his death, Quebec City has no rue Harvey, nor does Montreal. All but one of his books is out of print.

Les Demi-civilisés is one of a very small number of Canadian novels to have received two English language translations. The first, by Lukin Barette, is saddled with the rather unfortunate title Sackcloth for Banner (Toronto: Macmillan, 1938). As if that weren't bad enough, it may well be the worst translation yet made of a Canadian novel. Barette omits passages, changes names, invents dialogue and commits what amounts to a rewrite of the final two chapters. All is set right with Fear's Folly, John Glassco's 1980 translation, published two years later by Carleton University Press.

Object and Access: Sadly, predictably, all but absent from our public libraries. A decent copy of the first edition is currently listed online at US$30.00. An incredible bargain. English-language editions aren't dear. As Sackcloth for Banner, it goes for between C$60 and C$135. Fear's Folly is usually on offer for about C$15.