Not Only Chic, but Well-read

A photograph of Yves Thériault, André Langevin and Jean-Charles Harvey, stumbled upon early this week in the 28 November 1954 edition of Chic, Montreal's 'Journal de la Femme'. The weekly devoted a two-page spread, 'LES ECRIVANS CANADIENS FONT FACE LEUR CHER PUBLIC', to a 14 November gathering of 'romanciers et quelques romancières du Canada français' at the Windsor Hotel's Rose Room. Judging by the photographs, our romancières were severely outnumbered; not one features a female novelist. Here's Thériault again, looking a touch less shifty, standing between Robert Élie and Roger Viau:


Other photos capture Eugène Cloutier, Bertrand Vac, Guy Boulizon and Jean Bruchési. In short, a lot of men who appear happy to be surrounded by the stylish women of the Société d'étude et de conférences, including vice-president Miss Louise McNichols and president Mrs Redmond Roche, shown here with the dowdy Father Marie-Ceslas Forest.

Father Forest served as professor at the Dominican College of Ottawa and the Université de Montréal, was an early supporter of women's suffrage and wrote Le divorce (1920). His papers are held at the Université of Montréal. Much less can be said about Chic. Quebec's Bibliotèque et Archives nationales holds only eleven issues, the final being the edition in which these photographs appeared. Though the newspaper states otherwise, the BAN claims that it was published by Merlin, the company best known for Allô police.

Another Handful of Dust

Dust Over the City [Poussière sur la ville]

André Langevin

Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1955

Since the death of André Langevin in February, I've been reading so slowly, so very slowly, this translation of his second novel. I discovered Dust Over the City by chance when a student – and as with everything from those heady days, it was revisited with trepidation. I needn't have worried.

The opening image continues to haunt: a lone man stands motionless, bareheaded, coatless, late at night in the swirling snow, eyes fixed on the darkened house in which his adulterous wife of three months sleeps. Alain Dubois is a talented young doctor who attends to the pale, sickly, suffering citizens of Macklin (really Thetford Mines – those swirling flakes of snow mix with asbestos dust). Confident and efficacious in his professional life, he is staggered and debilitated by his wife's infidelity.

There's little story here; these are the thoughts of a tortured soul who struggles to comprehend. It's not the sort of novel suited for the screen, yet in 1968 Langevin adapted the work for director by Arthur Lamothe. The resulting film has disappeared from view. The only glimpse I've had comes from this brief clip that appeared mysteriously last year on YouTube.

The translation, credited to John Latrobe and Robert Gottlieb (Robert Gottlieb? The editor?), is a haphazard piece of work. I suspect it was tackled tag-team. Sure, as a whole it's more than competent, but it often becomes awkward and clumsy. An example: recklessness nearly leads to violent death – the couple's car is nearly hit by a train. The young wife's passion inflamed, she kisses Dubois savagely. Latrobe and Gottlieb have our hero confess:

Her ardor bowled me over. Gently I repulsed her. We drove on...

Though Dust Over the City was published in the United States by Putnam, English-language editions of Langevin's work never achieved much in the way of sales. He wrote four other novels – all acclaimed – but only one, Une Chain dans la park (1974), the first Canadian book to be nominated for the Prix Goncourt, appeared in English. In 1976, when Jack McClelland published the translation, Orphan Street, he wrote Hugh MacLennan, 'I am tempted to get really carried away on this one and really try to force-feed the market. We don't do that very often, but there is some justification for it because, as I am sure know, French-Canadian novels in translation almost invariably bomb in English.'

Sadly, Orphan Street was no exception.

Object and Access: Readily available in our larger public libraries. More good news: as number 113 in the old New Canadian Library, there are plenty of copies out there at under C$10. The first edition, a handsome hardcover with dust jacket by Rus Anderson, is usually found at C$20 or less. Copies of Poussière sur la ville are cheaper still – and, as might be expected, more common.

Hey Kids! Comix!

I imagine that there is no more cautionary a tale in comicdom than that of Toronto-born Joe Shuster. Things seemed to have got off to such a good start (though perhaps not quite as swell as is portrayed in the Historica Minute): kid cartoonist Joe and his writer friend Jerry Siegel create Superman and spend several years flogging the character before finding a home with Detective Comics Inc. Then they make the mistake of selling their creation for US$130. Never mind, for the next ten years the pair rake in big bucks working for DC, until they take their employer to court in an ill-fated effort to win back the rights.

Shuster's entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia tells us that he was fired and 'stopped drawing completely.' It's a sloppy error. Shuster and Siegel went on to create Funnyman, a 'two-fisted howlarious scrapper' that soon appeared in dustbins everywhere. A few years later, having finally parted ways with Siegel, Shuster was reduced to providing fetish art for cheap publications like Hollywood Detective, Rod Rule and, above all, Nights of Horror.

Last month, the multi-talented Craig Yoe published Secret Identity, an entertaining and informative look at Shuster's later artistic endeavours. The most interesting aspect of our countryman's work is the inclusion of characters that resemble members of what DC calls 'the Superman family'. Yoe's cover image features a scantily-clad Lois Lane look-alike whipping a man who resembles Superman. And is this cub reporter Jimmy Olsen putting his hand up Lois Lane's skirt? In a library? For shame.

Nights of Horror was eventually banned, its destruction called for by no less a body than the Supreme Court of the United States. Blame for this censorship rests squarely on the shoulders of the Thrill Killers, a Brooklyn-based group of Jewish neo-Nazis. I kid you not, and direct those interested to Yoe's 23 April interview on NPR's Fresh Air.

Queen Victoria and He

A song for Victoria Day.

Leonard Cohen's words to our celebrated monarch, "mean governess of the huge pink maps", first surfaced as "Queen Victoria and Me" in Flowers for Hitler, his 1964 collection of poems. The song differs only sightly; title aside, the most noticeable change occurs a few lines in.

I love you too in all your forms

the slim unlovely virgin anyone would lay

the white figure floating among German beards 

becomes

I love you too in all your forms

the slim unlovely virgin floating among German beards

I've twice seen 'German beards' misquoted as 'German beers'. Make mine a Beck's.

No 'Hallelujah' this, 'Queen Victoria' certainly ranks amongst Cohen's least noticed songs. It has never featured in his public performances, yet is tacked on the end of 1973's Live Songs.

Related posts:

A Civil Servant's Awful Victoria Day Poem

Victoria Day Poetry Disaster

Verse for Victoria Day by the Master of All Poets

Cheery Victoria Day Verse from the Cheese Poet

'Away to Canada' – A Song for Victoria Day