One of the more restrained poems composed as "a truthful guide" by James Gay, self-proclaimed Poet Laureate of Canada and Master of All Poets.
NOVEMBER THE FIRST
Being one of the oldest settlers in your town, I cannot remember of seeing such a beautiful day; On the first day of November, see the stars so clear and bright, They give us light, All through the night. Young gents and ladies walk out bold, The weather is not too hot or cold; Jack Frost has kept his hand away, Those young and old can sport and play All through the night till the break of day. The leaves in October have passed away; Like man on earth, he cannot stay, Falling more or less each day, Our bodies soon return to clay, Thousands do never give this a thought; Then what will be their awful fate? With millions this word, too late, too late. Leave off this sinful life, and try to act more clever, Put your trust in Providence, life changes like the weather.
Purchased for five dollars – five dollars! – during my most recent visit to Montreal, Ralph Gustafson's Rivers Among Rocks (McClelland and Stewart, 1960) provides an excuse to revisit the wonderful work Frank Newfeld. The cover may be a bit weathered, but it more than hints at the brilliance within.
Pardon my thumbs.
After all this beauty comes a lengthy "NOTE ON PUBLICATION":
This book is the result of a unique association dedication to improve of the standards of design and manufacturing in the making of Canadian books. It is the first of a group of selected works of poetry and belle lettres chosen both to inspire and to complement fine craftsmanship in the designing and manufacturing arts.
It has been published in a limited edition and will not be republished in this format. Its publication is experimental in the sense that the strict economic limitations that might normally prevail were waived to permit adequate attention in the various stages of production.
It was planned and illustrated by Frank Newfeld, a brilliant young Canadian designer, typographer and art director, whose work has earned him an imposing series of awards in various fields of design.
It was produced under the joint auspices of the Polland Paper Company Limited who supplied the stock, Laurentic Japan and Rolland Extra Stong; H & S Reliance Limited who supplied engravings for the illustrations, the jacket, and the case; T. H. Best Printing Company Limited, in whose plant the type was set and the books printed and bound; and McClelland and Stewart Limited.
Of that "group of selected works of poetry and belle lettres", I think it ranks second only to Newfeld's work on Leonard Cohen's The Spice-Box of Earth.
Nelly Arcan was in the news again last month with a new book, Burqua de chair. Between its covers she writes of humiliation, her words inspired by a 2007 appearance on Tout le monde en parle. Don't know it? François Lauzon devoted a piece to this autowreck in The Gazette.
Arcan hanged herself just over two years ago. There were obituaries. "Acclaimed Quebec Writer Who Penned 'Whore' Found Dead in Montreal" read the headline fed by the Canadian Press. The Moose Jaw Times Herald published all 220 words. It is the only time that her name has appeared in its pages. The best obituary published outside the province – and there is no coincidence in this – came from a fellow Quebecer, Linda Leith. Of this novel, Leith writes:
Bright and talented and aware, Arcan was also beautiful and – we already knew this long before her death – very fragile. Putain is a work of autofiction (or fictionalized autobiography), so she might have been prepared for journalists’ questions about the similarities between the prostitute Cynthia in the novel and Arcan’s own experience as a sex worker. She was not. She was panicked and stammering.
Writing has always been a solitary occupation, but we now expect our authors to take the stage on radio, on television, at book fairs and at literary festivals. Arcan's beauty, a publisher's dream, did distract. "She was thin and surprisingly busty," writes Leith, "and yes I know we’re not supposed to say such things, but Nelly Arcan’s physical presence was too eye-catching to ignore."
And yet, Arcan was ignored. Take away the obits and you'll find that she received next to no attention from the English language media outside Quebec. One wonders why. Where were the publishers? Were they really so ignorant of her talent? Or is it that pervasive puritanism and provincialism had them looking the other way? This English translation of Putain, Arcan's accomplished debut – a nominee for both the Prix Médicis and the Prix Fémina – wound up being published by Black Cat, an imprint of New York's Grove/Atlantic. I've never once seen it in a bookstore.
Arcan's final novel, Paradis, Clef en main, completed in the days before her death, has just been published in translation by Vancouver's Anvil Press. Titled Exit, it has been nominated for a Governor General's Award. I've never once seen it in a bookstore.
This is not a review, but a recommendation. If you haven't already, read Whore and then Exit. If your French is good – or even shaky – track down Folle. All are extraordinary works by a woman who is at once amongst this country's most recognized and most overlooked writers.
Object and Access:An attractive trade-size paperback – that's the author on the front cover. Unread copies, all first printings – there was no second – can be bought online for one dollar. Whore is found in eight Canadian libraries: the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, the Toronto Public Library, the Vancouver Public Library and the libraries of Dalhousie, McGill, York, the University of Alberta and the University of British Columbia. Shame on all the others.
Putain, a bestseller, is readily available in bookstores and libraries in the province of Quebec... and in France, Belgium and Switzerland.
Watching what I could of The 27th Day, I was struck by the self-described "alien from outer space". He seemed so very familiar, yet I couldn't quite place him. I now know that "The Alien" was Arnold Moss, perhaps the most English man to have been born and bred in Brooklyn. An actor and cruciverbalist, I would have seen Mr Moss in many of the television shows I watched during my first decade: Star Trek...
The Monkees...
Bonanza.
I won't pretend to have completed one of his crosswords.
Though Moss doesn't get much screen time in The 27th Day, he steals the show – as reflected in this 1957 issue of Urania.
The Italian science fiction magazine published Mantley's novel twice – in translation and unabridged – thus giving it considerably more attention than it ever received in this country.
While the Germans were equally enthusiastic, it appears that it was the British who were the most keen. Over a four year period, they published two hardcover and two paperback editions, including this 1958 issue from Beacon (not to be confused with the American publishers of the unjustly neglected Orrie Hitt):
Collectors may be more interested in the 1961 Four Square edition, which features cover art by Josh Kirby of Discworld fame:
For my money, the most interesting is El 27° Dia, the 1957 Spanish language edition from Muchnik of Buenos Aires:
John Mantley, the only Canadian author I know to have been published in Argentina. I could've learnt something from him.
In the middle of The 27th Day, Eve Wingate and Jonathan Clark share a first, passionless kiss. Next thing you know, they decide to marry.
Different times.
Our young lovebirds are two of five people who have been abducted by aliens from a dying world. These "space people", coveting our planet, seek to speed up what they see as our natural inclination toward self-destruction by giving each of the five earthlings capsules containing "the power to wipe out every human being on earth!" After just twenty-seven days, the weapons will be rendered harmless. Please understand, the aliens aren't evil, just desperate. "We, too, find the proposition that any race would knowingly destroy itself untenable," says their spokesperson, "but our computers, fed on the records of your racial history, insist that there is a better than 50 per cent possibility of this weapon being used within twenty-seven days."
There are some fine passages in this book, but I'm going to be very unfair by skipping right to the end of the story, because it's here that a bland, if competent book becomes suddenly, surprisingly bad.
We're meant to believe that the five – Eve, Jonathan, Soviet soldier Ivan Godofsky, Chinese peasant girl Su Tan and absent-minded Professor Klaus Bochner – were chosen at random, but it just happens that the professor, perhaps the world's most famous scientist, becomes humankind's greatest hero. In true thriller style, he cracks a code with mere minutes to spare, thus unleashing a force that not only kills the villain, the Soviet Union's "Great Leader", but forever ensures the survival of his species.
Listen – or read – if you will, to the radio announcer who, "delirious with joy", relates news that "tyrants and evildoers in high places" have been struck dead by "invisible rays from outer space":
I know it's unbelievable, fantastic, but it is true that the rays killed every leader known to have been a confirmed enemy of human freedom. But they also stunned others without seeming regard for importance, position, or age of the individual. The most unlikely people have fallen victim to the epidemic – gossip columnists, thieves, preachers, psychiatrists, senators, plumbers, merchants; there have been attacks in every profession. And yet, it now appears that those who did not meet death in the first moments are destined to recover.
While it's true that those affected recover their health, their personalities are forever transformed. Jonathan himself experiences "a pain he had never known", but becomes a better person in the process.
To truly get a sense of this new world, let us turn again to our rambling radio announcer:
From every corner of the country, statistics are arriving which indicate that a great spiritual revolution has overtaken the nation. In Las Vegas, more than two thirds of the divorce applicants have expressed a desire to discontinue their cases...
How to explain this kind new world? Prof Bochner believes that "secretions" at fault for bad behaviour have been destroyed by "Alien power". Sadly, those with secretions high above the norm, like the Great Leader, had to die.
First published in 1956, set in 1963, narrated by a voice from the far off 1973, The 27th Day is very much a Cold War novel. A few have run with this, describing the work as anti-Communist, but things aren't nearly so clear-cut. The Soviet Union: bad. World federation: good. Competition: bad. Co-operation: good. You see what I mean.
In 1957, the novel was made into a black and white film that is... well, no more black and white. Mantley, who wrote the adaptation, published only one more novel, Snow Birch (1958), which he later turned into the Susan Hayward vehicle Woman Obsessed (1959). A Torontonian – Mary Pickford was a cousin – Mantley spent more than three decades writing for movies and television, but is best remembered as the longest serving producer of Gunsmoke.
Things were much more black and white on Gunsmoke. That Miss Kitty, she had a heart of gold.
Object and Access: Attractive enough, I suppose, my Crest copy is the first and only American paperback edition. Its cover image is generic – no space station features in the novel, and we never get so much as a glimpse of any planet other than Earth. Though the last edition was published in 1964, used copies are plentiful. Good copies of the US first edition – Dutton (right) – begin at $15.00. The more attractive UK first – Michael Joseph (below) –is a touch more dear. Those who want nothing more than to read the darn thing will find used copies listed online for as little as one dollar. Canadian library patrons are limited to McMaster University and the ever reliable Toronto Public Library.
The novel is also out there in German (Der Siebenundzwanzigste Tag), Danish (Den syvogtyvende dag), Spanish (El 27° Dia) and Italian (Il 27° Giorno) translations.
Update: The ever eagle-eyed JRSM notes this in John Mantley's Encyclopedia of Science Fiction entry: "The novel was filmed – from the US version, which has a revised ending – as The 27TH DAY (1957)." If accurate, this may go some way in explaining the rather absurd conclusion in the edition I read. As if to add to the confusion, I note that the ending discussed by folks at IMDb doesn't quite match. While in the Crest paperback the aliens come to share the Earth, the film has it that the "dying planet" stuff was a ruse. You see, it was all just a test to see whether we were civilized enough to join 30,000-member "Galactic Council". Don't worry, we passed.
A writer, ghostwriter, écrivain public, literary historian and bibliophile, I'm the author of Character Parts: Who's Really Who in CanLit (Knopf, 2003), and A Gentleman of Pleasure: One Life of John Glassco, Poet, Translator, Memoirist and Pornographer (McGill-Queen's UP, 2011; shortlisted for the Gabrielle Roy Prize). I've edited over a dozen books, including The Heart Accepts It All: Selected Letters of John Glassco (Véhicule, 2013) and George Fetherling's The Writing Life: Journals 1975-2005 (McGill-Queen's UP, 2013). I currently serve as series editor for Ricochet Books and am a contributing editor for Canadian Notes & Queries. My most recent book is The Dusty Bookcase (Biblioasis, 2017), a collection of revised and expanded reviews first published here and elsewhere.
