Old Soldier Frederick Niven London: Collins, 1936 250 pages
Stewart Reid lives in a small flat with his wife and two young sons in Edinburgh's east end. Minnie sleeps in the one bedroom; the boys share a "concealed bed" in the parlour. Stewart's days begin in a cot next to the stove in the camped kitchen. The missus can't abide this thrashing about under the covers.
Read nothing into that.
Stewart loves Minnie. Minnie loves Stewart. Their lives are happy. Each Friday night, Minnie meets her man as he leaves work. He hands her his pay packet. She withdraws a shilling and he has a dram at the local. Minnie enjoys a bottle of lemonade.
Stewart's shilling comes through his employ at Mackenzie Bothers, one of Edinburgh's most respected jewellers. He works in semi-darkness below the shop floor, polishing silver with fellow old soldiers. Robert Mackenzie, the sole surviving Mackenzie brother, prefers veterans for the task. It's easy to see why. Stewart follows direction and is dedicated to the job at hand. When tasked, he can be trusted to deliver goods to Edinburgh's finest homes, doing so with fine military bearing. What's more, Stewart Reid lives by routine. While this is disturbed somewhat by his annual summer holiday, Minnie maintains an even keel.
"He's a man who needs a woman to look after him, or a sergeant," says Todd, the oldest of the old soldiers.
Old Soldier is a quiet novel. Nothing much happens. After several dozen pages, one looks about in search of a plot device. Might it be Mackenzie Brothers' flirtatious charwoman Nell Drummond, she of the swinging skirt? Could it have something to do with cold Rev Dr Churchkirk's refusal to be held accountable for the debts of his wife and daughter? How about paymaster Beck's suggestion that Stewart's holiday allotment be held back, lest the old soldier spend it on... you know, his holiday?
Wait, it's the holiday itself, right?
But no, Old Soldier is a tale of everyday life. Its hero is a man who ventures out on a Monday, does drudgery, and suffers an indignity or two for the love of his wife and boys. On Tuesday, he rises in his kitchen cot and prepares for the same. Stewart becomes complaisant. The reader becomes complaisant. When something of significance does happen – remarkably late in the novel – the reader may be caught off guard.
I know I was.
These things happen to other people. Not to me. Not to Stewart Reid.
And yet he continues on, an old soldier.
Dedication: To the author's wife, journalist Mary Pauline Thorne-Quelch.
Object: Purchased last year for £3.00 from a bookstore in Wallingford, England, my copy once belonged to the Newlands Circulating Library of Fiction, 16 Stafford St, Shandwick Place, Edinburgh. I'm sad to report that the address is now taken up by a Frontiers store.
I found this piece of ephemera glued to page 187:
The novel is followed six full-page adverts for other Niven titles: The Flying Years, Triumph, Mrs. Barry, The Rich Wife, The Paisley Shawl, and The Three Marys.
Access: As far as I've been able to determine, the novel enjoyed just one edition and one printing. A bookseller in Tamworth, England offers an ex-library copy at £8.00.
That's it.
It can be read online here courtesy of the Faded Page.
A better year than last, right? I got out more, raised pints in pubs, saw my daughter, and spent seven days touring Quebec City and the Eastern Townships. Hell, I even saw a movie in a theatre.
I also visited more bookstores, though a depressingly small number were worth the effort. Six of this year's ten best buys were purchased online. Ted Allan's pseudonymously published Quest for Pajaro (London: Heinemann, 1957) is my favourite. I'd known about about this science fiction romance since 1983, but in all the years that passed had never come across a copy.
No surprise, I suppose.
Quest for Pajaro was published in 1957 by Heinemann. There was no Canadian edition. Was anyone distributing Heinemann in Canada back then? If so, were they aware that "Edward Maxwell" was in fact Montrealer Ted Allan?
Doubt it.
I purchased Quest for Pajaro after having been invited to comment on Allan's work at this year's Toronto Jewish Film Festival. While not his best book, it is his most intriguing. There hadn't been many many Canadian science fiction romances before 1957 – still aren't. What's more, the novel's linchpin is an experimental jet known as the "Arrow."
Bruce Petty's gorgeous jacket illustration puts it over the top.
The author's only children's book, this tale of a talented squowse (offspring of a squirrel and a mouse) proved one of the most enjoyable and life-affirming reads of the year. The fifty – fifty! – Quentin Blake illustrations brought further joy.
Whispering City Horace Brown Pickering, ON: Global
Publishing, 1947
Horace Brown's adaptation of this film noir shot in Quebec City, for years I'd hoped to find a reasonably-priced copy. This year I did (US$89.95).
A mystery novel that begins with the discovery of a body in a Montreal bookstore, since I'd long been searching for this novel. Might it be a candidate for reissue as a Ricochet Book?
Nope.
Still, I'm still happy to have it in my collection.
Let Not Man Put Asunder Basil King
New York: Grosset & Dunlap,
[n.d]
Though it's been two years since I bought, never mind reviewed, a Basil King novel, I leapt at this one. Let Not Man Put Asunder is either the seventh or eighth King novel to be adapted by Hollywood. IMDb does not recognize, but I have this photoplay edition as evidence.
Toute la Vie Claire Martin
Quebec: Éditions de L'instant
même, 1999
I've admired Claire Martin since reading Dans un gant de fer in CEGEP. David Lobdell's translation of her Doux-Amer deserves a return to print. Imagine the thrill in finding three signed Martins during my recent visit to Quebec City. This is one.
In Spite of Myself: A Memoir Christopher Plummer Toronto: Random House,
2009
I regret many things in leaving our St Marys home, not the least of which involves selling thirteen-hundred books, In Spite of Myself amongst them.
I'm slowly been buying them back. This signed copy was found at the Kemptville Youth Centre Book Fair.
I own many copies of Beautiful Joe, but this is by far the most... um, beautiful. At one dollar, it was the least expensive book I purchased this year.
The Countess of Aberdeen provides an introduction!
Menaud, maître-draveur
Félix-Antoine Savard Ottawa: Éditions Fides, 1967
Another Quebec City find, I came upon this inscribed, slip-cased edition on the very same day I made my pilgrimage to the author's home.
This old novel proved to be 2021's most unpleasant, stomach-turning read. Voyeurism, adultery, greed, murder, and something approaching necrophilia figure.
Good fun from a Toronto boy who made a killing in Hollywood before retiring to Vancouver island.
Two generous souls donated books to the Dusty Bookcase this year.
Lee Goldberg noted my interest in the novels of former Vancouver newspaperman Tom Ardies (Their Man in the White House, Kosygan is Coming) and was kind enough to send me newly published copies of This Briefcase is Going to Explode, Pandemic, Balboa Firefly, and Manila Time (the latter two written under Ardies' Jack Trolley nom de plume).
Lee is in the process of reissuing Ardies' entire bibliography through Brash Books.
More power to him!
Fraser Sutherland died this earlier this year. I was honoured to have been asked to provide an obituary for the Globe & Mail. One of the greatest challenges in its writing concerned family, specifically the name of a sibling, an older brother, who had died at a young age. Our newspaper of record is insistent on such things. It seemed not one of Fraser's friends could quite remember... and then one came through, which led me to this uncommon chapbook:
Published in 1976 by Northern Journey Press, Within the Wound is dedicated to that brother, Hugh Sutherland (1941-1965). I shared this discovery with Fraser's good friend, Adrian King-Edwards of Montreal's Word Bookstore, who in turn presented me with this copy.
The 1921 edition of 'Recent Books and the Outlook,' the Globe's annual list of best books, begins on a positive note: "Author's and publishers have had an unhappy experience during the past few years owing to conditions which they could not control, but the current season has a distinctly better tone."
The Great War must surely have ranked as the preeminent condition. There were years in which the conflict came close to dominating 'Recent Books and the Outlook.' The 1920 edition had an entire section devoted to books about the war:
Not only is the Great War barely mentioned in the 1921 'Recent Books and the Outlook,' just three of its 206 books are related to the bloodshed just twenty-four months past. Great War poetry disappears entirely... and with it poetry. I exaggerate, but only slightly. Eight volumes of verse are listed, down from nineteen the previous year; four are Canadian:
My Pocket Beryl - Mary Josephine Benson
Later Poems - Bliss Carman
Bill Boram: A Ballad - Robert Norwood
Beauty and Life - Duncan Campbell Scott
I'm not familiar with any of these titles, but have read and reviewed Robert Service's 1921 Ballads of a Bohemian. To this point, the Bard of the Yukon had been a 'Recent Books and the Outlook' favourite;' I'd thought Ballads of a Bohemian a shoo-in. Is Bill Boram: A Ballad so much better? I must investigate.
As in years past, fiction makes up the biggest category; their number is seventy-two, the star being If Winter Comes by A.S.M. Hutchinson:
Hutchinson's achievement aside, the Globe is disappointed by foreign offerings:
Fiction in other countries has been disappointing during the last year, and has certainly not proved as rich as biography or history. American readers fall into two classes says the New York Times Book Review, those who like John Dos Passos' "The Three Soldiers" and those who do not.
The correct title is Three Soldiers.
It doesn't make the list.
My copy (New York: Doran, 1921)
Where foreign writers of fiction disappoint, Canadians flourish. A record twenty-four Canadian fiction titles figure. Or is it twenty-three? Twenty-two?
The Lone Trail - Luke Allan
Anne of the Marshland - Lady Byng
Barriers - Lady Byng
To Him That Hath - Ralph Connor
The Lobstick Trail - Douglas Durkin
The Gift of the Gods - Pearl Foley
Red Meekins - W.A. Fraser
Maria Chapdelaine - Louis Hemon [trans W.H. Blake]
Maria Chapdelaine - Louis Hemon [trans Andrew Macphail]
Let's ignore the misspelling of Isabel Ecclestone Mackay's surname, shall we. Louis Hémon's, too. Interesting to see both Maria Chapdelaine translations, don't you think? What really intrigues is the inclusion of Basil King's The Conquest of Fear.
As my 1942 World Library edition (above) suggests, The Conquest of Fear is a work of philosophy. The Globe describes it at a novel:
The inclusion of Arthur Stringer's Are All Men Alike? is just as intriguing. The author published two books in 1921, the other being his heart-breaking roman à clefThe Wine of Life. By far the finest Stringer I've read thus far, my dream is to one day bring out an edition featuring the twenty-four James Montgomery Flagg illustrations it inspired.
My collection of the Globe's 1921 Canadian "fiction" titles
Is Are All Men Alike? superior to The Wine of Life?
I haven't read it, nor have I read Jess of the Rebel Trail or Little Miss Melody. I have read Miriam of Queen'sandThe Window Gazer, both of which disappointed. The Empty Sackis my very favourite Basil King title, and yet it too pales beside The Wine of Life.
Or is it better? Are they all better?
What do I know? I think Three Soldiers is the best novel of 1921.
Last week, I has the pleasure of joining Alexandra Irimia, Bilal Hashmi, Patricia Godbout, Phyllis Aronoff, and Arianne Des Rochers for the 2021 John Glassco Translation Prize Gala.
The streamed event has been preserved for posterity on YouTube:
Arianne Des Rocher delivers the jury statement at 51:40, which is followed by Luba Markovskaia's acceptance speech.
Beginning at 19:45, my participation takes the form of a discussion of Glassco's life and work with Patricia Godbout. Host Alexandra Irimia serves as moderator. What a pleasure it was to finally meet Prof Godbout... if only virtually. She's does such good work. I've long admired her Traduction littéraire et sociabilité interculturelle au Canada (1950-1960).
Here's hoping for a healthier 2022, and that the John Glassco Translation Prize Gala can return to being an in-person event.
Short pieces on books I've always meant to review (but haven't).
Cousin Elva Stuart Trueman Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1955 224 pages
I prefer my humour dark, which pretty much explains why I haven't read this mid-century comic novel. The jacket copy discourages:
What does it say about me that I have have no interest in a group of lovable characters? What does it mean that I don't want to read "a truly happy book."
Nothing good, I expect.
Did McClelland & Stewart do its author a disservice? It wouldn't be the first time. And I do like Trueman's illustrations.
Do Cousin Elva, Mr Bogson, Dr Fergus, Nathaniel Scribner, and luscious Beth Hailley rank amongst the most extraordinary characters in Canadian literature?
Quebec in Revolt Herman Buller Toronto: Swan, 1966 352 pages
The cover has all the look of a 1960s polemic, but Quebec in Revolt is in fact a historical novel. Its key characters are depicted on the title pages:
At far left is Joseph Guibord, he of the Guibord Affair.
The Guibord Affair?
Like Gordon Sinclair, one of twelve columnists and critics quoted on the back cover, the Guibord Affair meant nothing to me.
It most certainly didn't feature in the textbooks I was assigned in school. This is a shame because the Guibord Affair would've challenged classmates who complained that Canadian history was boring.
Here's what happened:
In 1844, Montreal typographer Joseph Guibord helped found the Institut canadien. An association dedicated to the principles of liberalism, its library included titles prohibited by the Roman Catholic Index – the Index Librorum Prohibitoru. These volumes, combined with the Institut's cultural and political activities, drew the condemnation of Ignace Bourget, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Montreal. In July 1869, Bourget issued a decree depriving members of the sacraments. Guibord died four months later.
Here's what happened next:
Guibord's body was transported to a plot he'd purchased at Montreal's Catholic Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery, only to be refused burial by the Church. The remains found a temporary resting place at the Protestant Mount Royal Cemetery, while friend and lawyer Joseph Doutre brought a lawsuit on behalf of the widow Guibord. In 1874, after the initial court case and a series of appeals, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ordered the burial. In response, Bourget deconsecrated Guibord's plot.
The second attempt at interment, on 2 September 1875, began at Mount Royal Cemetery:
At Notre-Dame-des-Neiges, a violent mob attacked, forcing a retreat to Mount Royal.
The third attempt, on 16 November, was accompanied by a military escort of over 1200 men. Guibord's coffin was encased in concrete so as to protect his body from vandals.
The sorry "Guibord Affair" spans the second half of the novel. The focus of the first half is the man himself. Young Guibord woos and weds Henriette Brown, the smallpox-scared orphaned daughter of a poor shoemaker. He moves up the ranks within Louis Perrault & Co, the printing firm in which he'd worked since a boy, eventually becoming manager of the entire operation.
Louis Perrault & Co, c.1869
Henriette and husband come to be joined by Della, the daughter of one of her distant Irish cousins. Poor girl, Della was part of the exodus brought on by the Potato Famine. Her father and lone sibling having died whilst crossing the Atlantic – mother soon to follow – she clings to life in one of the "pestilential sheds" built for accommodate diseased immigrants. The most dramatic scene in the novel has Joseph defying authority by lifting he girl from her sickbed and carrying her home.
"Skin and bone had given way to flesh and curves," Della recovers and grows to become a headstrong young woman. Buller makes much of her breasts. Ever one to buck convention and authority, Della spurns marriage, has a lengthy sexual and intellectual relationship with journalist Arthur Buies, and ends up living openly with Joseph Doutre ("Josef" in the novel). Truly, a liberated woman; remarkable for her time.
Were it not for the novel's Author's Note, pointing out that Guibord began his career working for John Lovell (not Louis Perrault), or that he was born on 31 March 1809 (not 1 April 1809), or that women didn't wear bustles in 1820s Montreal, might seem nit-picky.
I expect there many more fabrications and errors in this novel and its packaging, but can't say for sure. Again, we didn't learn about the Guibord Affair in school.
About the author: Herman Buller joins Kenneth Orvis and Ernie Hollands as Dusty Bookcase jailbird authors. A lawyer, he rose to fame in the 'fifties as part of a baby-selling ring.
The Gazette, 13 February 1954
Buller was arrested at Dorval Airport on 12 February 1954 whilst attempting to board a flight to Israel with his wife and in-laws. The worst of it all – according to the French-language press – was that the lawyer had placed babies born to unwed Catholic women with Jewish couples.
La Patrie, 11 February 1954
Remarkably, Buller served just one day in prison. He paid a $20,000 fine, was disbarred, and was good to go.
Though Quebec in Revolt was published just eleven years after all this, not a single review mentioned of Buller's criminal past.
I hadn't heard of the Buller Affair (as I call it) until researching this novel, despite it having been dramatized in Le berceau des anges (2015) a five-part Series+ series. Buller (played by Lorne Bass) is mentioned twenty-two seconds into the trailer.
Fun fact: I read Quebec in Revolt during a recent stay at the Monastère des Augustines in Quebec City.
Object and Access: A bulky, well-read mass-market paperback, my copy was purchased for one dollar this past summer at an antiques/book store in Spencerville, Ontario.
Quebec in Revolt was first published in 1965 by Centennial Press. If the back cover is to be believed, McKenzie Porter of the Toronto Telegram describes that edition as a "Canadian best seller." I've yet to come across a copy.
As of this morning, seven copies of Quebec in Revolt are listed for sale online. At US$6.00, the least expensive is offered by Thiftbooks: "Unknown Binding. Condition: Fair. No Jacket. Readable copy. Pages may have considerable notes/highlighting," Take a chance! Who knows what will arrive!
There are two Swan copies at US$8.00 and US$12.45. Prices for the Centennial edition range from US$10.00 (sans jacket) to US$24.00.
Surprisingly, Quebec in Revolt enjoyed an Estonian translation: Ja mullaks ei pea sa saama... Google translates this as And you don't have to become soil...
A sixty-page booklet published by William Southam, father of the Southam newspaper empire, Regimental Songs was distributed to members of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. The first song is "Alexander's Ragtime Band;" the second, "Alouette," is followed by "Annie Laurie." My favourite is the fourth: "Any Little Girl That's a Nice Little Girl is the Right Little Girl for Me." Regimental Songs provides only the chorus:
Southam's booklet contains 168 songs – some bowdlerized, some not. "God Save the King" is sandwiched between the chorus of "Every Little Bit Added to What You've Got Makes Just a Little Bit More" and select lines from "Good-Night, Ladies."
Regimental Songs isn't all King, Country, and girls.
I purchased the booklet ten years ago at a library book sale. It once belonged to Calvin Dale Williamson of St Marys, Ontario, who at nineteen enlisted to serve as a private in the 55th Overseas Battery, Canadian Field Artillery.
Après la guerre, Cal Williamson worked as a plumber. A life-long bachelor, he lived in a modest house on Jones Street East (likely the same house in which he was born). A friend who hired him in his later years remembers Mr Williamson as a hoarder and something of an eccentric. Calvin Dale Williamson died in 1983, at the age of eighty-seven. "When he died, the contents of his house were cleared out and dispersed," writes my friend. "The house was demolished and there is no trace of this interesting man left in St. Marys – except, perhaps, at some drilled wells."
Calvin Dale Williamson lies next to his parents, Thomas and Cordelia, in the St Marys Cemetery.
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.
