09 June 2015

About Those Butt-Ugly Laurentian Library Books



"'Butt-ugly' is a bit harsh, don't you think?" writes a friend in response to my description of Macmillian of Canada's not-much-missed Laurentian Library.

I'm not so sure.

I bought my first Laurentian Library book, Canada's First Century by Donald Creighton, in preparation for my first semester at John Abbott College.* Its pages had turned brown before leaving the campus bookstore. My second Laurentian Library purchase, volume two of Mason Wade's The French Canadians 1760-1967,  developed a curled spine, yet I never read the thing.

(Volume two of Mason Wade's The French Canadians 1760-1967 is nearly six hundred pages long.)


The Laurentian Library was meant to be Macmillan's answer to McClelland & Stewart's New Canadian Library. Cousins, they shared many of the same afflictions. NCL suffered no spinal deformities, but its pages were similarly discoloured. The covers of both were susceptible to wear; as with Tsarevich Alexei, the gentlest handling might bring harm.


Begun in 1967, nine years after NCL, Macmillan's series was heavy with Macmillan authors: Hugh MacLennan, Morley Callaghan, Robertson Davies, Ethel Wilson, Mavis Gallant, W.O. Mitchell, young pup Jack Hodgins and others. It was an awkward list conceived with a weak eye on the academic market; the other concentrated on an effort to keep Macmillan titles in print and, by extension, in house. Robert Kroetsch's But We Are Exiles rubbed shoulders with Pierre Trudeau's Federalism and the French Canadians, which was followed by Erik Munsterhjelm's The Wind and the Caribou: Hunting and Trapping in Northern Canada.


The NCL offerings of the same years were the ugliest ever, but Laurentian Library's were uglier still. Future publisher Hugh Kane acknowledged as much in a 1973 memo to John Gray: "Our books are manufactured very cheaply, printed on newsprint, and do not contain introductions." Sadly, his push for a general editor, the introduction of introductions and proper production values were ignored.


Directionless, the Laurentian Library stumbled along for nearly two decades. In The Legacy of the Macmillan Company of Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2011), Ruth Panofsky counts fifty titles and pegs 1979 as the series' final year, but I know of over thirty more, including #77, The Periwinkle Assault by Charles Dennis.


I'd never heard of The Periwinkle Assault before today. The second volume of something called the Broken Sabre Quartet, it was followed by Mavis Gallant's neglected novels Green Water, Green Sky and A Fairly Good Time. The last Laurentian Library title of which I'm aware – #83 – is The Winter of the Fisher by Cameron Langford. It was published in 1985. Did The Winter of the Fisher mark the end of the series? If so, should we not acknowledge that the Laurentian Library went out on a fairly high note?

I'm not talking about the cover. I'm sure it was ugly.

Butt-ugly?

I've never seen a copy.

* September 1979, if you must know.

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01 June 2015

Passion Over Reason in a Bland Bachelor's Lap



The Unreasoning Heart
Constance Beresford-Howe
New York: Dodd, Mead, 1946
235 pages

This review, revisited and revised, now appears in my new book:
The Dusty Bookcase:

A Journey Through Canada's
Forgotten, Neglected, and Suppressed Writing
Available at the very best bookstores and through


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28 May 2015

Brian Busby's Dusty Bookshelf



Honoured to be today's Bookshelf feature over at Patti Abbott's blog. Amongst other things, I reveal the purpose behind all those 19th-century anti-papist tracts I've been collecting.

You can all stop worrying.

Patti's debut novel, Concrete Angel, has just received a star review in Library Journal. The publication date is June 9, but the sharp-eyed may find it's already arrived in their local bookstore.


19 May 2015

CBC's Awful List, Radio-Canada's Disheartening List and Perhaps the Best Book List I've Ever Seen



It's been nearly a year since CBC Books unveiled its crummy 100 NOVELS THAT MAKE YOU PROUD TO BE CANADIAN. Don't know about you, but I feel pretty much the same about my citizenship.

CBC Books' 100 Novels list was as poorly conceived as it was presented. Writing here last July, I dismissed it as a grab bag of recent novels peppered with a few CanLit course mainstays. Given the claim that "everything from cultural impact and critical reception to reader response" was considered, I wondered how it could be that Anne of Green Gables and The Tin Flute were not included. There were other omissions, of course, but none nearly so glaring.

A week later, CBC Books issued a patch – CBC Books 100: Bonus 10* – featuring Anne of Green GablesThe Tin Flute and eight other recommendations "from passionate readers all over the world":


Also included was this short note: "one of the most popular suggestions was the great Nobel Prize-winning Alice Munro. We think Alice is one of the greatest Canadian writers to ever hold a pen, but this list is reserved for novels only."

And so a decades-old debate comes to an end. You lose Mary Rubio. You too, Coral Ann Howels. Lives of Girls and Women isn't a novel, it's a collection of short stories. Yes, this list is reserved for novels only… except that they then added Farley Mowat's Never Cry Wolf.

CBC Books hasn't fixed that gaffe – not yet anyway. Nothing but silence has followed the end of that note on Munro:
Celebrate Alice by checking out all our coverage of her life and legacy and stay tuned – we may have more 100 lists up our sleeves.
God, I hope not.


Now Radio-Canada, has weighed in with Les incontournables, 100 Canadian books to read once in your lifetime. (I suggest that at least once is what's meant). The best that can be said is that it's not as bad a list. Les incontournables shares all the faults of CBC Books' 100 Novels, but to lesser degrees. Where the former includes fourteen English-language titles, the latter has six in French. Those figures alone signal that neither list is to be taken seriously. Both share an even greater flaw in that they rely so heavily on recent works. Most of the titles found on the 2014 CBC Books list were published between 2000 and 2013. Yes, most

Take a moment to let that sink in.

The new Radio-Canada list includes 41 titles published between 2000 and 2014 – including Jean-François Lépine's Sur la ligne de feu, which was released all of seven months ago. To borrow from Jean-Louis Lessard's comments on Les incontournables, il faut laisser le temps faire son oeuvre.


Has it all been worth it? Yes and no. CBC Books' 100 Novels was meant to "start a dialogue", but the only comments I heard were from friends who expressed surprise at how few they'd read. Les incontournables, on the other hand, seems to have inspired M Lessard to produce Liste des œuvres québécoises importants. His criteria: the quality of the work, cultural or social impact, the representativeness of the time and influence. It's about as perfect and well-considered as any book list I've ever seen; anyone looking to read the essential works of French-speaking Quebec will find no better.

An observation and query to close this rant: Where Les incontournables includes titles that are out of print, all of CBC Books' 100 Novels – including the Bonus 10 – are in print. Surely this isn't a coincidence. And what are we to make of the fact that nearly every one is currently published by a foreign-owned house?

McClelland & Stewart is owned by Bertelsmann. The CBC is in decline. Suddenly, I'm not feeling so proud.

* Curiously, the list itself was rebranded as "CBC Books 100: Novels that make you proud to be Canadian".


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18 May 2015

Victoria Day Verse from Victoria



An ode to the city, a tribute to Her Late Majesty, but more than anything a pitch to tourists, Victoria the Beautiful (self-published, 1917) is one of only two poems I've been able to find by city resident Levi Houghton (d. 1918). The other, My Trip Through the Rockies (self-published, 1917), is interesting for its use of the words "mount" and "mountain" – forty-four appearances in 83 lines.

Here he rhymes "Nature's splendour" with "say I'll mend her".

Enjoy!
VICTORIA THE BEAUTIFUL 
                    Canada's vast and myriad acres, —
                         Central prairies wheat's domain, —
                    Ancient cities of th' Atlantic, —
                         All have share in praise's strain.
                    But of thou,—Dominion's fairest.
                         Brightest, sceniest, beauteous spot.
                    Those who chant of other places.
                         These are they who know thee not.
                                                                                VICTORIA! 
                    Honoured name on British tongue, —
                         She who dignified the Throne,
                    Left a name, 'twill last as long,
                         Long as thou dost bear her own!
                    City thou, — Dominion's Queen.
                         Regal true in Nature's splendour;
                    None like thee can e'er be seen, —
                         None can say I'll mend her.
                                                                                VICTORIA! 
                    O, this City, all that's fair:
                         Thy boulevards beyond compare,
                    Trees of every shade and hue, —
                         Chestnut, maple, lilac, yew.
                    Rustic scenes and shady bowers.
                         City of roses, city of flowers!
                    Hollies green, some variegated, —
                         Glorious England here translated!
                                                                                VICTORIA! 
                    England's beauty known so wide;
                          (Surely thou art England's sister-twin,)
                    Truly thou art dignified,
                         Fair without and fair within!
                    Old Ocean laps thy numerous Bays,
                         Bright Sol bedecks thy Parks,
                    With emerald green thy winding ways.
                         Call forth extolled remarks!
                                                                                VICTORIA! 
                    Rocky headlands, sandy beaches;
                         Mounts aspire to meet the sun;
                    Nature loving thou dost teach us,
                         Whilst we round with motors run.
                    Gnarled old oaks and Douglas pine,
                         Gardens grand delights our fill,
                    But who can yet compare design
                         With the broom on Beacon Hill!
                                                                                VICTORIA! 
                    O'er the Straits of Juan de Fuca,
                         Olympic stately mountains see, —
                    Delighting visiting onlooker,
                         And he hails the sight with glee!
                    Cousin Sam's in thousands coming
                         Year by year to see thy glory,
                    And he ne'er forgets his roaming, —
                         Tells abroad thy wondrous story!
                                                                                VICTORIA! 
                    For 'round thee he's been a-hunting
                         Cougar, bear, and deer and moose,
                    Likewise also gone a-fishing.
                         All his business cares cut loose.
                    Oak Bay Links, and those of Colwood,
                         Reached he these by street-car ride;
                    Boating, bathing, tennis, billiard,
                         All these pleasures, — more beside!
                                                                                VICTORIA!
                    Mild's the clime, and summer not too hot;
                         'Tis minus Zero of the prairie;
                    Come and visit this blest spot,
                         Come yourself and bring dear Mary.
                    Come in Winter, come in Spring,
                         Come in Summer, Autumn too,
                    And when you come this song you'll sing:
                         "Victoria the whole year through!"
                                                                                VICTORIA!

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