The Colony of Unrequited Dreams

The Colony of Unrequited Dreams

By Wayne Johnston

Seems fitting that I sit here writing this particular blog post on St. Patrick's Day, three beers into my evening while listening to traditional Celtic folk music. While this novel has little to do with Ireland or the Irish, it does have everything to do with another island that was predominantly colonized by the Irish. Newfoundland owes much to Irish culture and although the cultures are unequivocally unique, they retain many similarities, none of which I'm going to explain here. I just wanted to make note of the fact that the date works well with the blogpost. That doesn't happen all that often. Anyway. I'll be keeping you updated on my beer consumption throughout this post. Hopefully my spelling, diction and clarity do not suffer more than they usually do. Once this gets posted, I promise I will not edit it.

Fourth beer.

Full disclosure: One side of my family is fiercely Newfoundlander (not Newfie, thankyouverymuch) and although I have never been to Newfoundland (one of my life's great regrets thus far) I feel like there is a part of me that belongs on the America's easternmost outpost where, as the saying goes, the trout are easier to catch than tuberculosis.

I grew up in the shadow of "Down Home" via my grandparents (displaced Newfoundlanders living "away" in Toronto) who retained their uncomplaining Newfoundland character, their barometer on the wall and their thick pea-soup accents (my Grandfather, Cornerbrook... my grandmother, Greenspond, both locations are mentioned in this book, by the way). While they were not nationalists of any sort, there always remained within them a real sense of where they came from. Newfoundland was never far from any topic of conversation in my family growing up.

I vividly recall discovering my grandfather's Newfoundland flag in the basement of their Toronto home when I was about 11 years old. I'd never known anyone in my family to own a flag and it's beautiful colors were too much for a young boy to leave unmolested. I pulled it out of its hiding spot and brought it to my grandfather to ask what it was. My grandfather was a gruff man. Over the years, my mother and aunt had alluded to the full tilt of his legendary temper, but I'd never seen it until that day I stood in his kitchen, Newfoundland flag dragging through the grime on the kitchen floor. It was a roar that would reduce the toughest men to tears. Mercifully, I never saw it again. Needless to say, Newfoundland was in my grandfather's blood.

Fifth beer.

Most people know that Newfoundland became Canada's tenth province in 1949. What few people remember is that Newfoundland was briefly, like Texas, an independent nation. From 1907 through 1932 Newfoundland was the "other" North American nation. However, the depression hit Newfoundland hard and in 1932 amid a litany of scandals and economic disasters Newfoundland was forced to re-colonialize with Britain (The only instance in history of a nation willingly reverting to a colonial state) until such time that it could sustain itself. When the time came, long-time Newfoundland politician Joey Smallwood championed the notion of confederacy with Canada. After a heated referendum (Smallwood championed confederacy), Newfoundland narrowly decided to throw its hat in with Canada. To this day, Joey Smallwood remains a controversial figure in Newfoundland.

The result is that Canada gained and retained a nation that it did not understand and Newfoundland joined a country that it also did not understand. Seventy years on, and Newfoundland is still considered part of and distinct from Canada. The province that doesn't quite fit the mould. One can lump the provinces into groups. The Western Provinces, Ontario and Quebec (those age old enemies) and the Maritimes. Newfoundland alone stands alone with its odd time zone ("Hockey Night in Canada. Game starts at 7:00pm. 8:30 in Newfoundland). Newfoundland is different.

Sixth beer.

The Colony of Unrequited Dreams is also different. It a strange sort of historical fiction. It centers on the life and times of the aforementioned Joey Smallwood, champion of Confederation. It chronicles his life from poverty in a St. John's slum, through his short stint writing for a socialist newspaper in New York to his return to Newfoundland and his improbable rise to power via the Liberal Party of Sir Robert Squires and, subsequently, his adoption of confederacy with Canada in 1949. From an historical perspective, Colony of Unrequited Dreams is fascinating to anyone interested in Newfoundland history.

The novel takes the form of a lifelong dialogue between Smallwood and a fictional journalist named Sheilagh Fielding and an ambiguous relationship between the two (along with a third fictional character named Prowse). Most of the novel is written in the voice of Smallwood though Fielding's journal entires and chapters from her Condensed History of Newfoundland are interspersed though out the narrative.

I thoroughly enjoyed the sections that dealt with his fictional characters, particularly Fielding (although I must make mention of Johnston's hilarious characterization of Joey Smallwood's father). Fielding is the most compelling character in the entire novel and remains so throughout. It's the character of Joey Smallwood that left me feeling a little nonplussed. Despite being the primary voice of the novel and the most active historical figure in the book, he comes across as a bit of a milquetoast, unsure of himself (and often petty) that it becomes impossible to believe that a man of his sort could possibly rise to the become Newfoundland's first Premier (a position he would hold from Confederation in 1949 until 1972).

Seventh beer.

Perhaps Johnston, a native Newfoundlander, felt constrained by the notion of fictionalizing such an important figure in the history of Newfoundland. Certainly it can't be easy to fictionalize the life of a man still very much in the realm of the collective consciousness. It would be like writing a fictionalized account of the presidency of Ronald Reagan during which he was maintaining a clandestine relationship with Katherine Hepburn. Although Joey Smallwood retired from politics before I was born and died when I was still in high school, from what I understand of the man, he was a political idealist. A man of big ideas and big dreams. None of that character comes out in Johnston's characterization, and I think the overall story suffers as a result.

The Colony of Unrequited Dreams is by no account a bad book. In fact in many respects (historical, social, literary) it is Wayne Johnston's opus and worthy of a read, especially if you enjoy Canlit and/or anything to do with Newfoundland. I just can't abide cardboard characters, especially one that I think deserved a bit more love and attention. It sort of feels like Johnston is dragging Smallwood's personality across the floor of my grandparent's kitchen. Good thing my grandfather ain't around to see this, Johnston. Good thing, indeed.


OK, time to go pass out. 


Sláinte.

__________

Canadiana Addendum...

This is a Canadian novel and thus must be put through my patented CanLit Test.

These are the 11 scientifically chosen questions that determine how Canadian a novel (in this case The Colony of Unrequited Dreams) really is. This is science, people... pay attention!:

1. Novel set between 1900~1945.

Yes. Almost exclusively.

2. Novel is set in/on a small town/island/northern settlement.

Newfoundland is indeed an island.

3. Novel involves a strong/complicated/deranged female protagonist on a journey of self-identification.

Sheilagh Fielding.

4. Novel involves one or more conservative/despicable/sexually deviant men.

You bet. Smallwood's father, Hines, Fielding's Father, Prowse, Reeves.

5. Story involves one or more hard-boiled sidekicks.

Fielding is the very definition of hard-boiled.

6. Story involves an unwanted pregnancy/abortion/infant mortality.

Um..... yes.

7. Story mentions the Dionne quintuplets/Edward's abdication/Vimy Ridge.

Much discussion of World War I. Yes!

8. Story involves a major snowstorm.

Of course. What we in the rest of the world would call the "end of the world," a Newfoundlander calls.... rain.

9. Story contains mild to overt anti-Americanism.

Just a smidgen.

10. Story explores multiculturalism.

No.

11. Story contains mild to overt anti-Religion themes.

Oh boy, yes!

The Colony of Unrequited Dreams gets 10/11 on the My Life In Books CanLit Tester. 'Oly 'Thunderin' Jesus, 'tis a dory'ful o' screech, bye.

Fifth Business

Fifth Business

By Robertson Davies

Fun fact: One of my high school English teachers had a nervous breakdown.

Actually Ms. Sturgess had two nervous breakdowns over the course of two years and she was my teacher both years.

Before you jump to conclusions, I was not the cause of these mental breakdowns. I was a pretty quiet high school student and I liked English class so I was hardly the sort of student that causes emotional and psychological duress among the faculty. I was more likely to be forgotten in a classroom than cause shenanigans. But suffer breakdowns she did, much to my academic disadvantage.

OK, I'm not trying to belittle Ms. Sturgess' psychological suffering. I am sure she suffered far more tragically during those few years (and beyond, perhaps, I have no idea) than I did. I have been blessed in the fact that I am (currently) mentally and emotionally stable. I have no real understanding of what sort of suffering is endured by those who experience a breakdown. I hope I never do. I didn't have bad feelings toward Ms. Sturgess, but she was my teacher for such a short time that I also didn't have particularly strong feelings for her either. As an adult I have looked back on her class and felt terrible for her. Whatever it may have been that caused such pain, I hope she overcame it. But at the time I was a kid and a breakdown seemed pretty unreal to me.

Back to the point. Regardless of Ms. Sturgess' mental health, I did suffer academically.

My high school English career started well enough. My grade 9 teacher was great. He had enough zeal to instill a love for reading and writing among a motley crew of slackers and burnouts. I don't envy teaching North american high school kids, especially the younger variety. It's really hard to make them care. I remember reading Twelfth Night and To Kill a Mockingbird, both stock standards of the Halton Board of Education at the time and both among my favorite books. By the time I started grade 10 I was really stoked about English, a testament to my grade 9 teacher. In grade 10 I was assigned Ms. Sturgess.

I don't remember much about the actual breakdown. She didn't break down dramatically in front of my class (or any class that I'm aware of) but she started to miss classes regularly by the third week of the semester. But week four or five (that's almost half the semester) we still had not been issued a novel. Eventually we were assigned a permanent temporary teacher whose name I have forgotten and no clear reason for Ms. Sturgess' absence was given. Rumors abounded, but the only clear reason was that she had had some sort of "episode." The sub was in a bit of a no-win situation taking over a class of students who had gotten used to the idea of not doing any real work in class. I'm sure she did her best, but I do not remember a single moment from that year's English class aside from Romeo and Juliet, which I hated at the time.

So I was really looking forward to grade 11 English and getting back on track with reading and writing. When September rolled around once again and I was assigned Ms. Sturgess, I was cautiously optimistic. Maybe a year's convalescence had helped and she was better prepared to deal with the rigors of teaching English. I was wrong. She never even showed up on the first day and we were assigned another permanent substitute for the semester. Try as they may, when a student knows a teacher is a substitute, it is never quite the same. The class was a dud from the get go.

I should have raised a stink but at the time I wasn't the sort of student that rocked the boat. I assumed you got the cards that were deal you and you made due. I suppose I could have transfered to another class with a more able teacher, but it just didn't occur to me.

So my stalled high school English career didn't really get off the ground until grade 12, which, I'm sorry to say, is a couple of years too late. My writing ability was in a sorry state (some might wonder whether it has ever truly recovered) and my depth of reading was pretty shallow. If it weren't for a series of extraordinary history teachers and one extremely excellent English teacher in my final year (Thank you Mr. Manzl and Mr. Switzer, wherever you two may be) I'm not entirely sure what would have become of me. That's not melodrama, that's the plain truth.

So what's this got to do with anything? Well, due to my two lost years of English, I'm probably the only student in the entire Halton School Board that didn't read Fifth Business. This Robertson Davies classic was used as an example of great Canadian literature and was virtually mandatory reading for high school kids in the 1990s. Not sure whether it remains part of the curriculum or not.

I'm actually glad I didn't get get around to reading this book until now. I don't think I would have liked this book in high school. Too slow, too thoughtful, too Canadian. I was all about the shock in high school. Give me All Quiet on the Western Front or Brave New World or something equally disturbing. A novel like Fifth Business would have seemed too plain, too close to home to enjoy.

Twenty years on, Fifth Business was a great book. I liked that my life is exactly half of Dunstan Ramsay's so that I could share in his reminiscence of his childhood, empathize in his musings on early middle age and read with interest his reflections on aging. It was a nice mix of remembrance and experience.

More importantly, I got the impression that this is not a great example of CanLit for young Canadians. It is much to conservative in nature for modern Canadian students (although there is something to be said about the conservative nature of Canadians, especially those of Robertson Davies generation). This book would have been out of touch in my day. It would seem positively archaic today. While I really did like this book as a stunning portrait of a Canada that ceases to be, I do hope that they have changed the curriculum and have found a new, better example of Canadian fiction for students to read.

As for Ms. Sturgess, I hope that she has recovered, found a modicum of happiness and has gone on to life to a ripe old age.

Drowning Ruth

Drowning Ruth

By Christina Schwarz

Way back at book twenty-three (Clara Callan if you have forgotten) I wrote out a checklist of things that make for the definitive Canadian novel. There are eleven criteria that make the stereotypical Canadian novel and I have created a scientific scale to gauge exactly HOW Canadian a novel is. This scale is called the Tragically Hip Sacle of Canadiana and it is measured from 0 to 12 hips (a hip is a unit of measure on the THSoC. 1 hip is equal to 1 unit of Canadian-ness). The scale works thusly:

0 ~ 1 hips: Foreign language novel (not set in Quebec), translated into English

1 ~ 3 hips: Native language novel written by non-Commonwealth/American writer (e.g. Singaporean, South African)

3 ~ 4 hips: American writer (excluding border state writers)

4 ~ 5 hips: American writer (border state)

5 ~ 6 hips: Non Canadian, Commonwealth writer.

6 ~ 7 hips: French writers from Quebec writing in French.

7 ~ 8 hips: Writers from Alberta.

8 ~ 9 hips: English writers from Quebec writing in English.

9 ~ 10 hips: Canadian writers trying to be a little different (e.g. Douglas Coupland)

10 ~ 11 hips: Writer has a tattoo of the maple leaf under right nipple and/or right ankle

11 ~ 12 hips: Writer lives on an island, in a northern settlement (probably in an igloo), eats moose meat and Kraft Dinner with ketchup, listens to CBC radio and probably owns more than one Bombardier product, eh?

Realistically, if a novelist measures 9.0 hips on the Tragically Hip Scale of Canadiana then they should be awarded an honorary Giller Prize, Governor General's Award, a Juno, a Genie and a Gemini (if you don't understand 100% of those references, then you must measure lower than 4.3 hips, which means you are Non-Canadian Commonwealth or, worse, American).

Drowning Ruth, a period novel by Christina Scharz is up for scrutiny today. Let's see how it scores on the THSoC scale:

1. Novel set between 1900~1945.

The novel is begins in the early 1900s and ends in 1941, thus spanning almost the exact timeframe deemed to be perfectly Canadian. Score 1.5 hips.

2. Novel is set in/on a small town/island/northern settlement.

The novel is set in a small town in the north and an island figures extremely prominently in the narrative. Score 3 hips.

3. Novel involves a strong/complicated/deranged female protagonist on a journey of self-identification.

Main characters are almost all female. One strong, one deranged and one complicated. Score 1.5 hip.

4. Novel involves one or more conservative/despicable/sexually deviant men.

Of course. Score 1 hip.

5. Story involves one or more hard-boiled sidekicks.

The character of Imogene qualifies as a sidekick, although i would be pressed to admit that she is entirely hard-bolied. Score 0.7 hips.

6. Story involves an unwanted pregnancy/abortion/infant mortality.

Yes. Score 1 hip.

7. Story mentions the Dionne quintuplets/Edward's abdication/Vimy Ridge.

Not entirely, but World War One figures prominently so score 0.5 hips.

8. Story involves a major snowstorm.

More than one. Score 1 hip.

9. Story contains mild to overt anti-Americanism.

This is a complicated answer as you will see in my conclusions. While I can't say for certai that this book has anti-American undertones, it certainly isn'y pro-America. Score 0.4 hips.

10. Story explores multiculturalism.

OK. No. Score 0 hips.

11. Story contains mild to overt anti-Religion themes.

Yes. Score 1 hips.

Final score: 11.6 on a scale of 12. Drowning Ruth is definitively a Canadian novel. In fact, it could be held up as a textbook example of Canadian literature in any University anywhere north of the 49th. A perfect storm of Canadiana. This is entirely strange since Drowning Ruth was written by an American (Christina Schwarz) and is set in Wisconsin (which, last I checked, still lies within the national boundaries of the United States).

I know. I couldn't believe it either.

This is why I was unable to score the Anti-American criterion since it is virtually impossible for an American citizen to actively write an anti-American novel, no matter how much they question authority. There seem to be elements of anti-Americanism but it was not overt enough for me to score scientifically. Pity.

How does an American write the definitive Canadian novel? Perhaps growing up in Wisconsin (which is American in name only) helps. The Great Lakes are far more pourous than the land border. Ms. Schwarz therefore probably grew up with a healthy diet of Farley Mowat, Margaret Atwood and Robertson Davies. She has probably read enough Canadian novels to stop the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Oprah Winfrey, however, obviously does not read enough Canadian literature as Drowning Ruth was selected as part of the Oprah Book Club. If she was familiar whe THSoC she would have known that Drowning Ruth wasn't the mysteriously dark novel she thought it to be but rather a paint-by-numbers example of virtually every book published in Canada since 1945.

Chicago isn't far enough north, apparently.

Clara Callan

Clara Callan

By Richard B. Wright

Note: This post will include some possible spoilers, so if you plan to read Clara Callan, perhaps you may want to bookmark this page and return here upon completion of the novel.

The following is a transcript of an actual conversation I had with a Kiwi buddy. We often ask about the books we are currently reading and when he sawRichard B. Wright's Clara Callan sitting on my desk he asked:

Kiwi: "Is this any good?"

Canadian: "Yes, but you won't like it."

Kiwi: "Why not?"

Canadian: "It's Canlit."

Kiwi: "Canlit? You guys have a word for novels written by Canadian writers?"

Canadian: "Yeah. Don't New Zealanders have a term for novels written by New Zealand writers?"

Kiwi: "Yeah. We call them books."

Touche

It's no secret that Canadians are fiercely nationalist. We are not nationalist in the American-jingoist sense of the word but rather in a more self-concious way. Canadians make a sport of fretting over identity and Canadian-ness to the point of fault. It's a by product of sleeping in bed with an elephant. The tired myth of Canadian patches on backpacks round the world has warmed the hearts of millions in the Great White North as a way in which we identify ourselves as "not-American." This obssession with what it means to be Canadian (aka not American) spills over into literature. Canadian readers obssesively read Canadian novels as if it will somehow make them more Canadian. I've not encountered any other readers from any other English-speaking nation that go out of their way to read so many books by writers from their home countries. It's a small part of a larger phenomenon that I have noticed over the past eight years as a Canadian living abroad: Canadians are incorrigibly Canadian.

I prefer to remain pithy on that last statement for now. I, being Canadian, will most assuredly read another Canadian novel before too long. I believe my citizenship would be revoked it I didn't.When I do read another, I promise expound on this theory or incorrigibility further.

Anyway, back to Clara Callan.

If I (or any other Canadian) were to write the stereotypical Canadian novel it would read something similar to Clara Callan. This is not to say that it is a bad book. Far from it. I enjoyed the holy hell out of this book. It's a real page-turner and such and such but it had virtually every element that Canadian writers use in crafting their unique stories of life in the bleak wastelands of the provinces. Everything is stereotypical in this novel: the setting, the characters, the themes. Everything!

But don't take my word for it, Let's put Clara Callan to the test. Here is an informal list of elemets found in a good many Canadian novels. In brackets next to the elements in whether or not Clara Callan contains said elements. It's startling!:

1. Novel set between 1900~1945. (check!)

2. Novel is set in/on a small town/island/northern settlement. (check!)

3. Novel involves a strong/complicated/deranged female protagonist on a journey of self-identification. (check)

4. Novel involves one or more conservative/despicable/sexually deviant men. (check x2)

5. Story involves one or more hard-boiled sidekicks. (check x2)

6. Story involves an unwanted pregnancy/abortion/infant mortality. (check!)

7. Story mentions the Dionne quintuplets/Edward's abdication/Vimy Ridge. (check!)

8. Story involves a major snowstorm (check!)

10. Story contains mild to overt anti-Americanism (check!)

11. Story explores multiculturalism. (big miss on this one...)

12. Story contains mild to overt anti-Religion themes. (check!)

Twelve out of thirteen for Clara Callan! If there was any doubt, this book won the Governor General's Award AND the Giller Prize in 2001.

And how could it not?

Stanley Park

Stanley Park

By Timothy Taylor

Spoiler Alert: If you haven't read this book and intend to, better stop here. Also, if you are Timothy Taylor, also stop reading. Feelings might get hurt.

Pacing.

It really does make or break a book. It's not about length. I've read a few romping good 1000 page books and some plodding 145 page books. It's about keeping the plot moving at a speed that is constant with both the tone of the book and the patience of the reader. It's a fine line between describing a moment in clear detail and stalling the movement of the plot. This, I found, was the primary problem with Timothy Taylor's Giller Award nominated novel Stanley Park.

Perhaps it had to do with the food-as-fetish plot that required detailed descriptions of the meals served up by the protagonist, Jeremy Papier, a "Blood" style chef who apparently dislikes the "Crips."

Hardcore.

Anyway, I love food as much as the next guy but there is only so much "caramelization" and "chevre" I can handle in one book (take note Haruki Murakami!). Pages and pages of stalled plot is devoted to the description of Jeremy's ironic-and-oh-so-clever culinary concoctions and when the polt DOES move, it jumps over bits I was (mildly) excited to read and covers the episode in flashback.

I said pacing was the primary problem, but certainly not the only problem.

I think I was put off by this book from the very beginning when I noticed borderline plagerism between this book and Richard Russo's smalltown epic, Empire Falls. Struggling restaurant owner with kooky-yet-intelligent father (in a folksy sort of way) who is bailed out of his financial woes by a local millionaire (who also happens to be evil and manipulative).

Since Timothy Taylor is not Richard Russo, my plagerism claim went out the window once it became clear that this story is following a well trodden plot arc. Allow me to demonstrate: The aforementioned evil millionaire in Stanley Park happens to be named Dante and owns a chain of coffee shops known as Inferno Coffee. He also happens to be the protagonist's landlord.

And of course, Dante is that special sort of evil that one only finds in movies like Breakin' II: The Electric Boogaloo. You know the sort. Guy in a slick suit who wants to tear down the ramshackle old rec center to build extravagant condos for other soulless yuppie evil-doers who tie their sweaters around their necks. Instead, Dante usurps Jeremy's struggling but honest restaurant (called the Monkey's Paw... get it?) and hires a team of market researchers (the lowest pits of hell as reserved for people in this field, by the way) to revamp the place into a carfully market-researched bistro (Trattoria? Cucina? Which title is hippest?) for other soulless yuppie evil-doers who tie their sweaters around their necks. Jeremy becomes the plucky little nobody taking on the evil corporate empire all by himself. Did I mention that the baddie's name was Dante? You can imagine how this story progresses.

And what sort of novel would this be without a fall from grace? Enter Benny. The hip-urban-design-student-turned-love-interest who helps Jeremy defraud Canadian Tire (the highlight of the book, I might add) then later aligns herself with Dante during the renovation of his (er... Dante's) restaurant.

And of course the subplot of the wise homeless people living a charmed and happy life on the outskirts of our miserable existences in the city just irked me to no end. Have we not exhausted the paradigm of the noble savage enough? And if we are going to use it, does it always have to be a homeless guy? Is there no better way to include this paradigm into a novel than yet another misunderstood saint living on the streets?

I wouldn't have been so hard on this book if it didn't have the words "Giller Prize Finalist" splashed across the top of the cover. Seriously, was their only three books published in Canada in 2001? Was there absolutely nothing out there in CanLit that year Stanley Park deserved a nod? Something that didn't follow literally every single over-used convention in the history of writing prose?

I just read up on the book at Wikipedia and it mentions that Jim Cuddy really liked this book. That's just sad because I always liked Blue Rodeo. Now I have to give that a good think.

If you are wondering, everything turns out fine in the end. Rewards and punishments are doled out in standard fashion. I'm surprised it didn't end with Dante slipping from Jeremy's grasp and falling into a foggy Vancouver oblivion.