A Reader Writes ...

Some Canada Day recommendations

We get mail. An excerpt from today’s was of interest:

“Yes, you’re right. I probably should read more fiction - and sure, Canadian fiction. I guess some of it has to be good. So it’s Canada Day, I’ve got a bit of down time, but to start The Innocent Canadian today seems a bit too on the nose (and I’m still not convinced it’s going to be any good). Got any other recommendations?”

Why, yes. Glad you asked. Before you dip your toe in - and because like a lot of guys, you find the fiction thing itself kind of cringe, here are two books from a couple of great fiction writers who are not bad at non-fiction too:

I think Norman Levine’s Canada Made Me should be given to every Canadian aspiring to write of this place, not simply because Levine’s such a great stylist, influenced as much by Ben Nicholson and the St. Ives Group of painters as he was by some of the great modernist writers of the last century, but also because of his unsparing, unblinking eye on the Canada he left behind (the book was written in 1956, some years after he’d moved to the UK). I think it’s the best kind of love letter, because he felt this country, as a subject, demanded all of his considerable talent for this travelogue/memoir of his three month journey across the country. Levine always played for keeps, holding nothing back.

The second book there is one of the lesser known books by Andre Alexis. Virtually anything by Andre I’d (highly) recommend, but this is a jewellery box of essays he began after writing my favourite novel of his, Asylum. The last essay, “Water: A Memoir,” I’d add to Levine’s book for that aspiring Canadian author, a kind of last days document of literary culture in this country.

Now on to the fiction itself:

Oh it’s hard to pare this down, but here’s a sampling I chose with two primary considerations: 1. the underappreciated - a few books that speak to how deep the well of artistic achievement actually is in this country (Levine, as mentioned, Weinzweig, Miller, McCormack, Lawlor - and then some of the lesser known stories of the queen’s - Mavis Gallant) and 2. the current state of the art - Don Gillmor’s Cherry Beach and Alex Pugsley’s Silver Lake - the latter I’ll be reviewing for later this month. If you only had time to dip into one book today, I’d say you couldn’t go wrong with these last two.

So there you are, Happy Canada Day.