Eh? Canada

Time away and a roundup of Canadian writers you might not know.

I have been in Canada for like eight days. I say “like” eight days because I am experiencing that delightful disconnection from the specifics of time that can occasionally happen on vacation. I intend to send this out on my usual Sunday schedule, but it’s possible that it will arrive Saturday or Monday because I don’t want to figure out what day of the week it is.

Canada is, frankly, great. It is my second time in Canada this year and the place I have been travelling, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, is particularly great, particularly this time of year. I have been led to believe that in these parts it rains almost nonstop between October and February, which sounds pretty bad, but to me, in this moment, this is pretty close to paradise and I envy every living creature who lives here, including the otters and seagulls and the crow who is no more than four feet from me in this moment, who has found a chunk of a discarded hamburger bun and is soaking it in a decorative pond on the hotel grounds to soften it before tossing it down his throat.

In Canada I have been watching Canadian national news in the mornings and it is bracing to see our maniac of a president through the eyes of another country’s citizens. By coincidence while I’ve been here, the maniac has announced some additional tariffs on all kinds of Canadian goods, including hockey sticks (for the love of god). At least he is not yet tariffing hockey players, which means my bestest boy, Connor Bedard, now signed to my beloved Chicago Blackhawks for five more years is safe.

I’m aware that Trump believes that he is projecting strength through his actions, which results in a kind of fear through respect, but watching the Canadian news it is much more like fear through confusion and disbelief that this most powerful country could have such a base idiot as its leader.

I will never get over the fact that we elected this guy twice. Never.

Anyway, Canada. One of the great things about Canada is its writers, including some giants like Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro and Michael Ondaatje and Anne Carson and Robertson Davies and also contemporary big names like Rachel Cusk and Emily St. John Mandel, and so on and so on.

I’m not going to tell you about writers many of you already know, but as I’ve been meandering along Vancouver Island, I’ve been thinking about some of my personal favorites who you may not know, but should.

Pasha Malla

Pasha Malla was a contributor to the McSweeney’s website in the early days of my editorship, and is the author of one of my all-time favorite pieces, “Covering Teen Wolf: One Coach’s Guide” which is tears-of-laughter funny provided you know both the classic Michael J. Fox (Canadian!) film and have some appreciation of hoops.

Beyond this he’s a tremendously inventive novelist, short story writer, and poet with a bunch of books that are worth your time, but let me make special note of People Park, published in 2012, but somehow increasingly prescient in diagnosing a kind of social dislocation that seems to have infected huge swaths of the populace. Read the descriptive copy and tell me that it’s not sort of eerie:

It's the Silver Jubilee of People Park, an urban experiment conceived by a radical mayor and zealously policed by the testosterone-powered New Fraternal League of Men. To celebrate, the insular island city has engaged the illustrator Raven, who promises to deliver the most astonishing spectacle its residents have ever seen. As the entire island comes together for the event, we meet an unforgettable cross-section of its inhabitants, from activists to nihilists, art stars to athletes, families to inveterate loners. Soon, however, what has promised to be a triumph of civic harmony begins to reveal its shadow side. And when Raven's illustration exceeds even the most extreme of expectations, the island is plunged into a series of unnatural disasters that force people to confront what they are really made of.

Just picked up this little autographed number at Russell Books in Victoria, today.

Alex Pugsley

Earlier this year at the Chicago Tribune I raved about Alex Pugsley’s Silver Lake, which is the third in his “Aubrey McKee” trilogy, but absolutely works as a standalone novel. I’ve since gone back and started the earlier two installments Aubrey McKee, and The Education of Aubrey McKee.

Silver Lake tells the story of Pugsley in Hollywood as a striving screenwriter in love with fellow Canadian and burgeoning starlet Poppy Price, and is a generous hearted, and funny exploration of this era of Pugsley’s life. Aubrey McKee is Pugsley in childhood in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a series of semi-believable tales. The Education of Aubrey McKee moves Pugsley toward adulthood. Some writers you connect with primarily because reading their work is like being in the presence of good company. Pugsley is great company.

Esi Edugyan

Arguably too accomplished for a list of writers you might not know, but given that I am writing this in Victoria, BC and she is a graduate of the University of Victoria and her novel, Washington Black is one of the greatest adventure tales I’ve ever read, I’m going to get her on my list.

The novel is the story of the titular character who is indentured as a manservant to his master’s brother, Christopher Wilde, as a child. Wilde is an inventor and explorer and eccentric who takes it upon himself to educate Wash and treat him as an equal. An unexpected upset puts what Wash has gained into jeopardy and sends him literally around the globe. I’ve never had a recommendation of this book to a reader go wrong. (Also recommended, Half-Blood Blues.)

Miriam Toews

I’ve only read two of the ten or twelve novels that Miriam Toews has published, but both were knockouts.

All My Puny Sorrows is the story of two sisters, Elf and Yoli, who come from a Mennonite community and were raised with a fierce bond. Elf is an accomplished, happily married musician while Yoli is divorced and broke with two dependent teens, but it is Elf who struggles with an overwhelming desire to end her own life.

Somehow this novel is legit funny, but also, as one would imagine, rather emotional.

Women Talking is a cleverly constructed story about a group of women in a separatist Mennonite community who have been violated repeatedly by the male elders after they have been anesthetized at night. The story’s narrator is a man, August Epp, who is a teacher in the community, and serves as the womens’ amanuensis while also adding snippets of commentary and his own story about leaving and then returning to the world.

As these descriptions suggest, these are also novels of ideas, philosophy, morality, and duty to others.

If you’re not familiar with these Canadians, take my advice and check them out. I’ll share a couple of additional impressions and experiences from the trip below the links and recommendation.

Links

Last week at the Chicago Tribune I reflected on the 75th anniversary of The Catcher in the Rye and the differences between reading the book at 16 and 56.

This week at the Chicago Tribune I looked at a viral article on how reading has met its death and declared the death declaration as premature.

Just over a year ago Dave Eggers had a chance to tell the OpenAI executives and employees what the thought of ChatGPT. Lord, would I love the same opportunity, but truth be told, my message wouldn’t be much different.

J. Robert Lennon, novelist, short story writer, and creative writing professor laments the challenges of editing a literary journal in the age of AI slop. Read this one in full.

Via my friends McSweeney's, “Rationale for War With Iran, or Reason Men Back Into Parking Spaces?” by Kyle Shamorian.

I have been blissfully removed from the online discourse this week, so if you ran across something that you think is worth reading by me (or anyone else) maybe share it in the comments.

Recommendations

1. The Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing
2. Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
3. Super-Infinite by Katherine Rundell
4. The Inheritors by William Golding
5. The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

Anne T. - Provo, UT

I’m hoping that Anne is not yet acquainted with one of the great works of classic European literature which will fit well with some of the other books in this list, Journey to the End of Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine.

Here’s a picture of a very neat Little Free Library we saw while walking around Victoria.

The Victoria Bug Zoo is also sort of mind-blowing. See if you can identify the stick bug (or bugs) in this photo.

Butchart Gardens is also very cool.

One more day north of the border (though, truly it’s more like west of the border from here) and then back to life. I’m grateful that I can both enjoy time abroad and look forward to getting home.

See you next week.

JW
The Biblioracle