Alternatives

There are, of course, alternatives to the clipped, brittle Canadian style.  I'm thinking of Christopher Dewdney's early work, especially "The Natural History of Southwestern Ontario" long poem.  I'm thinking of Tim Lilburn's early work, as well.  But these seem like streams that branch off of the main current in our literature.  

The Canadian style

In his short book on Stephen Leacock, simply titled Stephen Leacock, Robertson Davies discusses what it means to speak and by extension to write "like a Canadian":  

It means that one speaks or writes "simply, in sentences usually brief, avoiding slang but by no means unconscious of the flavour and impact of simple words used in unfamiliar contexts." 

The quotation can be found on page 54, near the end of Davies' study.  This brief passage has stayed with me because I feel that it nails the Canadian voice, nailing the style of so much Canadian literature.

It makes me wonder, Are there alternatives? Can one be verbally baroque and still be recognizably Canadian?     

What is Can. Lit.?

Just as there's always much talk, talk, talk about what a Canadian is (my favourite definition, which is, I think, attributable to Pierre Berton: "A Canadian is someone who knows how to make love in a canoe"), there is also always considerable ink spilled regarding what Can. Lit. is, regarding what the lit. of here is - what it is and what it ought to be.

For what it's worth, here's my own go-to definition: Canadian Literature is anything that Margaret Atwood can read aloud in that dry voice of hers without straining her vocal chords.

Put the definition to the test. Open up any Canadian anthology and imagine M.A. reading the pieces aloud. If it's easily imagined, then you've got yourself some prime Canadian Literature there.  And you can easily imagine Atwood reading, say, Irving Layton's "The Swimmer," albeit with some irony in her voice.  Or Leonard Cohen's "I Have Not Lingered in European Monasteries." Or all of Alice Munro's story "The Bear Came over the Mountain."  You can easily imagine her reading Ondaatje's poem "The White Dwarfs" (though perhaps less so "The Cinnamon Peeler," which might be a reason for not including it in further anthologies). And on and on it goes.

This isn't meant to diss Atwood.  I'm having a bit of gentle fun with her, yes. But she is a treasure - and I mean that. She has written a body of work that has helped to define Canadian Literature and Canadian culture, a task she took on almost single-handedly.  Her work can be uneven, but the best of it is worth going back to and paying close attention to.  And there is something in the tone of her work - like her voice - which seems quintessentially Canadian.  A certain dryness of tone, a certain flatness - a certain suspicion regarding excess and exuberance - that typifies so much Canadian literature, at least the lit. that gets taught in universities.

After all, can you imagine Atwood reading Hopkin's "God's Grandeur" or Pound's "Usura" canto aloud? E.E.Cummings aloud? Dylan Thomas? And you can't imagine any of these writers or their poetry coming from Canada, can you?  In short, why is that? How did our national tone become so flat, dry, clipped?    

Signs of not-winter, of winter-end

Slowly signs of spring are revealing themselves.  They're subtle signs, but they're there.  Maybe calling them signs of spring is a little too strong.  Perhaps it would be best to call them signs of not-winter, of winter-end. As Robert Kroetsch wrote in his poem "Seed Catalogue":

Then it was spring. Or, no:
then winter was ending.

For now the air is a little softer, a little milder.  Also, it's snowing. While this is usually a sign of winter, up here for much of the winter it's too cold to snow.  The birds are now making their presence known.  There's a bit more life in the tree branches as the chickadees have come out of hiding.  The sun has some warmth. The other day I noticed the eaves were dripping.


 

A northern flaneur?

I suppose that my use of the term "flaneur" isn't very nuanced.  I tend to think of the flaneur as largely an aesthetic position (albeit a rambling position), i.e., a leisurely peripatetic observer who enjoys what is observed. And yet the flaneur, by the very nature of observing, is also part of the scenery, part of the scene, albeit on the fringes or margins of the scene.  Usually the flaneur is found strolling along in an urban environment.

In his essay on the Canadian poet Don McKay, Carmine Starnino referred to McKay as a "pastoral flaneur." I suppose Starnino intended it as a bit of a gentle gibe at the older, more established poet (not all Starnino's gibes in the essay were so gentle).  The phrase got me thinking, though: what would a non-urban flaneur be like? What kind of flaneur-ing would that be?

To take it another step further: what about a northern flaneur? A wintery flaneur? Loafing along in snow-shoes, enjoying the sight of evergreen trees draped with snow?  It seems to me entirely possible.  And yet here the flaneur is pulled into the very nature of what is observed--because it can't be otherwise.  The flaneur can't be at a safe, aesthetic distance from where he is. The environment - its cold, its remoteness - is too demanding.  But as Heraclitus claims, "nature loves to hide," so the flaneur is always on the margins of the scene.

Once again, be sure to bring something hot in that thermos.  

 

Winter flaneur

The reasons why I love winter are many.  But all reasons are based on that simple exercise, that simple practice: walking.  And since I came to live in the northern portion of central Canada, my appreciation for winter has only grown deeper.  

What is the experience of that appreciation? Head into your nearest snow-covered boreal forest.  Let's go for a walk there, as snow-shoed flaneurs for a little while.  

The first thing you'll notice is the cold, of course.  This is when the air comes alive.  Breathing becomes something more than an automatic process. Instead, you inhale and the air freezes your nostrils as it makes its way down into your lungs.  You become physically aware of that most basic of processes.  

Then there's the stillness. I'm hesitant to describe it as silence, because it's not silence--just very, very still.  And as you take in the stillness, the smallest of sounds begin to approach.  You might hear, for example, the slight sound of a black-backed woodpecker tapping away at a tree.  

As you look around, trudging through the snow as you go, you begin to notice how even this stillness is illusory.  There are, all around you, tracks and other signs that animals have been passing through, using these woods, using these paths.  The winding track of the fox, for example. It might appear still now, but at other times this patch of forest is a hub of activity 

Looking around, you see something worth contemplating, something that painters like Tom Thomson saw so clearly in their own wintry travels: that snow is only very rarely white.  As the sunlight increases, shifts and fades throughout the day, the snow takes on a surprising array of colours--gold, pink, blue in varying shades.

This can only be had be walking through the winter, by walking through the woods.  You can't get this on a ski-hill, from a parking lot, or from looking out the living room window.  You need to be out there, flaneur-ing among the evergreens.  

Just be sure to bring a good thermos of something hot.