/lit/ - Literature

See the New Canadian Library imprint. The NYRB Classics of the North.

Robertson Davies, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Anne Carson, Northrop Frye, Margaret Laurence, Timothy Findley, Saul Bellow and Malcolm Lowry (if you count them as Canadian).

Our country's kind of lame compared to others in literary terms, but I don't know if I've bothered to read into it too much to judge properly. I think being in high school, reading too many Canadian stories of bored housewives in the prairies ruined it for me.

>Canadian literature

>>6731649

Michael Ondaatje's the English patient is great

life of pi is really good and accessible too

a fine balance is amazing too

none of these books are explicitly Canadian, tho the authors all are

multicultural Canada I guess

Mordeci Richler (Barneys Version, Jacob Two-Two), Pierre Berton, Farley Mowat

I just read fifth business by Robertson Davies. It was OK. Stephen Leacock is pretty good too even though technically he's English.

C-Canadian?

>>6731577
Mavis Gallant
Margaret Atwood
Alice Munro
MA won every literary prize in the English speaking world and AM is a nobel laureate. MG is the best short story writer of the 20th century.

>>6731577
Lyrics are literature, right? Justin Beiber is a literature genius then.

>>6731649
I've read a lot of Canadian lit and the only thing that ever came close to bored housewives in the prairies was Maria Chapdelaine by Louis Hemon, and that was set in Quebec. Margaret Laurence is one of my gaps, so I'm not sure if that's her thing or not.

I like your list, but I'd also add Hugh MacLennan, David Adams Richards, Alistair MacLeod, Mordecai Richler, Michael Ondatjee, Morley Callaghan, Roch Carrier, George Elliott Clarke, Mavis Gallant, and Hubert Aquin for fiction writers.

For poets we have Alden Nowlan, Ken Babstock, Don McKay, Fred Cogswell, John Steffler, Michael Crummey (who writes novels, too), Bliss Carman, Anne Compton, Jeanette Lynes, A.F. Moritz, and many others.

Hugh Kenner's critical work on Ezra Pound, James Joyce, and others is also pretty top-notch, too.

For people working in comics there's Guy Delisle, Chester Brown, Darwyn Cooke, Jeff Lemire, David Small, Julie Doucet, Seth, and others.

Anyone interested in discovering new poetry and fiction for themselves should also check out journals like Contemporary Verse 2, The Fiddlehead, Arc Poetry, Brick Magazine, The Malahat Review, Prairie Fire, etc.

Does this thing scare the living shit out of anyone else every time they pass it, or is it just me?

>>6732266
This is a good post.

I'll add Evelyn Lau, George Bowering, Roger Farr, and Christian Bok to the poets list.

>>6732266
I can't believe I forgot Linda Hutcheon. She's pretty essential for theory and criticism, and a lot of her writing can be viewed here:

>https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/browse?type=author&value=Linda+Hutcheon


Some other online resources:

>http://canlit.ca/
>http://canlitguides.ca/
>http://waterfrontviews.acadiau.ca/

>>6731649
>Saul Bellow and Malcolm Lowry
>Canadian

>>6732278
Hello, friend.

Indeed it does.
But I put up with it for the sake of Emmanuel's comfy ambience (pic related) and based Biblical Studies/Near Eastern collections.

>>6731649
fellow Canadian. Why the fuck are our books so fucking girly.

We need a Canadian author who is nuts.

>>6733025
How could any sane person find David Adams Richards or Mordecai Richler "girly"?

>>6731577
New Canadian Library. Much of it rocks:

A Bird in the House - Margaret Laurence
A Father's Kingdom - Sheila Watson
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
A Jest of God - Margaret Lawrence
Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery
Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich - Stephen Leacock
As Birds Bring Forth the Sun and Other Stories - Alistair MacLeod
As For Me and My House - Sinclair Ross
Barometer Rising - Hugh MacLennan
Bear - Marian Engel
Crackpot - Adele Wiseman
Digging Up the Mountains - Neil Bissoondath
Each Man's Son - Hugh MacLennan
Emily Climbs - L.M. Montgomery
Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace - David Adams Richards
Execution - Colin McDougall
For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down - David Adams Richards
Fruits of the Earth - Frederick Philip Grove
In the Village of Viger and other Stories - Duncan Campbell Scott
Last of the Curlews - Fred Bodsworth
Life in the Clearing Versus the Bush - Susanna Moodie
Mad Shadows - Marie-Claire Blais
Man Descending - Guy Vanderhaeghe
More Joy in Heaven - Morley Callaghan
Next Episode - Hubert Aquin
Nights Below Station Street - David Adams Richards
No Love Lost - Alice Munro
Roughing It in the Bush - Susanna Moodie
Running in the Family - Michael Ondaatje
Sarah Binks - Paul Hiebert
St Urbain's Horseman - Mordecai Richler
Such a Long Journey - Rohinton Mistry
Such Is My Beloved - Morley Callaghan
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town - Stephen Leacock
Surfacing - Margaret Atwood
Swamp Angel - Ethel Wilson
Tales From Firozsha Baag - Rohinton Mistry
The Acrobats - Mordecai Richler
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz - Mordecai Richler
The Backwoods of Canada - Catharine Parr Traill
The Clockmaker - Thomas Chandler Haliburton
The Diviners - Margaret Laurence
The Double Hook - Sheila Watson
The Favourite Game - Leonard Cohen
The History of Emily Montague - Frances Brooke
The Imperialist - Sara Jeannette Duncan
The Invention of the World - Jack Hodgins
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne - Brian Moore
The Luck of Ginger Coffey - Brian Moore
The Mountain and the Valley - Ernest Buckler
The Prophet's Camel Bell - Margaret Laurence
The Road Past Altamont - Gabrielle Roy
The Second Scroll - A.M. Klein
The Stone Angel - Margaret Lawrence
The Tin Flute - Gabrielle Roy
The Whirlpool - Jane Urquhart
Thirty Acres - Ringuet (Philippe Panneton)
Two Solitudes - Hugh MacLennan
Under the Ribs of Death - John Marlyn
Wacousta - John Richardson
Where Nests the Water Hen - Gabrielle Roy
Who Has Seen the Wind - W.O. Mitchell
Wild Animals I Have Known - Ernest Thompson Steon
Wild Geese - Martha Ostenso

>>6732266

Fantastic list. Would also recommend Linden MacIntyre.

>>6733856
Whipped this pic up for dissemination. It's in no way exhaustive.

>>6734179
>two Tragically Hip albums and a double double later

>>6734236
...and another Richler pic just because the world needs more of that.

>>6734251

Does Canada even actually exist or is it just a collective hallucination?

Some months ago someone on here suggested Alistair MacLeod to me. I've since read No Great Mischief, was bretty gud

so /fa/ has an annual toronto meetup and a decent number of people show up

/lit/ meet-up? is there enough interest/people?

>>6732266
>George Elliott Clarke
This. His poetry and opera libretti are great.

>>6733837
I once had a complete collection of the NCL, and thought, contrarily to thee, that most of it wasn't worth the shelf space it took up. I kept the Richler and the Leonard Cohen, as well as the poetry anthologies but donated the rest to a local prison library. No regrets and plenty of cranky Montreal Jew-lit.

>>6733837
I love those book designs so much. Have you ever happened upon this site?

>http://nclcollecting.ca/

The series 5 designs were the best. I'm not a big fan of series 6.

>>6734314
I've seen him preform a couple times, he's pretty much everywhere in Toronto, and he's a good reader/preformer of poetry (monotone, mumbling poets could really learn something from him) but it's pretty boring neo-romanticist stuff with a splash of Black Americana.

>>6734298

Perhaps.

>>6735548
Yes, it's handy. I'm not a specific collector of them (that pic is about all I own from that series), but the general editor of Series 5 was my thesis supervisor, and I think the design and selection is easily the best of any incarnation of the NCL.

>>6734323
Well, different strokes. I have lots of Canlit that's not in the NCL (especially poetry), but I wouldn't give away my David Adams Richards trilogy, Leacock, Klein, Ondaatje, or Urquhart, for instance. In terms of good Canadian authors/poets, there's already been lots of great suggestions here. My best guide is authors I collect (if I see anything by them I don't own, I grab it because I have little doubt I'll enjoy it):
George Elliott Clarke, Leonard Cohen, Dionne Brand, Michael Ondaatje, Mordecai Richler, Gwendolyn MacEwen, Eli Mandel, Alice Munro, Alistair MacLeod, Miriam Toews, Hiromi Goto, Thomas Wharton before he went YA, etc.
But it's partly personal. I was so appalled by The Stone Angel in high school that I've never been able to touch any Margaret Lawrence since. I know she's great, but it's just not happening.

>>6735657
Have you read any good biographies that you'd recommend?

Charles Foran's Richler biography is pretty great. There's also an academic book on Richards called David Adams Richards of the Miramichi: A Biographical Introduction by Tony Tremblay, and that's pretty good.

It seems like neither dude gets enough respect in academia.

What does /lit/ think of Douglas Copeland?

I've never read anything by him, but he's very local to me. Apparently one of his books is based around a place I've seen many many times.
Basically I want to check him out for the references, but does he have any merit as a writer?

>>6736398
coupland's very much of his time, i suppose would be the best way to put it. the majority of his books have that gen-x cynicism in regards to tech nd big oil. shampoo planet nd life after god aren't bad reads.

i'm pretty sure he's afraid of the internet.

>>6734280
both

>>6736398
He coined the terms "Generation X" and "McJob" if that counts for anything. I've been meaning to read Generation X because it was on CBC Reads, but I'm wondering if it's not too dated.

>>6738460
*popularized, not coined

>>6731577
There are none. I'm a Canadian who's done a shit tonne of courses in Canadian literature and it all boils down to the lack of a Canadian identity which makes for absolutely weak and homogenous literature. There is no great Canadian writer, poet or prose. All it is are a bunch of the university circuit writers, although the closest you might come to a definitive Canadian author is Margaret Atwood which is just sad.

This nation is never going to produce a writer on the level of America or Britain or really any of the Europeans because the community is simply masturbatory flouncing about what it means to be a Canadian and not what it means to be a human which is why the literature will never go beyond the borders of this country or achieve acclaim anywhere else. American university students are never going to study Canadian authors for this reason while Canadian courses are full of American content. The Canadian canon is lacking because it's so overly concerned with identity, and especially regional identity. Maritimes writers all write about boats, the sea, fishing. Native American writers will all write about being Native American. Ontario writers all write about the history of the province. Immigrant writers all write about being immigrants. French-Canadian writers all write about being French Canadian. Female writers all write about being female. Everyone writes about nature. The only exception I can think of is that Quebec has its own literary microcosm of genre writing. Until we escape out of our own assholes and look to topics beyond ourselves we're going to be stuck just writing to a Canadian audience.

>>6739239

all national literature writes about what it means to be that nationality, to have that experience, to live in that environment...

the reason Canada is so ignored is because we are not, not have we ever been, a power of any kind

we are a tiny (population wise) country with a very short history

that's basically it

>>6731649
Holy shit. I'm guessing you're referring to Sinclair Ross?

>>6739277
>national power having anything to do with writer recognition

howaboutno.jpg

You don't lack great writers because your country isn't important, you lack great writers because of a lack of tradition for the craft.

>>6736398
For the love of god, skip his early stuff and read Hey! Nostradamus! if nothing else. Easily his best novel.

>>6739239
I'm doubting you read as much as you say you have, especially contemporary stuff. Way to reinforce negative stereotypes and rely upon theories of our literature that are literally decades old.

>>6733837
>Brian Moore
>no Black Robe
I'm pretty sure it's his only book that has anything to do with Canada. It's also gr3t.

>>6741157
Not that guy, but I only saw the movie in high school. The sex scenes were hilarious in how unashamed the Natives were.

Why do people constantly bring up Margaret Atwood? Her writing is a hot pile of garbage, all she does is throw as many popular themes as possible together, sets it all up in some sort of future setting and calls it a day.

FUCK Canadian arts. BCfag here, having put up with a lifetime of people trying to force Canadian 'culture' into relevance I can summarize every piece of prominent Canadian art for you

>muh cedar bark
>muh glass and concrete buildings
>muh west coast
>ociem, cosalish inukshuk, white bois took me huntin ground
>wow corner gas isnt it funny the joke is we don't make any jokes
>never forget the asians who came here by boat, here look at a black and white family photo of asians in bc
>jeanette rogers of the praries
>wow post colonial salmon debates
>fuck me basically, fuck my ass, i am canadian lol

I wish Canada were more like the stereotypes. Trailer Park Boys and a few good experimental filmmakers are our only contributions to the world,

How Should a Person Be by Sheila Heti!

>>6734280

Check out Lenny Bruce is Dead by Jonathan Goldstein maybe, if you want.

>>6736398
all i've read by him was his mcluhan biography
it stunk!

>>6741749
>a few good experimental filmmakers

Are you referring to the guy who did My Winnipeg? That was pretty good. The only Canadian film I've ever liked, in fact.

>>6741797
Guy Maddin, Bruce McDonald, Cronenberg, the list could go on

>>6741797
Michael Snow

>>6741797
>>6741749

>The terminator
>The titanic
>Aliens
>Avatar

>>6734179
>no Émile Nelligan

>>6741821
We disowned James Cameron after he criticized the oil sands.

>>6741749
>Trailer Park Boys
fuck off you worthless pleb

>>6741689
So you've read one of her many novels?

She's prolific as fuck and does a lot more than what you just wrote. Her poetry is also pretty great and she wrote one of the foundational critical works that defined Canadian lit: Survival. Plus she's also written a lot of criticism on a variety of different authors, not just Canadian.

She writes in many genres and although she does touch on women's issues she actually manages to write on way more than just those things.

>>6741839
The list is by no means exhaustive. But that's more a testament to the quality of Canadian poets. Poetry is definitely alive and well up here, despite the fact that it doesn't sell so well.

>>6741749
You've mistakenly assumed that anything outside of Quebec is Canadian.

>>6743444
quebec is worthless though

>>6736398
Responding to my own post
I picked up City of Glass from the library since it's about where I live
I like it, charming if a bit out of date (published 15 years ago about a city that's changing)

The localized circlejerking is prominent
He mentioned a McDonald's location, in passing, that I've been to way too many times

It's crazy to think an author of note grew up so close to you

>>6734271

>>6742981
Don't forget Kate Beaton, Jimmy Beaulieu's Suddenly Something Happened, Nina Bunjevac's Fatherland, Scott Chandler's Two Generals, and Paul Keery's Canada at War

>>6743517
Herpitty Dee, Herpitty Dum

>>6743748

>>6734298
>>6735597

This could potentially be fun

>>6736398
His art is pretty garbage. He had a show in Toronto, Everything is Everything or some shit and it was just that boring pop art sensibility combined with boring Canadiana. Literally couldn't care less about the Chinese noodle package you bought from your local grocery store in Alberta or whatever.