Literature

Author Carol Shields passed away this summer, while I was unable to update. I wanted so very much to express to my readers how much of a loss her death really was to Canadian literature. Thanks to my site’s down time, I was able to give a lot of thought to what I want to say. Though I never got to meet her, Carol Shields taught me that literature, even if it isn’t always for everybody, is always for somebody. Her books were for me. They were about Canada, but not just that; they were about a Canada that I recognized. The Stone Diaries was the first Canadian book I read that did not take place either in Toronto, elsewhere in Southern Ontario, or in the Maritimes. It took place primarily in Manitoba and the United States, with Winnipeg holding a prominent place. You see, I had been to Toronto… Continue Reading →

I have managed, over the last two years or so, to acquire a copy of every issue of McSweeney’s published thus far. That makes eleven oddly formatted journals, of irregular size sitting all in a row on the shelf above my eMac. I have undertaken the project of reading them all, cover to cover, in order, with no other journals interrupting me in the meantime (I am currently a few pages into issue eight). This means several things. First, it means that I am going out of my mind trying to wrap my head around an astonishing number of bold, original, strange, and occassionally pretentious, works of fiction and journalism. I find it quite fun, actually. But it’s also intellectually taxing. Second, it means that I get to experience the evolution of the journal in a time significantly shorter than it actually took to happen. In the first few issues,… Continue Reading →

As I’ve been learning about the way in which literature is studied, my own work has focused on two things; the way in which history is incorporated into literature, and how subjectivities (for my purposes that means “identities”, although there several dozen other possible definitions) are formed. Lately I’ve been thinking a good deal about the problems of subjectivity. I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two major schools of thought on the matter. I’ll call the first school essentialism. It’s often associated with liberal humanism and the Romantics, but it goes back significantly further, right to Plato. The idea is that deep down on some level we may not be able to identify (some might choose to use terms like “the soul”) we are all the same. This is an attractive idea for a writer because it gives us a sense that our work might potentially be understood… Continue Reading →

I’m a big Fight Club fan, and we’ve been reading Rousseau’s work in my class on the history of political thought, and I’ve noticed similarities between the novel and Rousseau’s essays. So of course I got to thinking: if I could fight any author, alive or dead, who would it be? The obvious answer is Hemingway. What better way to test your mettle than pitting yourself against literature’s most celebrated brawler? But then I decided that I would much rather fight David Foster Wallace. After reading A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again I decided that though he is indeed a fine writer, judging from his non-fiction pieces he could certainly use the beating. What author would you fight?

From chapter 61 of the Tao Te Ching, translated by Stephen Mitchell: When a country obtains great power, it becomes like the sea: all streams run downward into it. The more powerful it grows, the greater the need for humility. Humility means trusting the Tao, thus never needing to be defensive. A great nation is like a great man: When he makes a mistake, he realizes it. Having realized it, he admits it. Having admitted it, he corrects it. He considers those who point out his faults as his most benevolent teachers. He thinks of his enemy as the shadow that he himself casts. If a nation is centred in the Tao, if it nourishes its own people and doesn’t meddle in the affairs of others, it will be a light to all nations in the world.

I did not know Amanda Davis, but I’ve read some of her work. What I read was lovely, and brilliant, and deserves to be read. She died recently, along with her parents, in a plane crash in North Carolina. She will be missed by those that knew her, and certainly by those of us who knew her work. McSweeney’s has posted a sincere and touching series of statements from some of her friends and colleagues. They will continue to add to it. If you can do nothing else to honour the passing of Amanda Davis, read her books.