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this is a mixture of my lazy academic reviews and personal moments as a mama going through academia, and it is all my own opinion, and has absolutely no affiliation with anybody else

writings & ramblings

An Anthology of Canadian Literature in English – Brown, Bennet, Cooke

Online review: “Balancing the canon as it has traditionally been presented with the broader perspectives that have emerged in recent years, it highlights the connections between various texts, setting tradition and innovation in dialogue.”

Personal Random Thoughts:

  • Canadian Literature could be said to be made up of a developing sense of identity (intro, xv) – Very colonizing POV, no mention of the fact that “Canada” already had an identity with a “national literature” that was not dependant upon settlers….
  • The authors seem to be listed in terms of when they wrote…
  • There are 74 authors (roughly counted) and I recognize two as Indigenous authors (Pauline Johnson & Sandra Birdsell). I hope there are more than that.
  • Johnson (145): Can’t write about Canadian Lit without Pauline. They chose a few famous poems of hers, including one (His Majesty the West Wind) where she talks about her own misunderstandings about the Prairies and Wild West (The Song my Paddle Sings). I’m okay with Pauline, as I understand she is writing in a way that would showcase both her english education and her Indigenous heritage, balancing that fine world of being entertainment but using that space for trying to educate the masses. Again, scary how not much has changed. But her form is too structured for my taste, and too amine to the Romantics era, and I miss the storytelling narrative prevalent within the current stacks of Indigenous literature to wade through.
  • Birdsell (647): I have never hear of Birdsell before, so her bio says she’s raised by her Metis father and Russian-Mennonite mother in Manitoba. It’s said she writes in the realist tradition, and focusing on the experience of women. The short story chosen, The Wednesday Circle, is well written. It is a clear, straightforward piece, with multiple characters with their own unique traits to make them stand out. It also makes me sad, and uncomfortable, and angry, as yet again, another young girl, maybe Metis, maybe not, is assaulted. And the truth bombs of knowing that the circle of women, although they should be strong, would turn against her, and hearing tidbits about suicide and forgiveness, and all how that morality messes with self-worth, especially as a woman, and man. This is deep. But I am tired, so tired, of this narrative. Tired of seeing this trust being hidden in fiction, of being shown the dark side of being a young girl, a young woman, buried in “what if’s” and “it could have happened.” Was it shocking at the time? Is it shocking now? Am I too jaded that I am not shocked?
  • What does it say that the two authors I could identify as Indigenous off the bat are both women, but Johnson’s work is heavily Indigenous in terms of content, whereas Birdsell’s may not be, and what do we say are the checkmark’s of Indigenous literature, versus Canadian Literature?

 


buy the book: An Anthology of Canadian Literature in English

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