Five modern classics from Canadian authors

Happy (belated) Canada Day! Canada Day is on July 1st, and so for the month of July I’ll be sharing Canadian related content. I’m keen to share books by Canadian and Indigenous authors. I’m also interested in sharing information about the history of our country. I think it’s important to understand our past to continue growing and improving as a nation.

Have you ever wanted to visit Canada? Here’s your chance to visit Canada through reading!

In this list, I’m sharing five modern classics from Canadian authors. I know in Canada we are pretty good at highlighting our home grown talent. But I find outside of Canada, we don’t get that much recognition.

So I want to highlight some of our modern classics to compliment the other famous classics you may hear about. Plus these classics span across our nation, so you’ll get a few different glimpses of life in Canada.

Five modern classics from Canada

Here’s a list of five modern classics with authors from Canada.

Anne of Green Gables By Lucy Maud Montgomery (1908)
Who Has Seen the Wind by W.O. Mitchell (1947)
The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be by Farley Mowat (1957)
Dance of the Happy Shades by Alice Munro (1968)
The Fire-Dwellers by Margaret Laurence (1969)

Keep reading to find out more about each one.

Anne of Green Gables (1908)

by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Year Published: 1908
Storygraph Categories:
fiction, classics, middle grade, funny, hopeful, lighthearted, medium-paced
Considered a children’s classic novel, has been a huge source of tourism for the small province of Prince Edward Island in Canada

This heartwarming story has beckoned generations of readers into the special world of Green Gables, an old-fashioned farm outside a town called Avonlea. Anne Shirley, an eleven-year-old orphan, has arrived in this verdant corner of Prince Edward Island only to discover that the Cuthberts—elderly Matthew and his stern sister, Marilla—want to adopt a boy, not a feisty redheaded girl. But before they can send her back, Anne—who simply must have more scope for her imagination and a real home—wins them over completely. A much-loved classic that explores all the vulnerability, expectations, and dreams of a child growing up, Anne of Green Gables is also a wonderful portrait of a time, a place, a family… and, most of all, love.

Who Has Seen the Wind (1947)

by W.O. Mitchell

Year Published: 1947
Storygraph Categories:
fiction, classics, emotional, reflective, slow-paced
Considered a Canadian classic, showcasing small town life on the Saskatchewan prairies

Hailed as a great Canadian classic on boyhood, Who Has Seen the Wind evokes the sheer immensity of the prairie landscape, from the relentless wind to the far reaches of the bright blue sky. Like children everywhere, Brian O’Connal is a curious sort, and with enchanting naïveté he bestows his unforgettable perspective on everything from gophers to God, from his feisty Irish grandmother to his friends Ben and Saint Sammy, the town of Arcola’s local madman. This is no simple, forgettable novel: Mitchell gives readers a memorable glimpse into the ins and outs of small-town life during the Depression years, always through Brian’s eyes, and in doing so creates a poignant and powerful portrait of childhood innocence and its loss.

The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be (1957)

by Farley Mowat

Year Published: 1957
Storygraph Categories:
nonfiction, memoir, adventurous, funny, reflective, fast-paced

Farely Mowat’s best-loved book tells the splendidly entertaining story of his boyhood on the Canadian prairies. Mutt’s pedigree was uncertain, but his madness was indisputable. He climbed tress and ladders, rode passenger in an open car wearing goggles and displaying hunting skills that bordered on sheer genius. He was a marvelous dog, worthy of an unusual boy growing up in a raw, untamed wilderness.

Dance of the Happy Shades (1968)

by Alice Munro

Year Published: 1968
Storygraph Categories:
fiction, short stories, dark, reflective, medium-paced
Munro’s first collection of stories and won the 1968 Governor General’s Award for English Fiction

Alice Munro’s territory is the farms and semi-rural towns of south-western Ontario. In these dazzling stories she deals with the self-discovery of adolescence, the joys and pains of love and the despair and guilt of those caught in a narrow existence. And in sensitively exploring the lives of ordinary men and women, she makes us aware of the universal nature of their fears, sorrows and aspirations.

The Fire-Dwellers (1969)

by Margaret Laurence

Year Published: 1969
Storygraph Categories:
fiction, classics, emotional, reflective, slow-paced
Margaret Laurence is considered a major figure in Canadian literature

Convinced that life has more to offer than the tedious routine of her days, Stacey MacAindra yearns to recover some of the passion of her early romance. In this extraordinary novel, Margaret Laurence has given us yet another unforgettable heroine: smart, witty, but overwhelmed by the responsibilities of raising four children and trying to love her overworked husband.

The Fire Dwellers helps us to rediscover all the richness of the commonplace, as well as the pain, beauty–and humor–of being alive. Stacey’s state of mind is revealed in a swift-flowing stream of dialogue, reaction, reproach, and nostalgia. . . . Laurence] is the best fiction writer in the Dominion and one of the best in the hemisphere.–Atlantic

Final thoughts

I hope you found something of interest in this list of books written by Canadian authors.

I’m always looking for more suggestions of books to read. If you have a favourite book written by a Canadian author, please feel free to share it in a comment below!

Have you read any of these books? What did you think of the book?

I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below.

July 13, 2023July 13, 2023

Extermination and assimilation

Excerpt from The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King

This is an excerpt from the book The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King.

Throughout the history of Indian-White relations in North America, there have always been two impulses afoot. Extermination and assimilation. Extermination of Native peoples, especially in the early years, was not considered “genocide”—a term coined in 1944 by the legal scholar Raphael Lemkin—so much as it was deemed a by-product of “manifest destiny”— term struck in the 1840 when U.S. Democrats used it to justify the war with Mexico. Extermination was also seen as an expression of “natural law,” a concept conceived by Aristotle in the fourth century B.C. and used by the Spanish humanist Juan de Sepulveda in the sixteenth as a legal justification for the enslavement of Native people in the Caribbean and Mexico.

The means of extermination didn’t much matter. Bullets were okay. Disease was fine. Starvation was acceptable. In the minds of many, these were not so much cruelties as they were variations on the principles underlying the concept “survival of the fittest,” a phrase that Herbert Spencer had fashioned in 1864 and that would become synonymous the Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

The second impulse, assimilation, argued for salvation and improvement. One of the questions that the Spanish worried over was whether or not Indians were human beings. This was the subject of the great debate organized by the Vatican in Valladolid, Spain, in 1550 and 1551 where the cleric Bartolome de las Casas maintained that Indians had souls and should be treated as other free men, while the aforementioned Juan de Sepulveda made the case on behalf of land owners, arguing that Indians did not have souls and were therefore natural slaves. De las Casas’s position carried the day, but the “Indians have souls” argument provided no more than a philosophical victory and had no effect on the day-to-day actions of Spanish colonists in the New World, who continued to use Indians as slaves to run their plantations.

Neither the English nor the French spent any time with this question. For these two groups, Indians were simply humans at an early point in the evolution o the species. They were savages with no understanding of orthodox theology, devoid of complex language, and lacking civilized manners. Barbarians certainly, and quite possibly minions of the devil. But human beings, nonetheless. Ans as such, many colonists believed that Native people could be civilized and educated, believed that there was, within the Indian, the possibility for enlightenment.

Extermination dominated the early contact period assimilation the latter, until finally, in the nineteenth century, they came together in an amalgam of militarism and social theory that allowed North America to mount a series of benevolent assaults on Native people, assaults facilitated by force of arms, deception and coercion, assaults that sought to dismantle Native culture with missionary zeal and humanitarian paternalism, and to replace it with something that Whites could recognize.

These assaults came singly, in partnerships and from various angles. In general, settlers and missionaries of one flavour or another led the way, taking turns leapfrogging each other into the “wilderness.” In Canada, it was the French and the Jesuits, followed by the English and Anglicans, Methodists, and Presbyterians. In the American northeast and along the Atlantic coast, it was the English and the Puritans, Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians, with a smattering of fQuakers and other non-conformists working out of Rhode Island. In the southeast, it was the Spanish and the Jesuits and the Franciscans. In the far west, along the Pacific coast, it was the Spanish and the Franciscans, while, much later and farther north in California and up the Pacific coast, it was the Russians and the Orthodox Church.

Francis Jennings, in his book The Invasion of America, called Christianity a “conquest religion.” I suspect this description is true of most religions. I can’t think of one that could be termed a “seduction religion,” where converts are lured in by the beauty of the doctrine and the generosity of the practice.

Maybe Buddhism. Certainly not Christianity.

Missionary work in the New World was war. Christianity, in all its varieties, has always been a stakeholder in the business of assimilation, and, in the sixteenth century, it was the initial wound in the side of Native culture. Or, if you want the positive but somewhat callous view, you might wish to describe Christianity as the gateway drug to supply-side capitalism.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

The Inconvenient Indian – Summary

Here is the book summary:

The Inconvenient Indian is at once a “history” and the complete subversion of a history—in short, a critical and personal meditation that the remarkable Thomas King has conducted over the past 50 years about what it means to be “Indian” in North America.

Rich with dark and light, pain and magic, this book distills the insights gleaned from that meditation, weaving the curiously circular tale of the relationship between non-Natives and Natives in the centuries since the two first encountered each other. In the process, King refashions old stories about historical events and figures, takes a sideways look at film and pop culture, relates his own complex experiences with activism, and articulates a deep and revolutionary understanding of the cumulative effects of ever-shifting laws and treaties on Native peoples and lands.

This is a book both timeless and timely, burnished with anger but tempered by wit, and ultimately a hard-won offering of hope—a sometimes inconvenient, but nonetheless indispensable account for all of us, Indian and non-Indian alike, seeking to understand how we might tell a new story for the future.

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

July 9, 2023July 6, 2023

The same Indian agent

This is a quote from the book 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act by Bob Joseph.

Quote by Bob Joseph, “As I have written in other publications, this is how the process would have unfolded: An Indian agent would ask me my name, I would say “k’ack-sum nakwala”, and they would write down “Bob Joseph.” Often I am asked if I am related to the Josephs from the Squamish First Nation, to which I usually reply, “No, but I’m sure we had the same Indian agent.”

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act – Summary

Here is the book summary:

Based on a viral article, 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act is the essential guide to understanding the legal document and its repercussion on generations of Indigenous Peoples, written by a leading cultural sensitivity trainer.

Since its creation in 1876, the Indian Act has shaped, controlled, and constrained the lives and opportunities of Indigenous Peoples, and is at the root of many enduring stereotypes. Bob Joseph’s book comes at a key time in the reconciliation process, when awareness from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities is at a crescendo. Joseph explains how Indigenous Peoples can step out from under the Indian Act and return to self-government, self-determination, and self-reliance—and why doing so would result in a better country for every Canadian. He dissects the complex issues around truth and reconciliation, and clearly demonstrates why learning about the Indian Act’s cruel, enduring legacy is essential for the country to move toward true reconciliation.

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

July 5, 2023July 5, 2023

The Indian Act

Excerpt from 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act by Bob Joseph

This is an excerpt from the book 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act by Bob Joseph.

The roots of the Indian Act lie in the Bagot Report of 1844 that recommended that control over Indian matters be centralized that the children be sent to boarding schools away from the influence of their communities and culture, that the Indians be encouraged to assume the European concept of free enterprise, and that land be individually owned under an Indian land registry system in which they could sell to each other but not to non-Indians. The Bagot Report provided the framework for the Indian Act, 1876.

When the British North America Act (BNA), or what is now known as the Constitution Act, 1867 was issued, it gave, under Section 91 (24), exclusive jurisdiction over “Indians and lands reserved for the Indians” to the federal government. With issue of the BNA, Canada was placed in a position of conflict of interest. On the one hand it was responsible for “Indians and lands reserved for Indians,” while, on the other hand, it was the responsible party for negotiating treaties and purchasing their land for the Crown.

Eight years later, when the regulations that impacted Indians were consolidated into the Indian Act, 1876, we star to get some insight into Indian policy:

Our Indian legislation general resets on the principle, that the aborigines are to be kept in a condition of tutelage and treated as wards or children of the State…[T]he true interests of the aborigines and of the State alike require that every effort should be made to aid the Red man in lifting himself out of his condition of tutelage and dependence, and that is clearly our wisdom and our duty, through education and every other means, to prepare him for a higher civilization by encouraging him to assume the privileges and responsibilities of full citizenship.

But that paternalistic attitude gave way to increasingly punitive rules, prohibitions, and regulations that dehumanized Indians. By the 1920s, Indian policy took on a much darker tone. Duncan Campbell Scott, the Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, wrote: “I want to get rid of the Indian problem…our objective is to continue until there is not an Indian that has not been absorbed into the body politic, and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department…”

When details about the atrocities of World War II became known, coupled with the contributions by Indigenous soldiers during the war, Canadian began to judge how the government treated Indians. Information about the staggering number of deaths of children in residential school began to creep out Mainstream Canada took notice. To counter the negativity, the federal government commissioned a series of positive, short films about the schools, one of which signs off with “for the oldest Canadians, a new future.” There was a call for a Royal Commission to investigate Indian Affairs, the conditions on reserves, and discrimination against Indians. While the Royal Commission never took shape, a Special Joint Parliamentary Committee of the Senate and the House of Commons was formed to look into Canada’s policies and the management of Indian Affairs. After two years of hearings, the Joint Committee recommended:

a) The complete revision or repeal of every section in the Indian Act.

b) That Canada’s Indian Act be designed to make possible the gradual transition of the Indian from a position of wardship to citizenship. To achieve this goal the act should provide that:

i. Indian women be given a political voice in band affairs.

ii. Bands should be allowed more self-government.

iii. ands should be given more financial assistance.

iv. Indians should be treated the same as non-Indians in the matter of intoxicants.

v. Indian Affairs officials were to have their duties and responsibilities designed so as to assist the Indians attain the full rights of citizenship and to serve the responsibilities of self-government.

vi. Bands be allowed to incorporate as municipalities.

c) The guidelines for future policy were to be:

i. The easing of enfranchisement procedures

ii. Indians should be given the vote.

iii. When possible co-operate with the provinces in delivering services to the Indian people.

iv. Indian education should be geared for assimilation; ;therefore it should take place with non-Indian students.

Despite the recommendations, a 1951 amendment to the Act did not in fact bring much in the way of relief to Indians from the government’s formidable control over most aspects of their lives. This book deals primarily with the Indian Act and its many reiterations between 1869 and 1951. The Indian Act remains in effect today, with basically the same framework it had in 1876, despite the numerous amendments.

In this book I have endeavoured to provide insight into just 21 of the rules, regulations, and prohibitions of the Indian Act. It is an incredibly broad topic and a vast body of law that, in its entirety, continues to touch on every aspect of an Indian person’s life, from the womb to the tomb. Had I written about the entire Indian Act, it is unlikely anyone would read the book and we would have fallen down in our mission to inform people so that they can understand the past and move towards reconciliation. If you are interested in reading the full text of the Indian Act, 1876 please visit https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2017/aanc-inac/R5-158-2-1978-eng.pdf.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act – Summary

Here is the book summary:

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

May 31, 2023May 7, 2023

tình bạn ~ friendship

Excerpt from Mãn by Kim Thúy

This is an excerpt from the book Mãn by Kim Thúy, translated from the French by Sheila Fischman.

tình bạn ~ friendship

Julie was the first to stick her head into the opening through which I delivered the plates. Her smile stretched from one side of the aperture to the other. The enthusiasm of her greeting was like that of an archaeologist upon discovering a trace of the first kiss. Promptly, before even a word was uttered, we became friends, and with time, sisters. She adopted me as she’d adopted her daughter, without questioning our past. She took me to see movies in the afternoon, or we would watch classics at her place. She opened her refrigerator and had me taste its contents in no particular order, according to her mood of the day: from smoked meat to tourtière, ketchup to sauce béchamel, and including celery root, rhubarb, bison, pouding chômeur and pickled eggs. Sometimes Julie would come and cook with me. I ld show her how to keep sticky rice in superimposed layers of banana leaves by squeezing them firmly but without smothering the rice. It’s always a fragile balance, one that fingers can feel better than words can explain.

At the end of every January, we had to prepare several dozen of the treats because my husband wanted to offer them to his friends and his distant relatives for the Vietnamese New Year, as his mother used to do in her village. The scent of banana leaves cooked in boiling water for many hours reminded him of the days before Tết when the whole neighbourhood spent the night feeding the fire under cauldrons full of rice rolls stuffed with mung bean paste, smooth and as discreetly yellow as the moon.

Julie came to our restaurant often. She invited her friends for lunch, organized monthly meetings of her book group, and reserved the entire restaurant to celebrate family birthdays and wedding anniversaries. Every time, she brought me out of the kitchen to be introduced to her guests, embracing me with her whole body. She was the big sister I’d never had, and I was her daughter’s Vietnamese mother.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

Mãn – Summary

Here is the book summary:

Mãn has three mothers: the one who gives birth to her in wartime, the nun who plucks her from a vegetable garden, and her beloved Maman, who becomes a spy to survive. Seeking security for her grown daughter, Maman finds Mãn a husband – a lonely Vietnamese restaurateur who lives in Montreal.

Thrown into a new world, Mãn discovers her natural talent as a chef. Gracefully she practices her art, with food as her medium. She creates dishes that are much more than sustenance for the body: they evoke memory and emotion, time and place, and even bring her customers to tears.

Mãn is a mystery – her name means ‘perfect fulfillment’, yet she and her husband seem to drift along, respectfully and dutifully. But when she encounters a married chef in Paris, everything changes in the instant of a fleeting touch, and Mãn discovers the all-encompassing obsession and ever-present dangers of a love affair.

Full of indelible images of beauty, delicacy and quiet power, Mãn is a novel that begs to be savoured for its language, its sensuousness and its love of life.

Translated by Sheila Fischman (English version published 2014)

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

March 26, 2023March 8, 2023

We want to be remembered

This is a quote from the book Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.

Quote by Emily St. John Mandel, “First we only want to be seen, but once we’re seen, that’s not enough anymore. After that, we wanted to be remembered.”

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

Station Eleven – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

Set in the days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time—from the actor’s early days as a film star to fifteen years in the future, when a theater troupe known as the Traveling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains—this suspenseful, elegiac, spellbinding novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people: the actor, the man who tried to save him, the actor’s first wife, his oldest friend, and a young actress with the Traveling Symphony, caught in the crosshairs of a dangerous self-proclaimed prophet.

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

March 15, 2023January 15, 2023

Adulthood’s full of ghosts

Excerpt from Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

This is an excerpt from the book Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.

“These people you coach, do they ever actually change? I mean in any kind of lasting, notable way?”

He hesitated. This was actually something he’d wondered about.

“They change their behaviors,” he said, “some of them. Often people will simply have no idea that they’re perceived as needing improvement in a certain area, but then they see the report…”

She nodded. “You differentiate between changing people and changing behaviors, then.”

“Of course.”

“Here’s the thing,” Dahlia said. “I’ll bet you can coach Dan, and probably he’ll exhibit a turnaround of sorts, he’ll improve in concrete areas, but eh’ll still be a joyless bastard.”

“A joyless…”

“No, wait, don’t write that down. Let me rephrase that. Okay, let’s say he’ll change a little, probably if you coach him, but he’ll still be a successful-but-unhappy person who works until nine p.m. every night because he’s got a terrible marriage and doesn’t want to go home, and don’t ask how I know that, everyone knows when you’ve got a terrible marriage, it’s like having bad breath, you get close enough to a person and it’s obvious. And you know, I’m reaching here, but I’m talking about someone who just seems like he wishes he’d done something different with his life, I mean really actually almost anything—is this too much?”

“No. Please, go on.”

“Okay, I love my job, and I’m not just saying that because my boss is going to see my interview comments, which by the way I don’t believe he won’t be able to tell who said what, anonymous or not. But anyway, I look around sometimes and I think—this will maybe sound weird—it’s like the corporate world’s full of ghosts. And actually, let me revise that, my parents are in academia so I’ve had front-row seats for that horror show, I know academia’s no different, so maybe a fairer way of putting this would be to say that adulthood’s full of ghosts.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not sure I quite—”

“I’m talking about these people who’ve ended up in one life instead of another and they are just so disappointed. Do you know what I mean? They’ve done what’s expected of them. They want to do something different but it’s impossible now, there’s a mortgage, kids, whatever, they’re trapped. Dan’s like that.”

“You don’t think he likes his job, then.”

“Correct,” she said, “but I don’t think he even realizes it. You probably encounter people like him all the time. High-functioning sleepwalkers, essentially.”

What was it in this statement that made Clark want to weep? He was nodding, taking down as much as he could. “Do you think he’d describe himself as unhappy in his work?”

“No,” Dahlia said, “because I think people like him think work is supposed to be drudgery punctuated by very occasional moments of happiness, but when I say happiness, I mostly mean distraction. You know what I mean?”

”No, please elaborate.”

“Okay, say you go into the break room,” she said, “and a couple people you like are there, say someone’s telling a funny story, you laugh a little, you feel included, everyone’s so funny, you go back to your desk with a sort of, I don’t know, I guess afterglow would be the word? You go back to your desk with an afterglow, but then by four or five o’clock the day’s just turned into yet another day, and you go on like that, looking forward to five o’clock and then the weekend and then your two or three annual weeks of paid vacation time, day in day out, and that’s what happens to your life.”

“Right,” Clark said. He was filled in that moment with an inexpressible longing. The previous day eh’d gone into the break room and spent five minutes laughing at a colleague’s impression of a Daily Show bit.

“That’s what passes for a life, I should say. That’s what passes for happiness, for most people. Guys like Dan, they’re like sleepwalkers,” she said, “and nothing ever jolts them awake.”

He go through the rest of the interview, shook her hand, walked out through the vaulted lobby of the Graybar Building to Lexington Avenue. The air was cold but he longed to be outside, away from other people. He took a long and circuitous route, veering two avenues east to the relative quiet of Second Avenue.

He was thinking of the book, and thinking of what Dahlia had said about sleepwalking, and a strange thought came to him: had Arther seen that Clark was sleepwalking? Would this be in the letters to V? Because he had been sleepwalking Clark realized, moving half-asleep through the motions of his life for a while now, years; not specifically unhappy, but when had he last found real joy in his work? When was the last time he’d been truly moved by anything? When had he last felt awe or inspiration? He wished he could somehow go back and find the iPhone people whom he’d jostled on the sidewalk earlier, apologize to them—I’m sorry, I’ve just realized that I’m as minimally present in this world as you are, I had no right to judge—and also he wanted to call every target of every 360° report and apologize to them too, because it’s an awful thing to appear in someone else’s report, he saw that now, it’s an awful thing to be the target.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

Station Eleven – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

January 1, 2023December 5, 2022

Long ago the white man come with bibles…

This is a quote from the play The Ecstasy of Rita Joe by George Ryga.

Have you read this play? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

The Ecstasy of Rita Joe – Summary

Here is the play summary from StoryGraph:

Rita Joe is a Native girl who leaves the reservation for the city, only to die on skid row as a victim of white men’s violence and paternalistic attitudes towards First Nations peoples. As perhaps the best-known contemporary Canadian play and a poetic drama of enormous theatrical power, The Ecstasy of Rita Joe had a major influence in awakening consciousness to the “Indian problem” both in whites and Natives themselves.

Cast of five women and 15 men. With a preface by Chief Dan George.

The Ecstasy of Rita Joe premiered November 23, 1967 at the Vancouver Playhouse.

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

December 14, 2022December 5, 2022

First Woman’s garden

Excerpt from Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King

Photo by Florian GIORGIO | Accessed on Unsplash.com

This is an excerpt from the book Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King.

First Woman’s garden. That good woman makes a garden and she lives there with Ahdamn. I don’t know where he comes from. Things like that happen, you know.

So there is that garden. And there is First Woman and Ahdamn. And everything is perfect. And everything is beautiful. And everything is boring.

So First Woman goes walking around with her head in the clouds, looking in the sky for things that are bent and need fixing. So she doesn’t see that tree. So that tree doesn’t see her. So they bump into each other.

Pardon me, says that Tree, maybe you would like something to eat.

That would be nice, says First Woman, and all sorts of good things to eat fall out of that Tree. Apples fall out. Melons fall out. Bananas fall out. Hot dogs. Fry bread, corn, potatoes. Pizza. Extra-crispy fried chicken.

Thank you, says First Woman, and she picks up all that food and brings it back to Ahdamn.

Talking trees! Talking trees! says that GOD. What kind of world is this?

“Did someone say food?” says Coyote.

“Sit down,” I says. “Boy, this story is going to take a long time.”

So that good woman brings all that food back to Ahdamn. Ahdamn is busy. He is naming everything.

You are a microwave oven, Ahdamn tells the Elk.

Nope, says that Elk. Try again.

You are a garage sale, Ahdamn tells the Bear.

We got to get you some glasses, says the Bear.

You are a telephone book, Ahdamn tells the Cedar Tree.

You’re getting closer, says the Cedar Tree.

You are a cheeseburger, Ahdamn tells Old Coyote.

It must be tie for lunch, says Old Coyote.

Never mind that, First Woman tells Ahdamn. Here is something to eat.

Wait a minute, says that GOD. That’s my garden. That’s my stuff.

“Don’t talk to me,” I says. “You better talk to First Woman.”

You bet I will, says that GOD.

So. There is that garden. And there is First Woman and Ahdamn. And there are the animals and the plants and all their relations. And there is all that food.

“Boy,” says Coyote, “that food certainly smells good.”

They can’t eat my stuff, says that GOD. And that one jumps into the garden.

Oh, oh, says First Woman when she sees that GOD land in her garden. Just when we were getting things organized.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

Green Grass, Running Water – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

King’s auspicious debut novel, Medicine River ( LJ 8/90), garnered critical acclaim and popular success (including being transformed into a TV movie). This encore, a genially wild tale with a serious heart, confirms the author’s prowess. It involves the creation of a creation story, the mission of four ancient Indians, and the comparatively realistic doings of 40-year-old-adolescent Lionel Red Dog, unfazable cleaning woman Babo, and various memorable Blackfoot and others in scenic Alberta. Clever verbal motifs not only connect the stories but add fun visual themes, including missing cars and a ubiquitous Western movie. In the end, everyone is thrown together by an earthquake at white human-made Parliament Lake, compliments of the four old Indians and the loopy trickster Coyote. Smart and entertaining, this novel deserves a big audience.

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

December 7, 2022December 5, 2022

A trial of Rita Joe

Excerpt from The Ecstasy of Rita Joe by George Ryga

Photo by JJ Ying | Accessed on Unsplash.com

This is an excerpt from the play The Ecstasy of Rita Joe by George Ryga.

Magistrate – I ask you for the last time, Rita Joe… Do you want a lawyer?

Rita – (defiantly) What for?…I can take care of myself

Magistrate – The charge against you this morning is prostitution. Why did you not return to your people as you said you would?

(The light on the backstage dies. Rita Joe stands before the Magistrate and the Policeman. She is contained in a pool of light before them.)

Rita – (nervous, with despair) I tried… I tried…

(The Magistrate settles back into his chair and takes a folder from his desk, which he opens and studies.)

Magistrate – Special Constable Eric Wilson has submitted a statement to the effect that on June 18th he and Special Constable Schneider approached you on Fourth Avenue at nine-forty in the evening…

Policeman – We were impersonating two deck-hands newly arrived in the city…

Magistrate – You were arrested an hour later on charges of prostitution.

(The Magistrate holds the folder threateningly and looks down at her. Rita Joe is defiant.)

Rita – That’s a goddamned lie!

Magistrate – (sternly, gesturing to the Policeman) This is a police statement. Surely you don’t think a mistake was made?

Rita – (peering into the light above her, shuddering) Everything in this room is like ice…How can you stay alive working here? …I’m so hungry I want to throw up…

Magistrate – You have heard the statement, Rita Joe…Do you deny it?

Rita – I was going home, trying to find the highway…I knew those two were cops the moment I saw them…I told them to go f…fly a kite! They got sore then an’ started pushing me around…

Magistrate – (patiently now, waving down the objection of the Policeman) Go on.

Rita – They followed me around until a third cop drove up. An’ then they arrest me.

Magistrate – Arrested you…Nothing else?

Rita – They stuffed five dollar bills in my pockets when they had me in the car… I ask you, mister, when are they gonna charge cops like that with contributing to…

Policeman – Your Worship…

Magistrate – (irritably, indicating the folder on the table before him) Now it’s your word against this! You need references…People who know you…who will come to court to substantiate what you say…today! That is the process of legal argument!

Rita – Can I bum a cigarette someplace?

Magistrate – No. You can’t smoke in court.

(The Policeman smiles and exits.)

Rita – Then give me a bed to sleep on, or is the sun gonna rise an’ rise until it burns a hole in my head?

(Guitar music cues softly in the background.)

Have you read this play? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

The Ecstasy of Rita Joe – Summary

Here is the play summary from StoryGraph:

Cast of five women and 15 men. With a preface by Chief Dan George.

The Ecstasy of Rita Joe premiered November 23, 1967 at the Vancouver Playhouse.

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

Five modern classics from Canada

Anne of Green Gables (1908)

Links:

Who Has Seen the Wind (1947)

Links:

The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be (1957)

Links:

Dance of the Happy Shades (1968)

Links:

The Fire-Dwellers (1969)

Links:

Final thoughts

Share this:

Like this:

Excerpt from The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King

The Inconvenient Indian – Summary

Share this:

Like this:

21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act – Summary

Share this:

Like this:

Excerpt from 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act by Bob Joseph

21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act – Summary

Share this:

Like this:

Excerpt from Mãn by Kim Thúy

Mãn – Summary

Share this:

Like this:

Station Eleven – Summary

Share this:

Like this:

Excerpt from Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Station Eleven – Summary

Share this:

Like this:

The Ecstasy of Rita Joe – Summary

Share this:

Like this:

Excerpt from Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King

Green Grass, Running Water – Summary

Share this:

Like this:

Excerpt from The Ecstasy of Rita Joe by George Ryga

The Ecstasy of Rita Joe – Summary

Share this:

Like this: