Review of The Pied Piper of Dipper Creek

Thomas H. Raddall's collection of short stories, entitled The Pied Piper of Dipper Creek won the Governor General's Award for Literary merit in fiction in 1943. The short stories could best be termed local colour. They are generally set in rural Nova Scotia and portray the Scottish heritage, seafaring tradition, and the first nations. Within that context, there is a large variety here: everything from a fishing story to one that takes place on the day of the Halifax explosion.

Raddall's stories are lush with details and they paint a vivid mental picture of local life. However, as strong literary works, they are a mixed bag. Nevertheless, they are generally quite entertaining. I particularly enjoyed "Champeen Liar," "The Taming of Moredcai Mimms," and Lady Lands Leviathan. They are all light and fun.

However, one story stands apart, both as darker in tone and more interesting from a literary perspective. "Winter's Tale," as alluded to above, is set during the day of the Halifax Explosion of 1917 through the perspective of a boy, James. Initially, James is unaware of why his school's windows are blown out. As the story progresses, he begins to realize the level of devastation that the city has suffered and comes face to face with some of the casualites. It is a powerful story, very well told, and I believe it to be the highlight of the collection.

To summarize, on the whole, The Pied Piper of Dipper Creek is a good collection of entertaining Nova Scotian local colour short stories. While it may not be high literature, it is nevertheless very successful on its own terms.

Might I tell you how much better watching the Olympics is in Canada?

In the course of reading the outrage at NBC in the United States , I was reminded how happy I am that I now live in Canada. In 2008, CBC/Radio-Canada broadcast the Olympics and it was quite an improvement over the NBC coverage I was used to. They showed everything they could live, but were unfortunately basically limited to 5 channels (CBC, Bold, and TSN in English; Radio-Canada and RDS in French). In addition, they had live web streaming of almost every event.

The Vancouver Olympics are even better. Technically, they are broadcast by "Canada's Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium." As a result, the 2010 Winter Olympics (which has fewer events) is being shown on a whopping 7 channels (CTV, TSN, Rogers SportsNet, and OLN in English; V, RDS, and RIS in French). Events are generally shown live with highlights from earlier in the day and they even provide an extremly useful viewer guide on their website. They also offer live streaming on ctvolympics.ca, but with so many channel choices, I haven't even bothered to tune in. I should add that there are even more channels available in other languages.

One other pleasant note about Canadian Olympics coverage: the announcers have a tendency to be silent and let the sports speak for themselves from time to time. It is a very nice change from the inane banter I had become accustomed to on NBC.

And now for a slight detour...

Contrary to what might it appear like on my blog, I don't in fact read exclusively Governor-General's award winners. That's actually why some of these books seem to take a very long time. The G-G project is a definite long term multiyear thing.

In any case, I recently read a nice Canadian political humour novel, The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis. The book has an interesting history. Fallis, tired of rejection, recorded the whole novel as a series of podcasts on his website. Between the podcasts and self-publishing, Fallis managed to attract the attention of a commercial publisher, and in 2008 The Best Laid Plans won the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour.

The Best Laid Plans follows the improbable campaign, election, and service of Scottish-born engineering professor Angus McLintock as a federal member of parliament. McLintock is in many ways a classic "straight shooter" candidate, who is determined to do what he thinks is best for the country irrespective of polls, politics, and party. His election only comes by way of unintentional accident (I will leave the particulars unspoiled), but he comes to grow into and even revel in his new position.

The Best Laid Plans is resminiscent of other works, such as Bulworth, but it is truly Canadian through and through. It even delves into the intricacies of parliamentary procedures. The novel is very enjoyable on the whole, although the last third is too optimistic for my own tastes. Nevertheless, the Canadian political humour novel isn't exactly a bestselling, prolific genre, so if the description interests you, I highly recommend giving it a read (or at least a listen).

The Unguarded Frontier

1942 had 2 winners of the Governor-General's Award for Literary Merit in nonfiction. Edgar D. McInnis also won the award for The Unguarded Frontier : A History of American-Canadian Relations. The title really says it all with this one. McInnis describes the history of the U.S./Canada border. In particular, he does a nice job of illustrating the complex dynamic between Britain, Canada, and the United States. In this respect, he traces the development of Canada from colony to independent state (within the framework of the Commonwealth) very effectively. Additionally, McInnis delves into a variety of specific border disputes. He conveys how the border was often determined well before any exploration, which often resulted in a final, haphazard boundary based more on negotiations than geography. It is in these sections, that I find his writing and expertise the strongest and his voice at its most unique. In fact, I found myself wanting more details as to the particulars of each boundary dispute.

Overall, I recommend The Unguarded Frontier as a nice survey of the history of Canada/U.S. relations.

The Unknown Country : Canada and Her People

The Unknown Country : Canada and Her People by Bruce Hutchison is a good, but unexceptional narrative of a his trip across Canada. In each chapter, Hutchison presents a small amount of local colour and a brief history of the location. It was one of two Governor-General's Award winners for non fiction in 1942.

The book is well done, and Hutchison provides some nice local snapshots, but overall, it's more of a compendium than a unified work. Plus, Hutchison depends a lot on his own impressions and perceptions rather than trying to weave together a variety of perspectives. As such, it's closer to a travelogue.

It's hard to see why The Unknown Country was so well-regarded as to merit the Governor-General's Award. It's a decent book, but nothing extraordinary.

'Little Man' by G. Herbert Sallans

Little Man by G. Hervert Sallans won the 1942 Governor General's Award for Fiction. The novel focuses on the life of George Battle largely from his time in the First World War with an artillery unit in the trenches to the beginning ot the Second World War. The bulk of the novel takes place in the Interwar period when George raises a family and attempts to survive the Great Depression.

Little Man is reminiscent of F. Scott Fitzgerald's and Hemingway's novels in a sense. The time period is similar, and while George raises a family, the novel is concerned primarily with George, his wife Joy, their close friend Bo, and George's cousin Pitch. While the four friends are not quite the rollicking characters of Tender is the Night, the dynamic is reminiscent of both Fitzgerald and Hemingway, though not stylistically.

The quartet of Bo, George, Joy, and Pitch drive the novel and Sallans does an excellent job of developing them strongly. In particular, George emerges as very true, possessing both strengths and insecurities and often vascillating rapidly between them. He speaks for the 'little man' because he is one, and yet he shows signs of being able to grow beyond.

Little Man deals with deep issues such as love, war, loss, and (in)equality. However, it does so in a deft touch that never bogs down. It is serious and compelling and too ambiguous to be overly pessimistic. In case it isn't obvious yet, Little Man is an excellent novel, and I highly recommend it.

Klee Wyck by Emily Carr

The 1941 Governor General's Award winner for non fiction is Emily Carr's Klee Wyck, a collection of vignettes of Carr's interactions with native peoples in British Columbia.

The vignettes are done in a style that I would term local colour, and frankly, they're interesting, but nothing special. Perhaps the most significant stories are the ones in which Carr documents the racism that natives faced at this time period. Overall, though, the book is rather unimpressive, and the stories quite simple. I must wonder if they would have even been published had they not been written by Emily Carr.