I just finished reading your "Savage Love," and I loved it, almost savagely. As soon as I started it, I was visited by the ghosts of Hawkes, Barth, Coover, Gass, Barthelme, Pynchon, et al, voices that I encountered first in 1979 in an American Lit course at St Jeromes College, University of Waterloo. These were writers who forever upended my notion of what fiction is, what it could be (I revisit them frequently).
When I first proposed a topic for my PhD research at the University of Alberta, it was to investigate the socio-historical differences between Canadian and American cultures that made it apparently impossible for Canadian writers (with a very few exceptions at the time) to write like these dazzling Americans. That proposal won me an Izaak Walton Killam scholarship, but I never pursued it (settling instead on an investigation of the socio-historical conditions that fostered the emergence of "Literature"). In the end, I didn't get far and never finished the PhD at all.
Now, almost 40 years later, I am so happy to engage with your writing (I just read "Precious," as well). I must say, I am also enjoying the recordings of your discussions with some of these guys. Thanks.
Rick, Ah, you recognize the pantheon. Hawkes was an avatar. I used to quote him all the time. "Plot, character, setting, and theme are the enemies of the novel..." Lately, I have been gathering material for an essay on his novel Cannibal. In Canada, Leon Rooke was of their ilk. Robert Kroetsch was borderline. But I always thought Leonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers and Hubert Aquin's novels Blackout, The Antiphonary, Prochain Episode, and Neige Noir were just as good. Aquin wrote in French, so the American academic-media industry didn't notice. For a long time, I was campaigning to get Dalkey Archive Press to publish those books. Aside from Hawkes, Cohen and Aquin taught me more. (And I have written essays about them.) But other than those three I tend to agree with your general drift. Aquin, in Blackout, is particularly acerbic about the impossibility of being a writer in Canada.
Just listened to your interview with Gass. I'll have to find The Tunnel. Sounds like it was a warning that our culture failed to register in its march toward Trump.
Yes, Kroetsch, Rooke, and Cohen. I also discovered D M Fraser and Brian Fawcett later, and there were Ray Smith and Eric McCormack (one of my profs at UofW, who just started to publish after I was done with the PhD). I don't think I've read Aquin, but I did enjoy Jacques Godbout's Hail Galarneau! and Yves Beauchemin's The Alley Cat (again, much later). Alas, I am no longer very proficient in French, so I have to make do with translations.
Oh what fun to read about (and listen to, hopefully sooner than later). Could you, have time to dwell, at some point? I would love that dwell as well. Thanks, dg.
I might. A couple of fresh thoughts have crossed my mind. And Robin Oliveira has already jogged my memories of Fred Busch and Andrea Barrett. Right now I have a deadline and have not much time for dwelling on anything.
Another essay by M. Glover, another trunkload of books I'll have to read. Really enjoyed this.
I figured you were probably running out, Russell. Really good to see you here.
I just finished reading your "Savage Love," and I loved it, almost savagely. As soon as I started it, I was visited by the ghosts of Hawkes, Barth, Coover, Gass, Barthelme, Pynchon, et al, voices that I encountered first in 1979 in an American Lit course at St Jeromes College, University of Waterloo. These were writers who forever upended my notion of what fiction is, what it could be (I revisit them frequently).
When I first proposed a topic for my PhD research at the University of Alberta, it was to investigate the socio-historical differences between Canadian and American cultures that made it apparently impossible for Canadian writers (with a very few exceptions at the time) to write like these dazzling Americans. That proposal won me an Izaak Walton Killam scholarship, but I never pursued it (settling instead on an investigation of the socio-historical conditions that fostered the emergence of "Literature"). In the end, I didn't get far and never finished the PhD at all.
Now, almost 40 years later, I am so happy to engage with your writing (I just read "Precious," as well). I must say, I am also enjoying the recordings of your discussions with some of these guys. Thanks.
Rick, Ah, you recognize the pantheon. Hawkes was an avatar. I used to quote him all the time. "Plot, character, setting, and theme are the enemies of the novel..." Lately, I have been gathering material for an essay on his novel Cannibal. In Canada, Leon Rooke was of their ilk. Robert Kroetsch was borderline. But I always thought Leonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers and Hubert Aquin's novels Blackout, The Antiphonary, Prochain Episode, and Neige Noir were just as good. Aquin wrote in French, so the American academic-media industry didn't notice. For a long time, I was campaigning to get Dalkey Archive Press to publish those books. Aside from Hawkes, Cohen and Aquin taught me more. (And I have written essays about them.) But other than those three I tend to agree with your general drift. Aquin, in Blackout, is particularly acerbic about the impossibility of being a writer in Canada.
Glad you liked Savage Love savagely.
Doug
Just listened to your interview with Gass. I'll have to find The Tunnel. Sounds like it was a warning that our culture failed to register in its march toward Trump.
Yes, Kroetsch, Rooke, and Cohen. I also discovered D M Fraser and Brian Fawcett later, and there were Ray Smith and Eric McCormack (one of my profs at UofW, who just started to publish after I was done with the PhD). I don't think I've read Aquin, but I did enjoy Jacques Godbout's Hail Galarneau! and Yves Beauchemin's The Alley Cat (again, much later). Alas, I am no longer very proficient in French, so I have to make do with translations.
Oh what fun to read about (and listen to, hopefully sooner than later). Could you, have time to dwell, at some point? I would love that dwell as well. Thanks, dg.
I might. A couple of fresh thoughts have crossed my mind. And Robin Oliveira has already jogged my memories of Fred Busch and Andrea Barrett. Right now I have a deadline and have not much time for dwelling on anything.
Glover's posts are so diverse, and yet they are always beautifully composed and structured. One of our finest contemporary writers.