Canadian Literature

[Kiwi Shelf]

Hey all
My question is if you like Canadian Literature, and if you do what's your favourite Canadian author or book?

[verybaddmom]

Margaret Atwood, all the way.
"Handmaid's Tale, Cat's Eye, The Edible Woman, Survival Tips "
and many more.......

[EAP]

Lucy Maud M!

Any of her Anne books.

[EAP]

Lucy Maud M!

Any of her Anne books.

[Sancho]

Neil Young,

"Harvest"

[Sancho]

It's sorta like literature.

[Kiwi Shelf]

Okay, I will answer now...
I like:
Lesley Choyce
Carol Shields
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Margaret Atwood (specifically Oryx and Crake)
Morley Callaghan
Douglas Coupland
Timothy Findley
Alice Munro

Yep, that is all I can think of right now...

[simon]

Coupland is good, I've only read a few stuff by Atwood, but the Handmaid's Tale is great. Most of the stuff I read the American and Canadian authors belnd together, only if hte author is vietnamese or somehting do I take any particular notice.

[Avalive]

For this semester's english 103.
Canadian literature. We read 2 novels:
Carol Shields< Stone Diaries>
Michael Onddatje<The english patient>

The truth is: I read none of them. Hopefully,I can still pass...Dunno

[Avalive]

Um
After I posted what I wrote above. I kinda regret doing it. Coz my instructor is a big literatural fan. It is really possible that she is on this forum too. If she sees me. she would know who I am for sure.
Consequently, there would be no possibility for me to pass the class....I tried to read'em, but my heart deserted them as soon as I started. . .

[Kiwi Shelf]

Stone Diaries good, English Patient does not appeal to me.
Coupland is great! All Families are Psychotic or Generation X are the 2 best.

hehe, if you want to pass Avalive I could tell you what happened in Stone Diaries. :p

[simon]

For my eng class this term we read In the Skin of a Lion by Ondjaante, which was rather hard to read due to it's being open to sudden time changes and lapses and total shifts in story with no indication or warning. Apperatnly one of the main characters in this turns up in the English Patient also. Caravaggio or something like that.

[Kiwi Shelf]

I have never had the interest to read a novel by him, they just have never caught my attention.

[Sancho]

I enjoyed Yann Martel's "Life of Pi." What did you guys think?

[Kiwi Shelf]

He was not very "Canadian" in his acceptance speech when he won the Booker, so I lost respect for him.... Either your are proud of you country or you aren't...

[simon]

Life of Pi was good, I especially enjoyed the first half on religion and zoos, but the island seemed slightly out of place and the ending predictable.

[Lara]

Life of Pi was an amazing story. I am rereading it now.

I agree Simon, I didn't really get the island scene. Does anyone have an opinion on this?

[Sancho]

I read it too fast and should probably reread it as well, Lara. The island chapter also gave me the most problems. Here are my unrelated thoughts on that part of the book; this probably has no relationship to what Martel intended. I had just read Dante’s Inferno and that chapter strangely reminded me of some of Dante’s Cantos. Therefore I used it as an allegory for hell. Pi was close to death and hallucinating; at first the island seemed like a good deal but then you find out about the flesh eating plants and the meercats. Pi could give up and stay (die) or continue his journey/struggle.

Simon, I liked the ending and didn’t find it predictable at all (probably ‘cos I’m a simpleton). I was dreading what I was sure was going to be the impending demise of Richard Parker but was pleasantly surprised. He starts the story with the statement that this is a story that will make you believe in god. Then at the end of an unbelievable story, Pi gives the skeptical Mexican investigators a plausible story (the French Chef story) and leaves the reader to decide which one to believe. In order to believe the much more interesting Tiger story you have to have faith / believe in god. So in the end it is ambiguous; as god is ambiguous as the number Pi is ambiguous 3.14…..It just goes on and on and on….

[Lara]

That's a good opinion on that Sancho. A plausible explanation.

[Sancho]

Thanks Lara, although I may be completely off the mark with that thought. I began reading that book as a straight story and it wasn’t until I was into it a bit that I realized that it was layered. I’d really like to go back and give it a close reading sometime; unfortunately I gave it away to a friend.

One of the reasons I initially thought that it was just a simple castaway story was because it was just so readable. I got a vivid picture in my mind when he described his parents standing on the beach whirling their arms around in swimming motions as the old swimming expert was trying to teach them to swim.

One vignette I remember from the book that I’d really like someone’s opinion on, was the Dorado episode. As Pi, a former vegetarian, is beating on the fish trying to kill it, the fish is going through a series of brilliant color changes. Pi makes the comment that it was like killing a rainbow.

[simon]

Good insight Sancho, into the number Pi and how it is ambiguous.

I think the thing about the island was that yes he was hullucianting and near death, but why were the evils of the island flesh eating plants and full of meercats, I think it was an unusual choice for the author to make. I wonder though if the book would loose anything if that passage was taken out of it.

[IWilKikU]

I looked over the book in the book store and it didn't look all that great. Maybe I'll give it a try now that I've heard otherwise.

[piquant]

Have any of you guys heard of Sheldon Currie? He wrote a short story called "the Glace Bay Miner's Museum" that later became a novel, and then a movie called "Margaret's Museum." We studied it in a lit class and watched the movie, then he came down to do a lecture and a workshop. He was a cool guy. The short story is good only takes a few minutes to read if you get a chance.

[Kiwi Shelf]

Weird
I never hear of this book, and then suddenly everyone is mentioning it. One of my friends read it in school and was telling me about it. I have never heard of it.

[piquant]

It's about a woman who is married to a coal miner, and how terrible coal mining is. I liked it a lot. I'm from a coal mining town, and my family used to be coal miners, so I conected with the story. It's not at all boring like I would have thought it would be. It was shocking and really made me think about how poorly blue colar workers are often treated.

[den]

Margaret's Museum is a lovely and sad movie starring Helena Bonham Carter. It was filmed in Nova Scotia too. I didn't realise it was from a short story I will look out for it!

[den]

Has anybody read any Nino Ricci? He's one of my favourite (and under-rated!) CanLit authors.

Lives of the Saints pub. 1990 won National awards. This book starts weaving the tale of young boy born in superstition ridden Italian village and the mysterious surroundings of his conception and uncovers the veneer of Catholisicms hypocrisy.

It's no small feat for a first-time writer to write a trilogy, but he did a remarkable job as well in his ensuing books In a Glass House and Where She Has Gone.

[simon]

Hey! I've read that book! The one about the boy in the italian villiage, I didn't know it was written by a canadian, just sort of fell off the shelf onto me when I knocked over a bookcase at the library.

[IWilKikU]

What a great way to find a book!!!

[Kiwi Shelf]

I am going to have to look for this Margaret's Museum, got me curious now
I have heard of Nino Ricci, but I had no idea he was Canadian. I have never read him though

[simon]

Sometimes good things other than huge gaping blue bruises happen to those who are clumsy.

[Kiwi Shelf]

lol

Has anyone ever read Margaret Laurence?

[den]

I love!!! Margaret Laurence and Morag Gunner is one of my heroes, from The Diviners. Also, her Stone Angel is a great read too.

[den]

I'll tell ya what NOT to read :p

The Lost Girls by Andrew Pyper... It's his first book and it's mind numbingly rife with cliches and stereotypes. Pyper tries to be hip and funny but it just drags on and on and falls flat over and over. You can't help but hate the main character, who is, get this, a coke snorting big-shot big-city lawyer who's anti-social tendancies are as banal as wingtips whilst he assasinates all the small-town characters he has to deal with.

I couldn't stand this book, it reminded me of Coupland's GenX genre which again is so contrived and brand-name pop garbage it's hard to get past all the obfuscation of `hipness' and angsty negativity to form any substance worth turning a page for. Ugh what a waste of time but a friend recommened it ...

[Kiwi Shelf]

I like Coupland...
He dares to be different

[den]

Hey! Have you guys voted in the `Greatest Canadian' contest yet?

I can't make up my mind ...

http://www.cbc.ca/greatest/greatcanadians/index.html

[Kiwi Shelf]

I have heard about it, but how do you pick one?
There are so many...

[simon]

Anyone heard of this guy Martin Myers?

[Kiwi Shelf]

Nope, the only Myers I know is Mike Myers