0
Canada's 'top 100 books' fails to live up
19 November 2005
[indent]The Literary Review of Canada has identified the 100 most important books it believes are milestones in Canadian literary development (Story from the Ottawa Citizen here).
The list dates from Jacques Cartier's 1545 description of his second voyage, to Jane Jacobs' Dark Age Ahead (2004). A lot of fiction is included on the list - some expected names: Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen, Alice Munro, Robertson Davies, Mordechai Richler and other gods of Canlit. William Gibson (Neuromancer) came as a bit of a surprise, not because he doesn't deserve to be on the list, but that science fiction - no matter how groundbreaking - is often an overlooked genre in these sorts of lists.
Marshall Macluhan, Conrad Black and Pierre Trudeau are there too, along with Hugh Maclennan and Pierre Berton. But so are some federal commission reports - dating as far back as the 1863 geological survey of Canada.
John Ralston Saul - Canada's deep philosophical thinker - is included (his literary coinage is apparently undiminished by his marriage to Adrienne Clarkson - Queen Adrienne as the media dubbed her - the former Governor General who turned the office into a private Versailles and basically cost it its last shreds of credibility).
Activist Naomi Klein is on the list for her No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. And so is Dennis Lee for his delighftul kids' books, Alligator Pie.
Rohinton Mistry. Carole Shields. Stephen Leacock. Marion Engel. Dalton Camp. I understand the reason for their inclusion. But Pierre Vallieres? His anti-Canada/pro-separatist-Quebec book, White Niggers of America, was the Mein Kampf of the separatist movement in the late 1960s. Sure it has a social impact, but I would rather have had another author included in his place - like paleontologist John William Dawson (Modern Ideas About Evolution, 1890). Like Valliers, Dawson's ideas - earth-shaking in their day - disappeared into the dustbin of history when new research (and calmer heads) prevailed.
None of Canada's front-running paleontologists are represented. The list is, in truth, very thin on science in general. I usually find that's true when this sort of list is compiled: science often seems to escape the notice of the compilers. Perhaps a degree in the arts precludes appreciation or understanding of any of the scientific disciplines. Science writers, even scientists are often trivialized by such lists, their works ignored in favour of literary or historical works that are easier to comprehend and digest.
Since the list obviously doesn't distinguish Canadian authors from those who have either written about Canada, moved here, or simply visited, it's unclear how the compilation could overlook a lot of titles by people who spent time in Canada. Julian Jaynes, for example (although American-born, he attended McGill University). Why isn't The Origin of Consciousess and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind on the list? Bronwyn Drainie, LRC's editor, said "We wanted books that have changed our country's psychic landscape." Surely Jaynes' work did that!
At the very least, I would have expected Elaine Dewars to be listed for her book Bones: Discovering the First Americans because it challenged the traditional legends of how and when humans came to this continent, and broke a lot of taboos in the telling.
Howie Meeker's 1973 book, Hockey Basics gets ranked number 63, but none of Terry Dickinson's excellent works on astronomy are included. I've never heard Meeker on Quirks and Quarks, but I hear Dickinson every few weeks. So who has the greatest influence on Canadian minds, then?
The list is an interesting, but a far-from-comprehensive catalogue, and as such doomed to disrepect and eventually forgotten. It's got a lot of important works on it, yes, but it's two-dimensional, lacking in far too many subjects and authors for it to retain any real respect. The ultimate 'top 100' list is still waiting to be compiled.[/indent]
The list dates from Jacques Cartier's 1545 description of his second voyage, to Jane Jacobs' Dark Age Ahead (2004). A lot of fiction is included on the list - some expected names: Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen, Alice Munro, Robertson Davies, Mordechai Richler and other gods of Canlit. William Gibson (Neuromancer) came as a bit of a surprise, not because he doesn't deserve to be on the list, but that science fiction - no matter how groundbreaking - is often an overlooked genre in these sorts of lists.
Marshall Macluhan, Conrad Black and Pierre Trudeau are there too, along with Hugh Maclennan and Pierre Berton. But so are some federal commission reports - dating as far back as the 1863 geological survey of Canada.
John Ralston Saul - Canada's deep philosophical thinker - is included (his literary coinage is apparently undiminished by his marriage to Adrienne Clarkson - Queen Adrienne as the media dubbed her - the former Governor General who turned the office into a private Versailles and basically cost it its last shreds of credibility).
Activist Naomi Klein is on the list for her No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. And so is Dennis Lee for his delighftul kids' books, Alligator Pie.
Rohinton Mistry. Carole Shields. Stephen Leacock. Marion Engel. Dalton Camp. I understand the reason for their inclusion. But Pierre Vallieres? His anti-Canada/pro-separatist-Quebec book, White Niggers of America, was the Mein Kampf of the separatist movement in the late 1960s. Sure it has a social impact, but I would rather have had another author included in his place - like paleontologist John William Dawson (Modern Ideas About Evolution, 1890). Like Valliers, Dawson's ideas - earth-shaking in their day - disappeared into the dustbin of history when new research (and calmer heads) prevailed.
None of Canada's front-running paleontologists are represented. The list is, in truth, very thin on science in general. I usually find that's true when this sort of list is compiled: science often seems to escape the notice of the compilers. Perhaps a degree in the arts precludes appreciation or understanding of any of the scientific disciplines. Science writers, even scientists are often trivialized by such lists, their works ignored in favour of literary or historical works that are easier to comprehend and digest.
Since the list obviously doesn't distinguish Canadian authors from those who have either written about Canada, moved here, or simply visited, it's unclear how the compilation could overlook a lot of titles by people who spent time in Canada. Julian Jaynes, for example (although American-born, he attended McGill University). Why isn't The Origin of Consciousess and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind on the list? Bronwyn Drainie, LRC's editor, said "We wanted books that have changed our country's psychic landscape." Surely Jaynes' work did that!
At the very least, I would have expected Elaine Dewars to be listed for her book Bones: Discovering the First Americans because it challenged the traditional legends of how and when humans came to this continent, and broke a lot of taboos in the telling.
Howie Meeker's 1973 book, Hockey Basics gets ranked number 63, but none of Terry Dickinson's excellent works on astronomy are included. I've never heard Meeker on Quirks and Quarks, but I hear Dickinson every few weeks. So who has the greatest influence on Canadian minds, then?
The list is an interesting, but a far-from-comprehensive catalogue, and as such doomed to disrepect and eventually forgotten. It's got a lot of important works on it, yes, but it's two-dimensional, lacking in far too many subjects and authors for it to retain any real respect. The ultimate 'top 100' list is still waiting to be compiled.[/indent]
