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Episode 74: Canadian Literature · The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast

0:12
SPEAKER_01: This is The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast!
0:15
SPEAKER_01: Hello everybody, this is Trevor, blessedly Paul.
0:19
SPEAKER_01: Paul, how are you doing today?
0:20
SPEAKER_01: Oh boy, I feel like that's a lot of pressure.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, doing well, doing well.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: We seem to be in our snowy cycle again, so it's another cozy snowy morning here in Denver, which seems to be happening a lot when we record, but yeah, I'm doing well and
0:38
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's sunny here.
0:41
SPEAKER_01: It's that period where I keep seeing sun and being like, oh, it's almost that time of year, it's almost spring, and then it's not.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: And you and I were both in sunny climates recently for vacations, so I don't know.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: I still love the snow, but it was nice to get away from it for a little while, I'll say that.
1:00
SPEAKER_01: for sure all right well we have a special guest today Paul our our friend Jerry Faust is joining us today people have heard your comments your you know things that you have your feedback things that you've written to us Jerry since I think the very beginning
1:19
SPEAKER_01: The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature
1:41
SPEAKER_01: The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74
2:00
SPEAKER_02: I live here on the west coast of Canada in Vancouver, but I've also in the past lived for many years in Victoria.
2:11
SPEAKER_02: So I originally am not from Canada.
2:15
SPEAKER_02: I'm originally from the US.
2:17
SPEAKER_02: And I have lived in Canada with my partner, John, for almost 20 years.
2:23
SPEAKER_02: So I've been here for, it's hard to believe it, going on two decades.
2:28
SPEAKER_02: So in terms of my general interests, I really enjoy reading, of course, which is how I found out about the podcast.
2:37
SPEAKER_02: I love to travel.
2:39
SPEAKER_02: I've been to several different places.
2:43
SPEAKER_02: I tend to like to travel in cities.
2:45
SPEAKER_02: I love to take train trips and that sort of thing as well.
2:49
SPEAKER_02: and other interests of mine I like to be out and visit natural areas go hiking and that sort of thing so being here on the west coast of Canada is actually quite a great place to do it so it's a beautiful city Vancouver is Victoria is also very lovely and pretty city as well and yeah I've just work has taken me my day job is
3:18
SPEAKER_02: I'm an IT manager so work is taking me between the two cities just as different opportunities have Victoria and Vancouver that is so as different opportunities have arisen in my career I've moved back and forth a little bit between the two places but just really happy to be here in British Columbia and it is a little bit cool outside it's about zero Celsius or it was this morning when I woke up that's 32
3:46
SPEAKER_02: Fahrenheit but I had time to walk to the neighborhood coffee shop and get a coffee and croissant before joining you both this morning oh wow that's dedication no we made him get up early for this one not too early though
4:02
SPEAKER_01: well it is wonderful to have you I do have a question about your train trips do you mean just like a commuter train or do you do you seek out like um you know I see online these seemingly wonderfully old-fashioned train vacations you know where you're like man I bet I bet Poirot is on the train here somewhere you know where they're taking through these beautiful uh landscape do you do do you do those when you talk about me doing train trips or you'd more like when I
4:31
SPEAKER_01: I'd like to hear more.
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SPEAKER_02: The Mookse and the Gripes
5:02
SPEAKER_02: The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature
5:29
SPEAKER_00: I will say my family and I a couple years ago went on vacation up to that part of the world and we took the train from Seattle to Vancouver and then we took the ferry eventually over from Vancouver to Victoria and man not only is it beautiful but I will agree that a train is one of the best ways to see that part of the country probably any part of the country but we saw like bald eagles along the way and you're just going right along the coast and you can see all these beautiful ocean landscapes so yeah I love the train anywhere because I've also been in Toronto
5:59
SPEAKER_01: and like you said they have a wonderful public transit system that makes me very jealous here in Denver where we have a terrible one but yeah that part of the country is just wonderful and it's great to see it by train for sure yeah when I lived in New York I would sometimes have trips to Boston or or to Albany or you know who knew where and my preferred way of getting there was on the train even though it would take me longer but
6:28
SPEAKER_01: Episode 74 Canadian Literature
6:55
SPEAKER_02: And one of your top 10 books of 2023 was a book called Eastbound.
7:00
SPEAKER_02: I think it's one that Paul mentioned.
7:03
SPEAKER_02: After hearing about the book and the review and the kudos that you gave to it, I purchased a copy and I have it in my To Be Read list.
7:12
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I hope you'll let us know how you like it.
7:16
SPEAKER_02: I will.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: It should be great.
7:19
SPEAKER_01: All right.
7:19
SPEAKER_01: Well, let's start out with the normal question.
7:24
SPEAKER_01: What have you been reading?
7:25
SPEAKER_01: Jerry, I know that you know this part of the show and I hope you're ready to share.
7:30
SPEAKER_01: What have you been reading?
7:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I've just recently started reading a book called Small Joys by Alvin James Mensah.
7:40
SPEAKER_02: So this is a book that was published in 2023 here in North America.
7:47
SPEAKER_02: The publisher is Ballantine Books.
7:49
SPEAKER_02: I believe it's Scribner in the UK.
7:52
SPEAKER_02: Alvin James Mensah, it says on the back, was born and raised in Southeast London.
7:58
SPEAKER_02: He graduated from Burnamuth University where he began writing his first novel Small Joys and so I'm about maybe one sixth of the way through the book and it is about a young man, a young man who was born to Ghanaian parents in
8:16
SPEAKER_02: The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast
8:45
SPEAKER_02: His friendship with one of his roommates actually helps turn around his life.
8:53
SPEAKER_02: And the roommate introduces him to small joys, including birdwatching, which is his big hobby.
9:03
SPEAKER_02: And everyone in the novel is a 20 something year old.
9:07
SPEAKER_02: It takes place in 2005 approximately.
9:12
SPEAKER_02: and so far there's just really really great writing and I'm definitely enjoying it I haven't heard about that one did it how did it cross your radar was it on social media that you heard about it or
9:24
SPEAKER_02: well it turns out actually uh there is a one of our local bookstores uh a place called um the Upstart and Crow bookstore uh they they have curated uh reading lists and I was just browsing through them of you know recommended books and I saw it on their reading list so
9:48
SPEAKER_02: and I thought or recommended I just read the you know the description you know I clicked through I read the description on their website and I said wow that looks like a really interesting book to read so that's sort of how I came across it one of I guess many possible ways to discover a book
10:07
SPEAKER_00: yeah but those recommendations from booksellers especially if you can find a bookseller or a bookstore that you trust are so powerful I love that I love always looking at the recommended shelves when I go to the Boulder bookstore or somewhere like that where I know they have good taste so that's cool
10:22
SPEAKER_00: I did hear about that one on social media.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: Thanks to Jerry!
10:28
SPEAKER_02: What are you reading?
10:30
SPEAKER_02: I always respond to that on Instagram, Trevor.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it.
10:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I saw that.
10:35
SPEAKER_01: I need to look at this one a little bit closer.
10:39
SPEAKER_01: The cover actually reminded me of a book that I was tempted to bring up today.
10:45
SPEAKER_01: Mary Swann's The Boys in the Trees.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's because that book was on my mind because Mary Swann
10:52
SPEAKER_01: was an author that I was thinking of maybe bringing up for today's topic so here's my chance to slip her in anyway yeah cheating honorable mention yeah there we are all right well thanks Jerry Paul how about you I know one of them at least well I know several of them I think I might know all three because you also answered the what have you been reading yeah and I'm actually going to be tricky and I'm not going to mention any of those because I'm going to read one a short one that I actually just finished right before earlier this week and
11:22
SPEAKER_00: As some of you may remember, I read and loved Thierry Vesas' book The Birds a few years ago, and it actually ended up at the very top of my end of year list for 2022.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: And so ever since then, I've been kind of anxious to read more of his works, which luckily are available from a number of different publishers, including Archipelago and Penguin Modern Classics, among others.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: So the other day I finally grabbed The Ice Palace off of my shelf and I ended up reading it in just about a day or so.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: not only did it not disappoint because I was a little nervous after how much I love the birds but I could see this one very well ending up on my end of year list for this year we'll see how it goes but as in the birds you know we spend a lot of time in the lives and minds of some really fascinating and wonderfully detailed people and in the case of the Ice Palace it's two schoolgirls named Oon and Sis and Sis is fairly popular and outgoing whereas Oon is pretty shy and mysterious and she has actually just moved to that area recently
12:21
SPEAKER_00: and so the book kind of kicks off with Sis walking to Un's house which she's very excited about since this seems to be a real you know positive sign for their kind of budding friendship which is just getting started but once she gets to her home the descriptions of their time together are just unsettling and kind of bizarre and it does a nice job of kind of setting the stage for for the rest of the book which is very mysterious and kind of just I don't know a little bit creepy I guess
12:48
SPEAKER_00: and so that night after she leaves her home she's walking back to her home through the forest alone and I thought I'd just read a quick passage from that to give you a feel for the writing it says a noise somewhere down in the ice it ran along the flat expanse and seemed to disappear into a hole the thickening ice was playing at making mile-long cracks sis jumped at the sound out of balance she'd not had anything safe with which to set out on the return journey through the darkness
13:15
SPEAKER_00: No firm footsteps striding along the road, as she had had when she walked to Oon.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: Thoughtlessly, she had started running, and the damage was done.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: At once she'd been abandoned to the unknown, who walks behind one's back on such evenings, full of the unknown.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: Being with Oon had made her overexcited, even more so after she'd said goodbye and left.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: She'd been afraid when she took the first steps, half running, and her fear had increased like an avalanche.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: She was in the hands of whatever it was at the sides of the road.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: and so that's a little short excerpt but it gives you an idea it's not all quite that explicitly creepy but throughout this whole book it's just it does remind me in a lot of ways of The Birds where there's just some of these kind of almost supernatural things that are hinted at but never really completely explained but more than anything there's just some really nice character development some great nature writing so anyway yeah it's one that I've been looking forward to reading for a long time and happy to say that it lived up to all the hype that I was giving it
14:15
SPEAKER_00: so that is good to hear I've been doing the same thing where I'm like I need to read more of his that one in particular but I haven't gotten it yet so I need to I need to get on it it's always on my the next book I'm going to buy is that one I know how much you love those Penguin Modern Classics especially the UK editions and this is a nice creepy looking one I saw that they also did the same edition or the same kind of take on the birds you know that same kind of cover but
14:45
SPEAKER_00: I prefer I think the Archipelago version of The Birds I'll say that yeah I don't think they have the rights but maybe part of me has been hoping that they'll release more of his works they do have what The Hills Reply I think by him is out because I do have that one I was looking trying to remember which other ones I had because I'm already doing the thing where I'm plotting which one I'll read next but yeah it would be nice
15:10
SPEAKER_00: if they could get the rights to all of them and put them all out but in the meantime this is a very nice copy and a wonderful for sure yeah all right well good
15:18
SPEAKER_01: What have you been reading, Trevor?
15:19
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll mention one that I think you're reading, Paul.
15:21
SPEAKER_01: At least you said you would be.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: That's The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño.
15:27
SPEAKER_01: For us, translated into English by Natasha Wimmer.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is our first week just finished.
15:33
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I need to get on and tell people they can go ahead and talk about spoilers on the Substack because I think people are like, no one's talking this morning.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: They're probably waiting for one of us to say, the gate's open.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
15:45
SPEAKER_01: maybe not maybe they're all just like they're just sleeping in it's fine that's right but yeah we've got through the first 75 pages of that glad to say it has some of the things that I've always loved about Bolaño which is kind of this sense of a little bit of a sense of unfounded paranoia you know what's going on who's doing what who can I trust who can't I what stories are happening around me that I have no part in
16:15
SPEAKER_01: but somehow I'm the main character of this narrative and so it has been fun I'm anxious to see what people say but I will bring up I'm reading a lot of different books right now I used our library's interlibrary loan system to get some books including two by Laura Cumming about art Thunderstruck and then her The Vanishing Velazquez
16:42
SPEAKER_01: The Mookse and the Gripes
16:58
SPEAKER_01: I read Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz and
17:27
SPEAKER_01: and I thought it was so much fun he is a he's written a bunch you know since like the 80s I think but it looks like people would probably know him best as one of the showrunners for or at least you know one of the main folks on like Foil's War the television you know series there and a few others you know because I don't have the list in front of me I won't try and list them because I'll get them wrong but you know
17:56
SPEAKER_01: kind of famous fun cozy British mystery shows and he's got some mystery books including Magpie Murders which starts out kind of perfectly it has a woman she's an editor and she's just gotten in the ninth book by one of her authors who she doesn't like personally thinks he's just kind of a jerk and a creep but she really does love his mystery books and they take place back in Britain post-war Britain
18:26
SPEAKER_01: and involve a detective named Atticus Pound with his own little backstory and she's so excited to sit down and read it and kind of starts with that sense of promise you know sit down and read it that's the first chapter and then all of a sudden you start at the title page for that book and you see the page numbers go back to zero one you know to get you through that and then you read that book and
18:53
SPEAKER_01: in the middle of the book that you've been reading already and I don't think this is a spoiler I think that it's in the the description of the book I knew that it was coming the last chapters are not there and so she doesn't know how it ends she doesn't know who who committed the murder she doesn't know how this mystery book ends but she's got this complete manuscript well when she is going about her business the next day to try and figure out what happened it turns out the author
19:22
SPEAKER_01: is Dead and so it's two mysteries in one and they intertwine and they play together and it's a mystery you know based on a book in a way well it was a lot of fun and so I started book two which is called Moonflower Murders and it's very similar in a way that you've got the whole Atticus Pound book in the middle of it in this particular case a woman has gone missing
19:52
SPEAKER_01: from a hotel you know she she is part of a family that runs a hotel kind of a you know posh beautiful hotel and her parents come to this editor who solved the murder before and said hey she says that Atticus Poon or not Atticus Poon the the the the actual author of the books came to stay with them right after the murder and
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SPEAKER_01: The Mookse and the Gripes
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SPEAKER_01: The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature
21:12
SPEAKER_01: that starts with the word is murder and you know some of these things like if I saw that in the in the bookstore the word is murder okay that just seems like a normal supermarket mystery and I you know not really into those but these are really fun and and really really good and I've heard people say that the the um
21:32
SPEAKER_01: The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature
22:02
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't you know we've talked about books about books before and you know we've got like A.S.
22:08
SPEAKER_01: Byatt's Possession where she has poetry that's supposed to be this you know this classic you know well done Victorian poetry and it is really good but she wrote it and I'm like I could never
22:23
SPEAKER_01: by Trevor Berrett.
22:42
SPEAKER_01: you know you have to have a lot of a lot of courage and and confidence and it doesn't seem to be misplaced so it's like a Italo Calvino or something where it's like man you wrote not one but like seven books right in a row like oh man it sounds daunting so all right well it's always fun to go through that that list of what we're reading but we're here today to talk specifically about Canadian Literature
23:09
SPEAKER_01: and I'm really excited about this I'll just really briefly say that you know most of my time growing up if I read a Canadian author it was it was someone who it wasn't because I was seeking out Canadian books or Canadian authors they just happened to have books published in you know the in America and they were ones that had made it wide but
23:34
SPEAKER_01: When I first started my blog and when I even probably before that I was on the Booker chat
23:45
SPEAKER_01: and met a fellow who went by Kevin from Canada, Kevin Peterson.
23:53
SPEAKER_01: And he and I became friends.
23:55
SPEAKER_01: He was retired at the time and he was a big proponent of Canadian literature.
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SPEAKER_01: The Mookse Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature
24:21
SPEAKER_01: and it was a wonderful experience for me to kind of get out of my own zone and still be you know not just like oh i read a lot of books in translation you know but this is these aren't books in translation um they're books from my neighbor
24:38
SPEAKER_01: and the the culture and the the topics and it was a wonderful experience yes certainly you had some of the ones that you would expect you know there's Margaret Atwood you know showing up sometimes on these lists and I probably would have encountered those books regardless
24:59
SPEAKER_01: and to be honest they don't always feel quite as Canadian as other books that I read you know while reading the Giller Prize books about you know some of the and Indigenous peoples and what they were going through or books about Nova Scotia and the the church and you know and certainly books about weather where weather plays a big role I really loved kind of getting that
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SPEAKER_01: The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature
25:51
SPEAKER_01: in being a big proponent of Canadian literature and so I'm excited to hear from you you know you chose this topic you asked if we could you know talk about it specifically and I'd love to hear some of your reasons for that and some of your passion for this topic well yeah well actually I guess for me tying into what you just said about my biography not having grown up in Canada
26:19
SPEAKER_02: means that Canadian literature is something I largely discovered as an adult.
26:25
SPEAKER_02: So for myself, I mean, obviously, you know, Margaret Atwood, names like Alice Munro, Michael Londache were, you know, these are all names that are very, very sort of big and familiar and would be probably even internationally known outside of North American
26:46
SPEAKER_02: Context.
26:47
SPEAKER_02: Obviously, Alice Munro won the Nobel.
26:50
SPEAKER_02: Margaret Atwood seems to have a huge presence in the culture nowadays with, you know, obviously, you know, she had, you know, The Handmaid's Tale that was turned into a very popular series.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, so it was one of those experiences where, you know, as an adult coming and moving, I started to discover that there's this whole
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SPEAKER_02: The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74
27:39
SPEAKER_02: you know I can pull out my phone and look it up or you know google the lyrics or something like that and it turns out it's by you know a Canadian artist was released in 1988 was a top 10 hit here but it was something that was not necessarily on the soundtrack of my childhood so I think that for myself that was one of it was just the idea of there's you can discover new things
28:06
SPEAKER_02: and sort of peel back the onion peel back the layers of the onion and discover sort of in the depths there that there are other great writers to get to know but also too I think that thematically there's certain themes that do reappear often in Canadian literature one of them is immigration so
28:27
SPEAKER_02: One of the things that you may or may not know is that in Canada, roughly 25% of the population, I think 20 to 25% was born outside of Canada.
28:41
SPEAKER_02: That is a higher percentage than in the US where I'm originally from and where we're all originally from.
28:49
SPEAKER_02: I think in the US, the figure is something like 10 to 12%.
28:53
SPEAKER_02: So immigration is one of the big recurring themes.
28:58
SPEAKER_02: You mentioned the weather is a big recurring theme.
29:01
SPEAKER_02: Also, the presence of nature.
29:07
SPEAKER_02: is another big you know a theme thematic thing so much so that it turns out one of the books I was thinking of I didn't include it on my list for today was the book by Marian Engle Bear which is either famous or infamous depending on your perspective so I mean that touches I mean I always thought of that book as a little bit satirical but it sort of touches and I think it's kind of spoofing that
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SPEAKER_02: The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature
29:54
SPEAKER_02: as well.
29:56
SPEAKER_02: So all of these, all of these are different reasons.
29:58
SPEAKER_02: I think that the literature of Canada is especially some of the little bit lesser known, there might be, you know, is worth getting to know and worth listeners checking out if there's something, you know, that we mentioned today that sparks our interest.
30:18
SPEAKER_01: you just made our resident Canadian Dorian very happy by mentioning Bear if we had made it through this entire episode without mentioning that book he might have once again you know disowned us yeah another reason I get another reason for him to to disown us exactly oh well thanks Jerry and again it it was really refreshing for me to go back to because because I don't follow the giller like I did and I really should
30:46
SPEAKER_01: because again it was a great way to not only get to know new books and new authors to me but again just be somewhere else somewhere kind of familiar but kind of not at the same time all right well as we go about talking about our books that we have chosen you know feel free to chime in tell us whatever more you have but
31:14
SPEAKER_01: We'll go ahead and start today, just going through the list so we can dig into some of these topics a little bit more.
31:20
SPEAKER_01: Paul, we'll start with you, just in case you have to bail on us a little bit early today.
31:25
SPEAKER_01: I don't think you'll have to, but just in case we'll start with you.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: No, I don't think so, but I appreciate it.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just in case.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: So my first book is The Englishman's Boy by Guy Vanderhaegh.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: so speaking of the Giller Prize this book was published back in 1996 and it actually won the Governor General's Award for English Language Fiction and was nominated for the Giller Prize so it definitely got some acclaim around that time and Guy Vanderhaegh is one of those authors that I see often on you know bookstore shelves and I've had a couple of his books over the years but this this topic prompted by Jerry was a nice excuse for me to pull it down so I just read this one recently
32:04
SPEAKER_00: so the timeline of it jumps back and forth between two interconnected timelines actually one is set in 1920s Hollywood so not you know in the US not in Canada
32:13
SPEAKER_00: and that timeline centers around a young screenwriter who's named Harry Vincent and he's basically commissioned to retell the story of a cowboy named Shorty McAdoo who is the last living survivor of the Cypress Hills Massacre which is a real-life event that took place 50 years ago in or 50 years before this timeline in Saskatchewan and like I said this was a real-life event that involved a group of American bison hunters wolf hunters traders and
32:44
SPEAKER_00: as well as the camp of First Nations people known as the Assiniboine people and so that story makes up kind of the other half of the book's timeline going back to that actual event so you know like I said Harry is approached by some Hollywood bigwigs and kind of charged with tracking down this guy Shorty McAdoo and kind of uncovering the lost story of this massacre so that they can bring it to the big screen
33:07
SPEAKER_00: and so in some ways this reminds me a bit of maybe like Larry McMurtry or even a book like Train Dreams because it does a really nice job of capturing the Canadian West at that time which was in many ways still raw and untamed but also experiencing a period of transition you know where we see Europeans and other you know relative newcomers
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SPEAKER_00: The Mookse and the Gripes
33:50
SPEAKER_00: it does spend a lot of time exploring the ideas of the unreliability of historical accounts you know the way we create myths especially around movies and art and kind of can shape them to to do certain things for us so I'll just read two quick sections one of them I like because it kind of gives a good example of what I was talking about this period of transition this part is set in the 1920s Hollywood
34:13
SPEAKER_00: but there's obviously still a lot of like cowboys and people that were alive at that other time who were still around and I thought that was fascinating so this is when the the boy is or the man is trying to track down Shorty McAdoo and he's going around some of the areas around Hollywood so it says the next 10 days I spend bouncing back and forth over dirt roads in the San Fernando Valley the Mojave Desert the Sierras of Lone Pine all the favorite locations for dusters
34:38
SPEAKER_00: I locate 14 or 15 crews employing hundreds of cowboys.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: I had no idea there were so many cowpokes in Hollywood, but talking to them, I learned they've been drifting into town for 10 years, jumping off cattle cars in the Los Angeles stockyards, going AWOL from Wild West shows and rodeos, riding in from the small family spreads which dot Southern California.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: They're all refugees from a vanishing West.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: The cessation of hostilities in Europe has meant the end of the beef boom, the big spreads in Wyoming and Montana cutting back herds and cutting loose wranglers.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: Cow hands wandered into Hollywood, chasing rumors that $5 a day can be earned as stuntmen in extras in the Western pictures.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they'll get famous, or at least passively prosperous on $5 a day, boxed lunch provided.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: The only problem is there's too many cowboys and too few jobs.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: and so I thought that part was just kind of interesting like some of these eras at least I don't think of them necessarily overlapping as much as they did but it's like the end of this period of where you could actually make a living as a cowboy and then they're kind of finding these ways either on screen or or other ways to kind of you know stunt men and things like that so I thought that was interesting but like I said a lot of this is also about art and specifically filmmaking and so there's just one more quick section I wanted to read that's talking about kind of the dawn of
35:59
SPEAKER_00: Sitting through Griffith's picture is like sitting through one of those dark summer nights when a thunderstorm breaks.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: Instance of brilliant illumination when the things which flash before your eyes, a tree waving in the wind, a river in spate, your bedroom chair burn into your brain in a way they never would in the steady even light of day.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: There's no logical explanation as to why or how this happens.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: Images take root in your mind, hot and bright, like an image on a photo plate.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: Once they etch themselves there, they can't be obliterated, can't be scratched out.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: They burn themselves in the mind.
36:35
SPEAKER_00: Because there's no arguing with pictures.
36:37
SPEAKER_00: You simply accept or reject them.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: What's up there on the screen moves too fast to permit analysis or argument.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: You can't control the flow of images the way you can control a book, by rereading a chapter, rereading a paragraph, rereading a sentence.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: a book invites argument invites reconsideration invites thought a moving picture is beyond thought like feeling it simply is the principle of a book is persuasion the principle of a movie is revelation and so I thought that was really well done uh Trevor is a film buff I thought maybe you would like that part but like I said this is just a really um interesting book I liked it it ticked a lot of boxes for me with some nature writing and and like we've talked about one of those
37:20
SPEAKER_00: The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast
37:44
SPEAKER_01: but another kind of great and I would say great source for Canadian literature is the Governor General's Awards.
37:52
SPEAKER_01: There are many of them that they have and this was his second time he won was with The Englishman's Boy.
38:00
SPEAKER_01: He won for one of his early short story collections Man Descending and then he won again just not too long ago in 2015 for Daddy Lennon and Other Stories
38:13
SPEAKER_01: but also Paul did you know this is a trilogy?
38:16
SPEAKER_01: I did yeah I have one of those random things where I have the first and the third book but still need to track down the second so yeah I plan on exploring the rest of those yeah first first and the third huh well you know how that goes that means you're committed that's right you have to you have to fill in the gap and and get get going on that and I believe that Guy van der Haag is is actually from Saskatoon
38:39
SPEAKER_02: which is where the last episode's guest is also Sean the Book Maniac is also from Saskatoon I haven't read Guy Van Der Hague's work but I'm aware that that book is part of a trilogy as Trevor mentioned
38:55
SPEAKER_02: sort of a western trilogy and you know the description that you've given of it Paul makes it sound really interesting and kind of fascinating.
39:05
SPEAKER_02: I liked how you talked about you know the fact that you know cowboys who were actually cowboys back in the day are looking for work now on screen
39:14
SPEAKER_02: doing sort of what they used to do it seems like almost like that in itself is kind of a meta comment on so many things in life you know an artifice and the difference between the real thing and the reproduction I almost feel like I'm going to reference Walter Benjamin or something like work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction which was written almost contemporaneously with the with the period when that book was set
39:45
SPEAKER_00: yeah no for sure it's fascinating it's really interesting it's one of those things I've noticed as I get older where when you think of history it seems like this huge stretch of time and then you start doing the math of like how few generations there were between certain things that happened and this is a perfect example of that so yeah it's really good book I'm definitely looking forward to reading the rest of those and it was nice to finally have not an excuse but just a motivation to get these books off my shelf which had been there for you know probably a decade or more nice yeah
40:13
SPEAKER_01: well normally I go last I don't know why it's not a rule but I'll go next so we can have you kind of cleaning us up Jerry I think we'll benefit from that if you're okay with that I'm gonna go with an author that I didn't choose because her books really taught me a whole lot about Canada because they they didn't but she has been called
40:34
SPEAKER_01: you know this generation's answer to Alice Munro or you know recently this is a relatively young though she's you know like all of us she's been around longer than than when I first read her she'd only written a few books now she's written quite a few this is Annabelle Lyon she first kind of hit the I would say maybe the the big time
41:04
SPEAKER_01: with her 2009 novel The Golden Mean which was shortlisted for the Giller Prize that's how I got to know it it was a finalist also for the Governor General's Award and a few others it won the Rogers Writers Trust Fiction Prize I don't I don't know that one but you know it's since it won I'll mention it this is a book that takes us all the way back to Alexander the Great and and to Aristotle
41:33
SPEAKER_01: it is a really interesting and really I thought well written book about you know kind of narrated by Aristotle talking about this time when he is counseling with Alexander the Great in Macedonia and it's about their relationship and it
41:55
SPEAKER_01: it again just really pulled me into this into this world and I wish it were better known and it's just fun because I think she gets into Aristotle's head quite well which can you know feel a little bit presumptuous as we've already talked about in this episode of authors who are like I'll write a bestseller and put it inside of my my book and here's a here's a part where Aristotle is saying I've been working on little a little treatise on literature and
42:23
SPEAKER_01: The Literary Arts Tragedy, Comedy, Epic because I've been wondering what's the point?
42:30
SPEAKER_01: What is the point of it all?
42:31
SPEAKER_01: Why not simply relate such history as it has come down to us in a sober manner not pretending to fill in the gaps?
42:39
SPEAKER_01: and I just really really enjoyed this for its take on history and all that but she has written more books since including a sequel called The Sweet Girl that was also on up for the Giller Prize it was long listed for the Giller Prize
42:55
SPEAKER_01: and then a book I haven't read and her third novel Consent came out in 2020 and was long listed for the Giller Prize I haven't read that one yet but it's it was in that that I saw mention of her being you know this generation's answer to Alice Munro or you know who's going to fill in her her steps and
43:18
SPEAKER_01: and she has written a couple of collections of short stories as well so I need to get to know her better but I do know the two books that take us to Macedonia you know not to Canada but I thought I thought it would be okay to to not just focus on Canadian authors who specifically are writing about Canadian experience at least for my first choice but have either of you ever read Annabelle Lyon or heard of her
43:46
SPEAKER_02: I've heard of her because she I believe is a local resident here in the Vancouver area.
43:53
SPEAKER_02: and I believe also she teaches creative writing at the University of British Columbia her works you know I've seen them in the stores but you know like many things there's so many great books out there that I just haven't delved into her of yet you know her her books but you know the the first one that you mentioned The Golden Mean is definitely
44:19
SPEAKER_02: a fascinating one and you touched a little bit on a theme within Canadian literature actually when you said that you know her books she's a Canadian writer writing books that are sent that are not set within Canada and that made me think of another writer
44:38
SPEAKER_02: The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature
45:08
SPEAKER_02: but they definitely if you read any of his works you kind of feel like you're you're immersed into that world and you know you know psychologically and they're kind of thrilling in a way
45:22
SPEAKER_00: yeah it's interesting I was thinking that too even with the book I just mentioned you know being set a big chunk of it in in Hollywood in the US and then like you mentioned Michael Ondaatje earlier like even though he's a Canadian author a lot of his books take place you know around the world and stuff so it is an interesting thing I was gonna ask you if you thought that was a theme so I'm glad you mentioned that
45:41
SPEAKER_02: oh for sure yeah the English patient obviously with for example it's just one there's one Canadian character but you know obviously set in Europe during World War II yeah and that is something that yeah I would see in general that Canadian writers I tend to write across borders many novels and works of literature set over
46:06
SPEAKER_02: you know across the world even the well-known of Margaret Lawrence has one of you know is well known for writing even though she published primarily fiction I think it was in the 1950s she did Journey to the Sudan and wrote about that in one of her nonfiction writings so definitely a theme all right well Jerry why don't we hear one of yours
46:36
SPEAKER_02: Awesome, well I have chosen as my first book the author Andre Alexis and the book is called Pastoral.
46:46
SPEAKER_02: So this book I actually read a few years ago during the pandemic and the story of this novel follows a Catholic priest by the name of Father Christopher Pennant who's assigned to a small town parish in
47:05
SPEAKER_02: The Mookse and the Gripes
47:33
SPEAKER_02: The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature
47:40
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what to take as a spoof or a satire but it's meant to be a pastoral novel that's sort of doing a few other things than what most pastoral novels might do so he you know has a good friendship with the caretaker of the church who cooks for him and who's sort of this very very odd character who's very philosophical but also extremely down to earth at the same time
48:09
SPEAKER_02: there's a lot of gossip and rumors going on at the church one of the young people he's counseling is a young woman who's about to be you know who's engaged to be married but her fiance is not a does not let's just say doesn't believe in monogamy and so that drives part of the book and the other thing too going back to a theme I touched on a little while ago is that there are sort of
48:38
SPEAKER_02: The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74
48:54
SPEAKER_02: These are things that are somewhat miraculous but then they can also or they appear to be miraculous on the surface but in the course of the novel there are without giving away too much there also seem to be explanations for what's going on.
49:10
SPEAKER_02: So this book came out I believe it was 2014
49:15
SPEAKER_02: It's published by Coach House Books in Toronto so they publish these books on these very beautiful paper and he's you know they have like I think sort of an old style you know offset printer in their building where they actually publish all their books so but they it turns out that Andre Alexis is as a I believe he's originally from Trinidad he grew up in Ottawa
49:43
SPEAKER_02: but you know from a literary career perspective he actually took the reverse trajectory of some writers in that he started out I believe with a major press like one of the Penguin Random House you know imprints the various imprints that they have and then he switched to an independent publisher for all of his subsequent work
50:06
SPEAKER_02: This book is one of five books in his series called The Quincox and the second book is called Fifteen Dogs.
50:15
SPEAKER_02: That won the Giller Prize in I believe it was 2015 or 2016.
50:21
SPEAKER_02: The second book of the five in this series.
50:23
SPEAKER_02: I recently read
50:25
SPEAKER_02: The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature
50:54
SPEAKER_01: Nope, I haven't.
50:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, at this rate, I'm going to be doing what I usually do and adding a bunch because I am 0 for 2 so far.
51:04
SPEAKER_02: No worries.
51:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this book is, if you're interested in reading that series, they can be read in any order.
51:11
SPEAKER_02: And I think this book is actually probably a good entry into the series.
51:16
SPEAKER_02: there are characters that's and places that sort of reappear in the different books but you can read them in any order it doesn't matter and I've only read part of this series and I'm tempted to read the whole the whole thing definitely I would say he's probably amongst living writers in Canada he's certainly amongst the most talented and awesome you know writers we have so nice well thank you that's awesome
51:46
SPEAKER_00: Alright well Paul we'll keep moving here.
51:48
SPEAKER_00: Why don't you go ahead?
51:50
SPEAKER_00: So my second one I get the impression is going to be pretty well known for most of our Canadian readers and I don't know about people outside of that but it's As For Me and My House by Sinclair Ross which was published back in 1941 and I read this one probably a decade or so back and it's a book that's really stuck with me and
52:09
SPEAKER_00: bringing up Dorian again I've talked to him a little bit about it and I get the impression maybe for people who were raised in the Canadian school system this might be one of those books that maybe suffers a little bit because it's taught in schools and you know sometimes that can kind of lead to the classics being seen as this dry or not all that exciting but I gotta say I came to it fresh without any of that baggage and I had a great experience I thought it was beautiful and absolutely devastating so it takes place during the Great Depression
52:38
SPEAKER_00: and speaking of books that may or may not be written in Canada the location isn't really ever specified on this one it's clearly a prairie town but it's likely Canadian but I read that it also possibly could be somewhere like the Dakotas or Minnesota so it's not hard to tell or it is hard to tell where exactly it's set but it's written as a series of diary entries over the course of a year or so by a woman named Mrs. Bentley we're never given her first name
53:04
SPEAKER_00: following up on kind of Jerry's last one she's married to a minister so some similarities there and his name is Philip Bentley and so as the book kicks off they've just arrived in this fictional town of Horizon which we learn is their fourth prairie town that they lived in in just 12 years so they've been moving from prairie town to prairie town pretty regularly and this is basically just a story of two very unhappy people in an unhappy marriage
53:30
SPEAKER_00: Despite his job, Philip doesn't really believe in God and Mrs. Bentley had dreams of playing piano and touring Europe, so they're both kind of forced to deal with the realities of these lives that weren't really what they had expected or wanted.
53:45
SPEAKER_00: they both pretty much hate the churches that they work in they don't really like the small towns where they live and spend their lives and so obviously that takes a toll on them both individually and as a couple but this book is just filled with some beautiful and heartbreaking writing in one of the entries Mrs. Bentley says quote I asked myself how many more years like this it's going to be the little house so still and dead the door between us closed all for the sake of a few hundred dollars a year
54:12
SPEAKER_00: Four Ugly Little Rooms a hat that cost $1.45 I didn't used to be that way and so it's it's rough it is rough for sure but it's also really powerful and and um I don't know the way he writes the characters is special I think so as the book moves along you know we learn more about their backstories and some of the other troubles that have impacted their lives and that ends up propelling other parts of the plot which I won't spoil here but
54:39
SPEAKER_00: as is probably pretty obvious from my description and in that little excerpt I read you know it's not a happy book but like I said it's incredibly powerful and has that claustrophobic feeling that you know I like it some people it might not like it but I think it's just pretty amazing at capturing the lives of these unhappy people who feel so trapped in this small town I saw somebody a reviewer who described this book as a wonderful monotone of quiet desperation which I thought was a really beautiful way of putting it so I
55:09
SPEAKER_00: I'll read one more quick passage near the end of the book Mrs. Bentley goes for a late night walk with their dog El Greco and I think this passage just perfectly captures
55:17
SPEAKER_00: both the book itself and the beautiful writing it says the rain had only started and was just a drizzle still but you could feel that it was settling down to make a night of it no one else was out I stopped and looked up Main Street once the little false fronts pale and blank and ghostly in the corner light the night encircling it so dense and wet that the hard gray wheel-packed earth beginning now to glisten with the rain was like a single ply of solid matter laid across a chasm
55:44
SPEAKER_00: And so that passage goes on.
55:54
SPEAKER_00: and it's it's beautiful it's it captures kind of that feeling this prairie town is right on the edge of nature and it's you know these towns are encroaching on nature and there's that back and forth like you get to the end of the street and look out and it's just nothing blackness blankness and I feel like that does a nice job of kind of capturing the way that these two characters feel as well so like I said I get the impression this is one of those that's kind of a classic of Canadian literature that may or may not be well known throughout the rest of the world but
56:22
SPEAKER_00: Anybody who hasn't read it, I would highly encourage them to check it out.
56:25
SPEAKER_00: It's rough going, but just beautifully done.
56:28
SPEAKER_00: Once again, either one of you are familiar?
56:31
SPEAKER_00: I'm not.
56:32
SPEAKER_00: Nor am I. Nice.
56:35
SPEAKER_00: So thank you, Paul.
56:35
SPEAKER_00: We're all surprising each other here.
56:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
56:40
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, that one's completely new to me.
56:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's really good.
56:44
SPEAKER_01: All right, well, let me go on with my next one.
56:48
SPEAKER_01: I'll choose the author Anne Michaels.
56:51
SPEAKER_01: She's been around for some time, and I first encountered her with her book The Winter Vault.
56:58
SPEAKER_01: about a dam being placed you know in Egypt that would flood and old you know some ruins and I thought it was a it was a fine book but I didn't love it and I kept hearing everybody say well her best book is fugitive pieces
57:18
SPEAKER_01: and so I went back and finally read Fugitive Pieces first published in 1996 and thought that it was amazing so while she has continued to write and Michaels has and I haven't read some of her newest books I think even just very very very recently she had a new book come out
57:37
SPEAKER_01: she's definitely worth following and chasing those down but I have not done so but Fugitive Pieces is you know everybody I think from Canada is probably like yeah yeah yeah we've heard about this a lot but I had not
57:54
SPEAKER_01: and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of our listeners have never heard of or read Fugitive Pieces.
57:59
SPEAKER_01: It is a Holocaust novel to an extent.
58:02
SPEAKER_01: It's split up in two parts.
58:03
SPEAKER_01: The first one is told kind of almost as a memoir by a survivor named Jacob Beer.
58:14
SPEAKER_01: He was from Poland and he was the only survivor in his family and he's talking about his past
58:21
SPEAKER_01: but the way it's it's actually this book is so much more complicated to the wrong word and yet there is so much more nuance and intricacy in the way that the story is told that I don't think it always serves well to just tell what the story is about but it is it is a very interesting story but it's it's learning about Jacob's mental state and about his memories and how he's trying to deal with them
58:52
SPEAKER_01: and then you're two-thirds through the book and you get into book two where you get a new narrator.
59:00
SPEAKER_01: This is a Canadian professor named Ben.
59:06
SPEAKER_01: Ben has met with this person from the first section, Jacob Beer,
59:14
SPEAKER_01: and he is an admirer but by this time Jacob has died and so this is the second part is Ben also trying to kind of track things down
59:25
SPEAKER_01: to understand not only the Holocaust but how Jacob has dealt with those memories and with that part of his his life and then kind of relating it to his own his own life Ben it turns out is the child of survivors
59:45
SPEAKER_01: and so this is a really rich book again better I mean not that that's like oh that must be a lame book that description but I would say that makes it almost sound like something we've read before and I'd say this is quite a unique book on not only these themes but on the ability to tell about these things and to address them
1:00:09
SPEAKER_01: and just a powerful book again as I sat down to think of what I would put I thought oh I'll definitely want to talk about that one and then I saw oh she just came out with a book called Held and I haven't read it yet so so anyway I definitely recommend Fugitive Pieces I would softly recommend The Winter Vault
1:00:32
SPEAKER_02: and then we've got Held which just came out that I don't really know anything about so anyway Jerry you were holding up a book there is that a fugitive yeah that's fugitive pieces is a special edition that was published several years ago of fugitive pieces by McClellan and Stewart here in Canada which has subsequently been subsumed into Penguin Random House but
1:00:55
SPEAKER_02: It is her book, Fugitive Pieces.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_02: This was a certain line of, this edition happens to be a certain line of classic Canadian novels that they reissued, you know, with really nice paper, you know, beautiful binding and everything.
1:01:11
SPEAKER_02: But yes, I did read, I read this book.
1:01:14
SPEAKER_02: I bought the special edition when it was available.
1:01:18
SPEAKER_02: And you're right, it is a really
1:01:21
SPEAKER_02: The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature
1:01:44
SPEAKER_02: in Anne Michael's work.
1:01:47
SPEAKER_02: Like you, I have not read the latest book.
1:01:51
SPEAKER_02: It's called Held.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_02: I think it came out here in Canada.
1:01:55
SPEAKER_02: The Canadian edition was published in November.
1:01:59
SPEAKER_02: the US edition was published this month so it's now available it's probably available to readers in the UK and other countries but yeah it's this was such a this book Fugitive Pieces was such a great work that it's almost almost as if you know sometimes with writers if you read a really great book from them you at least for me I'm almost
1:02:25
SPEAKER_02: There's a little sometimes I want to keep reading then everything they've written but other times if they write something that's so good it becomes like you're holding them mentally to a higher standard and you're afraid to work to read any of their other books because they you might be disappointed if you don't like them as much if that makes sense but no for sure that's what I went through with The Ice Palace with Faisal like exactly that it's just like oh I started at the top and I'm afraid to go yeah that's right uh
1:02:54
SPEAKER_02: My favorite Haruki Murakami novel is still the very first one of his I've read.
1:02:58
SPEAKER_02: And even though I've read at least 10 of his works, I almost feel like I'm still looking for the original high, mental high I got from the first book of his that I read.
1:03:08
SPEAKER_02: That's the Japanese writer that I think you've mentioned it on at least one previous episode.
1:03:17
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I definitely can second your recommendation, Trevor, about Fugitive Pieces.
1:03:24
SPEAKER_01: all right well yeah I just looked up Held it's out by Knopf here in the US and reading the the summary it looks like she's again dealing with generations and you know horrible events from from past generations I think she knows how to how to mine that in a good way yeah so all right well Jerry I'd love to hear your next one
1:03:50
SPEAKER_02: So my next one is something I know for sure, Trevor, that you've read, and I think, Paul, you may have read this one as well.
1:03:57
SPEAKER_02: It was featured in NYRB Women last year, the series of books, and it's Basic Black with Pearls by Helen Weinzweig, which is a wonderful novel that's very hard to categorize.
1:04:14
SPEAKER_02: It came out originally in 1980.
1:04:17
SPEAKER_02: it's a book about a woman who lives in Toronto but she's in an unhappy marriage so she's been carrying on an affair for I think a few decades with a man by the name of Conrad or Conrad as it's spelled in the book and she meets him and rendezvous with him around the world
1:04:42
SPEAKER_02: and he recognizes her because she's wearing a basic black dress with a string of white pearls and that's where the title comes from so in the book basically the plot of the book without giving away too much to those who haven't read it is that after a series you know her normal series of encounters he's
1:05:03
SPEAKER_02: You know in foreign locations he's let her know that he's coming to the city where she lives which is Toronto and she has to meet him in Toronto but while she's waiting to meet him in Toronto
1:05:19
SPEAKER_02: you know the rendezvous without again without saying too much doesn't go exactly as expected or as planned for her and so in the book you know she's wandering around the city of Toronto she goes to a diner she goes to a hotel she goes to you know the old neighborhood where she grew up and although it's not explicitly mentioned in the book there's strong
1:05:47
SPEAKER_02: Strong hints, I think, that the protagonist, Shirley, in her childhood may have come to Toronto as the young child of adults who were fleeing persecution, fleeing the Holocaust specifically.
1:06:02
SPEAKER_02: That's how it ties in a little bit, I think.
1:06:07
SPEAKER_02: It's interesting.
1:06:08
SPEAKER_02: If that theory is correct, it ties in a little bit, Trevor, to Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels.
1:06:16
SPEAKER_02: You know, she goes to, say, the old bakery, the old childhood bakery that's still there from when she was a child and that has, you know, obviously things, you know, like hollow rolls, hollow bread and different things and all, you know, there's a really interesting interaction in that bakery.
1:06:37
SPEAKER_02: with the owner and with the protagonist Shirley as she's in her mind recalling all of these things.
1:06:46
SPEAKER_02: The ending is interesting of the book.
1:06:49
SPEAKER_02: It's definitely worth reading, but it reminded me just to make that connection of
1:06:55
SPEAKER_02: A book I did really like by Haruki Murakami, just thematically, it reminded me of the book South of the Border, West of the Sun.
1:07:04
SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure if either of you have read that, but both books seem to be about people who are, you know, protagonists who are entering midlife
1:07:15
SPEAKER_02: and they're almost wondering is there not anything more to this life is there not anything more did I miss something you know why am I you know sort of in the situation that I'm in you know it seemed like youth my youth was just yesterday I get very similar I don't know if midlife crisis is the right way to say it but very similar vibes
1:07:40
SPEAKER_02: sort of in parallel both books it reminded me of that even though Murakami's style and his storytelling is very different from Weinsweig's I saw the parallel there so I'd be curious to hear I think you've both read this book is that right?
1:07:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah I did it was part of Kim's NYW Women series last year and
1:08:04
SPEAKER_00: yeah I think you did a wonderful job I did too I think you did a wonderful job yeah I learned from your from your um you know what you went over just now I was thinking the same thing because this is a I would argue a tricky murky book in some ways because like you said the the basic plot is fairly straightforward but there is a whole lot going on underneath the surface and even from some of the conversations online within that group I know that there was a lot of people who were floating theories that
1:08:31
SPEAKER_00: The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast
1:09:02
SPEAKER_01: Alright, well thanks.
1:09:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and Jerry, I was excited to read that one because of your, you know, saying, hey, that's a great Toronto novel and, you know, all that.
1:09:09
SPEAKER_01: That was fun.
1:09:09
SPEAKER_01: So I appreciated your enthusiasm, which got me to kind of push, you know, because it is murky, as Paul said, and I think I would have been like, I don't know if this is going to go anywhere.
1:09:21
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I had started it a few years before and didn't get, you know, more than a couple pages.
1:09:27
SPEAKER_01: Not because it was bad or I wasn't sure what was going on, just other things popped up.
1:09:30
SPEAKER_01: But I...
1:09:32
SPEAKER_00: you talking about that made me excited then I started to see things you know flashing and it was it was great well thank you yeah all right Paul let's hear your last one right my last one I am going with another Canadian classic and Jerry actually mentioned the author a little bit earlier The Stone Angel by Margaret Lawrence a very well-known Canadian novel but one that again I hadn't read and this
1:09:57
SPEAKER_00: once again Jerry you prompted me you're doing good work I'm reading Canadian novels that I hadn't read before so this is a wonderful book it's the story of a 90 year old woman named Hagar Shipley who's kind of struggling with the effects of aging on her body and her memory and apparently it's one of several books by Lawrence that are set in this fictional town of let me see if I can say this right Manawaka Manitoba which is a rural area of Canada and like
1:10:26
SPEAKER_00: The Englishman's Boy and actually a couple of the other books we've mentioned maybe this is another Canadian theme here the story is made up of two parallel narratives that kind of interact with each other one is set in the early 1960s which is kind of the present day for this novel and then the other part takes place at earlier places within Hagar's life kind of in flashback form so it's one of those stories we talked about in our episode on aging and we've brought this up several times that I really like these
1:10:56
SPEAKER_00: stories that focus on older authors and or older you know protagonists and that span decades that encompass someone's life
1:11:05
SPEAKER_00: so in some ways this movie reminded me a little bit of something like Penelope Lively's Moon Tiger which was another book I really loved about an aging narrator so it kicks off with a really beautiful passage I thought I'd just read real quickly here it says above the town on the hill brow the stone angel used to stand I wonder if she stands there yet in memory of her who relinquished her feeble ghost as I gained my stubborn one my mother's angel that my father bought in pride to mark her bones and proclaim his dynasty as he fancied forever in a day
1:11:35
SPEAKER_00: And so it goes on from there describing this literal stone angel that
1:11:50
SPEAKER_00: is mentioned in the title but as we read and go further we come to realize that the stone angel also refers to Hagar herself she's very closed off and she puts up this wall of protection by cutting herself off emotionally from those around her and kind of presenting this stony facade to the world and so I said in the present time she's struggling with the aging process and kind of fighting against being placed in a nursing home which she views as kind of this last step before death and she doesn't want to go there yet
1:12:20
SPEAKER_00: um you know I mentioned Moon Tiger but another comparable book I would say is maybe Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead only because it's these very strong kind of cranky cantankerous older women who you know as you're seeing their perspective you kind of get it but if you place yourself in the perspectives of those around them you can see how they would be pretty difficult to deal with which I think is is kind of a fun
1:12:43
SPEAKER_00: a fun lens to view the world through but this book is just filled with lots of really poignant quotes about aging in life which I really liked you know here's one privacy is a privilege not granted to the aged or the young or another one I can't change what's happened to me in my life or make what's not occurred take place but I can't say I like it or accept it or believe it's for the best I don't and never shall not even if I'm damned for it
1:13:07
SPEAKER_00: so I just really like that like she it's poignant and but like I said there's there's a spiciness and a cantankerousness to it that I really liked as well so as it moves on you know we're viewing things from Hagar's perspective so we're sometimes swept into these sections where we feel her disorientation which I think is really interesting and kind of gives you even more empathy for her because as we're only getting her perspective we have no idea how reliable
1:13:31
SPEAKER_00: The Mookse and the Gripes
1:13:54
SPEAKER_00: they dig way down deep into the characters and kind of the historical time frame and a little bit more of a perspective from there so if anybody hasn't listened to that and if it sounds appealing to them I would definitely encourage them to check that out so again I'll ask if either one of you read that one
1:14:13
SPEAKER_01: I haven't, but I was going to mention the One Bright Book episode if you didn't because it definitely makes me really want to.
1:14:20
SPEAKER_01: It's one that I listened to even having not read the book because it pulled me right into it in a way.
1:14:28
SPEAKER_02: Jerry, have you read that one?
1:14:30
SPEAKER_02: I haven't read this particular one but I've heard it discussed on a actually a different podcast back when the New York Times book review podcast was hosted by Pamela Paul they had a section at the end where the critics for that newspaper would talk about books where they're reading and they would you know sort of have like a fireside chat and John Williams talked particularly about this book on one of the episodes
1:15:00
SPEAKER_02: and described it so vividly that I do have it on my long term to be read list.
1:15:06
SPEAKER_02: Of course, I'm very familiar with Margaret Lawrence, you know, as a writer and, you know, her biography and, you know, time in Africa and so on.
1:15:16
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, this is definitely a book that, you know, I think has stood the test of time from all indications.
1:15:24
SPEAKER_00: absolutely and again I just want to thank you Jerry for the prompt to read these books because it's funny how sometimes you don't realize I've definitely read Canadian authors and Canadian literature but there are a lot of these ones that are classics that are sitting right there in plain sight that I just hadn't gotten to so I'm happy to have read a few of those and I will probably have to step out here in a second before I go if I could just interrupt the flow for one second I just wanted to say that
1:15:48
SPEAKER_00: this episode will come out next Tuesday which is the 20th is that right Trevor?
1:15:53
SPEAKER_00: check me to make sure I got my dates right it'll come out for Patreon and Substack listeners on Tuesday but the rest of everybody will hear it on Thursday so either way as everybody knows I was part of the judging panel for the Republic of Consciousness Prize for North America which again I will say introduced me to some wonderful Canadian publishers as an aside
1:16:16
SPEAKER_00: but I just wanted to mention that on the 27th we have a Zoom party that takes place at 7 p.m.
1:16:23
SPEAKER_00: Eastern and everybody's invited to join and it's really cool we're gonna have representatives from all 10 of the long-listed titles and I can't confirm for sure but there will be authors there there will be translators there and then representatives from the publishers
1:16:39
SPEAKER_00: it's going to be really fun and everybody's just going to hang out and we get a chance to hear from some of the different people involved with these books so i just wanted to put in that really quick plug that anybody who can join us on the the 27th at 7 pm everybody's invited and it should be a lot of fun so i just wanted to get that in there before i have to to sneak off okay yeah thanks paul sure yeah thank you are they are they going to announce the short list at the during the listing party or is that not during that's a good question actually i should know that i don't think it's going to be announced during
1:17:06
SPEAKER_00: the party but it's going to be shortly thereafter because this is kind of launching the the final steps in this year's prize but from what Lori Feathers who is kind of the founder of this this North American version of the prize told me this party is just a blast she said last year it was one of the high points of the entire process and just really cool conversations with various translators and small presses and authors so it should be a lot of fun
1:17:32
SPEAKER_01: excellent well thanks Paul yeah thank you and I'm sorry I have to leave early but again Jerry that was so nice to chat with you and I look forward to listening to the rest of the episode and hearing you guys's picks Oh likewise Paul all right well so long Paul I am curious I hope you'll let me know if you have read this author's books if not I I know it'll be one of your soon-to-be favorite authors
1:17:56
SPEAKER_01: and Jerry, I'm curious if you have read it.
1:17:58
SPEAKER_01: One thing I will say, when we talk about what we're going to be picking, Paul likes to have everybody send around the author's initials just so that we can kind of, you know, without spoiling it too much, see if we might, you know, be overlapping too much.
1:18:15
SPEAKER_01: And it seems like 90% of the authors in Canada have the initials AM.
1:18:23
SPEAKER_01: I've already done Ann Michaels.
1:18:24
SPEAKER_01: There's of course Alice Munro.
1:18:26
SPEAKER_01: The author that I'm going to talk about now is an AM and even has a son whose books I really like who is also an AM.
1:18:35
SPEAKER_01: So this author that I'm going to talk about now is Alastair MacLeod.
1:18:40
SPEAKER_01: He is probably most famous for his collection of short stories.
1:18:48
SPEAKER_01: uh that he he well he had written short stories for his whole career um starting in 1968 and a collection of all of them came out in the early 2000s called Island the Complete Stories and I I love these short stories and that's a that's well I'm going to talk about his novel here in a second
1:19:11
SPEAKER_01: One of the things I love about Canadian literature and Canadian prizes is they don't shirk on the short stories.
1:19:20
SPEAKER_01: They recognize that this is an art form.
1:19:23
SPEAKER_01: It's not a way of building up to writing a novel.
1:19:28
SPEAKER_01: They're not apprentice pieces.
1:19:29
SPEAKER_01: They are their own thing and very, very powerful.
1:19:34
SPEAKER_01: and Alistair MacLeod only wrote one novel and yet I'd say he's quite famous because of his collection of short stories of which there is one now I think he published a couple in his lifetime but then they've been compiled in this and I actually don't
1:19:51
SPEAKER_01: Don't even know if they're published separately at all anymore But I love this collection of short stories.
1:19:56
SPEAKER_01: Just love it.
1:19:57
SPEAKER_01: He he was a lot of his stories take place in Cape Breton Island way where it's cold and up north, you know up north and east and beautiful, but you know remote and his book his novel Island is
1:20:19
SPEAKER_01: also takes place there and it's it's a it's a fantastic novel it was published first in 1999 and it takes place in Cape Breton Island and when the book opens we meet our narrator it's a fellow by the name of Alexander MacDonald he's in his mid-50s he's a successful dentist and he is visiting his older brother who is ailing named Callum
1:20:46
SPEAKER_01: uh Callum is decidedly not nearly as successful as Alexander um Callum is also about 15 years older and it's partially because of that age gap that they had remarkably different childhoods which led to remarkably different lives and we go through that even though they have this shared heritage and even a couple of formative tragedies
1:21:12
SPEAKER_01: they're not really that close even though they have this intimate relationship of their past it is just a fantastic novel about their relationship and about their family and just one of the best books that I've ever read I absolutely love this novel No Great Mischief Again
1:21:38
SPEAKER_01: when I posted about it on my blog I got a couple of fun stories from Kevin from Canada he came on and said there are two interesting stories about No Great Mischief one is the reason why it did not win the Giller someone at the publishing house neglected to enter it and the discovery only came after the deadline and he says more interesting however is how it came to be published in the first place
1:22:01
SPEAKER_01: All of the Canadian literary community was well aware that MacLeod had been working on a novel but would not submit it for publication.
1:22:08
SPEAKER_01: You can tell from his extensive catalog that he liked to write, not publish.
1:22:13
SPEAKER_01: His publisher, perhaps the best in Canada's history, drove from Toronto to Windsor and literally stole the manuscript, giving him the upper hand in negotiating with the author to get it finally published.
1:22:25
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, I am one reader that is glad that he did.
1:22:30
SPEAKER_01: I am too!
1:22:31
SPEAKER_01: It is a beautiful novel.
1:22:33
SPEAKER_01: It's been a long time since I read it, so I do want to reread it.
1:22:36
SPEAKER_01: It's also been a long time since I read the stories in Island, which is what really pulled me into being interested in Alistair MacLeod in the first place.
1:22:49
SPEAKER_01: His stories are just, as Kevin says, he's someone who liked to write and he really
1:22:57
SPEAKER_01: You know, he seemed to really take delight in creating just beautiful, evocative scenes and memories.
1:23:05
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I'll read a little bit from his first short story, The Boat, 1968.
1:23:10
SPEAKER_01: It just says at the start, There are times even now when I awake at four o'clock in the morning with the terrible fear that I have overslept.
1:23:19
SPEAKER_01: When I imagine that my father is waiting for me in the room below the darkened stairs, or that the shorebound men are tossing pebbles against my window while blowing their hands and stomping their feet impatiently on the frozen, steadfast earth.
1:23:32
SPEAKER_01: There are times when I am half out of bed and fumbling for socks and mumbling for words before I realize that I am foolishly alone, that no one waits at the base of the stairs, and no boat rides restlessly in the waters by the piers.
1:23:48
SPEAKER_02: so you know i i just i love his writing i love his his books there aren't very many of them so you can be an alistair mcleod completist within just a month that's right and i actually have trevor read the novel no great mischief i think i read it in maybe around 2007 2008 so it's been a while since i read it but i remember being i you know
1:24:16
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if thrilled is maybe too strong of a word, but the narrator's voice, Mr. McDonald's voice in the novel is definitely thrilling in a way and the book strongly evokes a sense of place in Cape Breton Island.
1:24:37
SPEAKER_02: and the Scottish Canadian community and also in terms of the relationship to his brother you know at least one theme I also remember taking away is the scourge of too much drink too much hard drink much alcohol but I did you know the title of course I remember comes from I think it was in the book it alludes to
1:25:05
SPEAKER_02: You know, the battle, I think it was the battle on the Plains of Abraham, perhaps, which was the battle where the United Kingdom, Great Britain at the time, defeated the French forces in what ultimately became Quebec.
1:25:23
SPEAKER_02: And there was one general or other official on the British side speaking of the Scottish
1:25:33
SPEAKER_02: soldiers as being almost disposable and said oh it would be no great mischief if they fall and that I think is you know sort of you know thematically then echoed in the book as the narrator you know talks about his life reflects again this is very similar to the Stone Angel where you reach a point in your life where you're reflecting back on what
1:25:59
SPEAKER_02: has gone before you.
1:26:01
SPEAKER_02: And you're an older, you know, older narrator, older character.
1:26:05
SPEAKER_02: But just those themes of resilience and overcoming hardship.
1:26:10
SPEAKER_02: It was a great read.
1:26:11
SPEAKER_02: And when we were talking about AM authors, I was wondering if that might be the author you were going to pick because I was also thinking about another AM writer named Anne-Marie MacDonald and was almost, as an honorary mention, was going to pick When the Crow Flies by her.
1:26:29
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you know that writer or not but definitely a great writer to get to know excellent no I appreciate that this is I mean it's so fun to to get that sense of oh another one you know all right well I think we've gotten to the to the end where you're you know I'd love to hear what your last book is that you'll you'll share of course you can share some honorable mentions too at the end but what's the last one that you're going to talk about
1:26:57
SPEAKER_02: So the last one I'm going to talk about is a book called The Geography of Pluto.
1:27:03
SPEAKER_02: It's by Christopher de Rado.
1:27:06
SPEAKER_02: It was published in 2014, I believe, originally published by a small press called Cormorant Books.
1:27:14
SPEAKER_02: It's now been republished by Esplanade Books, which is a Quebec publishing house of works in English.
1:27:25
SPEAKER_02: And I actually
1:27:27
SPEAKER_02: I picked this book in part because it would help us represent the province of Montreal or the province of Quebec and it strongly evokes Montreal as a place so this book impacted me so much as a reader that I did something I rarely do and I wrote a Goodreads review for it in 2018 when I actually read the book
1:27:56
SPEAKER_02: and I think I'd like to just read it real quick it doesn't it's not a real long review but I wrote this this well-written and well-structured debut novels ultimately about five kinds of love love of family romantic love love of friends love a place and ultimately self-love self-respect
1:28:19
SPEAKER_02: The likable, yet far from perfect narrator, Will Ambrose is a gay geography teacher in Montreal facing two relationship challenges, the need to get over his ex-boyfriend Max and the desire to take his relationship with his single mother deeper beyond surface matters.
1:28:39
SPEAKER_02: As the novel moves back and forth in time,
1:28:42
SPEAKER_02: The reader learns about Will's friendship with Angie, which is infinitely close and able to withstand all sorts of bruises.
1:28:50
SPEAKER_02: Other aspects of the novel focus on Will's experience of coming out as a gay man and discerning the boundaries between sex, love, and various in-between states.
1:29:01
SPEAKER_02: The other main character of the book is the city of Montreal, which is gorgeously depicted throughout via vivid descriptions of its climate, its gay village, and yes, its geography, as the reader rides along on the subway metro and looks out into the apartment windows.
1:29:24
SPEAKER_02: The book left me with an urge to learn French, abandon my long-time home in Western Canada, and move to Montreal, a city I visited just once.
1:29:34
SPEAKER_02: The strength of this debut effort indicates that the author, Dorado, is blessed with innate gifts, and a few tantalizing threads in the closing chapters left me hoping that he is considering a sequel.
1:29:48
SPEAKER_02: Surely there's enough room on Pluto or Earth for such an effort.
1:29:53
SPEAKER_02: So again, the book is called The Geography of Pluto.
1:29:57
SPEAKER_02: I want to emphasize there are some darker themes, but it's not a sad book.
1:30:03
SPEAKER_02: It's ultimately a very uplifting book.
1:30:07
SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of interiority in the novel.
1:30:12
SPEAKER_02: but at the same time there's also as you as you read the story you know you'll see how he goes through the various um you know he'll ride the metro or ride the bus to neighborhoods like the plateau and different parts of the greater downtown area and if you've ever been to Montreal which my trip was in the late 2000s and I read this book about a decade later
1:30:36
SPEAKER_02: one of the things i most loved about reading it was that it sort of brought back the city very vividly to life for me and like i said in my review i came away with it like wow let me just you know i put it down and i loved it so much i was like man i maybe i should learn french too which is generally you know a really good thing to have if you live in montreal to be at least by at the very least bilingual
1:31:01
SPEAKER_02: Move and Start a New Life because, you know, this book was just so inspiring in that way.
1:31:07
SPEAKER_02: Have you read the book, Trevor?
1:31:09
SPEAKER_01: I haven't.
1:31:10
SPEAKER_01: I don't think I... The title sounds familiar, but it could just be because it's a little bit of a unique title.
1:31:18
SPEAKER_01: I have not read this one, but it sounds great.
1:31:20
SPEAKER_01: I will note I wanted to try and find you on Goodreads and find your review and so I looked it up while you were talking and Sean, the book maniac,
1:31:29
SPEAKER_01: also rated it five stars on Goodreads I don't see if he has a review or not I don't see it but then some of the top reviews are what a charming debut love this little gem of local literature which hit home on so many levels so this is one I'm going to be checking out soon that sounds excellent and he's written one follow-up novel that I've also read it's called The Family Way and
1:31:58
SPEAKER_02: that book was also a five-star read for me it's set partially in Montreal but partially in Provincetown Massachusetts and it's about a group of friends who are going to take a summer holiday in Provincetown and they you know they leave they go across the border to the U.S.
1:32:19
SPEAKER_02: and many of the scenes take place in in Provincetown which I actually I've been to Boston but I haven't been out to
1:32:28
SPEAKER_02: The Mookse and the Gripes
1:32:48
SPEAKER_02: The Mookse and the Gripes
1:33:00
SPEAKER_02: that one has a wonderfully evocative tone and sense of place it takes place in 1994-1995 right before the referendum for Quebec independence so that gives the novel just a little bit of tension um is it it's going on in the backgrounds but I know you've read the novel because we've talked about it on social media but
1:33:25
SPEAKER_02: it um you know it discusses or it's you know about somebody who's running a mobile library and the protagonist uh uh is you know going along to these towns delivering these books to these people and what was just sort of the last gasp of the pre-internet age i mean i think when the book was published and when it was set was right when the world wide web was getting started so it's it's sort of nostalgic in that way as a read for me but
1:33:54
SPEAKER_02: Also, too, there's a circus troupe from France that he's interacting with and coming across in the towns and in the small towns there along the St.
1:34:05
SPEAKER_02: Lawrence River.
1:34:06
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, there's also questions about, you know, middle age and getting older and finding love.
1:34:12
SPEAKER_02: But that's another one of the great, at least in my mind, Quebec novels sort of of the last 30, 40 years.
1:34:23
SPEAKER_01: I loved that one so much again so much it was just the the sense of calm I guess in a way that kind of lifestyle well Jerry thank you so much is there anything else you'd like to say just in general about Canadian literature it it has been in a again a very invigorating conversation for me because it brings back
1:34:46
SPEAKER_01: really good memories of a time in life when I was you know focusing on more Canadian literature and has made me realize why am I not at least doing that a little bit still uh why have I kind of let that go by the wayside and that has been like I say invigorating because some of these are books that I just want to reread them right now or you know some of the ones that have been newly introduced to me I'm going to be jumping on them for sure
1:35:14
SPEAKER_01: Because there was just a vastness to the Canadian literature scene.
1:35:22
SPEAKER_01: It's such a rich world because of the various regions.
1:35:28
SPEAKER_01: The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74
1:35:53
SPEAKER_01: I need to go again I've actually never been to Vancouver so I'll be I will be going there someday my wife wants to go we'll be making a stop at the bookstores you know especially Alice Munro's and you know it'd be it'd be fun to meet up and chat books on any of those occasions but is there anything else that you wanted to kind of make sure that we we hit on with this topic
1:36:20
SPEAKER_02: So the philosopher John Ralston Soule, who actually is married to one of our former governor generals, but he's a philosopher and he's written several books.
1:36:34
SPEAKER_02: He wrote a book that argued that Canada as a country is all about the negotiation of three distinct groups.
1:36:43
SPEAKER_02: He called those groups basically Anglophones, Francophones, and Indigenous peoples.
1:36:50
SPEAKER_02: And I think that that insight is probably applicable to Canadian literature.
1:36:57
SPEAKER_02: There's a large body of works written in French that are published in Quebec, possibly some of them in New Brunswick, that are translated.
1:37:09
SPEAKER_02: I forgot to mention that the Poulin book was translated by Sheila Fleischman, who translates many francophone writers.
1:37:20
SPEAKER_02: in their works into English.
1:37:23
SPEAKER_02: So you have sort of in a way within the country three broad but yet distinct identities that Saul identified, John Ross and Saul identified.
1:37:36
SPEAKER_02: and I think it's applicable to literature there is this is a large country obviously but at the same time there's a in addition to those three groups there's also sort of that tension that probably you see in American literature and other countries literatures as well
1:37:59
SPEAKER_02: between the rural and the urban so there's going to be within Canadian fiction there's a fair amount of books written and set in the big cities as well as you know as we mentioned you know some of the books that are set in small towns or locations like Cape Breton Island
1:38:20
SPEAKER_02: and so there is a big geographical diversity there too as well as you know sort of a multicultural aspect that you'll find in Canadian books and in Canadian publishing many I think I mentioned earlier many writers in Canada actually were not born in Canada which is a trend
1:38:43
SPEAKER_02: The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature
1:39:03
SPEAKER_02: as well as really great books that tie into family histories of immigration taking place in generations past.
1:39:14
SPEAKER_02: I recently read Wei Sanchui's Jade Peony, which is set in 1930s in Chinatown in Vancouver.
1:39:23
SPEAKER_02: it was a really good read but you know it falls into that category both Troy and the protagonist in the book most of the protagonists in the book were born in Canada but their families were immigrants and had immigrated in this case from mainland China to Canada another great writer
1:39:44
SPEAKER_02: who is an honorable mention that falls into this category I would see is David Bezmoskis who many readers might know through his short stories I've read one of his novels and I read two of his short story collections my favorite of all of those is
1:40:03
SPEAKER_02: Natasha and Other Stories and it there's a series of linked stories about a young boy and his family leaving who left Latvia during the Soviet years of the 1980s and immigrated to Toronto and resettled in Toronto and that book has made an impression on me and has stayed with me and I highly highly recommend it I also recently read Immigrant City which is
1:40:33
SPEAKER_02: another of his story collections that touches on similar themes but not all of them are linked and also is a wonderful another wonderful Toronto book because most of the stories not all of them are are centered in Toronto
1:40:49
SPEAKER_01: It's been a while, but I love Davis Besmazagus.
1:40:54
SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to remember what specifically I read from him.
1:40:57
SPEAKER_01: I know that I read some of the stories from Natasha, but yeah, The Free World, that's the novel that I remember reading and really, really enjoying.
1:41:11
SPEAKER_01: but a lot of his short stories I feel like I read kind of on the side and liked them more as well so I need to get back into into seeing what he's been up to because it's been 10-15 years since I last read his his books
1:41:28
SPEAKER_02: yeah I believe he's he's also worked as a filmmaker and I think he's also so he's written you know obviously treatments for the screen I think there is I have read The Free World as well which it's interesting because with the city you know the theme thematically being refugees you know the protagonist being refugees in this case from the Soviet Union and being sort of in
1:41:57
SPEAKER_02: in transit in Europe waiting to come to Canada although in the story of course you know it's not clear that Canada is ultimately going to be the final destination or if their papers are going to come in it actually reminded me a little bit of Anna Sager's Transit which is published by NYRB Classics and of course that was originally written in German but that one also deals with similar themes of
1:42:27
SPEAKER_02: The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast featuring Trevor Berrett titled Episode 74 Canadian Literature
1:42:37
SPEAKER_02: um and they're looking to start a new life although in the course in that book the setting was you know much earlier was in the 1940s and that book took place uh like a few of our other uh novels that we discussed that you know with the Holocaust in the background but there are some parallels I I think uh to that novel but yeah I love David Besmazkis as a as a writer um almost a Chekhovian writer and when it comes to his short stories
1:43:08
SPEAKER_01: oh well thanks so much again Jerry it has been a pleasure we'd love to have you back on sometime we could continue talking about Canadian literature or any other topic it's been very nice well it's always you know we meet people online and read each other's messages and all of that but it's so nice to sit down and just chat for a little while live like this and thank you so much for taking the time out of your Saturday morning getting up early to meet with Paul and me
1:43:38
SPEAKER_02: well thank you for having me it's been a pleasure to speak to both of you and to have this conversation and i'd love to come back sometime in the future sounds good all right well thanks again we'll talk to everybody soon we'll be back in a couple of weeks goodbye
1:43:59
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening to this episode of The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast.
1:44:02
SPEAKER_01: You can follow The Mookse and the Gripes and get show notes and book and film reviews at mooksandgripes.com.
1:44:08
SPEAKER_01: On Twitter you can follow Trevor at Mookse and Paul at BiblioPaul.
1:44:14
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1:44:18
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1:44:25
SPEAKER_01: you can become a patreon at patreon.com mooks until next time