Comments on: A Whiff of the Monster

By: Jacqueline Wood

Jacqueline Wood — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:45:17 +0000

I am sure you must remember John and I from our visit to Maroko *sp.* its been a few years now
since we were in Marocco Have tried to contact you several times. We are still in Spain but thinking movingon back to Toronto. Where are you now?
Sorry we havent contacted you before. If you could contact us at the above email address. Would be great to hear. John has a website which is great. regards Jacqui and John Wood.

By: Don LePan

Don LePan — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:41:45 +0000

A very interesting piece–and from the (relatively little) I know, very fair. I was particularly interested in the small part my father plays in the narrative, at the time of the Happening in 1967. (I was 13 at the time, and it barely registered for me then, sad to say.) I think it’s true that Dad felt much too strongly a fear of bad publicity throughout his life–and more broadly, cared too much about reputation. I’m sure that even at the age of 76 he had to steel himself to come out. And his one novel surely did not deserve to be awarded any prize–let alone to win the GG over a great novel such as The Stone Angel. But he was a fine poet (his other GG, for poetry, was I think quite deserved), and as he got older he grew more and more to respect and even admire those who had been better able to free themselves from the constrictions of social convention and of personal ambition than he had. The few times I remember him speaking of Scott Symons in his later years, it was always in much the same tone with which this piece ends–that whatever their faults, such people make all our lives more interesting.

By: Seth and Scott Symons « sans everything

Seth and Scott Symons « sans everything — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:51:45 +0000

[...] art we should add Ian Young’s excellent memoir in the latest CNQ, which can be found here. Young captures the impact that Symons had on many people, the way he could be both inspiring and [...]