Featured Articles
The Trials Of Norman Elder
Ian Young“It’s surprising what a friendly place it is – the whole world!”
—Norman Elder
One of the first things a visitor tended to notice on entering the massive, three-storey brick house on Bedford Road was the stuffed emu hanging upside down over the main staircase. After the bright sunlight outside, the sudden gloom might well have obscured [...]
Auctions
David MasonMany people think that an auction, being conducted in public, is wholly transparent and that each lot will reach its appropriate price. I shall show you here how foolish such a view is. Auctions are the most exciting way of buying books and usually the most expensive. They are volatile and unpredictable, and they can [...]
Mine Clearance for Dummies. Or, What Kind of Idiot Writes About Porn?
AJ SomersetLindsay is a 22-year-old receptionist with short, dark hair and an ingenuous face, freckled, smiling. She looks as if she doesn’t get a lot of sun. Today is not an ordinary day for her: Lindsay is about to be filmed watching porn, by photojournalist Robbie Cooper, as part of his “Immersion” project for Wallpaper magazine. [...]
Behind Enemy Lines: My Life in an All-Women’s Book Club
Michael CarbertDespite people’s assurances to the contrary and their stated desire not to have it be an all-female enterprise, I could never shake the feeling that I was an intruder, an interloper, the one that shouldn’t be there. And not just because I wasn’t female.
The Difference of Value Persists
Kerry ClareIn her July 15, 2009 column, National Post columnist Barbara Kay addresses her frustration with “Giller-endorsed but virtually unreadable CanLit,” singling out Lisa Moore’s February as an example. Kay’s criticism takes the novel to task for not being Barometer Rising…. Her column is remarkable for its most unsubtle application of Woolf’s “difference of value.” … “This is an insignificant book because it deals with women in a drawing room.”
The Other F-Word: The Disappearance of Feminism from Our Fiction
Nicole DixonIn 2010, “feminism” is a more incendiary f-bomb than “fuck.” Except on the few university campuses that have yet to rebrand or discontinue Women’s Studies courses, feminism has almost disappeared from not only our conversations, but also from our literature, particularly long-form fiction.
Introduction to CNQ 80: The Gender Issue
Alex GoodWhen it comes to literary conversations, some topics, like those items that find their way under the couch, seem to collect the most fuzz. . . . A perennial favourite, one that has provided grist for book columns and sparked debate among readers of every brow for generations, is the subject of gender. Like a social disease, it is the gift that keeps on giving.
The Mind of Alice Munro
Douglas GloverAlice Munro’s constant concern is to correct the reader, to undercut and complicate her text until all easy answers are exhausted and an unnerving richness of life stands revealed in the particular, secret experiences of her characters.
She does this in two ways. First, she has a sly capacity for filling her stories with sex, thwarted [...]
Tidings of Comfort and Joy
Mark Anthony JarmanDedicated to Barry Hannah (1942-2010).
I am happiest when I‘m working on a story. Over the years I’ve written a play, a slim volume of poetry, a hockey novel, a nonfiction travel memoir on Ireland, and done some freelance articles on skiing and canoeing. I’m currently working on a novel set in the Wild West and [...]