The inimitable voice of Bill Richardson makes me smile

Published 1995, Douglas and MacIntyre in Vancouver.

Twenty-two years ago was a different era. I suspect that in today's dog-eat-dog publishing world, the discursive style and lush prose of Bill Richardson would get short shrift.

This is not a book to be read for the plot, even though a lot happens to twins Vergil and Hector, their friends and pets, in the course of life running the Bed and Breakfast.

Those of us who remember Bill Richardson on CBC read to hear his voice in our heads. Zany asides, excursions into philosophy and a vast array of vocabulary. Who uses words like lofty, charitable, tawdry, mote and monstrance? Vergil keeps a journal, dreams in puns and admits to penning lines "to release some pent-up punning energy."

In describing a contest for "improving verse" (read bad doggerel), the author's poetic flights soar through alliterations: "simpering sestinas," "vilifying villanelles" and "scolding sonnets adjuring dog owners to pick up after their pets." (Adjuring: a delectable word). Speaking of dogs, brother Hector has resigned himself "to being an old dog, hopelessly estranged from new tricks."

As well as dogs, there are ghosts: On a visit home to his parents, Vergil sees "protoplasmic shreds of who and what went before." These include his dead brother, his grandmother's face rising out of the kettle steam, and his younger selves, now "wrestling with the angel of French irregular verbs," and  again standing at the fridge munching on his mother's home made bread and butter pickles (which she makes no longer, as "life is too short and the supermarket too close to bother.")

The ghost of young Vergil also paces along Portage Avenue past the former location of the Mardi Gras. Both attractive and repellent, this was "where the fruits used to go." The gay bar he never dared to enter puts Vergil in mind of how he girded his loins for years to break the news of his homosexuality to his parents, then found their easy acceptance strangely "unsettling." Now far in the past, these memories also recall how his mother wants to leave him a family heirloom. That selfsame Blue Mikado china reminds him of mortality, generating further flights of poetry.

Caedmon, the man of all work at the bed and breakfast, makes his own forays into poesy, opening his paean to dust with this evocation: "Chaff, born on the wind from Samarkand." The very pregnant June is inspired to metaphor by the state of her body as childbirth looms: she feels she "couldn't get through a revolving door with a crowbar." Even Hector's girl friend, the cosmetically expert Altona, gives a mean description of what Hector looks like when he's asleep.

Vergil is fond of kids and likes baby books. In his free time, he does a bit of babysitting, reading to the children of exhausted guests. His annotated booklist for the wee ones contains several of my own favourites. A.A. Milne, of course, Where the Wild Things Are, and Goodnight Moon, but also the more arcane The Elephant and the Bad [and manipulative!] Baby.

This is a book revealing daily moments, from sublimely transcendent to sad and ridiculous. Virgil is surprised by joy as the sun "sheds its golden fleece." Hector finally masters the hula hoop, only to watch in horror as it is accidentally chewed up by the lawnmower. Caedmon's youthful "Blakean vision" teaches him that "Mistakes are just not possible, for every seeming blunder is just another step along the scenic and circuitous path...to wherever it is you're going."

There's zany fun aplenty. Magazines are called Pry, The Rumour and Interference, and characters have names like Abel Wackaugh. Poetic couplets include this: "Burping is a way to drain, Evil humours from the brain." In counterpoint, the parrot Mrs. Rochester accentuates or criticizes the prevailing mood by quoting a suitable verse from the King James Bible. Mr. Bellwether's church of "God the Technician and Marketer" speaks for itself.

Caedmon finds a dishwasher on the side of the road, brings it home on a red wagon, then restores and installs it. Running, it sings as the mood strikes it, "No more, no more, be still, restore" or "Har-de har, from afar." This reminded me of my mother's old wringer washer, which used to repeat hypnotically, "Colin Roy, Colin Roy." [We were reading Kidnapped at the time.]

On the spying front, as the writer of messages in invisible ink says, "There's nothing like the bald truth to dispel suspicion. No one ever believes it."

In closing, let me quote Professor Bardal: "When the hubris of the powerful and living meets the malice of the cunning and dead, what chance to the rest of us have?" What chance indeed?

Yes, there are plenty of good reasons why this book won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour.

Footnote: From this book, I learned a notable fact: Evian spelled backwards spells naive.

Leacock speaks to the Canada of the Dirty Thirties

Image from Online Literature

A 1929 stock market crash plunged the world into the Great Depression. In Montreal, Stephen Leacock was a public intellectual and a McGill economist, as well as a world-famous humourist. 

In 1933 the USSR, Josef Stalin ruled as dictator. Here in Canada, the newly Co-operative Commonwealth Federation established its platform, a welfare state with universal pensions, health insurance, child allowances, workers' compensation, and unemployment insurance. In 1935, this party would take 8.9% of the federal vote. Under Tommy Douglas, the CCF would be elected in Saskatchewan, and establish Canada's first universal medicare system. Under the same leader, the socialist CCF/NDP would earn a record number of consecutive mandates, lasting until 1961. Later, with Douglas in Parliament, the federal Liberals would enact universal medicare.

Written in the depths of the Depression, the words and ideas that follow offer a fascinating glimpse of the era as seen Leacock's eyes. He was 64 when he published them.

"The principle that my house is my own is the only true basis of society." However, in the "present distress," a movement has arisen "for a new co-operative commonwealth, as vague as it is sanguine." The danger here is that each person in the movement wants to "'socialize' the others, but not himself."  With tart cynicism, he describes socialism as "a bright soap bubble, light as ignorance and floating with its own gas," and says it would only work in the presence of "impossible people, guided by impossible leaders, and inspired by an inconceivable good-will." 

He then goes on to outline the failures of the Russian system, comparing the sufferings of the people there and in Canada. In both countries, people stand in long lines in the "bitter cold," while Canadians are "waiting to get into hockey matches," starving Russians are "waiting for food." As they wait, Canadians talk and laugh freely, unlike Russians, who dare not speak "lest someone might hear them," dare not laugh, "in case someone reports them." Here in Canada, even in "the humblest homes...there is at least freedom and hope. We will not let one another die. In Russia, even behind the best locked door there is fear. They will not let one another live."

Leacock acknowledges the challenges of our failing economic system, and suggests some ideas for alleviating them. "Short of socialism," he says, "lies the regulated state." One recommendation is for the government to organize slum clearance in the cities. This would offer employment and investment opportunities for citizens, who could participate in the rebuilding of livable neighbourhoods. But he admits that the "one crucial difficulty of the rebuilding scheme is the question of public honesty." The only way to get around this challenge is to turn "the searchlight of publicity" on "every square inch" of the government plan. Other ideas to spread wealth more evenly and "obliterate super-power" include the raising of wages and the shortening of hours. 

Yet Leacock admits that to re-start the economy using the same system is a temporary solution; the cycle that rises will fall again. In the meantime, though, "we can carry forward for at least a generation." Fortunately, says this believer in human progress, "We do not need to solve the problem. We only need to raise the kind of children who can solve it."

To explain how that may be done, he produced another pamphlet on the challenges of providing the young with a good education. Seven years earlier, British philosopher, logician and social critic Bertrand Russell had tackled the same topic in his famous work, On Education.

The Stephen Leacock Re-Tour is winding down

Image from Athabasca University

On Sunday afternoon, Canadian Authors - Metro Vancouver hosted a special event at SFU Harbour Centre. We are most grateful for the support from The Writers Studio and Liberal Arts and 55+ in presenting Paul and Leslie Conway, the Voyageur Storytellers, as they passed through Vancouver on their Stephen Leacock Re-Tour, tracing the route of Canada's first great jokester with a variety of presentations on his work.

Once the best-known humourist in the English-speaking world, Stephen Leacock spoke several languages and worked as an economics professor at McGill University. According to Paul Conway, he rose daily at 5 to write. No doubt this explains his prodigious output: 53 books and over 1500 articles, as well as many lecture tours in Canada, the US, and England.

We heard yesterday that audiences would start laughing the moment he came onstage, even when the subject of the lecture was meant to be serious. The man whose sales were once the sole support of his publisher had much to say about the human condition, some of which continues to resonate. His early books were the funniest; as his life progressed through two world wars and the Great Depression that came between them, his comedy took on an increasingly dark double entendre. Even though certain of his views are problematic, he proposed a number of progressive social ideas that later became part of the Canada we know today. 

On his blog, Paul Conway sums up thus:

I…completely reject Stephen Leacock’s ideas on race, and [see] his views on women as amusing anachronisms…But I love the quality of…mind that saw complex public affairs as Unsolved Riddles, [and] gloried in humour as a way to stay human in the face of dehumanizing forces and ideas.

Now Paul and Leslie are coming to the end of their Stephen Leacock Re-Tour. They will perform in Victoria this week. Their final event, next Tuesday, will take place at Green College at UBC, where Stephen Leacock ended his lecture tour in 1937.

May Shaughnessy stand against a tide of speculation

Venerable houses like these are part of the city's history. I hope the historic homes and enormous trees of this unique neighbourhood with will not fall with Vanishing Vancouver, as Caroline Adderson calls it. Thankfully, a recent walk around the Crescent revealed none of the empty homes that are seen too often in the city today, bought not for occupation, but for speculation. But what does the For Sale sign below presage? Will these two beauties fall, or worse, be left unoccupied by owners who live far away in other countries?

Tired snowman rests at Hycroft Christmas fair

Christmas at Hycroft offers many wonderful and expected sights, sounds and smells. But there can be surprises too. Today this tired snowman draped himself across the roof of the food kiosk, apparently in need of a nap.

 

The usual Christmas decor, treats, and music included the Langley Ukelele Ensemble, who played carols in the courtyard, while pianist Michael Molnar played indoors.

A fine send-off for The Reverend Dr. Don Grayston: peace worker, author, pilgrim and soul friend

Yesterday Christ Church Cathedral was packed with mourners for the the man known to his friends simply as Don. Former students and friends gathered with family in a service of thanksgiving for the time he spent with all of us. As Don would have wished, this funeral was  a joyful celebration of the time he so generously shared with fellow pilgrims on life's way. It was a sendoff worthy of this intelligent, serious, responsible, vibrant, and witty man.

Rest in Peace, Don Grayston.

Walking weather: wintry seas at White Rock, wild wind at Crescent Beach

Muted light creates autumnal atmosphere in Bear Creek Park

Crow and gull add themselves to artistic composition

In the autumn sunshine at White Rock, a crow and a gull vied for the elegance stakes. They took turns posing on top of this sculpture on West Beach.

Rich autumn colour enjoyed in sunshine

These were taken a couple of days ago. After the last couple of days with the first snow and the killing frost, we have to face winter. No more dahlias or heliotrope or or cannas until next year.
Still a good time to plant more bulbs, though. I'll do is when the weather is a tiny bit warmer.

Bikers enjoy White Rock sunset on a clear fall evening

This has been a lovely autumn for sunsets, and the good weather is supposed to return after yesterday's heavy rain. With an unexpected pause for snow!

These bikers took advantage of fair weather to ride along the beach at White Rock and enjoy the sunset.

How Not to Write a Novel, a Misstep by Misstep Guide: hilarious and educational

In all seriousness, say Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman, "the central dilemma of a novel should be important enough to change someone's life forever." But they warn the aspiring writer that there is "only one letter's difference between yarn and yawn." A choice warning: "Words like 'amazing,' or 'unbelievable' can be used to obscure any experience, event or setting."

Other pitfalls await. "The long runway" disappoints through inaction. The "vacation slide show," features a character in an exotic setting, without conflict. After all, "anxiety in the reader...might lead to suspense, which might lead to a book sale--and God forbid, royalties." Egregious errors lie in wait for unwary authors: "the benign tumour," "the second argument in the laundromat," "the underpants gnomes," and "sock puppetry."

Did I mention "the unruly zit" and "Zeno's ipod?"

Readers watch the text for clues, so authors must beware of unintentional misdirection. The "deafening hug," makes them think they're meeting a love interest. Dropped threads also frustrate. Aspiring mystery writers ought not to litter their pages with abandoned red herrings; far better to convert the proverbial "mantelpiece gum into an incarnadine fish."

With the warning "men are from cliche, women are from stereotype," writers are exhorted to create engaging characters, not "bored minimum wage employees." Novels, like small businesses, "cannot afford to carry dead weight...even a close family member." Nobody wants to read about "a tall brown haired man trapped in a badly written novel." Characters also need to stay in the present, lest the child become "father of the digression."

They must also interact with others, and encounter problems. Without suspense, the reader is soon bored by writing flaws dubbed onanism, serial monogamy, and the orgy. "And by the way, I'm an expert marksman" pokes fun at payoffs that are not set up. "When there is a plan," warn the authors, "things cannot go according to it," lest "the reader's plan to finish your book get derailed."

Antagonists are challenging. A villain who is purely evil for no apparent reason doesn't come across, even if he has one redeeming quality, like loving his mother. Neither are villains who suddenly collapse, or those who indulge in "the retirement speech," in which they "improbably recount" all their evil deeds.

To be satisfying, a plot must not be too simple, but neither should it be so intricate as to be "more complex than string theory." The "padded cell" plot is harder to pull off in the age of the mobile phone. In the "credibility arms race," having a character conveniently forget his phone is "a pointy stick," unless the author creates circumstances that make it plausible.

Subplots must be worked out and resolved. Unlike in real life, "in fiction, all problems are just the opening chords to a song." An alcoholic brother, a child with a lost dog, or someone with a broken down car cause readers to worry, and they "expect the author to do something about it."

Of all the ways to kill an editor's interest in your book, bad style is "the literary equivalent of a fast-acting poison," and "a droning or inarticulate voice can put a stop to all reading in a single sentence." The writers caution that "any threat of emotional resonance in a scene can be averted by the application of words like 'dysfunctional' or 'commitment-phobic.'" Vaunting one's vast vocabulary like "the puffer fish" puts editors and readers off too. It's unwise to indulge in the "past oblivious" tense in a novel, and "a large gray elephant is a yawning offence."

Writers are also cautioned against drawing attention to themselves, and against using fiction to rant about their own hobby horses. Those who hope to publish must remember that a novel "has needs of its own, and they are not the same as the author's."

The book also contains advice on dialogue, narrative stance and more. One of the most delightful passages is the Pop Quiz, in which the aspiring writer answers multiple choice questions to finish novel sentences. The scoring identifies the less skillful writer "sure to offend anyone" who belongs to the stereotyped group portrayed, or else "suffering from a bad case of predictability."

A mid range score hits "a reasonable balance for most forms of commercial fiction," but go too far the other way and you're advised to "try to be less creative." In a worst case scenario, "you have confused clever with annoying," and are wrong to believe "all those rejection slips are due to your shocking originality."

With a view to selling the novel, using the techniques of postmodernism is "baldly inimical to the novelist's goal of writing a story the reader can believe in." This charming guide ends by ironically lauding the classic errors authors make in approaching editors through query letters and synopses. Overall, the book was useful, thought-provoking, and great fun to read.

The far end of Lake Louise

 A few weeks ago, I hiked with a friend to the far end of Lake Louise. As we walked, the glacier hid behind a mountain shoulder. Beyond an expanse of mud and glacial till, it reappeared, looking not much closer. The Chateau Lake Louise looked very distant.


This view across the lake shows the impossibility of building a trail on the far side.