Comments on: Canada’s an urban nation. Why is our literature still down on the farm?

By: Fuck the (CanLit) Farm Novel? « Scrawled in Wax

Fuck the (CanLit) Farm Novel? « Scrawled in Wax — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 04:40:00 +0000

[...] know there are some Canadian Literature nerds who occasionally read this blog, so… Is CanLit too rural? My initial response to this was “Yes! God, yes!” – until I remembered that I may [...]

By: JJJ

JJJ — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:37:15 +0000

Perhaps he's also forgetting that the largest urban centres of Canada are uninspiring dumps.

By: Vicky

Vicky — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:33:30 +0000

oops, I apparently can't write either! 24 CanLit classics in 12 months…

By: Vicky

Vicky — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:32:14 +0000

You would have a field day with my list of books for my new adventure: reading 24 CanLit classics in 12 books.

By: B. L. Wagner

B. L. Wagner — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:25:06 +0000

Wow! The author certainly doesn't *get* the spiritual connection to land, eh? Too bad.

By: Arjun

Arjun — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:39:04 +0000

I agree more or less with this piece. It’s ironic that much of Canada’s french literature lives in an urban place. Of course, there are stories from the farm and the agrarian past but the majority of books in QueLit are modern, contemporary and urban. My own writing has been called “urban” and I’m pretty sure it was used an epithet. The idea of Canada in literature is struggling under the weight of Atwood’s own “Survival” – and the previous commenter may have singled out Douglas Coupland, but he has never considered himself CanLit and if you ask him, most of the CanLit establishment doesn’t consider him CanLit either. Another fabulous writer you can add to this: Timothy Taylor. Also quite “urban” in a DeLillo-esque kind of way.

By: Dominique

Dominique — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:54:04 +0000

You seem to be ignoring Mordechai Richler (streets of Montreal), Robertson Davies (hardly a rural maven), Kim Moritsugu, Joan Barfoot, Douglas Coupland (not much of a farm boy either) and countless others. Last I read, Oryx and Crake, from Margaret Atwood, didn't have a single chicken in it either. I think you're being overly selective. Or you haven't been reading the same CanLit that many awards juries have.