Wreford & Associates has been dormant for several quarters, so this poll is prepared for Geist by Ross Rosebery Mediatech, which continues to operate in non-dormant mode. Depositions were taken randomly at a major Canadian intersection.
When Robert Flaherty arrived at Inoucdjouac (on the east coast of Hudson Bay) in 1920 to begin making Nanook of the North, he had already completed a documentary of the Inuit five years earlier in the Belcher Islands. But the negative of the first movie exploded in 1915 when Flaherty let his cigarette get too near it.
Without any doubt the most important event of the 1994 publishing year is the re-appearance of George F. MacDonald’s definitive study, Haida Monumental Art (UBC Press).
The two biggest trends in literature right now are spoken word and cybertext. The first is framed in a performance setting by wannabe rock stars, the second is played out on a computer by individuals dubbed cyber-punks. Neither come to mind as “literature.” Christian Bök, author of Crystallography (Coach House), is a young Toronto poet widely associated with both.
When a book by Eric Wright arrives at the Geist office, I snap it up. I’m a mystery buff and Wright is one of my favourites. But Moodie’s Tale (Key Porter), which just came in, is not a mystery; it’s a humorous story about an Englishman who finds himself zooming up the academic ladder from English instructor to president of the W. C. Van Horne Institute of Technological Arts in one academic year—entirely due to other peoples’ political manoeuvering.
The first thing that strikes you about The Woman Who Loved Airports (Press Gang) is what a good title it is; happily, the second thing is what a good book it is. The short stories by Marusya Bociurkiw, are mostly about lesbians, although some are about Ukrainians too.
The Montreal Gazette reports that Réjean Ducharme, whose new novel Va Savoir is at the top of the bestseller list, has released a photograph of him after a photographic hiatus of twenty-five years, or, in the words of the Gazette caption writer, “a quarter-century.” The photograph was unveiled by Ducharme’s publisher (Editions Gallimard) in a trendy bar on St. Laurent Blvd.
The Utne Reader served us coffee aficionados a treat this month, by devoting the November/December issue to a study of the enigmatic bean. Of the nine pieces included in the “Coffee Madness” section, Mark Schapiro’s “Muddy Waters” is the most enlightening.
The Voice Literary Supplement for October was full of special treats, not the least of which was a profile of Marguerite Young, author of Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, a novel that I remembered from the seventies but had never read.
Soon after reading Moodie’s Tale I ran across Death by Degrees (Doubleday), which features Wright’s Inspector Charlie Salter, a middle-aged detective just as perplexed by the ironies of life as the rest of us. Death by Degrees takes place at a community college in Toronto which bears a striking resemblance to the Van Horne Institute in Moodie’s Tale.
