DOWNTOWN CANADA: WRITING CANADIAN CITIES The vast majority of Canadians live in cities yet, for the most part, discussions of Canadian literature have failed to engage actively with the country’s urban experience. Canada’s prevalent myths continue to be about nordicity and the wilderness, and, stereotypically, its literature is often perceived as being about small towns, rural areas, and ‘roughing it in the bush.’ Downtown Canada is a collection of essays that addresses Canada as an urban place. The contributors focus their attention on the writing of Canada’s cities – including Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Halifax – and call attention to the centrality of the city in Canadian literature. They examine how characters are affected by the urban expe- rience in works by authors as diverse as the country itself: Hugh MacLennan, Jovette Marchessault, Michael Ondaatje, Austin Clarke, and Gerald Lynch, to name just a few. Editors Justin D. Edwards and Douglas Ivison have brought together an esteemed group of interna- tional Canadian literary scholars. Together they have created a book that is timely and unique, questioning conventional assumptions about Canadian literature, and Canadian culture more generally. justin d. edwards is an associate professor in the Department of Eng- lish at the University of Copenhagen. douglas ivison is an assistant professor in the Department of English at Lakehead University. This page intentionally left blank Downtown Canada Writing Canadian Cities Edited by Justin D. Edwards and Douglas Ivison UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com © University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2005 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-8720-5 (cloth) ISBN 0-8020-8668-3 (paper) Printed on acid-free paper Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Downtown Canada : writing Canadian cities / edited by Justin D. Edwards and Douglas Ivison. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-8020-8720-5 (bound) ISBN 0-8020-8668-3 (pbk.) 1. Canadian fiction – 20th century – History and criticism. 2. City and town life in literature. 3. Canadian literature – 20th century – History and criticism. 4. Literature and society – Canada. I. Edwards, Justin D., 1970– II. Ivison, Douglas, 1968– (cid:0) PS8101.C55D69 2005 C813.5409321732 C2005-901385-0 University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP). Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction: Writing Canadian Cities 3 douglas ivison and justin d. edwards ‘An Ordered Absence’: Defeatured Topologies in Canadian Literature 14 richard cavell ‘Orient Dreams’: Urbanity and the Post-Confederation Literary Culture of Ottawa 32 steven artelle Post-colonial Historicity: Halifax, Region, and Empire in Barometer Rising and The Nymph and the Lamp 50 christopher j. armstrong La ville en vol/City in Flight: Tracing Lesbian E-Motion through Jovette Marchessault’s Comme un enfant de la terre 65 barbara godard Cities and Classrooms, Bodies and Texts: Notes towards a Resident Reading (and Teaching) of Vancouver Writing 78 peter dickinson vi Contents Lost in the City: The Montreal Novels of Régine Robin and Robert Majzels 104 domenic beneventi Building and Living the Immigrant City: Michael Ondaatje’s and Austin Clarke’s Toronto 122 batia boe stolar Divided Cities, Divided Selves: Portraits of the Artist as Ambivalent Urban Hipster 142 lisa salem-wiseman Rewriting White Flight: Suburbia in Gerald Lynch’s Troutstream and Joan Barfoot’s Dancing in the Dark 166 paul milton Duelling and Dwelling in Toronto and London: Transnational Urbanism in Catherine Bush’s The Rules of Engagement 183 john clement ball Epilogue 197 justin d. edwards and douglas ivison Works Cited 209 Contributors 225 Acknowledgments This collection had its genesis in a panel organized by Douglas Ivison for the Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English at the 2001 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences in Quebec City. Our thanks go out to the panel participants – John Clem- ent Ball, Ann Martin, Paul Milton, and Andrew Richardson – and the audience; without the enthusiasm of both participants and audience members, this project would have gone no further. The idea for Down- town Canada originated in a discussion at the ACCUTE wine and cheese reception during that same conference. Downtown Canada has been long in the making. Thus, we would like to begin by thanking everyone involved for their patience and commit- ment to the project. The anonymous readers for the University of Toronto Press provided invaluable criticism and suggestions, including the ref- erence to Sesame Park. Siobhan McMenemy of the press was all that anyone could ask an editor to be – committed, helpful, and patient. We also wish to thank the Danish Association of Canadian Studies for providing a grant toward the publication of this book. As well, we would like to thank the English departments at the University of Copenhagen, University of Western Ontario, Memorial University of Newfoundland, and Lakehead University for the intellectual support and encouragement they have provided for this project and our other work. Douglas Ivison was the recipient of a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada when much of the initial work on this project was done. For their diligence and persistence, and especially for the clarity and intelligence viii Acknowledgments of their insights, we are most grateful to the authors of the essays contained herein; finally, this volume is theirs. A version of John Clement Ball’s chapter appears in his book Imagin- ing London: Postcolonial Fiction and the Transnational Metropolis (Toronto, 2004). DOWNTOWN CANADA