Connections: An alternative theme?

The pieces of literature introduced to us over the course of this term in english 101 were to have a common theme. That theme was meant to involve or incorporate Vancouver into each of the stories. This incorporation could have been through the authors background, the setting of the novel, etc. The further along the course has gone; another theme seems to have arisen. The theme of time. The relativity and importance of time incorporated throughout the literature in this course has been consistent. Vancouver Short Stories, for the most part, connected us with our past. A tunnel through time was created to give us a better perspective of our past and the origins of our culture. Innocent Traveller by Ethel Wilson tells us a story about a young girl, Topaz and her trials and tribulations through life. However, time can be argued to have stood still for her. There are no significant changes, she is essentially the same women throughout the book. Margaret Avison’s collection of poetry in Always Now has some vague references to time, but I will leave it to another blog to determine whether or not this is a work of fiction or not. Moving on, Douglas Coupland’s Hey Nostradamus! is broken into four parts. Each part has its own view upon a certain event in time. The focal point of the book has seemed to be frozen in time, with the different views revolving around it. When one combines the outlook of the main characters, their views don’t fit together. They’re perception of time seems fragmented. The book does not flow in a timeline as many novels have. Each new chapter throws you into a new time period. Finally, Gibsons, All Tomorrow’s Parties, is set in a distant time from now. This perception of what life could be like is created in a place where time doesn’t exist. Gibson, being a normal human being, is unable to predict the future. He must use his imagination, where time is irrelevant, to create this place.

All Tomorrow's Parties: Authenticity or Authentic Fakes?

An interesting topic in Gibson’s All Tomorrow’s Parties is the value or worthlessness of authentic objects. Nothing in this world is different from what is next to it, making the best available more important that originality. I believe that this concept is evident in how we look at computers today. All computers are generally the same whether one looks at their structural properties or their software. Originality no longer has anything to do with how valuable they are; the only thing that makes one more desirable than the other is how good (functional) they are. In All Tomorrow’s Parties Fontaine worships originals while Carson is infatuated with fakes that look identical to the original. I believe that Fontaine displays an older attitude style which idealizes originals because of their rarity. Today scarcity makes something much more valuable, but Gibson displays that in the future he sees, people will no longer value things for their originality. Chevette described Carson as caring “deeply about this absolutely authentic fake stuff” (171). It’s likely that this “authentic fake stuff” is very widely dispersed and therefore is not valuable because of its scarcity/originality.

Iser and Gibson's Relationship

In Iser’s article Interaction Between Text and Reader, he states that when reading a novel, it is not just about what the author is saying in the text, but the connections the reader has to make between the words written in the text and what the author is implying. This is done by the author leaving “gaps” in the book to allow the reader to link the communication between what is said and not said. All Tomorrow’s Parties by William Gibson demonstrates Iser’s idea. With numerous fragmented sentences, and short, random chapters all throughout the book, Gibson leaves these “gaps” to be filled in by the reader.

The parts in the book where I felt I had to fill in the gaps to make these connections were during the beginning of the book when Laney is describing the stalker effect of the 5-SB. What is the stalker effect of the 5-SB? Is it a type of drug that causes people to end up in the cardboard city? Or why does Fontaine take care of Silencio and brings him along when he meets his wife? He could have just left him in the back of the shop searching for watches on the notebook. By inserting gaps into text, it allows the reader to ask questions about what the author is trying to tell audience members. Readers answer their own questions which help bridge these gaps to link the communication between the text and the reader. When Gibson has short, concise chapters and fragmented sentences, it leaves a lot of blank spaces for the reader to fill in to allow them to have the opportunity to make the novel much more interesting for them to read.

Certainty Breeds Extremists

Coupland's Hey Nostradamus! is meant to instill doubt in his readers. He seems to have a unique perception on the concept of doubt and faith. Doubt, a word with a more or less negative connotation, is viewed as by Coupland as admirable. With doubt, there is uncertainty and with uncertainty comes humility and an open mind. Without doubt, certainty builds, which leads to arrogance and eventually, closed mindedness. A closed minded individual is often defined as one who is unable to accept ideas or concepts foreign to him. This can be seen in Reg's character during Jason's childhood in Hey Nostradamus!, but how does this lack of doubt translate in the everyday world? One of the ways this lack of doubt parallels reality is religious extremists. If the lack of doubt breed closed mindedness, this would probably be a good explanation as to how extremist groups are formed. Within any religious organization there are likely individuals who are unable to see their situation from a perspective other than their own. These are individuals who bury themselves within the rulebook of their religion and take every vain detail of it to heart and persecute those who don't take their point of view. These closed minded few then isolated themselves from the rest of the organization, where their reassurance of each other further withers the almost nonexistent doubt within them. Soon they take a violent step in their cause in order to draw attention to them or their ideology, justifying their actions as some holy or moral deed for the greater good. This is how extremists are born. This is why Coupland tries to instill doubt in his readers. A doubtless individual with blind faith in his religion can lead to dangerous outcomes due to their inability to listen to reason.

All Tomorrow's Parties: Gibson's Purpose

It is more than likely that William Gibson had some alternate motive other than profit when composing All Tomorrow's Parties. The world described in the novel is one that is very differant from that of today's and the immense differances can be said to create awareness towards certain aspects of modern society. Gibson illuminates many problems within today's society but it seems one of the major differances between reality and All Tomorrow's Parties' reality is that of social and moral degradation, an issue that he puts much emphasis on. The openning chapters describe this high-tech world that is spotted with homelessness, poverty and prolific use of drugs. However unusual to the audience, it seems to be a norm to the people of All Tomorrow's Parties; the homeless go unnoticed and the drug usage is socially accepted. Although these differances seem remote, Gibson tries to suggest that today's society, although not completely submerged in the social and moral degradation, is in fact on the same path as the society in All Tomorrow's Parties. His immplied audience is one that lives in a somewhat socially responsible community, one which still cares for the homeless and the poor. However, many in today's society are still blind to the social issues that plauge their community and by comparing the real world with Gibson's fictional world, readers begin to understand the importance of social awareness. Small steps towards the same social degradation go unnoticed by people in today's society but with time would eventually lead to a world similar to that of All Tomorrow's Parties; a world where the homeless are left to be as they are and all perception of time is lost in the vast world of cyberspace and drugs.

Hey Nostradamus!: Are we conditioned to accept violence without shock?

I was inspired to discuss how violence is represented in today’s society by the film Elephant. An important message that Hey Nostradamus! and Elephant both give their audience is how mundane and almost natural violence has become in our society.
In Elephant, the shooters are filmed in a style much like a video game; while the shooter is on the hunt the player sees the back of his head, but while the shooter is about to commit an act of violence, the audience receives a view of the shooter’s face. I believe this is an assertion to how we casually accept much of today’s violence as being “a game.” The way the shooters were taking action was as if what they were doing didn’t really matter. In childhood we often learn that when you’re playing a game, your not “playing for keeps,” I think the shooters were acting in such a way. Rather than interpreting what level of maturity they showed, I think their attitudes about what they were doing reflected how violence in our society has become such a mundane action that we no longer give it the attention or perhaps the fear that it deserves.
The same concept of how natural violence has become in our society is present in Hey Nostradamus! However, Douglas Coupland chose to represent the casualness of violence by connecting it to food. Of all things in society food is one that is often discussed in a mundane manner. We connect food to positive things, and Coupland provides a waking prod when he connects violence in Hey Nostradamus! with food. Jason describes the cafeteria as having “bodies [lay] all around, like Halloween pumpkins smashed on the road on the morning of November first.” (57) Associating violent deaths with food shows how violence has become a commonplace affair in today’s society.

Belief and Doubt in Hey Nostradamus!

Belief and doubt are a major concept in Douglas Coupland’s Hey Nostradamus. The title of the book, Hey Nostradamus means “Hail Our Lady” which is a spiritual request to a higher form of belief. The cover portrays an image of a person kneeling, possibly in prayer, or reversed, a question mark. This is directly related to Coupland’s concepts of belief and doubt. Kneeling symbolizes a person’s faith in God, while the question mark represents an individual’s uncertainty. The front cover of the book represents doubt and open mindedness, both essential for belief.

Hey Nostradamus is divided into four sections. Each section is narrated by a character that represents a stage in the hierarchy system of faith; heaven, purgatory, limbo and hell. When the character Reg is first introduced in the book, the reader is given the impression that he represents hell because he is not open minded and arrogant at times. For a number of years, Reg held strong religious beliefs towards God and believed that he gave him a mission, which would explain why Reg was always so distant from his surroundings. After the shooting when Jason was considered to be a hero, Reg was jealous that God had favored his son in granting him with a mission and not himself. After the death of Kent and the disappearance of Jason, Reg’s only two sons, he begins to have doubt in his faith and has a confession for all his weaknesses. Reg undergoes a change and begins to see the world from a different perspective. Coupland uses the character of Reg to display his concept that when a person has strong religious beliefs, doubt needs to be considered as well.

Poetry and Fiction Walk Hand in Hand

One may often wonder in what ways poetry can relate to other types of fiction. On the surface, it may be hard to find the commonalities. Poetry is often considerably shorter than most types of fiction, there are no rules for grammar, there doesn’t need to be any characters, and is often filled with many adjectives that describe the title or subject at hand. However, the two main connections that poetry has with fiction is that they’re both works of literature and they are both intended to be read. As with all types of literature, I find that they are meant to engage, enlighten, entertain, and/or educate those reading it.

Always Now, by Margaret Avison contains many poems that are short in length but are full of meaning. Canadian culture and the Canadian environment are the common themes within her poems. Her vivid use of colour and the way she engages our imagination throughout her poetry allows us to connect with her poems. This obviously engages a Canadian reader, as it plays upon our knowledge of our surroundings. It also has the ability to enlighten and educate others to the Canadian landscape if they are not from here.

Poetry is meant to be analysed. Poets often use different techniques to disguise the meaning behind their poems and for us to uncover those meanings is how we advance our literary understanding. This new knowledge can be applied to fiction as well. Authors in novels often use the same literary devices as poets but go unnoticed because we are not trained to notice it in fiction. We are taught to look for characters, plot, climax, theme etc. in fiction but are rarely ever told to look for metaphors, irony, double meanings like we are for poetry. If by reading Always Now, we are able to expand our knowledge of literature, then "titles" like poetry and fiction are insignificant; they are one in the same.

Who is Ethel Wilson?

Ethel Wilson was born in South Africa and was orphaned after moving to England in 1890. Eventually she came to Canada where she received her teaching certificate. She did not publish her first works until the 1940’s, and she did not receive great recognition until 1964 when she was awarded the Royal Society of Canada’s Lorne Pierce Medal and the Canadian Council Medal.
The experiences of Ethel Wilson are strongly reflected in her writing, specifically in “The Innocent Traveller.” The main character, Topaz Edgeworth travels to Canada from England after growing up in a Victorian Methodist household like Wilson herself. Later in the novel, the character Rose comes to Vancouver to stay with her maternal great aunt, Topaz, following the death of her father. This was surely influenced by Wilson’s 1898 departure to Vancouver from England to stay with her maternal grandmother following the death of her father. The entire novel has a definite childlike spirit embodied in the timelessly innocent and relentlessly talkative Topaz. In many ways, Topaz has the persona of a young child in elementary school and it’s no coincidence that Wilson, a woman who taught for thirteen years in Vancouver elementary schools, created such a character.
The novel, which is comprised of short stories, is autobiographical albeit quite unrevealing. However, Wilson manages to convey the importance of several themes of human nature. Likely from her experiences of loss at a young age, Wilson comments on the importance of time, and hints about how it plays a character in one’s life.

Criticism: an Attempt at a Closer Look

It has become apparent from common student response that The Innocent Traveller, written by Ethel Wilson was not the most well recieved novel read by its teenage readers. Although it has been acclaimed countless times by the literary critics as a tremendously well written novel, it still failed to spurr the interest of the majority of the students. Is it possible that young people in today's society have difficulty appreciating award winning literature? Or could it simply be that Wilson's target audience was not teenagers? The Innocent traveller included many important ideas such as the concept of time; the various stages of it effecting individuals in other periods. An example of this is seen when Topaz hears sounds at night and remembers Mrs. Porter's story of Pan, which in turn leads to a realization that there are greater beings at work than the insignificant humans of the visible world; the post works on the present. However, it is questionable whether the average teenager reading The Innocent Traveller would be insightful enough to catch this important revelation. Although the novel is well written, providing very vivid images of Europe and Canada, the deeper concepts that make it more enjoyable are sometimes difficult to find and without those, the story becomes flat and boring. The protagonist Topaz undergoes some revelations but the changes that result from them are not permanent, making Topaz more or less a static character. A large portion of the plot seems to lead nowhere, boring readers until maybe halfway into the book, where the story becomes slightly more interesting. Needless to say Wilson probably did not mean for plot and character to be the main source of interest in her novel. There is not much to The Innocent Traveller on the surface, however, there are some deeper themes hidden underneath that make it a prized work of literature. It is possible that Wilson hid these too well for the average teenager to enjoy this novel beyond its grey, bland surface.

Pauline Johnson

Pauline Johnson, an astonishing writer and poet who expresses her pride for her Native European heritage through writing, is one of Vancouver’s most acknowledged authors. She was born on the Six Nation Indian Reserve in Ontario, and was the youngest daughter of four to G.H. Johnson, a Chief Mohawk and Emily Susanna Howells, an English woman.

Johnson first began writing poetry on Native themes after the death of her father. After settling in Vancouver, a Squamish Chief by the name of Joe Capilano inspired her to write stories in which she incorporates his legends in “The Two Sisters” and “The Siwash Rock.” In “The Two Sisters,” the tall twin peaks which are referred to as “The Lions” to many Canadian’s living in Vancouver, is not the name recognized to many Indian tribes. Instead, the Indian tribes refer to the tall twin peaks as “The Two Sisters,” because of an ancient tale about cultural traditions. A similar idea is approached in “The Siwash Rock,” where the central idea is about the principles and standards of having an unsoiled fatherhood to enter an infant into the world. Johnson includes the legends and myths she learned in the past from family members and acquaintances into her poems and short stories she wrote as an adult.

Johnson’s passion for her Native and European background is written for a non-Native audience, which is expressed in English based on Native themes about First Nations legends and cultural values. She died in Vancouver in 1913, and is remembered for her writing that illustrates her aboriginal heritage.

Vancouver: Through Diverse Eyes

It stands to argue that, generally, the authors of the short stories have portrayed Vancouver in a positive light. What is more interesting to note, is the cultural diversity from which these portrayals originate. Some are First Nations, others were born in England and China, while some were born around here in both Victoria and Vancouver. As one reads through these unique perspectives, an image of Vancouver is easily developed. If it happens to be that this reader is unfamiliar with the landscape and culture of Vancouver, it is safe to say that these outlooks are accurate for the time period from which they are referring to. "In Vancouver" depicts Vancouver as a place where loggers come to rest, re-fuel and restock their supplies in the early 20th Century. "The Two Sisters" and "The Siwash Rock" both show a Vancouver that is rich with Aboriginal culture and full of beautiful landscapes. "Forgiveness in Families", "A cup of Coffee"and "The Jade Peony" were written a little later on in the 20th century and show the growth of Vancouver with references to hospitals, mills, and various shops and convenience stores. This graduation to modernity shows that the representations of Vancouver are not static and are changing and growing with the city. If one were to step back and look at all the viewpoints as a whole, the impression would be that of a city which was once a logging community with a beautiful landscape that has now grown into that of a more modern city with a diverse culture