A Quickie CanLit Canon

 

A Kiwi friend has asked me what the essential canon of Canadian literature is, for the sake of teaching a Chinese high schooler.

These are the pillars of Canadian literature, which are the foundation for everything else. 

1. Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables. The character of Anne reappears constantly in Canadian literature. And this book established children’s literature as the most Canadian genre.

2. Stephen Leacock, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town. This established humour as the essential Canadian tone. And, with Anne, the small town as the essential Canadian setting.

3. Robert W. Service, Songs of a Sourdough. Especially the two poems “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” and “The Cremation of Sam McGee.” The essential Canadian experience of the north, and the theme of survival in the face of an overwhelming climate and geography. And a focus on ordinary working people and their problems. Canadian culture is a folk culture, not “high art.” 

4. John McCrae, “In Flanders Fields.” The First World War was Canada’s coming of age.

5. Roch Carrier, “The Hockey Sweater,” aka “The Sweater.” Although more recent than other selections, a universally beloved, lighthearted analysis of Canada’s culturally binary nature.

Not that much to read, and not hard reading, but this is what anyone needs to understand Canadian literature.

Other important books worth considering, if and when you get through these:

Al Purdy, “The Country North of Belleville.” That one contains a lot of the Canadian experience.

Mordecai Richler, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. Richler’s short story “The Street” would be a good shorter alternative. The essential Canadian immigrant experience.

Gabrielle Roy, The Tin Flute.

W.O. Mitchell, Who Has Seen the Wind?

Brian Moore, The Luck of Ginger Coffey.

Alice Munro is a good choice too. First Canadian to win the Nobel for Literature, and her “small town gothic” is a deep expression of the Canadian soul.