A friend of mine called the other day, just to chat. We talked and gossiped for a while. Then she said, “Well, Jen, the real reason I called is because I was reorganizing my father’s bookshelves this morning, and I realized that when you write a book, I won’t know where to file it. My mother says it should go with American lit, but I maintain that since you still don’t have citizenship, I would have to file it under ‘Former Colonial Nations.’ What do you think?”
What I really thought was that if she was rearranging her father’s bookshelves by nationality, then she clearly needed a hobby. But what I said was, “Well, since I don’t have American citizenship, why wouldn’t you file it under ‘Canadian literature’?”
My friend laughed, and, as usual, a small part of my soul died. They always laugh, “they” being every person I’ve ever met in my 10 years of residence in the United States to whom I’ve ever mentioned that Canada, like most nation-states currently recognized by the United Nations, has a national literature. “What?” They say. “I’ve never heard of a Canadian author! You’re lying!” I get the same thing if I mention in passing my intention to write the Great Canadian Novel. Laughter, incredulity (and not just at the idea that I could write a great novel), finger-pointing and teeheeing, every time.
I just don’t understand why it’s such a big freaking deal. No one is at all surprised by the idea of “British literature” or “Russian literature.” There’s a long tradition of French literature and of Spanish literature. Georgetown even offers a class on Appalachian Literature, and last time I checked Appalachia didn’t have its own currency, form of government, anthem or anything. So why is the idea of a Canadian literary tradition so patently ridiculous to most people? I suspect the answer is that most Americans don’t think that Canada has a culture sufficiently different from their own to would require a separate literature. But this is patently false. Apart from a wildly different colonial history, Canada has had different patterns of immigration, a different political culture, a different language (French, for those keeping track at home) and a different atmosphere. We’re different, damn it! And we have authors who are the product of that difference, who, like all authors who lay claim to greatness, explore both national themes and larger, human themes.
Oprah’s current Book Club selection, Fall on Your Knees, is by Canadian Ann-Marie MacDonald. The English Patient was written by Canadian Michael Ondaatje. The term “Generation X” was coined by Canadian Douglas Coupland in his 1991 book of the same name. But I digress. To list a bunch of high quality authors of Canadian citizenship is not my point. My point is that the academic and intellectual elites of this country, as well as the average man or woman on the street, have no idea that this genre exists, and it pisses me off.
But I can’t blame them wholly for their obliviousness. It’s not as if those who develop university and high school curricula are falling over themselves to include Canadian literature in their classes, or even to mention it in passing. I’m not asking for a Canadian Studies department?I could have gone to any number of recognized universities in Canada if I had wanted that. But is a class on the topic too much to ask? To be fair, there is a class in the French department that I have personally taken that is devoted to Quebecois literature. But come on, there’s just as much anglophone stuff out there.
I suppose that in the end, this is all self-serving. I just want people to stop laughing at me when I mention the literature that issues from my home and native land. I mean, yes, of course, I want the populace at large to be aware of a shamefully underexposed and underappreciated body of work. I want recognition for a literature that shapes and is shaped by a distinct culture. But most of all I want people to stop sneering. And I want my own bookshelf category.
Jennifer Ernst is a senior in the College and editor-in-chief of The Georgetown Voice. Deportation is her greatest fear.
