Feature

The Evolving Canadiana
What Makes a Text Canadian — The Citizenship of Its Author or the Culture-Specific Insight of Its Prose?

by Lorie Boucher

Assigning nationality to a text is common practice — a method of categorizing a chaotic assembly of works into easily recognizable, and saleable, slots. The citizenship of an author is considered, by some, to be an adequate marker of the type of texts he or she creates. Yet the notion that Canadian authors produce "Canadian" texts is problematic and restrictive. It presupposes a definitive Canadian culture on which the author may draw, an inability of the author to supersede his or her cultural inputs, and an acceptance that individual voices can speak for a diverse nation. So why do we gather unlike texts under the "Canadian" umbrella? Unity is comforting, but diversity is reality in the realm of Canadian literature.

What Is "Canadian"?

Canadian cultural identity has long evaded definition. So too has its representation in literary works. Attempts to determine a true Canadiana peaked in literary criticism circles in the 1970s, not coincidentally alongside an upsurge in Canadian political nationalism. Common themes were identified, such as isolation, wilderness, and the Great White North. These motifs, it was decided, were true reflections of a uniquely "Canadian" experience. Not all texts, however, fell so easily into these analytical slots. Unlikely associations were forged between dissimilar texts linked only by the citizenship of their authors. Many Canadian texts resisted such simple classification, exposing the failure of imposed homogeneity on a body of diverse work.

Canada is not easily broken down into component parts that translate readily into common literary themes. Perhaps this is because our politics, economy, and sociology are largely regional. The issues that affect our daily lives are disparate and region-specific. East coast fisheries, west coast environmentalism, northern self-government, and southern urbanism — these elements inform our experience in a far more direct way than national ideals. Immigration and separation issues contribute to an ever-evolving "Canadian" consciousness, which cannot be distilled so easily into identifiable themes. The sheer variety of cultural inputs resists simple characterization; there is no stable set of cultural markers from which an author may draw. How then, can a text be described meaningfully as "Canadian"? The Canadian experience does not exist as a uniform consciousness. Insisting that it does and proving it with coincidental linkages is limiting and simplistic. "Canadian" may be a convenient identifier, but it is unreliable and outdated.

Writing Outside the Box

Even if a homogeneous and stable Canadian culture could be identified, would writers necessarily draw on it and reflect it in their works? Those who stress the importance of an author’s nationality, Canadian or otherwise, implicitly assume that the author is both a passive product and mirror of his or her era. The Canadian writer becomes at once a sponge and filter for all things "Canadian." Yet writers are more than products of their culture — the creative mind can supersede the limits of its inputs. Placing undue relevance on a Canadian writer’s citizenship implies that the writer is what he/she writes, that the act of writing is necessarily a presentation of a uniquely Canadian self. But writers routinely overcome their environmental boundaries and write outside of their cultural context. Canadian poet Leonard Cohen writes:

Dance me to your beauty
with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic
till I’m gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch
and be my homeward dove ...
Dance me to the end of love

— Leonard Cohen, "Dance Me to the End of Love"

Cohen does not infuse his poetry with particularly Canadian images. In the above excerpt he invokes the Mediterranean olive branch, not the maple leaf. He addresses a universal theme — love — his longing for which does not appear to be derivative of any extended visit to the lonely Canadian bush. This is not to say that other Canadian authors do not make use of "Canadian" imagery. Native writer Molly Chisaakay writes:

The blue skies reach far to the horizon,
clouds move lazily overhead, and the camp-fire crackles,
the soft breeze touches the tall grass,
the loon calls far away, the mosquitoes hum, and swarm around ...

— Molly Chisaakay, "Habay"

Is Cohen less Canadian than Chisaakay? Which is the more "Canadian" text? While Chisaakay’s "Habay" employs wilderness imagery that is arguably Canadian, not all of her poems do. Chisaakay’s native heritage further confuses the issue of nationality-imbued texts. How do poems like Chisaakay’s "The Elder’s Drum" fit in? When Chisaakay writes outside of herself, outside of her Canadian and native selves, she is no less Canadian, although her texts appear free of cultural constraints. Writers, and the works they create, are more than composite products of ice storms, fiddle music, hockey arenas, poutine, and sweet grass. Writers create — sometimes out of something they know, and sometimes out of nothing at all.

The undefined Canadian identity makes it an untrustworthy qualifier, the writer’s ability to overcome it makes it unimportant.

Reading Between the Lines

The importance placed on an author’s citizenship can be detrimental to the reading experience, as it elicits preconceptions about the text before the reading experience has even begun. It builds expectations, which serve to filter out competing elements. "Oh, that’s Canadian," a reader is led to think, and expects what? Sled dogs and northern lights? Slotting texts into easily recognizable (though reductive) channels is a reliable crutch; the constant provision of that crutch, however, inhibits us from ever walking alone. Why look any deeper than the author’s biography to unlock textual secrets? He’s Canadian! Doesn’t that say it all?

Assigning the "Canadian" qualifier to not just the author, but to the text he or she creates, streams the reader’s thoughts down specific interpretive channels toward a common gulf of analysis. The experience of reading and mulling over and arriving at personal conclusions is de-emphasized. By imprinting citizenship and nationality into the minds of readers before they read a text, their opinions, even subconsciously, are fitted to the expectation of what Canadian literature is and should be. Literature requires its readers to be creative. Identifying literature according to the citizenship of its creator ruins the experience by providing a formula and a handy answer booklet.

Can One Speak for Many?

Many world literatures are used as cultural indicators by both readers and historians. When a text is touted as Canadian, it is assumed that between its lines lies a uniquely Canadian expression of creativity, perhaps even an insight into what it is like to be Canadian. But one voice, or even a small collection of voices, be they the most creative, honest, and nation-proud voices of all, cannot speak for such a diverse country. Writers do not define a nation; they produce small microcosms into which its citizens can escape. Writers are not elected. They are not representative. Saying with any conviction "This is Canadian" removes writing from the realm of fiction and transposes it into reality, infusing it with the responsibility of spokesmanship.

Assigning Canadian identity to a work also makes us feel like it belongs to us somehow, that we are not only consumers of the text, but contributors as well. Why are we proud when a Canadian is praised in literary, or any other, circles? Because we as a nation have produced this winner. Lack of support for the Canadian arts (including all things literary) would suggest otherwise, but when a Canadian writer gains international acclaim, we claim it as our own, with pride. After all, it is Canadian.

And So ...

It is natural to want a unified set of qualifying cultural elements, and to want these elements expressed beautifully in a national body of literature wherein each text reflects a uniquely Canadian perspective. Such homogeneity leads to a comfortable sense of cultural identity, and contributes to national pride. This, however, is not the Canadian reality. Canadian texts are as different as Canadians themselves, and reflect vastly divergent life experiences, perceptions, and methods of expression. The sheer variety of works produced by Canadian authors are a testament to our diversity; describing them as simply "Canadian" is too simple to be truly meaningful.

How, then, should texts penned by Canadian authors be identified, if the term "Canadian" is an unstable qualifier? There is no simple answer. Perhaps it is enough to read consciously, to be aware of the resistance of these texts to simple characterization, and to reassert our own abilities, as readers, to decipher individual texts for themselves and not in view of an unrelated political identity crisis. Maybe it is enough to recognize that we are different, instead of searching for ways to be the same.

Lorie Boucher is a Canadian writer and editor who consistently resists characterization. It can be said with certainty, however, that she is a Contributing Editor for Writer’s Block.