Serious Business in Fifth Business

Robertson Davies is a serious man with a serious beard. Judging by his picture, you might think that he wrote in the glory days of seriously-bearded serious men. But actually, he lived until 1995. While most of his contemporaries were preoccupied with writing about the pointlessness of human life, Davies wrote a novel about guilt and moral responsibility. That novel is Fifth Business.

The novel places its defining moment right at the beginning. I will quote a summary from the splendid introduction in my edition: “On a winter’s day in Deptford, a village of five hundred in southern Ontario, Percy Boyd Staunton throws a barrage of snowballs out of spite at his friend and rival Dunstan Ramsay, who is on his way home for dinner following an afternoon of sledding. The last snowball contains hidden in it a stone. Dunstan ducks the ball and it hits the young bride Mrs. Dempster, out on a walk with her husband, the Baptist minister. The pregnant Mrs. Dempster gives birth prematurely by three months; the baby, Paul, barely survives; and the woman becomes ‘simple.’ Dunstan Ramsay is wracked with guilt” (Vassanji ix).

“How do you deal with a guilty conscience?” This is not the kind of guilt over tossing organic garbage in a non-organic bin. This is the guilt that comes from changing the course of someone’s life for the worse. Fifth Business uses a snowball to explore that question, but it could just as easily be an at-fault car accident or a practical joke gone wrong. This kind of situation is part of the human experience, and Robertson Davies does us a great service to take up the question.

The novel examines two ways to deal with guilt, represented by Percy and Dunstan. Percy, who actually threw the snowball, manages his guilt with outright denial. In the days following the accident, he bullies Dunstan into silence. At the novel’s climax – the confrontation between Percy, Dunstan, and Paul – Percy claims he has no recollection of the accident: “I really don’t remember... I don’t remember what is of no use to me” (251). Apparently, he has edited his memory to erase the incident. In the end, however, his façade cracks under the crushing weight of suppressed guilt. Percy takes his own life later that same night.

Fifth Business focuses most on Dunstan’s effort to deal with his conscience. After the accident, he does his best to help the Dempster family by taking care of chores and errands. He sticks up for Mrs. Dempster whenever anyone mocks her. His strategy is not to deny or run away – instead, he hopes to somehow balance the scales of cosmic justice. He goes off to fight in WWI, and in some sense he feels that losing a leg in battle helps to repay his moral debt. But his conscience won’t allow it: “the war and my adult life had banked down that fire but not quenched it” (129). He spends the rest of his adult life trying to make atonement by caring for Mrs. Dempster and providing for her. In the end, though, it seems that nothing will take away his burden of guilt and secrecy.

The novel does not end with a question mark. Dunstan’s final action is to write a memoir of his entire life’s story, beginning with the accident, and he address it to his former headmaster. That memoir is the novel in our hands. We have no indication that Dunstan knew his headmaster well; he simply explains that “when I am dead at least one man will know the truth about me and do me justice” (110). After a lifetime of trying to balance the scales in secrecy, Dunstan resorts to confession.

I find Dunstan’s confession understandable, but in the end, not satisfying. For confession to work, for guilt to be relieved, one must confess to the offended party and receive forgiveness from the same. Dunstan confesses to someone who had no involvement in the accident, someone who has no authority to forgive.

I came away from Fifth Business with a fresh perspective on confession in my Christian faith. The Bible claims that all misdeeds against people are ultimately done against God. God is the offended party, and therefore God has the final authority to forgive. In Psalm 32, David tells his experience this way:

                              When I kept silent, my bones wasted away

                              through my groaning all day long.

                              For day and night your hand was heavy on me;

                              my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.

                              Then I acknowledged my sin to you

                              and did not cover up my iniquity.

                              I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.”

                              And you forgave the guilt of my sin.

For that reason, the psalmist can end in the joy of freedom, finally released from guilt:

                              Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous;

                              sing, all you who are upright in heart!

God’s forgiveness does not make light of an evil action, nor does it soften the pain of consequences. But it does offer the promise of real healing – something that denial or trying to balance the scales can never do.

Photo portrait of Robertson Davies: http://arts.lgontario.ca/aboutface/robertson-davies/

Vassanji, M. G. “Introduction.” Fifth Business. Toronto: Penguin Group Canada, 2005.

Cover Page of Fifth Business: http://eng4ufifthbusinessisu.blogspot.ca/2010/08/chapter-summary.html

Duddy Kravitz: The True Story Behind "Rags-to-Riches"

People say that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but I certainly do. And the cover pictured above was the main reason why I avoided this book for a good long time. Something about this sneering boy repulsed me – with his ratty hair and crooked smile. I knew that Mordecai Richler is a big name in Canadian lit, and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is his biggest book, but I just thought there was no way that I could ever like a book with this cover.

I have to admit that it was hard for me to get into it. The more I read, the more I saw why the cover is a perfect fit. One chapter begins, “Where Duddy Kravitz sprung up from the boys grew up dirty and sad, spiky also, like grass beside the railroad tracks.” The picture shows real truth about his character, the 19-year-old wheeler dealer.

Duddy grows up on St. Urbain Street, the Jewish ghetto in Montreal. (Among its other values, the novel gives a captivating glimpse into Jewish community life at mid-century.) The plot follows the pattern of the familiar rags-to-riches story. While Duddy is a young boy, his grandfather tells him “A man without land is nobody.” Duddy takes those words into his heart, and they become his consuming drive – to be a “somebody” in the eyes of his grandfather and his community.

The main tension in the novel, as I see it, lies in Duddy’s own character. On one side, Duddy longs to draw his family together in love. There are a few shining moments when he comes to the rescue of family members in trouble. For example, his brother Lenny decides to abandon med school and flee the city after he performs a botched abortion. At the height of his business activity, Duddy puts everything on hold and goes to Toronto to talk his brother into coming home. In this and a few other cases, Duddy shows genuine love that shines brighter than anyone else.

At the same time, Duddy craves land with all his heart, and he’s willing to do anything to get it. Lie, cheat, bully, steal – no tactic is too low, and no personal price is too high. In a post-mortem letter, Duddy’s uncle expresses the tension this way:

There’s more to you than mere money lust, Duddy, but I’m afraid for you. You’re two people, that’s why. The scheming little bastard I saw so easily and the fine, intelligent boy underneath that your grandfather, bless him, saw. But you’re coming of age soon and you’ll have to choose. A boy can be two, three, four potential people, but a man is only one. He murders the others.

The tragedy of the novel is that Duddy tries to hold on to these different people inside him. But that it also its greatest strength – few authors are as honest as Richler to give the human reality behind the “rags-to-riches” story. In the words of the Hebrew Scriptures, “The getting of treasures by a lying tongue is a fleeting vapor and a snare of death” (Proverbs 21:6). 

Photo from McCord Museum, S. E. corner, Vitre & St. Urbain Streets, Montreal, QC

http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/en/collection/artifacts/MP-1978.207.1.6

Division Within Canada

Over the past month, my reading wandered into the more recent years of Canadian history. It was weird to read about things that happened while I was alive, but too young to know or care. I had always assumed that Canada was a happy family where we all basically got along and liked each other. As I learned about the Trudeau and Mulroney years, I was struck by how much division there is.

To begin with, there is the vocal separatist movement in Quebec, and Alberta has grumbled about separating, too. The Rocky Mountains stand as a physical and psychological divide between British Columbia and the rest of the country. And the provinces of the east and west generally resent the arrogance that comes out of ‘central’ Canada. Where does regional division come from? It seems to me that one of the main causes is economic.

Sir John A. on the campaign trail

In the years following confederation, Sir John A. developed the “National Policy” – a broad economic strategy for the new country. It had three points: high tariffs, settlement of the west, and a transnational railway. The tariffs would protect industry in Ontario and Quebec, the west would become Canada’s breadbasket, and the railroad would carry goods back and forth. With strong east-west trade, Canada would protect itself against economic imperialism from the United States.

Sounds like a great plan, right? I agree, but then I live in Ontario. Sir John's policy led to a boom time in the Laurier years, but most of the profits came from Ontario were re-invested in Ontario. Critics complained that the National Policy restricted development in the West and stunted the Maritimes.

A political cartoon showing the National Policy and the alternative

In defense of Sir John, economic reality led naturally to developing an industrial heartland in Ontario and Quebec. These were the major centers of population. The prairies were only in the settlement stage. BC was too remote to support a diversified economy. And the Maritimes were struggling with the loss of shipbuilding and threats to the fisheries. Even though there are sound reasons behind it, the National Policy led to lasting resentment between the ‘have’ and ‘have-not’ provinces.

Economics is just one cause of regional division in Canada; language and geography are others. Seeing all of this has made me grateful that we have persevered for this long as a nation. For that, I think we have to thank sports among other things. Just think of the national pride that comes out in the Olympics. When Quebecker Alexandre Despatie represents Canada on the 10M platform, we all rally behind him. Albertan Sanya Richard-Ross brought Canadians to their feet with her gold in the 400m at the London Olympics. And do you remember the final matches of men’s and women’s hockey in the Vancouver Olympics? The Canadian teams did us proud and brought in a haul of gold. For all the tremors and divisions, we have great shared pride in our athletes, who are, perhaps, our greatest source of unity.

Bibliography
Garfield Newman. Canada: A Nation Unfolding. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 2000.

Photos
Sir John A. Macdonald: ActiveHistory.ca
http://activehistory.ca/2011/04/canadian-political-leaders-the-campaign-trail-and-the-%E2%80%9Cordinary-joe%E2%80%9D/

Political Cartoon: Library and Archives Canada
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/sir-john-a-macdonald/023013-7040.3-e.html

Canadian Women's Hockey: The Peterborough Examiner
http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/2013/02/07/womens-hockey-team-finalizes-coaching-staff

School Days in Early Toronto

Last weekend was “Doors Open” in Toronto. It’s an annual event that invites residents to go out and explore some of our city’s most interesting buildings. My wife and I visited the site of Upper Canada’s first parliament building, which, alas, is mostly paved over by a car dealership. More uplifting was the Enoch Turner Schoolhouse (1849), Toronto’s first free school.

The Schoolhouse, just east of Parliament St. and south of King St.

After our visit, I was curious to learn more about education in those days. Prior to 1841, education was low on the list of priorities for most of the common people. The immigrants to Upper Canada wanted two things: land, and a farm on that land. The practical skills of agriculture and domestic life were far more pressing than English grammar.

Some legislation had passed in 1816 which encouraged local communities to promote their own schooling. It basically said, “If you want a school, then just appoint trustees, build or find a building, hire a teacher, and establish whatever curriculum seems good to you.” By 1841, there was a smattering of local schools across the province, but without consistency. And those children who did attend were only there for a few short years.

Egerton Ryerson, with his eccentric hair well suited to his eccentric name

Enter Egerton Ryerson, Methodist minister and a new hero of mine. He and other reformers wanted a system with standardized content and equal access for everyone. He said “education should be as plentiful as water and as free as air.” Through the reform movement, the free market of education went under public administration in 1841.

Ryerson went on to become superintendent of education in the province, and served from 1844 to 1876. Under his careful management, the schools adopted standard textbooks, a system of graded subjects, uniform assessment, and a central administration. He also established Toronto’s first teacher training facility, which would later become Ryerson University.

The Enoch Turner Schoolhouse came to exist out of a shortcoming of the early system. Schools received funding from the government, but parents were required to pay fees as well. This was a problem for the working class. Enter Enoch Turner. He was a wealthy brewer in the distillery district of Toronto, and he was concerned for the poor Irish immigrants living in Corktown, the neighborhood adjacent to his brewery. So, he decided to donate all the money required to build and run a free school for the children of Corktown. The school opened its doors in 1849, and it held lessons for 80 to 90 students each day.

Inside the schoolhouse

The curriculum focused on “the three Rs,” which had nothing to do with conservation. They were “reading, writing, and arithmetic.” The discerning reader may note that only one of them actually begins with R, but the student who pointed that out probably got the strap.

The schoolhouse was slated for demolition in 1960 – to build a condo, no doubt – but a group of citizens banded together to raise funds for its protection. Hats off to them! The building is a standing history lesson about childhood in 19th century Toronto, and a lasting tribute to its generous founder.

Sources

Margaret Conrad and Alvin Finkel. History of the Canadian Peoples: Beginnings to 1867.

J.L. Finlay and D.N. Sprague. The Structure of Canadian History.

Photo References

Outside the schoolhouse: http://www.heritagetrust.on.ca/Conservation/Museums/Enoch-Turner-Schoolhouse.aspx

Inside the schoolhouse: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mungobah/sets/72157624446647064/

Egerton Ryerson: http://hpcanpub.mcmaster.ca/case-study/birth-ryerson-press-imprint

Tips from Margaret Atwood

       On a spring day in 1982, NDP Member of Parliament Margaret Mitchell stood up in the House of Commons to speak on the topic of battered wives. As she outlined the nature and extent of the problem, she was heckled and laughed at by her fellow MPs.

       That event falls roughly in the middle of Margaret Atwood’s career, and I find it helps me to put her writing in context. Just one year later, she published Bodily Harm, her 5th novel which features a protagonist addicted to harmful relationships. Themes of power and its abuse run through her writing, with women often on the receiving end.

       Recently, I picked up Wilderness Tips (1991). I had previously read Alias Grace, but this was my first time reading her short fiction. I have to stay that I mostly enjoyed it. Anyone reading Atwood knows that they are holding in their hands a work of fine craft. But at the level of gut response, I find the insistent adultery distasteful. One character expresses the majority view when he says “Monogamy is a curious anthropological artefact, or else a sort of heroic feat.”

       The male characters aren’t universally bad, but there are some real villains. George, of the story “Wilderness Tips,” is “not all that fond of men on purely social occasions because there are few ways he can manipulate them.” He is married to a woman with two sisters, one of whom he has sporadic affairs with, and the other he has his sights on. The narrator tells us “George would like to go to bed with Pamela, not because she is beautiful … but because he has never done it.” What is generally true in the other stories is especially clear here: modern marriage is an empty charade.

       My favorite story is “Uncles,” and not only because it includes a rare healthy marriage. It features a young woman named Susanna who rises from obscurity to national fame as a celebrity journalist. The pivot point of the story comes in a conversation with one of her former newspaper colleagues. He asks her to write a guest feature about how the women’s movement has accomplished its goals, but also hurt men in the process. In this memorable exchange, she splutters “How about the wage differential? How about the rape statistics? How about all those single mothers on welfare? They’re the fastest-growing group below the poverty line! I don’t think that was a goal, do you?” Their conflict foregrounds the way that successful women inspire jealousy among men, while still advocating for an unfinished cause. Perhaps Atwood’s own experience comes out here.

       In the 1700s, one poet wrote that he was guided “As with a moral View design’d to cure the Vices of Mankind.” I don’t think that Atwood has any deliberate moral purpose in her fiction – she is too postmodern for that – but she does draw our attention to injustice. So often, she leads us to take a hard look at what is ugly and brutal in society. That act, though it doesn’t offer any cure in itself, counters our tendency toward callousness. It allows us to go out of our insular world to feel the real pain of others. Without that empathy, there can be no change.

Wrestling with 'A People's History'

Over the past several weeks, I’ve watched a few episodes of a documentary series put out by the CBC titled Canada: A People’s History. Its 30 hours of content, spread over 17 episodes, chronicle the history of Canada from the earliest First Nations to the 20^th century.

 

The visual medium has been a nice break from my usual reading in textbooks. The series is geared towards people who aren’t especially interested in history, so they spruce up the main narrative with lots of interesting side stories. I especially like how they tell much of the story in monologues given by the historical characters in period costume.

When I first started reading history last summer, I expected to find heroic stories, brave deeds, overcoming the odds and the like. Time and again, I’ve found myself surprised by episodes that would be better described as beastly and cruel.

Let’s take the Seven Years’ War for example (1756 – 1763). In Europe, France and Austria squared off against Britain and Prussia, and the conflict spilled over into their colonies around the world. While American settlers were pushing west into the Ohio Valley (claimed by New France), the French and their Native allies organized a campaign of guerrilla warfare. In one case, they raided a settlement of 55 families, burned all the buildings and killed many. The survivors were forced to run a gauntlet of Natives wielding clubs. Later, in 1756, one French commander reported that he had been “occupied more than eight days merely in receiving scalps” (1). These ghastly tactics crushed the western expansion.

But the French didn’t have a monopoly on brutality. During the siege of Quebec (June – Sept 1759), the Canadien Habitants had evacuated their villages to the safety of the citadel. Seeing this, General James Wolfe sent 1600 soldiers to lay waste to the countryside; they destroyed the crops, slaughtered the livestock, and torched all the buildings. After the British got the upper hand on the Plains of Abraham, they captured the town. But because the winter food was destroyed, both the garrison and the defeated population had to face a winter of deprivation and disease.

The battered shell of Quebec after months of bombardment

I could go on. What does all this mean? I’m struggling to reconcile my idealism with what I find in the historical record. Maybe this is one of the values of studying history. History would say to us “Look at the sort of world we live in. Take off your rose-coloured glasses, rub your eyes, and look at it long and hard. What do you see? Men die like beasts, good men like bad, wise men like fools. You see evil running rampant” (2). 

That quote comes from a theologian talking about the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible, and I’m finding the same message in the book of history. From our human perspective, the ways of this world are inscrutable. Any honest person who would set out to make history a collection of noble stories that favour their nation must, in the end, conclude “behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind” (3).

Sources

(1) Margaret Conrad and Alvin Finkel. History of the Canadian Peoples. p161.

(2) J.I. Packer. Knowing God. p113-114.

(3) The Bible. Ecclesiastes 1:14.

Mark Starowicz, Executive Producer. Canada: A People’s History.

Upbeat Ecology with David Suzuki

During my prep work for a class, I looked at the list of required readings and groaned – “Not another environmentalist essay!” Why is it that no ESL student can get through a course without being subjected to ecology? I braced myself for a preachy and tedious reading.

Maybe you relate to my feeling that reading environmentalist stuff is about as much fun as spending an afternoon with Eeyore. But in this case, I was pleasantly surprised. The essay was actually an excerpt taken from a book called David Suzuki’s Green Guide by the man himself. The title interested me because it suggested practical points of action at the personal level. I was also interested in reading something Canadian with more of a political edge.

I checked out the book from the library and it’s been my subway reading for a few weeks. It’s broken into chapters on home, food, travel, simplicity, and citizenship. Some of the suggestions are predictable – live close to your work, eat less meat, bike instead of drive, spend more time outside. There were many things, though, that surprised me:

·         Changing how you eat can have a bigger impact than switching from a gas to electric car 

·         Out of reduce, reuse, recycle, reduce is by far the most important

·         Raising livestock has a larger impact on the environment than the worldwide transportation sector

·         Producing beef requires 70,000 liters of water per kilogram

·         By 2006, the clever Swedes had reduced their greenhouse gas emissions to 7.2% below 1990 levels, surpassing their Kyoto target

·         A townhouse consumes 22% less energy than a detached house, and an apartment unit consumes 40% less energy

·         An article published in The Economist magazine stated that GDP is “badly flawed as a guide to a nation’s economic well-being.” It overlooks trust, community, rest, and, of course, the state of the environment. It’s not hard to see this point when you realise that the wealthiest person you know is not often the most satisfied with life.

·         In the long run, environmental choices almost always save you money

Another thing I appreciate about the book is the “Inspiration” sections sprinkled throughout each chapter. These show how people and companies and governments have put the principles into practice with great success. For example, the German government passed rigorous legislation to cut down on the packaging waste going to dumps and incinerators. Since the law came into effect (sometime in the 1990s), they have reduced waste by 70%.  Now that is a refreshing break from the Eeyores of ecology.

Source

David Suzuki and David R. Boyd. David Suzuki’s Green Guide. Greystone Books: 2008.

Windows onto Old Toronto

Sometimes I like to walk around Toronto streets and wonder what it all would have looked like in the beginning – back when it was called “York.” What was it like to walk along Bloor St. when St. Paul’s was a ‘countryside’ church and there was mostly wilderness to the north? Today, we walk the same streets under the same blue sky, but I imagine the city would be scarcely recognizable to an early settler.

This past week, I came across two resources that have been like a window onto the streets of old Muddy York. The first is a website dedicated to showcase historical maps of Toronto. Here is my favorite one:

Unlike a typical map, this gives you a perspective as if you were flying over Toronto Island looking north. It’s done in the most intricate detail – difficult to appreciate when you look at the whole. But you can zoom in to find each street and building as it appeared in 1876. Here’s what my neighborhood, St. James Town, looked like then:

Today it's home to about 24,000 souls living in 18 high-rise buildings. Imagine!

To get a perspective closer to the ground, there is a wonderful book titled Pen Sketches of Historic Toronto by J. Clarence Duff. The Red Lion Hotel, pictured below, gives a sense of the rural atmosphere on the city borders. The hotel was popular with locals, with its tavern and dance hall providing a warm atmosphere for social events.

I love this second one. The Church of the Holy Trinity was built on the outskirts of the city when it had about 20,000. Here, it’s pictured surrounded with peaceful cottages and greenery. 

 

What surrounds it today? That’s right, the Eaton Centre, the beating heart of our city shopping scene. At first it seemed to me a great shame that the church lies mostly forgotten when it used to be the focal point of the community around it. But perhaps that's what makes it a place of tranquility today. As summer is coming up, the leafy courtyard is well worth a visit for its own sake.

Sources

Historical Maps of Toronto. "1876 PA Gross Bird's Eye View of Toronto." Compiled by Nathan Ng.

J. Clarence Duff. Pen Sketches of Historic Toronto. Volume 2.