Pop 89: Duly Noted
By Madonna Hamel
I have seven floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in my apartment. I try to keep them organized according to themes and subjects so that I don’t waste my day hunting for that great book on the history of snake bites or that collection of Victorian nursery rhymes.
The shelf on my left is for nonfiction - essays, biographies and true-life stories that read like fiction. Many of them I refer to more than once, others I’ve yet to crack open. The shelf next to that includes my favourite books, the ones that, if they didn’t change my life, made me think twice, three times. Among them is Stephen Kuusisto’s “Planet of the Blind.” I read the book when I was a reviewer for CBC Radio back in 1998. I told my host on air that this would be my favourite book of the year. But it’s only January, he laughed. I know, I replied. That’s how good it is. And it was.
Stephen Kuusisto is blind. As he puts it: “I see like a person who looks through a kaleidoscope; my impressions of the world at once beautiful and largely useless.” Kuusisito wouldn’t admit to his blindness until early into his adult life when he was finally able to visit the Prado in Madrid to see the famous paintings of Velasquez and Goya. But when he finally gets close to paintings, he can’t get close enough. He is “thwarted by guards and ropes.” Oh well, he says, trying to console himself, I’ll buy a museum guide in the gift shop. I’ll read about the paintings I cannot see. “But the print is microscopic. Instead of a book, I find I’m holding a little cup full of sand.”
For a long time now, I’ve wanted to publicly acknowledge the writers whose words have moved or enlightened me, to make certain that all my influences and inspirations have been duly noted. I feel an urge to alert other readers who may have missed out on what I consider essential, if not required, reading. So, I’ve invited my friends Page and Judith to supper next week. But they have to read for their meat; they have to bring a page of some exquisite writing that moved them or stuck with them as long and as much as “Planet of the Blind” stayed with me. They assure me they’ll have no problem finding something.
Yesterday I sat down to find the page that has stuck with me all these years. Re-reading it, it hit me: my brother knows about this firsthand. Though he’s not blind, he says he still gets “the whirlies” which keep his world in constant recalibrating motion, like a gyroscope, seeking direction. He can get lost in his own woods, he says. Which saddens him, but doesn’t stop him. I ask myself, would I choose, of all the books I own, to read from this book to him. Or would it just sadden him more? I love this book for the writing itself, but the proof of a good memoir is more than that. It has to ring true. When something rings true, we can relate; we don’t feel quite so alone, no matter how wretched the author’s circumstance.
Which brings me to my “Exploring the Territory” bookcase, the one on the right of my desk, within reaching distance. These are my teachers, helping me approach my own writing about this territory at the turn of the 19th century with courage, truth and honesty. This is the vault of gold that I read and consult to “keep it real,” “get the facts straight,” and “stay current.” To honour the power of true stories.
There’s been a lot of great writing about the prairie, some by people who’ve lived here all their lives. Some by settlers who came, then left. Some by travellers, who would never dream of staying, but who long to commune with “the salt of the earth” for a while. ( It never occurs to them that painting all country folk as decent is as prejudiced as painting all city folk as corrupt.) And some are by indigenous authors. They range from angered to bemused. Most are poets stepping forward with knowledge, spirit and body memory beyond my comprehension. But bring it on, I say. Because I want to know, I need to know, and there is no other way to tell the story of this place than through the people native to it.
Every day I dip into the treasure chest that is this shelf. Among the gems are the classics: “Many Tender Ties,” by Sylvia Van Kirk, about indigenous women as integral to the fur trade society. Pre-missionary prairie fur traders and indigenous women often formed liaisons that served as marriages, as far as the two parties were concerned. When women from Europe and the Church moved in, their bonds were considered illicit.
Shelved beside “Tender Ties” is the contemporary classic: “The Northwest is Our Mother” by Jean Teillet. It’s a thorough look at the Metis Nation, the country’s new nation who served as interpreters, mediators, guides and scouts for newcomers and yet have been reviled as thieves and vagrants. The mothers of the Metis nation are the women in Van Kirk’s book. They also appear in another important book: “Buffalo Days and Nights,” the diary of the Metis interpreter Peter Erasmus. Erasmus was also a trader, a buffalo hunter and mission worker. These three books challenge assumptions about the ancestry and allegiances energizing this territory.
I’ve just scratched the surface of the thousands upon thousands of pages I’ve read and have yet to read. Because to write historical fiction that rings true, you have to read a lot of nonfiction. In the end, I will have to trust my muse and imagination, then write from the heart. But in the meanwhile, I bow to all the books on my shelves and to the authors who poured their body and souls into them: duly noted.