"Whan that August"

This summer I packed up my books and bags and made my way back to the province I love – Alberta! I start my Masters at the University of Alberta in Edmonton in September so August has been about visiting family and prospecting the prairies. It’s been great to come back home and rediscover the places where I grew up. I really wanted to make sure that I was here in time to not only set up in an apartment and settle down before the school crunch began, but also so I could go to the annual pilgrimage in Skaro.

In 1914 around 100 000 Ukrainians and Poles immigrated to Canada, many settling in the prairies. I don’t claim to know all about the history of these people, and instead of plagiarizing my pilgrimage program I will sum up by saying that the Polish and Ukrainian community in Skaro, Alberta began building a Grotto to Our Lady of Lourdes in June of 1919. That August 14th and 15th the first annual pilgrimage was attended by 4000-5000 people. This year was the 92nd annual pilgrimage to the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in the sleepy little district of Skaro. This pilgrimage is important to me for three reasons. First, August 15th is my birthday, so when I go to the pilgrimage it feels like a giant birthday party for me. Second, my grandfather helped build the Grotto when he was a boy, and finally, both he and my grandmother are buried in the cemetery there.

Now, say what you will about religion. Actually, don’t. I’m not interested in starting that debate. Believe what you want or don’t. It’s none of my business. But pilgrimages, that I have an opinion on! You all know by now that Chaucer is my main squeeze. (Ok, I guess my secondary squeeze since I do have a husband and he squeezes better than a 600 year old dead guy.) So the word “pilgrimage” perks my ears and peaks my interest. The idea of a group of like-minded people, whatever their differences, convening in one place they consider sacred to find peace is, to me, the epitome of community. Whether it’s to Jerusalem or Graceland, the journey with strangers of a place of commonality is wonderful.

And it could be because I’m about to start yet another year of school, but it makes me think about other journeys of convergence. Concerts, festivals, protests, gallery openings, school orientations, cooking classes, poetry readings, lectures, Sunday dinners, parades, and so much more – all the places and purposes for getting together. On one hand we do these things because, personally, we want to see them through. We can’t wait to see that band or speaker because it will make us better, more thoughtful and experienced people. But isn’t the act of doing these things with likeminded people just as exciting? Don’t we relish in the idea of joining a group of strangers and becoming, just for one night, for one moment, something bigger? Sure, the spiritual or at least prominent end of the journey is meaningful to us, but the act of moving with a deliberate group whose names you don’t know and whom you’ll never see again takes these moments from simply going to going on a pilgrimage.

Just Some Reading

Have you ever considered the post colonial complexities of Othello, or The Tempest? Or pondered the Marxist message in Heart of Darkness? Have you ever stopped to explore the neoclassical nuances in Lolita? What about the post-structural possibilities of the Chronicles of Narnia? Do you think that the role of literature is to both represent and influence the reading collective? Death of the author, birth of the reader; is there a text, is the text more than words printed on the page; will any of us ever truly read the same book twice? Or are you, like me, totally engaged by the scene in Beowulf where the hero rips off Grendel’s arm and bludgeons the monster to death with it?

At what point did literature become more about political and social commentary and less about beautiful words? Think of your favourite book. Do you enjoy it because it illuminates the struggles of working-class society, or do you read it every summer because it makes you laugh, cry, and in the back of your mind you have a steamy crush on that main character? A book resonates with us because it speaks to our soul, not because it is a response to the socio-economic changes in the twentieth century. And, sure, you can argue that maybe a book is your favourite because it accomplishes both, but beautiful language is what makes us truly enjoy a piece of literature. If that wasn’t the case, then we’d all be reviewing dissertations and carrying essays in our beach bags.

I hate that there’s dichotomy in literature. Why can’t you read Dean Koontz one week and Dante the next? I think it is a real shame that authors like Clive Barker – the master of grotesque beauty and the modern sublime, aren't yet found on course lists. Why does credible literature need to do more than disgust and intrigue? Why does it need to be something else? Hemmingway said, sometimes a fish is just a fish. Of course he was probably just messing with the critics, but if it’s a beautifully described fish, does it really need to represent the oppression weighed down on us by “the man”? I don’t know if I’m a New Critic theorist who thinks only the words on the page matter, or a Russian Formalist who considers authorial intent. I hope I’m not a theorist at all. What I know in my heart is that I am a fan of literature. I love to read books. I let my imagination carry me into the Victorian meadows of nineteenth century England. I love to create the faces of villains and the boudoirs of lusty couplings. I eat beautiful words until they sweat from my pores and belch from my lungs onto the pages of my own cheaply bought and often abandoned notebooks. Criticize ideas, sure, but don’t be jaded against words.

So I have a challenge to all you intellectual readers out there. Read some smut! Find a trade paperback and let yourself dog-ear the pages. You can’t quote Kant all the time. Read a thriller, a whodunit, a sweet little read. I promise you, if you refrain from dissecting everything you read you won’t suddenly find yourself dimmer, duller, or a downright dolt. Introduce yourself to Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Lee Child, Kate Mosse, Jeffery Deaver, and James Rollins. Rediscover Douglas Adams, Evelyn Waugh, Joseph Boyden, Beatrice Culleton Mosionier and J.K. Rowling. Step out of academe and enjoy José Saramago, and Clive Barker. In short, stop taking your canon from course lists and suggested readings. Don’t hide your “easy summer read” behind a leather book jacket.

Tom Robbins wrote in Villa Incognito, “It has been reported that Tanuki fell from the sky using his scrotum as a parachute.” What’s your favourite hilarious or beautiful literary line or scene? Let’s talk about books for a while and leave the theory out of it. Let out your dirty little secrets, readers! I promise you that we’ll have great conversations free from theoretical jargon, and beauty will find its way back to brilliance.