John Moore BOOK REVIEW Imagining ourselves. Classics of Canadian non-fiction. Selected by Daniel Francis. Arsenal Pulp Press. $19.95 s fate would have it, the next book | cracked after savour- ing Local Colour, the unique collection of Canadian travel writing | reviewed last, was this anthology of “classics of Canadian Non-Fiction.” A glance at the backcover billing that includes Margaret Atwood, Pierre Berton, Morely Callaghan, Emily Car, Farley Mowat, Peter C. Newman etc., might suggest this is just the kind of obvious, predictable “Cavalcade of Stars” callection | praised Local Colour for not eing. But the title rang a bell, caus- ing me to notice the selections were made by North Vancouver historian Daniel Francis, author of the revealing and very read- able study of images and stereo- types of Native people, The imaginary Indian. If you customarily skip “edi- tors’ introductions” to get to the “real” writers in this kind of book — don’t. Francis’ brief intro delivers some very perceptive insights about the arbitrary and ridiculously broad category of “non-fiction,” based on American journatist Janet Malcolm’s observation that it is only in fiction that we get a “true” story, defined by the author's imagined world. “In the case of non-fiction, however,” Francis observes, “we almost never get the truth. Instead, we get a version of the truth.” While writers like Robert Browning and Lawrence Durrell, who have explored the idea of truth as the sum of all points of view, (as Kurosawa did in his classic film Rashomon,) would probably give Malcolm & Francis a verbal hiding, their point is still weil taken in a general sense. As a historian, Francis has demonstrated his distinctly post- modern sensibility in The Imaginary Indian. Here, too, he’s acutely aware that historians do not so much study “facts” about the past as versions of what hap- pened, mostly written by victors. He implies that once history is seen as an “act of imagination,” even the most outrageousty prej- udiced, jingoistic attempts at national myth-making may tell us much more about the cultural context of the author and audi- ence than was intended. Thus, he deliberately chose best-selling national myth-makers like Atwood, Berton, Newman and Mowat -— not to produce a sampler of their familiar works — but to make us think about how these writers have shaped the way we think about ourselves as Canadians. Read with that in mind, all these pieces seem to take ona new and deeper resonance that makes them as refreshing as a RS Wednriesday, July 6, 1994 - North Shore News - 23 lan non-fiction refreshin¢e Jook in the mirror alter a yood workout with the Winclex. The excerpt from Margaret Atwood's Survival cuts as deep as it did when it was published more than 20 years ago. The piece from Peter C, Newman’s 1963 portrait of John Diefenbaker, Renegade in Power, is a reminder of the enormous importance of a PM who has become a “forgotten man” thanks to demographically IE In ecrratey Colors. NOW SOULE VALUES TO 90.00 5 SES aS : Vp ALLURE® SYNTHETIC DUVETS + Great Bhematve to down * Hilot 100% pctyester fill ¢ ideal for al sea 8s “ALWAYS A GREAT SELECTION AT THE LOAVEST PROCESI” * Popuier Grand names int 190-200 A tread cours. © 100% cot or empowered baby-hoomers who became politically aware during Trudeaumania. In a weird bit of synchronicity, the identical piece about hunting with the Peace River country Indians by anthropologist Hugh Brody, which appears in Local Colour, also appears in Imagining Ourselves. | men- tioned this to my anthropalogy prof.-brother during a long dis- ATHENA® WICKER © 10D Quaity wicker © shedly contruction * ewe edie in B detorptor Coicuns HAMPER COWARD NOW AQES “SHELF COMPARE ABO NOW QT™ WASTERASKETS COMPARE 26-0) How 41.99 JMX & MATCH TOWELS Theck & thersty Orang fname towels 100% cot ton teny Excellent setec- ton of colous to chame Fe an! * Bath COMPARE 2500 © Wash QUALLOFIL® PILLQ' « Best shape retention ° Hypo-allergenic polyester fill © Machine washabie we 2.28" COMPARE TO 40.00 LWT & PER CUSTOMER FEATHER PiLLOWS * 100% cotton shell 1 9% from am. 3 yr. guarantee ¢ Made In Canada {Al Sizes On Sate) tance call to Western Australia and he shouted “Maps and Dreams?” down the satellite beam, “He's brilliant! Met him at a conference last year!” We went on from there and I plan to be out of town when the phone bill arrives. Maps and Dreams is at the top of my sum- mer reading stacked beside the Muskoka chair on the back porch. The “further reacling” fall- out from Local Colour and Imagining Ourselves should have the book budget plowing red for the rest of the year. When t’m not trolling used bookstores for a copy of Renegade in Power, I'll be parked beside a stream with a copy of Roderick Haig-Brown’s A River Never Sleeps (1946). Even if | don’t get a nibble, I’l! feel like I’ve been fishing. We are pleased to announce that our 6th Store at Peninsula Village in White Rock is Now Open! 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