Stuff white people write • Hockey’s haunted houses $6.50 Vol. 24, No. 8 October 2016 Lev Bratishenko Tunnel Vision Why our cities need less Jane Jacobs PLUS Douglas Coupland and Christian Bök on fetishizing the future Donna Bailey Nurse on forgetfulness Andy Lamey on our abuse addiction Ana Siljak on the new Edwardians Publications Mail Agreement #40032362 Sonnet L’Abbé on Anne Carson Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to LRC, Circulation Dept. PO Box 8, Station K Paul Wilson on the real John le Carré Toronto, ON M4P 2G1 New from University of Toronto Press A Quiet Evolution The Emergence of Indigenous-Local Intergovernmental Partnerships in Canada by Christopher Alcantara and A Mile Of Make-Believe Jen Nelles A History of the Eaton’s Santa Claus A Quiet Evolution is a call to politicians, Parade policymakers and citizens alike to by Steve Penfold encourage Indigenous and local governments to work towards mutually This unique history of the Eaton’s Santa beneficial partnerships. Claus parades in Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Calgary, and Edmonton reveals how Eaton’s pressed its image onto public life and influenced parade traditions. Productivity and Prosperity An Historical Sociology of Productivist Thought Redesigning Work by Karen R. Foster A Blueprint for Canada’s Future Well- In Productivity and Prosperity, Karen Being and Prosperity Foster challenges the prevailing notion by Graham Lowe and Frank Graves that productivity is the lynchpin to prosperity and that economic growth is In Redesigning Work the authors essential for quality of life. provide a blueprint for the future of work in Canada by identifying practical ways to make work more motivating, rewarding and productive. A Legal History of Adoption in Ontario, 1921-2015 by Lori Chambers Out of Place Lori Chambers’ fascinating study Social Exclusion and Mennonite Migrants explores a wide range of themes and in Canada issues in the history of adoption in by Luann Good Gingrich Ontario since the passage of the first statute in 1921. This book explores social inclusion and exclusion of the Low German-speaking Mennonites who have migrated from Latin America to rural areas of Canada. Also available as e-books at utppublishing.com Literary Review of Canada 170 Bloor Street West, Suite 706 Toronto ON M5S 1T9 email: [email protected] reviewcanada.ca T: 416-531-1483 • F: 416-944-8915 Charitable number: 848431490RR0001 Vol. 24, No. 8 • October 2016 To donate, visit reviewcanada.ca/support EDITOR IN CHIEF Sarmishta Subramanian 3 Bibliomania, “Bit Rot” and 21 Between Words [email protected] The centre cannot hold, for there is no centre: MANAGING EDITOR Fetishizing Time Michael Stevens Christian Bök in conversation with Anne Carson’s Float CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Sonnet L’Abbé Douglas Coupland Mohamed Huque, Molly Peacock, 6 The New Edwardians 22 For L.K. Robin Roger, Anthony Westell The new Gilded Age and Jennifer Welsh’s A poem ASSOCIATE EDITORS Judy Stoffman, Beth Haddon The Return of History Ian Angus MacLean POETRY EDITOR Ana Siljak 23 The Audacity (and Idiocy) of Hope Moira MacDougall 8 Tunnel Vision A fellow electoral survivor on Noah Richler’s COPY EDITOR What Jane Jacobs got wrong about the lives of campaign memoir, The Candidate Madeline Koch cities Jane Farrow ONLINE EDITORS Lev Bratishenko Diana Kuprel, Jack Mitchell, 24 Hunters and Foragers Donald Rickerd, C.M. 12 Conflict Averse A poem PROOFREADER Sarah Schulman’s Conflict Is Not Abuse: Dean Steadman Robert Simone a fearless view of power, victimhood and the 26 Whiteout RESEARCH Rob Tilley disappearance of personal accountability Why do writers who can invent universes and Andy Lamey entire species have so much trouble creating DESIGN James Harbeck Schwartzwald black characters? 14 ADVERTISING/SALES Andray Domise A poem Michael Wile Bruce Whiteman 28 Against the Clock [email protected] 16 Country of Eternal Forgetting James Gleick’s Time Travel, and the undue DIRECTOR, SPECIAL PROJECTS Michael Booth Memory, nostalgia and the writing of influence of an improbable idea DEVELOPMENT OFFICER M.G. Vassanji Robert Charles Wilson Erica May Donna Bailey Nurse 29 After Grief. In the Garden PRODUCER 18 Phantom of the Rink A poem Michael Mooney From hockey’s earliest days, the arena has Kate Braid ADMINISTRATOR Christian Sharpe shaped the game, suggests Howard Shubert in 30 The Other Tradecraft PUBLISHER Architecture on Ice Writing and espionage in John le Carré’s long- Stephen Smith Helen Walsh awaited memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel [email protected] Paul Wilson BOARD OF DIRECTORS George Bass, Q.C., Tom Kierans, O.C., Don McCutchan, Trina McQueen, O.C., Jack Mintz, C.M. ADVISORY COUNCIL Michael Adams, Ronald G. Atkey, P.C., Q.C., Alan Broadbent, C.M., Chris Ellis, Carol Hansell, Donald Macdonald, P.C., C.C., Grant Reuber, O.C., Don Rickerd, C.M., Rana Sarkar, Mark Sarner, Bernard Cover art and illustrations throughout the issue, unless otherwise indicated, are by Lisa Vanin. Schiff, Reed Scowen, Jaime Watt Lisa Vanin is an award-winning, multidisciplinary artist and illustrator in Toronto who graduated from OCAD POETRY SUBMISSIONS For guidelines, please see reviewcanada.ca. University in 2009. Her client list includes the Canadian Opera Company, The Walrus, Elle Québec, and private LRC design concept by Jackie Young/INK commissioners and collectors. See more at www.lisavanin.com. Founded in 1991 by P.A. Dutil The LRC is published 10 times a year by the Literary Review of Canada Charitable Organization. ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION RATES Individuals in Canada $56/year plus GST/HST. (Libraries and institutions in Canada $68/year plus GST/HST.) Outside Canada, please pay $86/year for individuals, or $98 for libraries and institutions. SUBSCRIPTIONS AND CIRCULATION Literary Review of Canada From time to time, the LRC may allow carefully selected organizations to send mail to subscribers, offering products or services that may be of interest. P.O. 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ISSN 1188-7494 The Literary Review of Canada is indexed in the Canadian Literary Periodicals Index and the Canadian Index and is distributed by Disticor and Magazines Canada. an Ontario government agency un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario October 2016 reviewcanada.ca PEN Canada presents the RBC/PEN Canada New Voices Award at the International Festival of Authors The RBC/PEN Canada New Voices Award celebrates unpublished work from writers 18 to 30. The award is part of a global initiative to develop young talent. The winning Canadian entry is submitted to PEN International to be judged against promising writers from around the world. Congratulations to Laura Legge, winner of the 2016 RBC/PEN Canada New Voices Award The PEN Canada benet at the International Festival of Authors: By Word and Deed: Resistance in Times of Turmoil Saturday, October 22, 2016, 7:30 pm Writer and lmmaker David Bezmozgis in conversation with Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost, To End All Wars, and, most recently, Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939, about the lessons we learn from writers and activists battling fascism, racism, and other forms of injustice. Fleck Dance Theatre, Harbourfront Centre, Toronto Tickets: $50 available at www.pencanada.ca/wordanddeed or 416 703 8448 ext. 25 All proceeds support PEN Canada’s advocacy for imprisoned and exiled writers. 2 reviewcanada.ca Literary Review of Canada Bibliomania, “Bit Rot” and Fetishizing Time Christian Bök in conversation with Douglas Coupland n Bit Rot, a collection of essays once involved in. He wanted to give me and short fiction (and his 16th something that I would think of as art, so Ibook), the polymathic Douglas he gave me the tape ball he made while Coupland continues his exploration installing sliding windows in Vancouver of time and the future, collection and condominium towers the summer archiving, and the broad intersec- before his acting gig began. It’s a lovely tions of culture and technology. His art object, and to me it emotionally evokes exhibition of the same name opened the idea of a decaying pixel. at Museum Villa Stuck in Munich on CB: You must know about a pro- September 29 after being on view at the ject called “The Ghost in the MP3” by Witte de With Center for Contemporary Ryan Maguire, who collects bits lost Art in Rotterdam. It is his second major in the computerized compression of a retrospective in recent years, after song and then plays them back again Everything Is Anything Is Anywhere Is in sequence so that you can hear what Everywhere; his art has been exhibited entropy does to the music. His project world-wide. shows us what collections of MP3s might Christian Bök is that rare thing, sound like, after bit rot erodes our music a celebrity poet; his books include over time. the bestselling, Griffin Prize–winning DC: Does it sound good or … haunt- Eunoia. His artwork, including books ing? Or like noise? Or like background fashioned from Lego bricks and Rubik’s music in old movies with the sound of Cubes, has been shown in galleries.