Canadians Are Not Americans: A Review

Canadians are not Americans, as a work of serious literary reflection, takes us a long and healthy stride beyond Margaret Atwood?s, Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature (1972). Atwood, a keen and faithful student of Northrop Frye, was ever in search for the dominating myth that defined either a person or a people. Frye and Atwood have played a serious and significant role, both in literature and literary criticism, in viewing life and literature, through certain myths and dominating archetypes. It is these myths, when rightly heard and understood, that tell us much about ourselves and our response to the world we live in. Survival catapulted Atwood onto the front stage of Canadian literary life, and, as such, she spoke with much authority. Atwood, in Survival, argued that the main and major myth that has defined and shaped the Canadian literary tale and drama is the desire to survive. This is our dominant and deciding, our defining and declaratory myth. Needless to say, when Survival was published, there were many knockers and boosters. The book went on to become a literary Magna Charta and Bible to many. Canadians are not Americans, gratefully so, broadens and thickens the discussion about the meaning of the Canadian identity. If Atwood is lean and reductionistic, Morrison is profuse and lavish. Both Atwood and Morrison turn to myth as the key to opening the door into the Canadian heart, head and soul, but Morrison, unlike Atwood, has many keys to many different rooms, and, as such, she takes us into the mansion and cathedral of the Canadian tradition in a way that Atwood can and does not. But, both Atwood and Morrison do bow low to Northrop Frye's mythic line and lineage. Morrison is just broader and fuller in the myths she draws in to distinguish the Canadian from the American way.

Canadians are not Americans: Myths and Literary Traditions unpacks the many mythic layers within the Canadian ethos and identity, and it draws from the reserves of the Canadian and American literary bank. There are many ways into the Canadian-American debate about identity, and literature is as good a way into such a discussion as any. Morrison divides Canadians are not Americans into nine distinct chapters, and each chapter unpacks and unravels important myths that distinguish and differentiate the Canadian from the American tradition. The strength of the book is the way it refuses to reduce or restrict the Canadian or American myths to a simple and irreducible archetype that dominates and defines the way of a people. The chapters tells their own tale: 1) The Launching of National Myths, 2) A Sense of the Past, 3) Nature, 4) A Sense of Place, 5) Religion and the Church, 6) Gender, Ethnicity, and Class, 7)Violence, 8) Humour and 9) The Tenacity of National Myths. There is no doubt in Canadians are not Americans that Morrison is holding up a sort of literary mirror to both traditions, and, by doing so, helping each to see their face a little better and a little clearer.

It is somewhat surprising, given the title of the book, that Morrison does not have a chapter on both Canadian perceptions of the USA, and American perceptions of Canada. There is much in the literary tradition of both countries that could have been mined. Much of early Canadian literature abounds and is thick with references to how and why Canadians are Canadians, and why we do not want to be Americans. Canadians are not Americans would have been a stronger and more convincing book if it had hiked down such a trail and path. Morrison tends to avoid some of these more demanding approaches, and this is a weakness and failing of the book. At least, to Morrison's credit, she has moved the discussion a healthy and hearty distance beyond Atwood's Survival.

Is it possible, when attempting in a literary way, to go further than Morrison and the mythic approach to interpreting both literature and the identity of a people? This is not to deny that myth is not important, but is there more to interpretation than reducing all to myth and archetypes? What books might be read that could, in a deeper and sharper way, further clarify why and how Canadians are not Americans? Morrison has dipped her bucket in some deep and life giving waters, but are there yet other wells she has not gone to?

Canadians are not Americans is a fine trek across the literary landscape of two nations. Much is seen, but much is not seen. I think, by way of conclusion, a fine companion piece and corrective to Canadians are not Americans is Canadian Literature: Surrender or Revolution (1978), by Robin Mathews. It is somewhat surprising, given the thesis and approach of Morrison, that Mathews is not even mentioned in her book. Mathews has been front and centre in the Canadian debate about the Canadian way (and our differences with the USA) in the last forty years, and most of his work has been of a literary bent. Mathews was a student at University of Toronto in the 1950s of Northrop Frye, and he differed with the master. Atwood was a student of Frye's, and she bowed to the master. Mathews would argue that there are more ways to read, write and interpret literature than merely in a mythic way, even though this approach was trendy in the early part of the 20th century. A literature of solid and sustained social realism, a literature that asks the hard questions of justice and injustice, war and peace, politics and apathy, a literature of complex motives and complex social realities is also a way into the literary Tradition of a people and nation.

Canadian Literature: Surrender or Revolution is both a must read and corrective to both Atwood's Survival and Morrison's Canadians are not Americans. Mathews dares to go where Atwood or Morrison fear to tread. Mathews dares to ask questions about both Canadian identity and our relationship with the USA that Morrison and Atwood shrink from asking. Canadian Literature: Surrender or Revolution points out how and why Canadians are often colonial and how and why we have tried to fight out of the colonial bag. Good literature and literary criticism, for Mathews, does not shrink nor flinch from facing or asking the tough political questions, and such questions, for Canadians, often come to such basic issues as American imperialism and Canadian colonialism and compradorism. It is somewhat frustrating that Morrison, given the consistent voice in Canada of Mathews, has chosen to ignore and censure him out of Canadians are not Americans. We might want to ask why this is the case? Is Morrison, at a certain level, not willing to deeply and truly probe how and why Canadians are not Americans? Why does she stop and halt the journey just when the journey might be getting truly interesting and demanding? It is in this sense that Canadian Literature is a much better book on the Canadian-American differences than Canadians are not Americans.

Canadians are not Americans: Myths and Literary Traditions should be applauded for the broad approach taken in distinguishing between the Canadian and American psyche and way of being. It is a much more mature book than Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature. But, for those who are truly interested in getting a feel for the texture of the Canadian way in opposition to the American way, Mathews' Canadian Literature: Surrender or Revolution is a much more probing and demanding read. It is a pity that Morrison did not take the time or exert the energy to heed what Mathews had to say. If she had, Canadians are not Americans would have been a stronger book, and much truer to the Canadian way and tradition. In sum, it is just when we want to hear why and how Canadians are not Americans, and what the Canadian literary tradition says about such a question that Morrison goes mute and silent, and it is this muteness that is the weakness and limitation of this otherwise insightful book.

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Ron Dart's latest book, The Canadian High Tory Tradition: Raids on the Unspeakable, should be out by September.