The Icelandic Canadian - 01.08.2006, Side 43

Vol. 60 #2
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
85
Metropolis,” best reflect the creative diver-
sity of Winnipeg’s writers.
Noting that, “Winnipeg is a great mul-
ticultural city because it has enfolded into
itself the cultures of the world,” Arnason
and Mackintosh have endeavoured to rep-
resent the diversity of cultures found in
Winnipeg’s literary scene, albeit with
uneven results. Several of the more signifi-
cant ethnic groups found in the city are
represented, though by no means are they
all there. An excerpt from Armin Wiebe’s
book, The Salvation of Yasch Siemens, is a
stellar piece of ethnic humour—subtle but
hilarious. Written in English with appar-
ently perfect German grammar, it chroni-
cles the visit of a fictional Mennonite cou-
ple to the old Eaton’s store in Winnipeg,
where the MTS Centre now stands. Those
of us who knew and loved Eaton’s will
immediately recognize this couple from
our own sojourns in the grand old store.
I was especially heartened by the edi-
tors’ inclusion of three noteworthy aborig-
inal authors—Beatrice Culleton, Tomson
Highway and Yvonne Johnson—without
whom any literary history of Winnipeg
would be strangely incomplete. On the
other hand, I was surprised by the absence
of Franco-Manitoban authors, let alone
those of Asian, Pacific or African heritage.
On balance, the North End and inner city
seem over-represented in the collection as
though, thirty-five years after the amalga-
mation of the suburban municipalities with
the City of Winnipeg, no one has noticed
the boundary changes. One is left to won-
der whether culture exists in the suburbs—
save for Wildwood Park, that enclave of
academics and sophisticates near the
University of Manitoba.
In addition to a passing nod to the sub-
urbs, I would have appreciated a few repre-
sentative selections of translated pieces,
since a great deal has been written about
Winnipeg in foreign languages. After all,
Winnipeg boasted a foreign language press
that rivalled the likes of Chicago and New
York. The immigrant experience is largely
missing from The Imagined City, save for
where it is refracted though the imagina-
tion of subsequent generations writing in
English.
In defence of the book’s omissions, the
sheer volume of available literary material
meant that it was impossible to include
anything more than a sampling of the writ-
ten works about Winnipeg, so the editors
necessarily restricted their selections to a
manageable range and quantity of material.
After all, the book professes to be “a” liter-
ary history, not “the” literary history of
Winnipeg. So, rather than dwell on what is
not there, it is important to recognize and
appreciate the astonishing richness of the
selections which were incorporated into
the collection.
The diversity of genre is as remarkable
as the diversity of authors. The selections
include correspondence and diaries, mem-
oirs and travelogues, short stories and
poems, interviews and excerpts from nov-
els. The individual pieces range from the
tragic to the comic and from the purely fac-
tual to the profoundly imaginative.
I found myself having mixed feelings
about the poetry in The Imagined City.
Having claimed that “sometimes a clumsy
statement can say more than an elegant
poem,” the editors then included several
poems which reflect the clumsy more than
the elegant! This is not to say that the vol-
ume is without profound or touching
verse; it’s just that the editors lean heavily
towards free verse, whereas my tastes
belong to the “Olafur Karason of
Ljosavfk” school of poetry. Preferring the
lyrical “landscapes” of Stephan G.
Stephansson and Guttormur J.
Guttormsson to the ragged “abstracts” of
many contemporary poets, I have an abid-
ing fondness for metre and rhyme, which
was not satisfied by most of the selections
in The Imagined City, however deep some
of the passages may well be.
Three authors of special interest to
people of Icelandic descent are included.
Laura Goodman Salverson is represented
by a moving passage from The Viking
Heart, which includes her elegant account
of a winter’s evening where, “the darkness
was an opaque canvass against which the
soul of Winnipeg stood out a lovely and
radiant thing.” Guy Maddin reflects on
“manufacturing a history more interesting
than the arid, dull, lower-case one