What a strange book. It was the title and the cover that caught my eye at first, and from the moment I laid eyes on it I knew it was a book I had to read. The cover illustration is one of the coolest pictures I've ever seen and it is now my MSN pic. The book itself suprised me though. I had expected it to be a book of policy, one that would offer specific policy prescriptions for Canada. Little did I know it was written by an english professor. More than a political manifesto it is a vision, a vision of what Canada is and what being Canadian means. This, I think, is what made me like it. The elements of policy reccomendations that do find their way into it are generally not ones that I agree with and I think that the book's biggest failing is its attempt to portray the corporatist, fiscally responsible Canada as incompatible with a Canada of vision, imagination and dreams. Powe speaks of the "suffocating" and "oppressive" aspects of a policy driven by the bottom line. This, I think, is fallacy. Just as Canada finds both a middle ground between the US and Europe while at the same time being distinct from either, I believe that there exists the potential for Canada to be a country of "responsible dreamers" where a culture of diversity and imagination and "interconnected solitudes" can exist, and be made better by responsible fiscal and monetary policy. Fiscal responsibility cannot be an end in itself, but must contribute to, and not obstruct, the development of A Canada of Light.
Having said that, the parts of the book that are less political really struck a chord deep inside. So much of the book is beautifully written, a rare description of things that I have felt and seen and grappled with but have never quite been able to verbalize. This is going to be a seminal post, one that says so much about the deepest feelings I have about my country and what it is and what it has the potential to be. It will be strange to use someone else's words to illuminate such a deeply personal part of myself. But he does a better job of it than I ever could, so rather than seeing this as a collection of quotes from his book, see this as my perspectives written in someone else's hand.
"My eyes followed the spin of the fields, newly laid out for sowing, the oak woods with hard bronze survivor leaves, and a world of great size beyond, of fair clouds and then of abstraction, a tremendous Canada of Light"
"Canada, this name, this place: what I was feeling, intimately, as if she were a part of me, not a mere country where I happened to be born and that often felt like my home"
"One way to push back this force that threatens to close off you capacity for reverie, to imagine, to sing out with sheer pleasure, to redirect yourself towards the stars, and to love intensely what comes to you, is to make your language soar into blockades and barriers, bringing them down"
"A Canada of Light, a promise, a flash, an opportunity for reverie, a turning leaf, an open door, a rendevous of many cultures, a sometimes quieter street or pathway in the wailing world, an outpost..the least likely place to incite mass ethnic hatred, a glimpse, a turning away, a provocation to thinki beyond single vision, a drama of inwardness, a site for talk and comtemplation, a celebration of solitudes, a generous spirit wrestling with the demon of closure and the shadow of uniformity, where the vision of the country remains, fortunately, always ahead of its politicians"
"Gather depth and expanse, and paitiently come together in the night to know beauty. Deepen solitudes, and love the unsolved. Salute each other across the truest eternal borderline, which is not national, but human"
"In Canada it is still possible to be alone. In America, there is a relentlessly public experience, the solidarity of the commercial, for everyone, with little quiet left for anyone"
"I'm drawn to my country's paradoxes and promises, its incompleteness and anomalies, the inward verve and subtle pulse of the magnetic north. Here discontinuities and abiding frictions are neccesary for our growth. Here I find a puzzle of great beauty. Canada works well in practice, but just doesnt work out in theory"
"We have formed a consensus to not allow ourselves to be defined by a single unifying idea"
"In this wide, spacious country with its areas of privacy and repose, solitude and reverie can lift us and inspire us: here we may think, observe, comment, reflect, interpret and release ourselves from traditional forms so that we may dream"
"We wait, in a rendezvous of societies and people, and in this waiting we are often perplexed, tempted by the swirls of anger and vengeful hatred, yet drawn to the energies of the barely spoken, and to traces in the northern air, to the lingering but not entirely comprehended memories of what it took to make this ours, the liberties of a new world."
"In this global electric city, we are haunted by a sense of presence, the trace of something close, almost there. Is that presence supernatural, immanent, or is it our human world amplified, echoed, calling, yearning, crying out?"
"It may be that this counter-nation, our eclectic mosaic culture, this condition of being seemingly disparate and seperate, all our obsessions with who we are, is our great strength, our promising path, our myth, our original form of harmony"
(Note: I don't know if I agree with this next one but it touches on an issue that I've always wondered about and have attempted, without much success , to figure out in the past. Is there an advantage to being less open about your thoughts and feelings? I have a lot of inner conflict about this quote.)
"Private identity must be cloaked if it is to maintain solitude, and thus make time for the cultivation of the inner person"
"Canada's lack of definition is it's strength"
"What sort of inwardness have you cultivated? Where does your soul reach? What air do you breathe? What are you made of, and who do you love?"
(My favorite one right here I think)
"The imagination seals us in rainbow covenants with the world. It takes the world, its rawness, back into ourselves, so that we may know more and find more, sychronicities, infinite correspondences and so we may keep grappling with enigmas"
"Canada is the via media, the middle way, between the United States and Europe.. We must discover that route again, and trace it, and follow, allowing its meander, attending to where it's whispering path may lead"
(Another favorite. Reminds me of Bob Seger and my #7 song of all time)
"There are fires other than those that consume us"
(Ok this is getting redundant. I love this one too)
"A secret country where solitudes and peace still largely exist, where we can ask questions about injustices and inequity, about whether there is a vocation in being Canadian, hoping against hope, expecting the impossible. Yet there is no map for this secret country because, to echo a line of Thomas Merton's, it is within ourselves"
"Canada is a place whose mythology and culture speak of an incognito difference: to communicate, then commune, with the world, rather than to conquer or subdue it"
"Why are we here? To be new, and to make a difference"
This is the Canada that I love. There is something to be said for a vision that can be embraced both by myself and also by people who have the opposite political views.
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