POSTING #145

NOTE: The next Posting, #146, will appear on May 20th, not May 13th, to give me a chance to do some volunteer work on the 1812 Bicentennial celebrations and to get our yard in shape. Sorry about that!

The Golden Dog/Le Chien d’or

As in the 2007 comedy, ‘Bucket List’, starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, I have my own list of things I want to do before I get hit by the Big Bus. Things like visiting some new places abroad, and re-visiting some old ones.

I also have a collection of ‘shoulds’, things that a part of me feels I ought to do before it is too late. The ‘shoulds’ aren’t on any list. Instead, they’re stuffed---by another part of me---into a big sack, helter skelter. In my mind’s eye I see the sack as having a pull-string that tries to keep the bag shut, so that my remaining days won’t be bothered by these ‘shoulds’.

One of my ‘shoulds’ for a long time has been to read the 19th Century Canadian novel, ‘The Golden Dog/Le Chien d’or’ by William Kirby. An English professor at Queen’s argued that we couldn’t claim to be literate as Canadians if we hadn’t read Kirby’s novel.

Photograph of William Kirby, with his signature, ca 1865

I looked at it, flipped through the 600 plus pages, and decided that it was something for the ‘should’ sack, not for the ‘bucket list’.

Now here we are in the Niagara region, and every time we go to the restaurant at the Niagara-on-the-Lake Golf Club (it is open to non-members, like us) we pass the house at 130 Front Street where William Kirby lived from 1857 to his death in 1906.

Plaque in front of 130 Front Street.

And we notice the plaque that tells about The Golden Dog.

And I have always felt a twinge of guilt.

A side view of 130 Front Street.

Niagara-on-the-Lake has its tourist carriages. This scene in front of the Kirby House could have been from the 1800s, except for the people's clothes---and the ‘No Parking’ sign!

But I have managed to keep those twinges of guilt under control until recently.

A few weeks ago, Pat came home from her volunteer work at the Niagara Historical Society Museum where she is helping describe the Museum’s artifacts. She talked about a plaque she had been examining that depicted the legend of The Golden Dog.

Pat is still not sure about the history of this plaque, which is designed to hang on a wall. She thinks it could have been produced in the 1970s, perhaps to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the publication of the Golden Dog in 1877, or perhaps for tourists to Quebec. Her research continues. I would like to thank Sarah Maloney, Managing Director of the Niagara Historical Museum, for permission to include a photo of the Museum’s plaque.

Pat’s research had begun with questions such as when was the plaque made, by whom, probable value etc. but soon led into questions about the subject depicted on it, The Golden Dog.

At that point, my guilt got the better of me; I decided that the time had come to read the bloody novel. The Museum had a tattered copy of it on its ‘Sale’ table, which I bought.

The book, printed in 1914, has lost its back cover but all its 624 pages are intact.

I started like a swimmer going into the cold waters of the Atlantic off the coast of New England---very gingerly. But as I got immersed in the tale, I found that it was getting harder and harder to put it down.

After more than 600 pages, I didn’t want it to end.

I don’t have the time, energy, space, or (more importantly) skill to do justice to the plot of The Golden Dog or to the life of its remarkable author, William Kirby. (For more information on both, please click here for an article written by Mary Jane Edwards for ‘The Dictionary of Canadian Biography on Line’. )

Let me just sketch in a few details.

The title of the book comes from a sculpted plaque created by a farmer in 17th century France in memory of his dog, which was killed by a neighbour as part of a feud between the two farmers. The plaque showed a dog gnawing on a human bone while the words promised revenge for the killing of the dog.

A settler from the part of France where the feud had taken place had a gilded replica of the plaque placed above the doorway of his house in Quebec City. William Kirby saw the plaque on a visit to Quebec, was fascinated with its theme of revenge and decided to weave it into a novel about the turbulent period in New France before the conquest of the colony by the British in 1759. (I understand that the plaque is now mounted on a post office in Quebec City where lovers of The Golden Dog novel can photograph it.)

Using the history of the time and some Quebec folk stories he created a novel of romance, love, hate, bravery, lechery (warning: the scenes of debauchery at the Palace of the Intendant Bigot are graphic) and ultimately tragedy.

The novel moves along at a leisurely,19th century pace---think of Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’---with time for rich descriptions of life in New France for the habitants and the upper classes, and some philosophising about life, but the author keeps the plot moving along with more than enough suspense to keep the reader involved.

As I read the novel I kept asking myself how Kirby, an immigrant from England with limited education, could have managed to create such a detailed tapestry of 18th century Quebec life. He wrote like a graduate from Oxford or Cambridge but wasn’t. It reminded me a little of the controversy about whether Shakespeare could have authored the plays attributed to him.

As I was finishing the novel, Pat discovered---thanks to Google---that a friend of ours whom we hadn’t seen for some time, Mary Jane Edwards, Distinguished Research Professor and director of the Centre for Editing Early Canadian Texts (CEECT) at Carleton University, was the world’s leading expert on the novel. She had just completed a scholarly edition of The Golden Dog.

I bought a copy of the new edition as soon as it was published, and found that the section on Kirby solved my question about how he managed to write The Golden Dog.

Kirby who was born in Kingston-on-Hull in England in 1817, moved in 1832 to Cincinnati with his parents---his father was a tanner by trade. William was sent to a school started by a well-educated Scottish teacher, Alexander Kinmont, who instructed his ‘scholars’ in “the various branches of Classical, Mathematical and English education”. Kirby learned to read and write in French and Latin and was challenged to study books on a variety of subjects.

After a few, obviously formative years in this school, Kirby followed his father into the tannery trade. However, in 1839 he decided to move to the Canadas because of talk in the US, from Fenians and others, about a possible invasion of the Canadas. As a strong supporter of the British monarchy, he decided to move north to help repel any invaders.

In the new edition (on the left), the novel has 755 pages, not the 624 of the version I read. In addition the new edition has several hundred pages of introduction and explanatory notes

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Mary Jane’s version includes William Kirby’s entire novel, unlike the 19th century versions, which had been abridged to reduce the cost of printing. It also includes an introduction that provides a wealth of information about the writing of the novel, the various attempts to have it published, the eventual publishing of it, the fights over royalties (Kirby's total royalties amounted to only somewhere between $100-$200!), the reception the novel has had since its publication, and on and on.

The book also includes wonderfully helpful Explanatory Notes that explain some of Kirby’s references to history, mythology and the literature of various countries.  (Happily, the notes are not flagged in the text with those annoying and distracting footnote/endnote numbers. If the reader wants more information about something on, say, page 455, it is easy to flip to the back of the book where the notes are organized by page and line.)

Although, I treasure Mary Jane’s edition, I am glad that I read the novel before reading ‘about’ it. The tale is so well told that it carried me along even though some parts of it puzzled me. Now I have the joy of going back and reading parts that weren’t in my tattered version, and re-reading the parts that puzzled me, using Mary Jane’s introduction and explanatory notes.

If I have whetted your appetite and you feel you would like to add the Golden Dog to your ‘bucket list’, I would suggest getting Mary Jane’s version, rather than reading one of the older versions. I would also suggest rushing into the story---as though you are dashing into the Atlantic---without reading the introduction. Leave that until later.

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So, the Queen’s Professor was right---as usual--- and I was wrong. I just wish, however, that he had told us that The Golden Dog would be a fun read.

I am happy that through Pat’s work at the Museum I was encouraged to pull The Golden Dog from my ‘should’ sack, and read it.

And I am so grateful that Mary Jane Edwards has poured her body and soul into this monumental edition.

In her book, Mary Jane says that she grew up with The Golden Dog. Her mother, an immigrant from Britain, discovered it when she was searching for books that would help her understand her new country. She loved the novel, re-reading it often. I am sure she would be proud of her daughter’s accomplishment.


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See you on May 20, 2012 for Posting #146 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please drop me a line at johnpathunter@gmail.com.

Note:

In Posting #8 in the companion Icewine Guru Blog, the Guru offers his prediction on the US Supreme Court decision on the health care mandate. He and the Professor and their wives then discuss religion and politics. If you would like to read the Posting, please click on: http://theicewineguru.blogspot.ca/