Canadian women WW1 authors

[Guest webbhead]

I suppose this thread really belongs in the book review area, but since it pertains specifically to women I decided to post it here.

I've been reading quite a lot of novels and stories by Canadian women, who seem to have been at least as eloquent about the war as Canadian men. I've listed comments on some of the most interesting things. Do you have any comments on these or other works?

L.M. Montgomery - Rilla of Ingleside (1920) - what starts out as a lighthearted late installment in the Anne of Green Gables series quickly darkens as war breaks out. The novel is full of the patriotic rhetoric (what Paul Fussell terms "high diction") typical of the phase before the anti-war writers took root, but it also presents a pretty sophisticated view of women's social relations in wartime. The characters' altruistic--if naive, in hindsight--attitudes toward the war seem plausible for a region (Prince Edward Island) that was physically far removed from the battlefields and thus susceptible to the propaganda that, in Canada, thickly glazed over the worst horrors of the war. Thought-provoking and entertaining.

Francis Marion Beynon - Aleta Dey (1919) - the earliest novel by a woman that could be called anti-war in its outlook. Beynon was a Canadian pacifist whose semi-autobiographical novel questions the validity of war as an agent of national progress. Although works like Henri Barbusse's Le Feu raised these questions earlier, it would be another few years before Virginia Woolf (in Mrs. Dalloway, Three Guineas, etc) brought a female anti-war perspective into the mainstream. Despite being Canadian, this novel is now only available in England (Virago Modern Classics).

J.G. Sime - "Munitions" (1919) - a story from Sime's story collection Sister Woman, anthologized elsewhere (for example, in the recent anthology Great Canadian War Stories - U. Alberta Press). Sime gives a realistic portrait of women in a wartime munitions plant--their anxieties, their dreams, their hope for greater freedom. One of the few Canadian perspectives on this oft-overlooked aspect of the war.

Nellie McClung - Next of Kin (1917)/ Three Times and Out (1918- memoir co-written with a Private Simmons) - Novelist McClung was one of Canada's "Famous Five" who helped bring the vote to Canadian women and have them declared "persons" under the law. She was also an ardent prohibitionist and nationalist who accepted the old line about the war as a necessary evil contributing to "progress." Strange that such a combination of progressive and conservative ideas should meet in one mind... a fascinating figure.

Further thoughts:

A first for women!: the very first Canadian novel about WWI, from what I can tell, is by a woman: Helen Stirling's A Soldier of the King (1915). If anyone knows of an earlier one, let me know. I haven't read this one yet, as it's exceedingly rare... anyone who has, please post a brief synopsis.

Other fairly-good recent novels:

Jane Urquhart's The Stone Carvers (2001) and Francis Itani's (2003) are okay-if-slightly-romanticized retellings of the WWI era. Worth reading, perhaps with a grain of salt or two.

Cheers.

[Lindsey]

I am going to try and get a copy of the most recent book you mention, The Stone Carvers, and will let you know if I do, it appeals to me through its title!!!. My favorite book is still, Testament of Youth!!

Lindsey

[Guest webbhead]

Lindsey:

Glad I piqued your interest. The Stone Carvers concerns the building of the Vimy Memorial (its designer, Walter Allward, is a character in the book). Mostly, though, its about a young Canadian woman's coming to terms with the war and its impact on her generation--a bit vague, but I don't want to give anything away. I'll be teaching the novel on an upcoming literature course, so I'm interested in what you think of it.

Cheers.