The American Western in Canadian Literature by Joel Deshaye (review)

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Reviewed by:

• The American Western in Canadian Literature by Joel Deshaye
• John Donahue

Joel Deshaye, The American Western in Canadian Literature. Calgary: U of Calgary P, 2022. 414 pp. Hardcover, $64.99; paper, $34.99; e-book, $19.24.

It has been argued that the Western is the only truly American genre, rooted in American history and embodying key values of American society, those of independence and self-reliance, courage and persistence in the face of challenges. Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis concerning the formative role of the frontier in shaping American character is at the heart of the Western and is the essence of popular Western novels such as those of Zane Grey, Louis L'Amour, Elmer Kelton, Max Brand, Larry McMurtry, William Johnstone, and Philipp Meyer. The novelist James Fenimore Cooper expounded on the Frontier Thesis decades before the concept would occur to Turner. Alistair Hennessy studies the centrality of the Frontier Thesis in his book The Frontier in Latin American History (1978). While the geographical context of European settlement of Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico produced a variety of "cowboy" figures, the lack of an organizing concept parallel to the Frontier Thesis explains why these cousins of the American type never became symbols of their respective nation's personality nor the subject of a literary or cinematic tradition; rather, translations of American Westerns have been the order of the day in all these countries. Canada, even more so than the Central and South American nations, lacks a corresponding frontier mythos. Often described as the bureaucrat's paradise, Canada opened its West with the process firmly controlled by government authorities. This lack of drive on the part of individuals is reflected in the fact that the French Colonies in 1759 still relied on France for essential foodstuffs such as flour. New France could not have survived without subsidies from the motherland, despite a century and a half of settlement. In a similar way, the Canadian West relied heavily on Ontario for its development. The Canadian personality is [End Page 271] essentially antithetical to the personality type favored by American Westerns.

Professor Deshaye's study of the American Western in Canadian literature is a thoroughly researched effort to explore the topic. The extensive bibliography as well as the many footnotes show the scope of that research and is an excellent starting point for anyone interested in the topic. The table of contents likewise presents the scope of the discussion covering traditional perspectives and contemporary topics (colonialism, Indigenous issues) related to both novels and film. The Western as a literary form, however, has very shallow roots in Canada. Popular Western novels have always been avidly read by a small number of Canadians, but precious few have been written by Canadians. In part, this is because the events that inspired American popular fiction—mountain men, wagon trains, Indian wars, gold and silver rushes, the building of two transcontinental railroads, conflict between farmers and ranchers, cowboy life and long-distance cattle drives—were largely nonexistent in Canada; thus, the lack of experience of these phenomena explains why they did not enter Canadian literary consciousness. Northrop Frye and Margaret Atwood have pointed out that "survival" is the underlying theme of much Canadian literature while the Western is about triumph over obstacles, not surviving.

Another factor is that the "Westerns," or something that can be classified as such, are so few in number as to be inconsequential. Canadian readers of Westerns have not heard of most of the works Deshaye discusses and most likely they have never read them. Perhaps the best known of these is George Bowering's Caprice, ostensibly a parody of Jack Schaefer's Shane, but which is really a spoof of Canadian literary obsessions and pretentiousness. Guy Vanderhaeghe, a more recent author, has achieved a reputation as a writer of novels that develop themes familiar to readers of Westerns. Academia has always looked down on popular fiction, and the Western has been treated with special contempt by academics. The Popular Culture Association broke the mold by daring to treat popular culture as a topic worthy of scholarly research.

The popularity of Westerns abroad has spawned a smorgasbord...