Farewell to the Twentieth Century: A Compendium of the Absurd

J.L. Granatstein is a professor of history at York University, the
co-author of the Dictionary of Canadian Military History and Empire to
Umpire: Canada and the World to the 1990s, and the author of The Good
Fight.

Pierre Berton was once one of the country’s pre-eminent columnists, a
writer who could make a serious point or tell a humorous story in 700
words. Since then he has become a television personality, a serious
popular historian, and a major public figure. This volume represents his
attempt to revert to his earlier career and to poke some fun at the
foibles of the late-century world.

While the book as a whole simply does not work well, Berton’s light
anecdotal style can still frequently rise to the occasion. Who else, for
example, could dream up a publishing company devoted to the production
of outdated magazines for dentists’ offices? Or provide us with an
account of the first live television program devoted to the execution of
a prisoner, complete with make-up girls powdering the condemned man so
his pallor won’t appear washed-out on screen? Who else can poke fun at
wine snobs so devastatingly or provide a series of fables for our time?
There is always a quirky intelligence at work here, a sense of the
absurdity of life, as well as a social conscience that remains as strong
as it did when Berton was a daily columnist. Even bad Berton is better
than no Berton, or so his publishers must have believed.