A Lad from Brantford and Other Essays

R.G. Moyles is a professor of English at the University of Alberta and
the co-author of Imperial Dreams and Colonial Realities: British Views
of Canada, 1880-1914.

In a kind of “Will Rogers of Canada” style, David Adams Richards
treats us to a series of whimsical essays on a variety of homely topics,
such as “Children,” “Stag Films,” “Quebec,” “Hockey,”
“Weather,” “Travel,” and “Bed and Breakfasts.” For the most
part, they are gentle sendups of established traditions, of American
domination of Canadian institutions. On hockey: “Our whole idea of
entertainment and fun tends to come from Hollywood—and for 60 years
the movies habitually have taught us two things—you can’t have fun
when it snows—and where the temperature is subzero people must be
humorless and unsophisticated. We continually apologize for our weather,
and tend to want the ideas of fun manufactured in New York and Miami. So
we have given the greatest game in the world away fearing that if we
dominate it ourselves it can’t be good. I’m sure the gurus of
national culture would much rather we all play soccer.” There is
nothing new or startling, or even very profound in all this, but, if you
don’t take them too seriously, these essays are pleasant to read. The
little blurb on the back cover informs us that “here are eighteen
essays on how we see ourselves, and on how other people see us and our
culture.” Wrong. These are purely personal ramblings—revealing only
how Richards thinks we see ourselves and how he thinks, often quite
wrongly, that others see us. For what it’s worth, I think he should
stick to fiction.