The following is the text of a speech I made on receiving the Kouhi Award from the Northwestern Ontario Writers Workshop in 2017. I decided to talk about my reading life. Was I one of those writers who read Ulysses at eleven years old? No. I was a champion of Freddie the Pig.

My Life in Literature

By Joan M. Baril

I have had a long and checkered life in literature. So I dedicate these few words to Thomas Hardy, Agatha Christie, Freddy the Pig and the hippies of Kaministiquia.

At six years old, I’m walking to Waverley Library by myself every second week to return my two books (you were only allowed two at a time). Once there, I took out the same books again which were Madeleine and Freddy the Pig.

However, one day, Miss Brownlee the librarian stopped me and said, “why do you always take out the same books time after time?” I could not answer. I could not explain that Madeleine was my friend. And so was Freddy. I could not live without Freddy. I read the book over and over. I talked to Freddy all the time and we had many imaginary adventures together and these adventures were the best things in my life.

I think I just stood there, looking at the floor, terrified the librarian would forbid me from taking out Freddie again; but, she only said, “There are other Freddie books you know. An entire series.”

There were?

 Jump ahead to when I was eleven years old. I have read interviews with famous authors who said they were reading Ulysses at eleven. Not me.  At eleven, I was still reading Freddie the Pig. It was a long running series.

Then Nancy Drew drove up in her red roadster with her girlfriend, George. Make of that what you will. As I whistled through the series, I did not notice that many of the villains were described as “swarthy.” The guys who were running the counterfeit operation on Larkspur Lane – “swarthy.” The villain who hid the map inside the twisted candle – also “swarthy.”  On occasion, in moments of extreme stress, the swarthy guy would exclaim, (or ejaculated, a common dialogue tag of the time, but for some reason seldom used today), “By gar!” as in, “By gar! I thought I left the treasure in the old clock. No! By gar! I left it in the moss covered cottage.”

A child does not recognize racism or sexism or anti-Semitism but it was present in many of the children’s series. I read them all. Cherry Ames, nurse, The Campfire Girls, The Radio Boys, Vicki Barr, Flight Stewardess and on and on. The library didn’t carry these series book so I had to borrow from the neighbourhood teen-agers.

            I was so avid for these books, I used any ruse I could. One neighbour had a huge hoard left by her grown-up daughters. But I could take only one at a time. Unfortunately, the day I had to have a book, (Not “wanted a book.” Not, “would like a book.” I needed a book. We’re talking addiction here.) the old grampa had died and they were having the wake in the living room. Nevertheless, I slipped in the back door. I hesitated in the kitchen because I really, really wanted to see grampa in his coffin, but I decided it was too risky. Instead, I slipped upstairs into the bedroom with the bookcase. After a careful review of the shelves, I chose my book and tiptoed away.

Then of course, Anne Shirley and Jo March arrived and, as usual, I read both series several times. Jo March replaced Freddy the pig as my secret companion. For years I set my moral compass by Jo asking myself in difficult situations: What would Jo March do?

I did run into literature in school and it taught me one important thing about my relationship to books which is this: if I did not like a book, I could not read it. Not I refused to read it, or it was a tough slog to read or I had to force myself to read it – no, I could not read it. My teeth hurt, my skin crawled, my hair twisted in my scalp, my entire body rebelled.  I could not read this book.

Actually, as neuroses go, this isn’t a bad one to have.

I discovered this revulsion in public school when I was introduced to Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates. I made it to page 2. If you ever come across this book, my advice is, ignore it. On the other hand, if your life is a whirl of parties, never ending hot sex, heavy drinking and strange drugs and you haven’t slept for three nights and you want to come down, Hans is your remedy. For sure-fire results, you might try it in the original Dutch.

In school, I did like a classic or two such as The Tale of Two Cities but, by grade ten, I found Agatha Christie. I read her for years and years along with trash such as Mickey Spillane and the popular sexy historical bodice-rippers like The Hamilton Woman and Forever Amber. These trashy historicals helped me a lot because to them I attribute my decision to choose history as my major university. 

But, I married and entered a literary desert. My husband was in the military and we lived on military bases where finding any books was a problem. Libraries were far away. Life without a library is like a life without wine, a life without friends, a life without an inner life which is often a lot more interesting than reality.

 For a long time, I didn’t drive and so I was reduced to the tiny offerings at the grocery store. A strange thing happened. I lost the ability to read books. I no longer knew how to decode them. I remember trying to read a book by Mordecai Richler, something to do with filmmakers in London. I could understand the plot but I could not relate to the characters. Their conversation made no sense to me. A sardonic undertone informed the writing but I had no idea to what it was referring. After trying a few more grocery store pickings, I gave up reading entirely. For the next few years I read almost nothing.

Sometimes I look back and try to figure out how I lived without reading. I know cognitive skills are needed to understand novels and I had lost them somehow. (Of course, if you are a

full-time housewife and a full-time working mother in the early 60’s, the brain atrophies as a matter of course.) I did not mourn the loss of books or the loss of the life of the mind because in that environment no one talked about the life of the mind. As a concept, it didn’t exist.

 But I sometimes think the reason I gave up books so easily was this. Previously I had read so much pop stuff, and yes, trashy stuff, so much easy, peasy whistle-through plots, that I never graduated to a more nuanced and in-depth type of reading. I never connected books to life.

But then a few years later, when I moved with my children to Kaministiquia and was surrounded by hippies, and the co-op book store opened on Algoma Street, and the zeigist changed and I went back to university to finish the degree I had dropped long before, everyone I knew was reading and talking about their books.

At a Kam party, on the other side of the smoke-filled room, Kelly Pykerman stood up and recited, by heart, the “House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe. The neighbour guy who came to install a window described how The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse was changing his life. All my women friends seemed to be reading Anais Nin.

At the university, I came across a book table set up by the co-op book shop. I stopped by and met Jack Lemon, who tried to sell me on Marcuse but, wisely, I turned it down. Instead, I picked up an early Doris Lessing, and, following my teen-age pattern, I read everything she wrote. Through Lessing, I connected literature and life.

At a party in those days, the guests often took a look at the nearby bookcases looking for book ideas. Often, you saw many of the same books at other houses you knew. This was the time Canadian literature was blossoming. Everyone seemed to be reading Atwood, Lawrence, Leonard Cohen, Carol Shields, the Divine Alice, but also popular were the Germans such as Hesse and the Russians with cheery old Dostoevsky leading the pack and the French: Simone de Beauvoir, Camus and Sartre. In these bookcases, you found Chinese translations and political stuff like Marcuse and new age stuff, and feminist stuff and How to Keep your Volkswagen Alive and organic foods and Abby Hoffman’s Steal This Book and so on. The amazing ferment and questioning of the 70’s was reflected by books everywhere.

So this is when my real life in literature began. I am forever grateful to the hippies of Kam. At the library, I took out my first classic, Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy and, of course, read all his works that I could find. For the first time, I became immersed in the classics, even reading those children’s classics such as Treasure Island, which I had skipped over in favour of Freddie and Nancy. The library bookmobile arrived at Leppanens store once a week. Margaret Phillips opened the Northern Women’s Bookstore.  We all know the book business has gone through extraordinary changes, many negative, but one change has been for the best. Nowadays, everything is available on line.

I was back reading once again and never stopped. I was listening to people talking about books. I was interested to hear Richard Wagamese, when he spoke at the NOWW literary awards dinner a few years ago, say that when he lived on the street, he listened to the university students talk about books and he would write the titles down, go to the library and read them. In a certain sense, he had found a literary community which gave him ideas and titles and thus a reading plan. In Kam, I had fallen into such a community, which allowed me, for the first time, to make sense of the vast number of books out there. I was able to make a mental template that helped me chose what I wanted to read.

Studies show that reading prevents Alzheimer’s. I forgot where that study was done. But my point is this. Reading is not a solitary act. The reader does not exist in a void. He or she engages with the world through the book of course, but also in many ways such as reading reviews perhaps or checking blogs and web sites, or listening to Shelagh Rogers on CBC, or taking part in a book club, or wandering around Chapters or the library, or attending readings and literary events. Or simply by conversations about books.

 Through literature you acquire a rich inner life that connects you to the world. You are reading this blog as part of a literary community. It’s nice to know you will not encounter Alzheimer’s and your brain will keep humming to the last page.