I had been dreading this English course for way too long, and for what? The fear mostly came from the shadows of those dull high school English classes. "Please define 'iambic pentameter.'" Okay, so why do I need to know that? Those long hours were not even remotely close to eliciting any spark of interest or relating anything I know in the real world but yet haunted by the pressure of impossibly doing well.
            I did have fears that this course was going to be a repetition of those, but am most thankful that it was not. My whole perspective of literature, not just literature of Canada, changed. I've always enjoyed reading and am so happy to know that the study of writing can be something that I can relate to. I am most thankful for Erika who gave us so much liberty in choosing what we want to read, what we want to discuss, and what forms we want to take in our discussions. While some of my classmates may find it disorienting, I can only say it's a rare gift in most university courses.
            For the most part of our class discussions, I very much agree with what people were trying to say, although the topic of identity remains in a private and personal domain for me. I don't feel a need to define my own identity (at least not according to political boundaries) and would not like others to do that for me. So at times I feel really reluctant to give our national identity (which includes you, me, and us) a definition.
            For a person who has almost no prior knowledge of CanLit, I feel we owe some earnest discussions of Northrop Frye, Margaret Atwood, and others of the "canon." Those authors were only brushed by in the context of crumbling old power houses. Time has moved on, that's not us anymore.
            Maybe that's right, but I still don't know why those authors were the canon except they were middle-class Anglo-Saxons. Did our Rosemarys and Johns really felt that those literature represented them as Canadians at those times? Did they feel like victims or survivors? Why would they feel that way? How is that so different today?
            I like the literature in Canada as it is today, and I'm really glad I was reading Green Grass Running Water instead of the prairies. However, I think without those canon the literature in Canada would not have been the same today. I think we owe them some acknowledgment. The question of identity is also a fluid thing. 30 years down the road I bet being Canadian will mean something very differently from today. I think it's more important to understand what forces were behind shaping these identities than

            So Erika asked in class the other day, "Who is the majority in Canada?" Paul said, "Well, there's no white male in our class. Otherwise I would point at him." Right, white male = majority. How can I forget about that? Living in Vancouver in the year of 2010, I shop at Korean supermarkets, order take-outs in Japanese restaurants, go to African music concerts, and being surrounded by more Asian girls than white dudes at UBC. I guess it's normal that I forget about that. Not Ondaatje in the year of 1987 though. I bet he was reminded that every day. Yet In the Skin of a Lion, as I read it in year 2010, still reminds me of my neighbours and colleagues.
            In the eyes of Michael Ondaatje, the 1920s Ontario was a place where many boundaries were being crossed. People have crossed political boundaries - the Finnish loggers in rural Ontario, Nicholas Temelcoff the Macedonian daredevil who became a bakery owner, Caravaggio the Italin-Canadian. Social classes were being crossed - Harris the white-collared commissioner being threatened by Patrick the blue-collared worker. Social justices being crossed - Caravaggio broke out of the prison. Religious boundaries being crossed - Alice the nun ran way after the Bridge incident. Even the Bridge itself is a symbol of crossing a geographical boundary.
            These crossing of boundaries were Ondaatje's answers to the sought-after Canadian identity being defined by Anglo-Saxons who sat in offices and wrote books. Jody Mason told us,
"Using the irony of historiographic metafiction and documentary, Ondaatje asks how we know a nation’s history (and, by extension, its culture and identity) and implies that the version we commonly tell ourselves is constructed from the point of view of men like the Toronto Commissioner of Public Works r.C. Harris — wealthy, powerful, Anglo-Saxons ("The animals out of the desert": The Nomadic Metaphysics of Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion. Studies in Canadian Literature. 31(2).)"

            Ambrose Small was born in 1863 in Bradford, Ontario. He worked his way up in the entertainment business and became a tycoon in the Ontario theatre scene. On Dec. 2, 1919, after he has sold all of his theatres at the price of 1.7 millions dollars, he disappeared with a cheque of one million as part of the payment. The disappearance was unusual because there was no signs of kidnapping and no notes of ransom. Small disappeared just like a puff of air.
            Before his disappearance, Small married Theresa Kormann in 1902. After their marriage, Small was seeing other women, and among them, an opera singer Clara Smith. After his disappearance Clara has put up a 50,000 dollar reward for a lead to Small.
           In In the Skin of a Lion, the main character, Patrick Lewis, became a searcher of the missing millionaire. As he was searching for Small, he met his mistress, Clara, and fell in love with her. After Clara took off to join Small in his hiding, Patrick wrote unsent letters to her.

Dear Clara
            All these strange half-lit lives. Rosedale like an aquarium at night. Underwater tress. You in a long black dress walking without shoes in Ambrose's long garden while his wife slept upstairs. Howling up to disturb her night. The soft rich.
            Ambrose had class because he had you. That's what they all knew - those half-formed people who were born with money and who did nothing except keep it like a thermometer up their ass. The mean rich. The soft rich. I know why you went with Ambrose. He was the harbour rat. An immigrant rat. He had to win or he lost everything. The others just had to get their oldest son into Upper Canada College. Crop rotation. The only one who could slide over the wall, skip along the broken glass, was Small. But I don't want Small, I want you... (In the Skin of a Lion. p. 84)

"The ice shone with light... There were about ten men skating, part of a game. One chased the others and as soon as someone was touched he became the chaser. Each man held in one hand a sheaf of cattails and the tops of these were on fire. This is what lit the ice and had blinked through the trees... Patrick was transfixed... But on this night he did not trust either himself or these strangers of another language enough to be able to step forward and join them (Ondaatje. In the Skin of a Lion. pp. 21-22)."
            I was intrigued by this romantic scene of loggers skating on ice. It probably would not have been as romantic if the loggers spoke English, a language that Patrick understood. Foreigners and logging, this combination reminds me of the Polish domestic helpers in Germany, Philippine caregivers in Taiwan, and Thai blueberry pickers in Sweden. I have high respect for any seasonal worker in every country.
            Later on in the book, Patrick stayed in a Macedonian neighbourhood. The Macedonians started arriving in Canada in the late 19th early 20th century, many as a result of the Ilinden Uprising in 1903. They stayed mostly in the Toronto area, where they found industrial work. Today, there are about 150,000 Macedonians in Canada, among them many are restaurant owners

            If you like romantic novels, you will probably like In the Skin of a Lion, a novel by Michael Ondaatje. Honestly, the romance was a little too much for me, who is more accustomed to crime novels for a light before-bed read. However, I really appreciate the historical ride to the 1920s-30s Toronto where Ondaatje took us.

    The book took place partly during the construction of the Prince Edward Viaduct, more commonly known as the Bloor Viaduct. The Viaduct connected the east and west side of the Don Valley, which really sped up the development of the west side of the Don.
    The Viaduct was designed by Edmund Burke, and it was completed in 1918. What is really special about the viaduct was except the level where cars go through, there's another level under the main deck which the trains could go through. According to Ondaatje, there were also water pipes built in so they can be transported across the city. The train deck was initially criticized to be a waste of money, but later, in 60s, it proved a be a huge save of money, as it was in the Bloor-Danforth line as part of the Toronto subway system.
            The viaduct, since its completion, became a hotspot for suicides, rated number two after the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge in North America. This, however, would have nothing to do with the dramatic event of the nun falling off the Bridge during the construction in Ondaatje's fiction.