Into the mythic with Pierre Berton
Geist magazine’s Stephen Osborne asks why certain writers — Pierre Berton chief among them — have traditionally been considered tragically unhip by certain literati, despite their popular appeal. And in “certain literati” Osborne includes a younger version of himself, as well as his CanLit-minded drinking buddies of the time. Now, though, Osborne’s come to realize that “the Bertonian world offers a challenge that our highbrow writing, our Literature with a capital L, refuses to take up: it reminds us that we have origins in myth, and that we have forgotten them. He and his fellow lowbrows represent a voice, a cultural demiurge that does not reappear in the universities, in the creative writing departments or the English and history departments….”
Related links:
Click here for Stephen Osborne’s Geist piece on Pierre Berton and “lowbrow lit
