John Glassco S Richer World

Showing that Memoirs of Montparnasse is not the honest reminiscence John Glassco presents it to be, this volume compares the published book version of Memoirs to its holograph manuscript with the narrative energy of a psychological detective story. Like Frederick Philip Grove and Grey Owl, Glassco too has transformed himself into a person of his own creation. Literary subterfuge pervades not only the premise on which Memoirs of Montparnasse is founded, but also the dialogue, the plot structure, the characterizations, and the events that are supposed to have happened. This subterfuge contributes to establishing Glassco's distinctive position in Canadian literary history, that of a 20th-century successor to the literary dandies, aesthetes, and decadents of 19th-century England and France.

The Nightinghouls of Paris is a thinly fictionalized memoir of the darker side of expatriate life in Paris. Beginning in 1928, the story follows the changes undergone by Canadian youths John Glassco and his friend Graeme Taylor during their (mis)adventures in Paris while trying to become writers. There they meet Robert McAlmon, who guides them through the city’s cafes, bistros, and nightclubs, where they find writers and artists including Kay Boyle (with whom Glassco has a fling), Bill Bird, Djuna Barnes, Claude McKay, Hilaire Hiler, Peggy Guggenheim, and Ernest Hemingway. Fleeing France in late 1940, Robert McAlmon lost his notebook manuscripts and drafted The Nightinghouls of Paris from memory. Till now, it has existed solely as a typescript held by Yale University. Unlike most memoirs of American expatriates in the ‘20s, The Nightinghouls of Paris centers not only on writers, but also encompasses the racial, national, and social mélange they encountered in everyday life.

Compass points is a radical new history of the twentieth century. Plot your own course through a wide range of creative and forthright articles by some of Canada's best essayists and authors. Each section, organized by decade, grapples with crucial developments in politics, economics, society, and culture in canada and abroad.

The romance between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre has been celebrated as one of the greatest of the 20th century. From the beginning, their relationship was a tumultuous one, in which the couple’s excesses were as widely known as their passion for each other. Despite their love, both Scott and Zelda engaged in flirtations that threatened to tear the couple apart. But none had a more profound impact on the two—and on Scott’s writing—as the liaison between Zelda and a French aviator, Edouard Jozan. Though other biographies have written of Jozan as one of Scott’s romantic rivals, accounts of the pilot’s effect on the couple have been superficial at best. In The Gatsby Affair: Scott, Zelda, and the Betrayal That Shaped an American Classic, Kendall Taylor examines the dalliance between the southern belle and the French pilot from a fresh perspective. Drawing on conversations and correspondence with Jozan’s daughter, as well as materials from the Jozan family archives, Taylor sheds new light on this romantic triangle. More than just a casual fling, Zelda’s tryst with Edouard affected Scott as much as it did his wife—and ultimately influenced the author’s most famous creation, Jay Gatsby. Were it not for Zelda’s affair with the pilot, Scott’s novel might be less about betrayal and more about lost illusions. Exploring the private motives of these public figures, Taylor offers new explanations for their behavior. In addition to the love triangle that included Jozan, Taylor also delves into an earlier event in Zelda’s life—a sexual assault she suffered as a teenager—one that affected her future relationships. Both a literary study and a probing look at an iconic couple’s psychological makeup, The Gatsby Affair offers readers a bold interpretation of how one of America’s greatest novels was influenced.

Trehearne observes that in most cases the Aesthetic influence was sustained through the entire career of the poets whose work he examines. Although later affected by the Modernists, their works continued to be shaped and distinguished by an early Aesthetic training. In the case of A.J.M. Smith, for example, his initial thematic and stylistic Aetheticism affects his mature critical pronouncements. John Glassco, who was influenced by the Aesthetic and Modernist ideas throughout his career, created a unique form of Aesthetic modern poetry. Trehearne's new readings of major and minor Canadian poets make Aestheticism and the Canadian Modernists a central text in the assessment of Canadian literary history from a contemporary point of view.

Decades after his death, John Glassco (1909-1981) remains Canada's most enigmatic literary figure. The Heart Accepts It All: SelectedLetters of John Glassco draws back the curtain on this self-described 'great practitioner of deceit.' We see the delight he took in revealing his many literary hoaxes to friends, and the scorn he had for literary fashion. The letters reflect his convictions about literature, other writers and his own talent, while documenting struggles with publishers, pirates and censors. Born into one of Montreal's wealthiest families, Glassco turned his back on privilege for a life in letters. At age eighteen, having been published in Paris, his voice suddenly went silent. His unexpected return to the literary scene in 1957 coincided with the great flowering of Canadian literature. In the years that followed, he produced a unique body of work that encompasses poetry, memoir, translation, and several bestselling books of pornography. Collected here are the few surviving letters from his youthful adventures in France and three previously unpublished poems. Amongst his correspondents were Maurice Girodias, F.R. Scott, A.J.M. Smith, Ralph Gustafson, Leon Edel and Margaret Atwood.

Analytical, controversial, lyrical, intelligent, and never boring, these essays cover topics as diverse as Nabokov's Pale Fire, the literary quarrel between Morley Callaghan and John Glassco, the idea of art, the poetry and prose of R.J. MacSween, the poetry of Ken Norris, and myth.

Glasscos Selected Poems won him the Governor Generals Award. This collection includes examples of his translations, excerpts from his erotic poetry, and three short prose commentaries.