Lancette Arts - Archives Books - Vancouver Stories

Lancette Arts Journal
Founded in 2000

Book Reviews
From our Archives

August 2005

By Alidë Kohlhaas

The Vancouver Stories - West Coast Fiction from Canada's Best Writers is an easy-to-read, sometimes quirky book of short stories. It opens with a piece by poet and writer Pauline Johnson (1861-1913), followed by Ethel Wilson (1888-1980), and Malcolm Lowry (1909-57) before it swings into the stories of more contemporary writers. The book's introduction is by Douglas Coupland. He, more than anyone else, has spun an image of Vancouver as a laid-back place that doesn't have much in common with the rest of the country to the point that its citizens have become to believe in it. Of course, Coupland also has one of his stories featured in the collection.

I picked this book as a reading choice for two reasons: 1. Vancouver was once home, and still is for much of my family, and 2. because I just spent a few weeks there getting re-acquainted with the place, where I found myself in a totally alien atmosphere.

Many of the stories reflect the curious mindset that inhabits the locals. You can feel it while walking along the streets of downtown Vancouver and through the West End, the defining places of the city. There truly is this belief in the minds of its inhabitants, and those living in what is known as the Lower Mainland, that they are somehow part of the California lifestyle. Of course, the outsider knows that Californians are not as laid-back as all that, and that Vancouver's 'let's do it tomorrow' attitude has absolutely nothing in common with Los Angeles or Toronto - oh, especially Toronto.

Vancouver, more than any other city I know, is defined by its landscape. The mountains on one side, the ocean on the other, and the delta toward the southeast hem the city in. As Coupland quite rightly stated in the introduction, "Above all, remember that the one thing that defines Vancouver more than any other trait is that it's a young place—one of the youngest cities on earth—and as such it's very much a work in progress."

It is, however, the landscape that prevents the city from growing into maturity, not its age. As long as there is this belief that you can ski in the morning, bathe in the ocean in the afternoon and sail on it in the evening—as if anyone in Vancouver ever did this—the city will never grow up even if its architecture will change and eventually mature. It was young when I knew it, it is young now, and it will remain young because its citizens, and those who are attracted to the place, are dreamers.

The Vancouver Stories reflect this in one way or another, in sad ways, happy ones, in humorous moments and right-off-the-wall ones. Each one speaks of one aspect of Vancouver, and yet none defines it solely because none can, just as no single story can define any other city. But I enjoyed reading the stories and rediscovered the city through them, even if I no longer can identify with it.

[The Vancouver Stories - West Coast Fiction from Canada's Best Writers with an introduction by Douglas Coupland,
Raincoast Books, 338 pages, paperback, $24.95, ISBN 1-55192-795-0]