During a recent visit, my father
surprised me with a question: “Do you read any of the 'Angry
Mennonites'?”
I asked him if this was a formally
defined group, like Gertrude Stein's “Lost Generation” or Lauren
Bacall's “Rat Pack,” and he admitted the term was amorphous, but
commonly used among his peers. Who were the usual suspects, I
wondered. He came up with the expected list: Miriam Toews, Patrick
Friesen, Di Brandt, Sandra Birdsell — basically the only Mennonites
receiving what passes for prestige treatment in Canadian publishing.
I said they could be difficult to avoid, but I somehow managed.
A bit of a dodge, that. The truth is
I've read enough of all those guys to know I have no interest in the
larger monologue. If
asked about the moral/immoral legacy of the Mennonites and the
psychic burdens their theology and pieties place on the individual, I can fill in the blanks pretty quickly all by myself.
In fact, I have filled in the
blanks.
Last winter as I prepared to attend my grandmother's funeral,
my wife pressed a notebook to me and said, “You should start
writing. Now.”
So I reminisced as
I flew to the prairies. It was pleasant, for the most part, but there
was no escaping the single largest fact in all this: I had physically
removed myself from the environment I grew up in, putting
considerable geographical and spiritual and “Lifestyle” distance
between me and the clan that raised me. You want grievances? Scribner
doesn't make a large enough notebook.
Which probably cuts
to the heart of my father's concern. His question was likely a dodge,
to begin with. The question he probably meant to ask was, “You're
not an angry Mennonite — are you, son?”
Well . . . yeah,
Pop: I'm afraid I am.
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