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In 2036, the author and critic Rye Stevenson announced his retirement. As his intern1, I have

come know him very well and, with time, to understand his life. Over the years with him, we had

some fascinating conversations, many of which I have recorded for posterity. After he announced

his official retirement from writing, I decided to conduct a series of interviews on his life. I can only

hope that one day these writings will be of value to someone. These are not presented in

chronological order. This is an homage of sorts since in general Rye has a tendency to start in the

middle, and bravely forge his way towards left field, or wherever else he was not supposed to go.

This interview was conducted in 2039, recently after I attended the opening of the new university in

my home town of Denay Nunavut.

Kautyayuk What would you say was the moment you decided you wanted to be a writer?

Rye Stevenson Sometime in the first year of my university studies. I ended up changing

fields of study after an unfortunate incident during my practicum. I remember quite well when I was

first becoming involved in, what was at the time, modern literature. I ended up taking a course on

Canadian Prose and was introduced to the subject by Dr. Leahy.

K And he convinced you to become a writer?

R I think something in his course did. I do remember that I wrote two essays for him, the first

of which was a fairly bland paper on a novel we had read. The second one I remember having an

inspiration, which means I ended up overdoing something. I don't remember much about it though.

K Let's see if Multivac has a copy on record. Here we are, written in 2009? “Modern Fiction,

Our Oral Culture: Making Connections Between the First Nations Oral Traditions and Modern
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Canadian Literature” Let me upload it to our memory banks. Here we are. Let's see, it seems like

the essay is basically saying modern fiction is today's equivalent of oral tales. Isn't that an obvious

given? I mean, a narrative is a narrative is a narrative2.

R (laughs) You aren't the first person to say that. Read the thesis. Second page, second

paragraph, “In this paper I intend to show that modern fiction is the same as aboriginal cultures oral

traditions. This becomes clear when we look at examples of modern Canadian fiction and compare

it to the role of oral traditions in aboriginal and ancient cultures. These stories serve as models for

development of the individual within a culture, methods of transmitting cultural understanding, and

building blocks of cultural history.” This is about what stories do.

K Alright. So let's go further. What did you mean by, “The stories serve as models for

development of the individual within a culture.”

R Let's start with storytelling in first nations cultures. That's one of the purest examples since

without written language, all their knowledge was orally transmitted. How did they teach and learn?

By telling stories. The people listened to these stories and vicariously lived the experiences of the

characters. They learned real lessons from imaginary people. Strange to imagine, but that's how it

worked. There were in fact four general types of myths : nature, trickster, transformation and hero

myths3. The stories created characters that are identified with. Consequently the listeners would

strive to emulate what brought success, and avoid what brought failure in the story4. Whether or not

the stories are true, the lessons are real. Despite characters in the stories being fantastic, the people

really made connections with them.5

K But where does this connect to the modern fiction you studied?
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R Let's look at some concrete examples. In the old novel As For Me and My House, the author

presents us with two characters; Mrs and Mr Bentley. Mrs Bentley narrates the story with a series of

journal entries that gives us enough information to imagine the situations, but not enough to be sure

what people are thinking. Now, both characters are not what you'd call hero archetypes. Mr Bentley

spends his time wrestling with his personal frustrations as a failed artist6 and the fact that he works

as a preacher but has no faith in God7. His wife spends her time vainly trying to gain the attention of

her husband8 and dreaming of ways that she raise them out of their problems. In the end, I found the

book profoundly depressing. If I remember correctly I expressed that opinion in class. Loudly.

K Strange, but I have no difficulty imagining this.

R I'm going to take that as a compliment. Anyway, while these are hardly characters we want

to imitate, we can identify with them and learn from their mistakes. The characters in the story

make us imagine the problems of the characters; the struggling, frustrated artist and the woman who

is fighting to be appreciated. The readers are able to identify and learn from the characters

problems, hopefully gaining perspective on their own lives. We get a lesson in life from our author.

K And what is that lesson? Canada is filled with failed artists and ignored wives?

R Cute. Another example is when I read The Diviners. I made a deep connection with the

protagonist. Look at how I described her in the essay, “Morag Gunn is a complex character who is

working to make peace with her past by reviewing it. Through flashbacks, the author is able to

cleverly show us both what is happening to Morag in the present and what choices she made that

brought her to that moment. This is not a story with a hero(ine) who saves the world, but a story of

someone who is coming to terms with her past.” Considering the troubles I've had becoming
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comfortable with my own past, it should be no surprise that I found myself connecting with Morag

on a very personal level. The protagonist's difficulties actually helped me identify who I was, and I

can't help but wonder if it was a factor in me becoming a writer. The characters and conflicts were

fictional, but I got real guidance. I found that the story used metafiction in a very clever way and I

ended up imitating that when I wrote this essay. I learned and grew from reading that novel.

K Alright, I can see how identifying with characters from the stories helps people build

personal identity. What about this second point?

R “Modern fiction, like aboriginal legends transmit cultural values and rules.”

K How is that different from the first point?

R The first one was about personal identity, this is about the values and taboos of a culture.

Stories were a powerful way of reinforcing this9. This isn't about what people do, but what they

believe. Storytellers have great power when it comes to handing on traditions10. In for example, in

old Inuit culture, life was difficult and dangerous and in their stories violence is common11. This is

because in their lives, there was no law enforcement, and people had to be ready to fight and kill.

There is a one story where a boy wants his father killed because he is “dangerous”. The father wants

to kill another man because he wants to take the man's wife. Violence ensues, and in the end the

father dies. What is interesting is the way this bloody story ends with the simple traditional, “So the

story goes, that is all12.”

K Wow, how did Aesop miss that theme in his fables? What's the moral again? Patricide?
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R In this context, it looks like it. But this isn't Greek culture, so the values are different. The

stories are teaching different concepts for good and bad. There is no question that writers influence

readers. They will set up values for certain ideas in the way that they create their stories. The writer

is not objective, and will include elements that support their views. There really is no such thing as

an objective human observer. Objectionable human observer, maybe, but never objective. Story

tellers create stories based on what they have already experienced, and no two people will

experience a situation in exactly the same way. We all have inherent biases.

K Meaning two people seeing the same event will tell different stories.

R Exactly. Now, this means that the stories we are exposed to contain the storytellers values.

Stories take place in an imaginary space where the values and actions are up to the story's creator

which certainly makes it easier for them to pass on traditions. When I wrote this essay, Canadian

culture was still a touchy subject, sort of undefined. Given the vast ethnic and geographic diversity

of Canada, coming up with a clear definition of what is Canadian is near impossible13. This

confusing and undefined nature of our culture meant that a lot of our cultural references became,

“We are tired of being confused with Americans.” There's a good tongue in cheek short story called

Cape Breton is the Thought-Control Centre of Canada that, among other things, shouted loudly and

clearly, “we are not a mouse sleeping beside and elephant!14”

K Now that's a powerful cry of cultural pride, “Stop confusing us with our neighbors!”

R Remember, this was before the energy crisis of 2024, so one of the rallying cries of the

Canada's was still “We are not Americans!” Margaret Atwood, in her novel The Handmaid's Tale,

created what could ironically be labeled The Dystopia for Canadians with what was essentially an
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American religious right theocracy. As Canadians we couldn't imagine a worse hell. Is it really so

bad in America? Absolutely not, but we still see this almost anti-American value being passed on.

There are some difficulties with this though.

K Do tell.

R This is actually general problem when a work focuses extensively on criticizing a value or

series of values. If the cultural values or criticisms that are to be transmitted in the story become too

complex, the depth of character in the story suffer. In The Handmaid's Tale plays a dangerous line

with this, since the author has to play a fine balancing act of putting importance on the ideas behind

the story without letting them overshadow the action15. I think Atwood pulls it off though.

K The course that you wrote this essay for, it was called Canadian Prose was it not? How come

you weren't given a more clear definition as to what Canadian prose is?

R Even in 2010 Canada had no real “defined” culture. There were too many different

variations within the subcultures. It was easier to say what Canadians weren't rather than what they

were. I'd say the general pride of Canadians was that we were an independent nation, we had vast

natural resources, we had high ideals, and that we were clean and polite.

K Very pretty. That is when we weren't gunning down the American Imperialists as suggested

by Ray Smith.

R But of course, but these ideals about Canada got put inserted into our literature. The natural

elements, the distances and the space, these are re-occuring themes in Canadian prose. There are
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many examples in As For Me and My House and more than a few of the short stories in the course

touched on the theme. Canada saw itself as the land of freedom and equality. This is actually

referenced in The Handmaid's Tale with the “underground female road16” which helped refugees get

out of the country, presumably to Canada. Canada is presented at the land of salvation in the story.

In spite of being fiction, Canadians reading the story will feel national pride as being referenced,

especially under those terms.

K But you are saying that people take their values from reading fiction?

R I'm saying that the messages contained within a story about culture are assimilated as part of

the reading, and that all stories contain these messages. This goes beyond the action and into the

values that are presented. In The Handmaid's Tale we are fairly explicitly shown what the author

thinks of the religious right movement. I don't know if this means Atwood was a sort of tribal elder

for Canadian feminists, but she was certainly effective in passing on feminist and Canadian ideas in

her stories.

K What about this last point? You state that modern fiction is used to build history. Can you

explain that please?

R Sure, it's simple. History is at the root of culture since the way that culture develops is

dependent on the influences that history has on it. French speaking Canadians still celebrate their

French roots generations after they they completely severed ties with their parent nation. In the first

nations cultures, history is represented by the stories that are told and passed from one generation to

the next. These stories are adapted to make sense of the periods when they were told17.
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K Are you saying that that is how our history is written?

R Through the stories and chronicles that historians create. We are constantly updating history

so that it fits with the facts that are currently fashionable. In the end, history turns out to be the

passing of stories from one generation of historian to the next.

K What does this have to do with the Canadian fiction that you were studying?

R Quite a bit. These fictional stories are still based on the very real experiences of the writers.

So in a way, stories chronicle the experiences of the writers. What's interesting is that the

representations can be quite subtle. You remember William Gibson, the writer who started the

cyberpunk genre? In a way he was commenting on how society was developing more and more

towards man and machine hybrids. Nowadays we can read the story and say that here we have one

of the first moments where someone questioned what humans were becoming. It's history. These

stories contain the thoughts and ideas of the authors which lets the future generations make personal

connections with their forefathers. When people will look back on the influences of the early

feminist movement for example, they will look back at the fiction as well as the essays from the

writers of that period. Fiction complements what are sometimes called “the true stories”. Many

cultures even end up blending the two, which is confusing if you don't have a clear way to separate

them. It can be extremely difficult to figure out what parts of a fiction story are made up.

K Or like how we look back at the so called “post-modern” writing period and study the fiction

from about the time you started writing.

R Exactly. Granted, we don't have EVERY story written during that period, but that's the
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normal process of selection. Not every story written was worth keeping. An important part of

literature gaining value is that is has to be analyzed by someone other than the author. What's the

value in a work that makes no sense?

K Propping up the short leg of a couch?

R Pretty much. Writing is an art, and if you don't practice and learn the conventions, you may

not create anything worth anything. Stories are sort of like furniture, before they have value, they

need to be complete enough that they can stand on their own. If you have to prop it up, it's only as

valuable as the prop18. The fiction that stands the test of time is an important part of recorded

history since it allows us insight into the minds and cultures of the people who wrote it.

K Well, we should wrap this up. I've already gone on longer than I was supposed to. One last

question, looking back on this work, how do you feel about it now? Do you think it still has value?

R I think it is the reader that makes a story important. I just wrote this stuff, I can't really judge

it. To me it's just stories, to someone else, it's a window into the world of my mind. Some may find

it interesting, some may find it dull or incomprehensible. No matter how you look at it, the value

comes from the larger experience it creates. But I'm quite curious, what did you think of this essay?