Notes on False Face

1. Responses to False Face. What aspects of their response (except national issues) seemed particularly worth paying attention to, asking questions about? Compared to other novels we have studied, does it speak in any more immediate way as a Canadian novel? How or how not?
2. Response to discussion of what's Canadian. Any strong feelings about focusing our attention on these matters (i.e., we really should, or we really shouldn't do it at all)? Any specific ideas in my list they strongly respond to, positively or negatively? Any other ideas about the topic not yet discussed in class?
3. Workshop on False Face as Canadian. Taking list of ideas about what's distinctly Canadian, how might they apply to False Face?
• vast nature/ big country
• being conquered rather than conquering nature
• Frye's garrison mentality
• sense of Canada as a marginalized and relatively powerless place in the world
• Atwood's ideas about victims
• not American Americans
• focus on politeness, niceness, community orientation, unpatriotic, etc.
• normal comes from somewhere else
• detached or comic view of typical North American culture
• Richler--Canadians as losers and whiners
• border-oriented thinking--Canada as many "nations" that intersect and occupy the same space--life as about maintaining and moving across boundaries
• multicultural concerns, tolerance, etc.
4. If there's time: focus on issues regarding depictions of aboriginal culture in preparation for the next class. Is False Face doing a good job or a bad job in terms of how it depicts and makes use of aboriginal culture?

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