Home
A Small Dog Barking (Anvil Press)
Robert Strandquist twirls the ice around in his glass of black coffee, the cubes clinking together in a pleasant staccato. The home he shares with his partner of five years, Maria, is neat and well-ordered, from the woven placemats that lie on the little wooden table where we sit to the pieces of antique stained glass leaning against the panes in the bay window from which pale winter light spills through.
Strandquist, in his early 50s, is also neat, with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair and a well-trimmed, seal-coloured beard. Nothing about him or around him hints at one of the strongest recurring themes in his fiction-the world in collapse. The colours of the world are dark these days, he says. "And if you want to paint a picture, that's your palette. Nobody believes in anything anymore.";
Darkness is emphasized in The Shift, a three-part, apocalyptic short story that appears in A Small Dog Barking. "There's no moon in the sky,"; he says, "and that's basically a metaphor for God: There's no God in the sky."; Meanwhile Strandquist does yoga, practices Zen, and is inspired by Zhuangzi, a 4th-century B.C. Taoist philosopher, whose ideas strongly influenced Chinese Buddhism.
For Strandquist, to deny the existence of God-or Allah or Yahweh or Brahma, whatever name you use-is absurd. "We blithely walk around thinking that there is no God,"; he says, and because of it we are teetering on the brink of oblivion.
Darkness is never far away. Had he not discovered meditation in 1980, alcoholism might have killed him. As well, during his first two years of being a full-time writer, he was beset by terror and anxiety, constantly grappling with the question: Why am I doing this?
Brian Kaufman, Strandquist's editor at Anvil Press, prefers to view Strandquist as a kind of soothsayer. "His stories seem to talk in the sense of parables. They're like a warning sign telling us we're going to hell, and we'd better do something fast."; Novelist Bill Gaston concurs, calling Strandquist a West Coast Kafka. "I guess because one senses in his work, as a sort of backdrop, an existential burden, that there's a kind of nasty trick going on.";
According to Strandquist, this dystopian mess we're in has much to do with the destruction of indigenous cultures by western colonialism and imperialism and extends to what Strandquist calls the destruction of our indigenous selves. It comes from the West's penchant for trashing religions-particularly Islam. This is a sin, Strandquist says, that will come back to haunt us.
"We have no right to be so destructive when somebody's got something that they value so much they'll give up their lives to protect it,"; he says. And then, with a wistful air, looking down at the table, brushing away invisible crumbs, he adds, "I wish we had something that we valued that much in our culture. If we did, we'd be way better off. We wouldn't be teetering on the
edge of oblivion.";
Concurrently, Strandquist suggests western culture has reduced the modern-day male to the likes of Homer Simpson, a notorious "goof"; who is an alien to his children. "Most men are like Homer Simpson. And that's a ruined thing; that's not a complete form. It's a mutation of something natural.";
Strandquist believes women are generally more on the ball, but he is is not confident that either sex has what it takes to bring the world forward-or set it right. "We're so close to the abyss,"; says the soothsayer, "we've got to save us from ourselves. Here we are on this great ship that's about to run into an iceberg.";
Nor does Strandquist have the answers either. "His fiction's complaint [has] no particular object or centre,"; says Gaston. "Nor does it offer solutions, so in this way it feels so accurate."; The appeal of many of Strandquist's characters, Kaufman says, "is they're just like you and me, and you see how close any of us are to falling through the cracks.";
Leo, the protagonist in Strandquist's novel The Dreamlife of Bridges (Anvil Press, 2003), gets caught in a tailspin through the loss of job after job, and home after home, until he eventually ends up on the streets. His son has committed suicide, and his tools-the only possessions he still retains once he's homeless-get consumed by fire. For renewal to happen, for healing to happen, we have to start all over again. "And in the deepest sense, we have to start from nothing,"; Strandquist says. "We have to throw it away, throw everything away and begin again.";
Growing up, Strandquist bounced around B.C. with his family, and his early education was a disaster. He failed classes. He went from a middle-class high school in Kelowna to Surrey where there were students smoking in the halls. Disheartened by his new surroundings, he started skipping classes and eventually dropped out when he was in Grade Ten. Three years later, Strandquist entered Douglas College in New Westminster and steered himself towards the arts, including writing, even though he was functionally illiterate.
"It's kind of fascinating why I chose to do something that I didn't know anything about,"; he says. "I would have been much wiser to choose music or engineering, which is what I was really interested in."; Eventually, at the University of Lethbridge, and later at UVic, he realized his course had to be writing. "It lit a fire under me that's still going today.";
Now holding an M.F.A from UBC, Strandquist has banished his demons. The terror he felt upon becoming a full-time writer has dissipated, and he no longer asks himself, why am I doing this? It's as if he's come to an understanding with God, struck a deal with Him, and has every intention of holding up his end of the bargain.
"It's a reciprocal thing with nature,"; he says. "If you make a decision to go in a particular direction, then the impulse is yours, but all the rest of it is up to nature-or Brahma, or whatever."; There is a certain kismet to his thinking, a karmic philosophy that keeps his "ass in the chair."; It tells him God is working away on his behalf to help him in his chosen pursuit, and so prevents him from abandoning it to do something else when things get tough.
"I've learned the hard way. You get something good happening and for whatever reason, you decide it's not the right thing anymore, and you go off in this direction and, boy, do you pay a price. So that's why I keep writing. This little voice says, just do it. So I do it."; 1-895636-69-8
Article by Tamara Letkeman, a Vancouver writer.
[BCBW 2006] "Fiction"
Strandquist, in his early 50s, is also neat, with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair and a well-trimmed, seal-coloured beard. Nothing about him or around him hints at one of the strongest recurring themes in his fiction-the world in collapse. The colours of the world are dark these days, he says. "And if you want to paint a picture, that's your palette. Nobody believes in anything anymore.";
Darkness is emphasized in The Shift, a three-part, apocalyptic short story that appears in A Small Dog Barking. "There's no moon in the sky,"; he says, "and that's basically a metaphor for God: There's no God in the sky."; Meanwhile Strandquist does yoga, practices Zen, and is inspired by Zhuangzi, a 4th-century B.C. Taoist philosopher, whose ideas strongly influenced Chinese Buddhism.
For Strandquist, to deny the existence of God-or Allah or Yahweh or Brahma, whatever name you use-is absurd. "We blithely walk around thinking that there is no God,"; he says, and because of it we are teetering on the brink of oblivion.
Darkness is never far away. Had he not discovered meditation in 1980, alcoholism might have killed him. As well, during his first two years of being a full-time writer, he was beset by terror and anxiety, constantly grappling with the question: Why am I doing this?
Brian Kaufman, Strandquist's editor at Anvil Press, prefers to view Strandquist as a kind of soothsayer. "His stories seem to talk in the sense of parables. They're like a warning sign telling us we're going to hell, and we'd better do something fast."; Novelist Bill Gaston concurs, calling Strandquist a West Coast Kafka. "I guess because one senses in his work, as a sort of backdrop, an existential burden, that there's a kind of nasty trick going on.";
According to Strandquist, this dystopian mess we're in has much to do with the destruction of indigenous cultures by western colonialism and imperialism and extends to what Strandquist calls the destruction of our indigenous selves. It comes from the West's penchant for trashing religions-particularly Islam. This is a sin, Strandquist says, that will come back to haunt us.
"We have no right to be so destructive when somebody's got something that they value so much they'll give up their lives to protect it,"; he says. And then, with a wistful air, looking down at the table, brushing away invisible crumbs, he adds, "I wish we had something that we valued that much in our culture. If we did, we'd be way better off. We wouldn't be teetering on the
edge of oblivion.";
Concurrently, Strandquist suggests western culture has reduced the modern-day male to the likes of Homer Simpson, a notorious "goof"; who is an alien to his children. "Most men are like Homer Simpson. And that's a ruined thing; that's not a complete form. It's a mutation of something natural.";
Strandquist believes women are generally more on the ball, but he is is not confident that either sex has what it takes to bring the world forward-or set it right. "We're so close to the abyss,"; says the soothsayer, "we've got to save us from ourselves. Here we are on this great ship that's about to run into an iceberg.";
Nor does Strandquist have the answers either. "His fiction's complaint [has] no particular object or centre,"; says Gaston. "Nor does it offer solutions, so in this way it feels so accurate."; The appeal of many of Strandquist's characters, Kaufman says, "is they're just like you and me, and you see how close any of us are to falling through the cracks.";
Leo, the protagonist in Strandquist's novel The Dreamlife of Bridges (Anvil Press, 2003), gets caught in a tailspin through the loss of job after job, and home after home, until he eventually ends up on the streets. His son has committed suicide, and his tools-the only possessions he still retains once he's homeless-get consumed by fire. For renewal to happen, for healing to happen, we have to start all over again. "And in the deepest sense, we have to start from nothing,"; Strandquist says. "We have to throw it away, throw everything away and begin again.";
Growing up, Strandquist bounced around B.C. with his family, and his early education was a disaster. He failed classes. He went from a middle-class high school in Kelowna to Surrey where there were students smoking in the halls. Disheartened by his new surroundings, he started skipping classes and eventually dropped out when he was in Grade Ten. Three years later, Strandquist entered Douglas College in New Westminster and steered himself towards the arts, including writing, even though he was functionally illiterate.
"It's kind of fascinating why I chose to do something that I didn't know anything about,"; he says. "I would have been much wiser to choose music or engineering, which is what I was really interested in."; Eventually, at the University of Lethbridge, and later at UVic, he realized his course had to be writing. "It lit a fire under me that's still going today.";
Now holding an M.F.A from UBC, Strandquist has banished his demons. The terror he felt upon becoming a full-time writer has dissipated, and he no longer asks himself, why am I doing this? It's as if he's come to an understanding with God, struck a deal with Him, and has every intention of holding up his end of the bargain.
"It's a reciprocal thing with nature,"; he says. "If you make a decision to go in a particular direction, then the impulse is yours, but all the rest of it is up to nature-or Brahma, or whatever."; There is a certain kismet to his thinking, a karmic philosophy that keeps his "ass in the chair."; It tells him God is working away on his behalf to help him in his chosen pursuit, and so prevents him from abandoning it to do something else when things get tough.
"I've learned the hard way. You get something good happening and for whatever reason, you decide it's not the right thing anymore, and you go off in this direction and, boy, do you pay a price. So that's why I keep writing. This little voice says, just do it. So I do it."; 1-895636-69-8
Article by Tamara Letkeman, a Vancouver writer.
[BCBW 2006] "Fiction"
Submitted on September 7, 2006 in By David.
