Paul Gerhardt Hiebert (1892–1987)

Ah, Sarah Binks, sweet songstress of the Prairies, she was.

Funny from start to finish, (Sarah Binks) is a meticulously crafted parody of biographies and literary criticism and a satire of the Anglo Canadian identity’s excruciating need to find significance in itself. How does Paul Hiebert diffuse that incessant but utterly-Canadian boosterism, the likes of which we recently saw with Alice Munro and Eleanor Catton (the New Zealander woman who won the Man Booker and who was automatically conferred the Canadian Governor General's Literary Award because she lived in Canada for just six-years http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2013/11/14/the_scandal_that_is_canadia... Hiebert does so succulently with wheat, specifically with the obscure but eternal Wheat Pool Medal.

The line between delicious parody / satire with contempt is a very fine line, one that is mastered by only funny people. Fortunately, that is a line that Hiebert never crosses; he may take us near to it, but he always wrenches us back at the last moment. I mean, it’s very easy to laden on Binks, praise upon praise, and then conclude with a snide comment that unravels everything that came before, but Hiebert was meticulous not to do so. In fact, he piles on even more victory titles, more Roman triumphs, and tops it all off with cherries, even while he maintains his protagonist in the realm of the plausible.

Indeed, for while Sarah’s poems are pretentious, childish, shallow, and awful, they do adhere to proper form. Sara Binks (could have been) a poet of her time, though nothing like T.S. Eliot, or Yeats, much less Kipling or Lord Tennyson. Also, her poems were reminiscent to me of the American 19th century Fireside Poets, e.g. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who were once in vogue for plagiarizing indigenous folk tales for the sake of American boosterism and who are now dismissed and neglected as the road that should not have been taken.

As with any book, it is possible to not like this book. If you are the type who can’t stand Canadiana, with its all-white Prairie farmers and its all-white small towns who live with their all-white miseries set during the Great Depression or the War of 1812—where all Canadian stories were set and will always be—then this book may or may not be up your alley. If you are the type who always comes to books thinking that everything in it was written to the (literal) letter of everything, you probably wouldn’t like this novel because it might offend some perceived biases or prejudices you might have against the book, the merits of the book, or people you have known who have read this book (mayhaps, a member of the 2003 CBC Canada Reads panel?). In this latter case, I would assume that you’re some kind of unhappy and unfunny person, perhaps a passive-aggressive March Aries female, like Joachim Murat (Marshal of France, the King of Naples, and the Grand Duke of Berg). If not, can I assume that you are a Gemini caught between uber-paranoid Mayor Rob Ford and uber-narcissistic Kanye West? Regardless, if you must hate this book let it be known that you are looking for attention and power and in your crusade you will take a dump on one of the few good things in life, like this novel. Sigh.

Regardless, Sarah Binks is a reminder to us that those who are elevated above the rest, either by themselves or by the will of others, to the height of The Poet will never be satisfied in life or death or in the funny pages. It is a novel definitely worth repeated readings. Now, let me break out into song.… (plus d'informations)