Opposite Contraries Read Free Page A

with theosophy having resulted in its rejection, and the initiation of a new search outside the main circle of the established Christian church and received Protestant wisdom. Here are long philosophic ruminations about the sermons of the men whom she sought out as spiritual guides: Raja Singh, Garland Anderson and Clem Davies. Almost as long but more frequent are the passages, better described as laments, about her sisters and their inability to cherish her, about her poor fit in the Carr family. These are included, too, but not exhaustively, as Carr indulged in tedious repetition on this subject — another indication that the journals were not always meant for readers and at least sometimes provided a place where she tussled with demons.
    The removed sections contain some spicy commentary on the sexual politics of her day: on the fickleness of female friendship, for instance; of the disdain of married women for spinsters, and of the general untrustworthiness of men. She writes about the profundity of motherhood and, by comparison, the puny purpose of fatherhood. Observing the way these roles play out in human and animal families, she speaks of sex and her preference for the uncluttered approach of animals and her distaste for the overheated, low and dirty attitude of people. She discusses her own aversion to sex, citing horror stories and tragedies, but also, occasionally, mentions some poignant exceptions she hasobserved. She expresses her conclusion that marriage is at best a mutual convenience and at worst a sham.
    All of the short stories within the journal notebooks are titled, and some are easily recognizable as drafts for sections that appear in
Klee Wyck, The Book of Small
and
Growing Pains
, the latter written in the last few years of her life and published posthumously. (Carr actually compiled the manuscript of
Growing Pains
in book form, complete with a handmade cover, as a present to Ira Dilworth for Christmas in 1941.) The story “Martyn” in
Growing Pains
is about a young man who loved the young Emily and pursued her to England, hoping she would relent in her decision against marrying him. There are three drafts of this, but as they are all close cousins of the published version, they are not included here. Another short piece, a discarded version of the opening to the story “Sophie” that appears in
Klee Wyck,
details the first meeting of Carr and Sophie Frank in Carr’s studio in Vancouver, around 1906. Two stories of Carr’s childhood, “British Columbia Nightingales” and “Young Town and Little Girl” are likewise early and quite different versions of “British Columbia Nightingales” and “Saloons and Roadhouses” in
The Book of Small.
The first recounts her father’s joke about the sound of tree frogs mating in the spring, and the second is about Richard Carr’s store, downtown by the docks. In both cases, the changes involved taking out sections describing racial difference. In the first instance, details of the dress and manner of Bong, the Carr family’s Chinese manservant, are deleted; in the second, vocabulary is altered. The three other stories — “Mother,” “Love”and “A Dream”— have never been published in any form in Carr’s books, though there is another story entitled “Mother” in
Growing Pains.
    Perhaps what is most noticeable in reading the journal “outtakes” is the host of racial slurs, starting with Carr’s entries about “the Jew” who lived next door to her on Beckley Street, and her references to black people as “niggers.” She describes “niggertown” in Chicago, for instance, and is prompted to wonder out loud, “I can see the American Indian falling in step with the white races and the Eastern peoples — Chinese and Japanese — but I can’t see the niggers. I like them but I don’t feel sisterly exactly.” In “Young Town and Little Girl,” she tells the story of being snatched out of harm’s way by a black man when some cattle