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Sarah Bastard's Notebook
The Insomniac Library is proud to republish for the first time in over twenty years Marian Engel's memorable first novel, Sarah Bastard's Notebook. First published in 1968 by Longman Canada, the novel tells the funny and frustrating story of thirty-year-old ex-academic Sarah Porlock as she makes her way through the minefields of career and love in late-1960s Toronto.Long recognized for her groundbreaking novel Bear (1976), Engel's first novel can now rightly be seen to inaugurate and participate in a number of important literary traditions. As in Richler, Gallant, and Callaghan, the novel is a tug of war between Europe and Canada as the heroine's true home. At the same time, it is a stylistic intervention reminiscent of Symons with its notebook conceit. Finally, Sarah Bastard's Notebook is also one of the first unabashedly feminist novels written in Canada, founding a tradition that would continue with the work of Margaret Atwood, Aritha van Herk, and many others.
194 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
3 people are currently reading
109 people want to read
About the author
Marian Engel
24 books76 followersCanadian novelist, short-story and children's fiction writer, Marian Engel was a passionate activist for the national and international writer’s cause.
She was the first chair of the Writer’s Union of Canada (1973–74) and helped found the Public Lending Right Commission. From 1975-1977, she served on the City of Toronto Book Award Committee (an award she won in 1981 for Lunatic Villas) and the Canadian Book and Periodical Development Council.
In 1982 she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.
She married Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) radio producer Howard Engel in 1962 and, upon their return to Toronto from England in 1964, began to raise a family--twins William Lucas Passmore and Charlotte Helen Arabella--and to pursue a writing career. Marian and Howard separated in 1975 and divorced in 1977.
Engel was writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta (1977–1978) and at the University of Toronto (1980–1982).
Her first novel, No Clouds of Glory, was published in 1968. She wrote two children's books: Adventures of Moon Bay Towers (1974) and My name is not Odessa Yarker (1977). Her most famous and controversial novel was Bear(1976), a tale of erotic love between a librarian and a bear, for which she won the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction in 1976.
From 1965 to her death in 1985 she corresponded with literary peers and friends such as Hugh MacLennan, Robertson Davies, Dennis Lee, Margaret Atwood, Timothy Findley, Alice Munro, Margaret Laurence, Matt Cohen, Robert Weaver, Graeme Gibson and more. Some of this correspondence can be found in Dear Hugh, Dear Marian: The MacLennan-Engel Correspondence (1995) and Marian Engel: Life in Letters (2004).
After her death in 1985, the Writer's Development Trust of Canada instituted the Marian Engel Award, which was presented annually to a woman writer in mid-career. The Engel and Findley Awards are no longer awarded separately, but were combined into the new Writers’ Trust Notable Author Award as of 2008.
She was the first chair of the Writer’s Union of Canada (1973–74) and helped found the Public Lending Right Commission. From 1975-1977, she served on the City of Toronto Book Award Committee (an award she won in 1981 for Lunatic Villas) and the Canadian Book and Periodical Development Council.
In 1982 she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.
She married Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) radio producer Howard Engel in 1962 and, upon their return to Toronto from England in 1964, began to raise a family--twins William Lucas Passmore and Charlotte Helen Arabella--and to pursue a writing career. Marian and Howard separated in 1975 and divorced in 1977.
Engel was writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta (1977–1978) and at the University of Toronto (1980–1982).
Her first novel, No Clouds of Glory, was published in 1968. She wrote two children's books: Adventures of Moon Bay Towers (1974) and My name is not Odessa Yarker (1977). Her most famous and controversial novel was Bear(1976), a tale of erotic love between a librarian and a bear, for which she won the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction in 1976.
From 1965 to her death in 1985 she corresponded with literary peers and friends such as Hugh MacLennan, Robertson Davies, Dennis Lee, Margaret Atwood, Timothy Findley, Alice Munro, Margaret Laurence, Matt Cohen, Robert Weaver, Graeme Gibson and more. Some of this correspondence can be found in Dear Hugh, Dear Marian: The MacLennan-Engel Correspondence (1995) and Marian Engel: Life in Letters (2004).
After her death in 1985, the Writer's Development Trust of Canada instituted the Marian Engel Award, which was presented annually to a woman writer in mid-career. The Engel and Findley Awards are no longer awarded separately, but were combined into the new Writers’ Trust Notable Author Award as of 2008.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 3, 2013
Marian Engel stands at the birthing point between old (i.e., WASPy, Victorian/Brit-influenced) and new CanLit, a crossroads that leads in a straight line from MacLennan and Mowat, to Laurence, Atwood, Findley, Munro, Ondaatje, Shields, Gowdy, Ann-Marie MacDonald, more and more.
This - her first novel - can, I think without too much authorial heresy, be read as a documentary of the difficulty of that birth: not just as a new contemporary literary tradition was born, but because (not to stretch the birth metaphor too far, but …), it was given birth by women.
Engel slyly alludes to this right here in Sarah Bastard’s Notebook, “If this is a club, how the hell did I get in?” She’s referring here to her character as an academic; but this whole thing reads like autobiography, with a few names and details changed; mostly the places are left intact (a telling tell).
This novel would probably not be published today. It's experimental, raw, stream-of-consciousness stuff, and it is specifically about the struggle: i.e., that of the Toronto-based, Ontario-bound female academic of the 60s/early 70s, struggling to define her place in a suffocating and provincial intellectual milieu.
It’s almost too self-referential, as a novel: these days, it would simply be memoir, everything laid bare. She wouldn’t have taken the trouble to disguise it – she wouldn’t have needed to do so. Ahhh, progress.
If the 'story' - such as it is - rambles and rants; if it's angst-ridden, bitter and resentful; if despite what must have been seen as its almost avante garde style, if it shocked or mystified the old white men in control of Canadian publishing at the time - and now too? I don't know - (it would never have been published but for the pull of her literary and academic mentor, Hugh MacLennan) - and if all this feels dated, like a lot of water under the bridge … well, it still made me want to wave a placard and yell slogans and filled me with courage and pride. I.e., it still resonates. So, still a ways to go on that progress thing.
This - her first novel - can, I think without too much authorial heresy, be read as a documentary of the difficulty of that birth: not just as a new contemporary literary tradition was born, but because (not to stretch the birth metaphor too far, but …), it was given birth by women.
Engel slyly alludes to this right here in Sarah Bastard’s Notebook, “If this is a club, how the hell did I get in?” She’s referring here to her character as an academic; but this whole thing reads like autobiography, with a few names and details changed; mostly the places are left intact (a telling tell).
This novel would probably not be published today. It's experimental, raw, stream-of-consciousness stuff, and it is specifically about the struggle: i.e., that of the Toronto-based, Ontario-bound female academic of the 60s/early 70s, struggling to define her place in a suffocating and provincial intellectual milieu.
It’s almost too self-referential, as a novel: these days, it would simply be memoir, everything laid bare. She wouldn’t have taken the trouble to disguise it – she wouldn’t have needed to do so. Ahhh, progress.
If the 'story' - such as it is - rambles and rants; if it's angst-ridden, bitter and resentful; if despite what must have been seen as its almost avante garde style, if it shocked or mystified the old white men in control of Canadian publishing at the time - and now too? I don't know - (it would never have been published but for the pull of her literary and academic mentor, Hugh MacLennan) - and if all this feels dated, like a lot of water under the bridge … well, it still made me want to wave a placard and yell slogans and filled me with courage and pride. I.e., it still resonates. So, still a ways to go on that progress thing.
December 10, 2012
To attempt to comment on this novel written in the ‘60’s by a revered Canadian feminist is bound to get a guy in trouble. I noticed that there were no other Goodreads reviews for this book even though its star ratings ranged from 4 – 1. Perhaps no one wants to risk controversy. So let me step out boldly, or foolishly; to observe objectively, or “put my foot in it,” as they say.
Sarah Porlock (re-christened Bastard by herself,) is a confused academic who looks down on all things Canadian: its cities, its education system, its literature, and its way of life. The ‘60’s must have been a pretty shabby period in Toronto the Good, especially for an educated woman coming of age and wanting to embrace her own destiny. Sarah is single but secretly wrestles with the question of whether it would be better to be married like her sisters and be “normal”; but normal is to capitulate, so she wears her rebelliousness like a badge of courage, her way of standing out in the crowd. Her lovers are borrowed husbands, including, at least, one of her sisters’ spouses; the other brothers-in-law are intellectually and emotionally in her crosshairs too, but as Sarah is not overtly descriptive of sex, despite her liberated status, we will never know if they were ever romantically ensnared with her as well.
A trip to Europe with a lover (another borrowed husband, Joe) and a resulting fling with brother- in-law, Sandro, enlightens her. She returns to Canada determined to quit her job and emigrate to...to where exactly we do not know. She believes that “edgy” and “creative” lies in Europe, and “smug” belongs to Canada. So, while her older, married and “smug” sisters remain in Canada, Sarah needs to break free. A series of farewell parties and farewell scenes ensue, with Sarah saying goodbye to everyone and every haunt in Toronto, while her family and colleagues implore her to stay and appreciate the bounty of her homeland. She finally makes it as far as Montreal and we will never know whether this idealistic, multi-generational Canadian flower-child from the privileged side of the tracks, bestowed with a good education, good connections and a cradle-to-grave support structure, ever left Canada’s shores.
I find in reading these stream of consciousness novels that ramble all over the place, one is best served by not trying to figure out the story-line but to let it emerge, patchy and sketchy, as one enjoys the incisive writing instead; and the writing is fresh and cutting. Sarah, the first person narrator, is an unsympathetic character, ridden with sibling envy, uncommitted, undependable, selfish, and with premonitions of an early death (not unlike the author’s, who died at 52). Sandro describes her best: “Sarah still lives in a dream. And she does not know yet what she wants to be. Unless she marries, she will stay a child.” If there was to be a sequel, I hope Sarah finally grows up and remains in Canada, because as we all know, “the grass ain’t greener....” I am not sure how autobiographical this novel is, but from the afterword we understand that the author was also an academic in those dastardly ‘60’s, but she married, travelled the world, raised children, returned to Canada and made a great contribution to Canadian letters. Perhaps, Sarah was only an earlier iteration of the author’s life, if at all.
This novel opens a window on the inferiority complex under which our best and brightest in Canada seemed to live in the ‘60’s. Perhaps Sarah Bastard is an example of the first attempts to break free of this stranglehold. Yet, given that she never made it past Quebec, it makes one wonder, whether this was an early half-assed attempt at best, like Flower Power and Occupy Wall Street, and whether the real breakthrough from the colonial yoke came a generation later?
Sarah Porlock (re-christened Bastard by herself,) is a confused academic who looks down on all things Canadian: its cities, its education system, its literature, and its way of life. The ‘60’s must have been a pretty shabby period in Toronto the Good, especially for an educated woman coming of age and wanting to embrace her own destiny. Sarah is single but secretly wrestles with the question of whether it would be better to be married like her sisters and be “normal”; but normal is to capitulate, so she wears her rebelliousness like a badge of courage, her way of standing out in the crowd. Her lovers are borrowed husbands, including, at least, one of her sisters’ spouses; the other brothers-in-law are intellectually and emotionally in her crosshairs too, but as Sarah is not overtly descriptive of sex, despite her liberated status, we will never know if they were ever romantically ensnared with her as well.
A trip to Europe with a lover (another borrowed husband, Joe) and a resulting fling with brother- in-law, Sandro, enlightens her. She returns to Canada determined to quit her job and emigrate to...to where exactly we do not know. She believes that “edgy” and “creative” lies in Europe, and “smug” belongs to Canada. So, while her older, married and “smug” sisters remain in Canada, Sarah needs to break free. A series of farewell parties and farewell scenes ensue, with Sarah saying goodbye to everyone and every haunt in Toronto, while her family and colleagues implore her to stay and appreciate the bounty of her homeland. She finally makes it as far as Montreal and we will never know whether this idealistic, multi-generational Canadian flower-child from the privileged side of the tracks, bestowed with a good education, good connections and a cradle-to-grave support structure, ever left Canada’s shores.
I find in reading these stream of consciousness novels that ramble all over the place, one is best served by not trying to figure out the story-line but to let it emerge, patchy and sketchy, as one enjoys the incisive writing instead; and the writing is fresh and cutting. Sarah, the first person narrator, is an unsympathetic character, ridden with sibling envy, uncommitted, undependable, selfish, and with premonitions of an early death (not unlike the author’s, who died at 52). Sandro describes her best: “Sarah still lives in a dream. And she does not know yet what she wants to be. Unless she marries, she will stay a child.” If there was to be a sequel, I hope Sarah finally grows up and remains in Canada, because as we all know, “the grass ain’t greener....” I am not sure how autobiographical this novel is, but from the afterword we understand that the author was also an academic in those dastardly ‘60’s, but she married, travelled the world, raised children, returned to Canada and made a great contribution to Canadian letters. Perhaps, Sarah was only an earlier iteration of the author’s life, if at all.
This novel opens a window on the inferiority complex under which our best and brightest in Canada seemed to live in the ‘60’s. Perhaps Sarah Bastard is an example of the first attempts to break free of this stranglehold. Yet, given that she never made it past Quebec, it makes one wonder, whether this was an early half-assed attempt at best, like Flower Power and Occupy Wall Street, and whether the real breakthrough from the colonial yoke came a generation later?
February 2, 2022
I really admired Engel's novel "Bear" for its clarity and straightforward prose, despite the oddness of the events Engel was describing. "Sarah Bastard's Notebook", her first novel, is the opposite of this: the story is reasonably straightforward, but the writing is allusive, fragmentary and strange. Sarah is a child of a conventional family of four, but becomes an academic, an unusual path for a woman in 1960s Toronto. This book charts Sarah's dislocation following a difficult affair and an abortion, and captures the social mores, peculiar characters, and repressed emotions, of Sarah's immediate family and her academic circle. This novel is clearly daring for its time, speaking so frankly of affairs, abortion and women's oppression, but it's too loose and and too limited in scope to feel timeless. In comparison to "Bear", it's clearly an early novel, without the power of Engel's later writing.
September 8, 2020
A deep delve into the scattershot, contradictory mind of a tempestuous, memorable character as she squares up to a pivotal, life-altering decision and kicks against societal mores in late ‘60s Toronto, which she professes to despise. The prose is angular and acidic, really giving us the sense of someone in flux, wrestling with their place in family, career and geographically. It’s possibly a bit too obtuse at times but there’s a verve to the writing that keeps every disparate chapter different in style and tone from the last.
May 7, 2020
I am a huge fan of Marian Engel, and after having already read two of her later novels (Bear, The Honeyman Festival) I was a little nervous that this, her first novel, might not measure up. Oh, but it did. I love the dominant female protagonist who does what she wants, much to the lamenting of this or that person. And, like in Bear, the sexual sub-plot is shocking. So worth reading.
Want to read
July 31, 2012"I have had, now, time to recover; a smooth week in the womb." Bought purely for this sentence. I am currently recovering from something even I cannot name, and so maybe one of these days I would read this...and find what? Redemption? Convalescence?
Ah, do not mind me. My head is not in the right place, and it is raining.
/ 31 July 2012
Ah, do not mind me. My head is not in the right place, and it is raining.
/ 31 July 2012
October 30, 2013
Rereading... revisiting a book I read when I was a teenager. It's a whole new book at 43. Seriously under-appreciated Canadian author.
March 7, 2021
Engel’s first book is uneven, but still full of great passages and thoughts that reveal the writer she would become.
It also gives much insight into the limbo of her Canadian generation.
It also gives much insight into the limbo of her Canadian generation.
April 1, 2021
I love Marian Engel and was glad to read her first book. This one started strong and raunchy and brazen, but it got softer and more feminine toward the end—which is life, I guess!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews