Psyche (5 page)

The impact of the NCL series cannot be underestimated. For practical reasons, these inexpensive paperbacks quickly entered circulation in classrooms across the country, and the
works themselves became cultural currency for audiences quickly learning to appreciate their own literature. However, as a result of the NCL choices, a number of very well received and valuable works of Canadian literature, and of Canadian modernism specifically, fell out of favour and out of the public eye. There is currently a concerted effort to revisit the canon and to reclaim and reissue important works that are unavailable. For example, Gwethalyn Graham's
Earth and High Heaven
, first published in 1945, was reprinted by Cormorant Press in 2003. Phyllis Brett Young's second novel,
The Torontonians
, first published in 1960, was reissued by McGill-Queen's University Press in 2007. A large initiative called the “Early Modernisms in Canada” project was launched in 2008, with support from the Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada, to encourage and support the reissue of modernist texts that are currently unavailable.

Taken together, Canadian novels of the 1970s and 1980s articulated the persistent query, best expressed by Northrop Frye, “Where is here?”
⁵³
If the novels charted an individual's search for his or her own place in the world (such as Atwood's
Surfacing
, Laurence's Manawaka Series, specifically the novels framing it,
The Stone Angel
and
The Diviners
, Munro's
Lives of Girls and Women
or her aptly entitled
Who Do You Think You Are?)
, then the novelistic canon posited the search for an identity (personal, communal, regional, or national) as a pressing and persistent concern for Canadians. Young's
Psyche
fits well within this literary landscape.

Young's career was launched at the moment Canadian literature was on the verge of becoming institutionalized, when Canadian books were soon to be available in homes and classrooms, when Canadian writers were beginning to see that writing was a viable career and that it might just be possible to stay in Canada and make a living as a writer rather than being forced to flee to another country and direct their books towards the larger audiences in Britain or the United States. If the early 1960s found Atwood, Laurence, and Richler abroad, the 1970s found them back in Canada. Young followed a similar
trajectory, but a decade earlier. As with other writers who claim to have come to a new appreciation and understanding of their Canadian home while abroad, Young discovered much about Canada from the vantage point of Geneva. “Living in an international colony taught the Youngs a lot about Canadians,” writes Mary Jukes after an interview in which Young explained that “the only two names everyone seems familiar with are Mike Pearson and Mazo de la Roche.” As Jukes explained, “In searching for a reason she came to the conclusion that it was because we have so little Canadian literature - not enough novels, plays, for, by, and about Canadians.”
⁵⁴
While she wrote
Psyche
in Geneva, taking advantage of the time afforded by the staff available to her as wife of a United Nations employee, she and her husband also recognized that they were not willing to spend their lives abroad, that “something vital was missing.”
⁵⁵

The theme of lost or missing things has reverberated throughout this introduction. The novel is about a missing child, and has itself been missing from the contemporary literary landscape. By reissuing
Psyche
we invite readers to rediscover and recover one of Canada's bestselling novels.

–
Psyche
. Toronto, Longmans, Green & Co., 1959. (Hardcover, English language edition)

–
Psyche
. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1960. (Hardcover, English language edition)

–
De Tijd Zal Hat Leren
, Utrecht, Uitgeverij de Fonetin, [1960?] (Hardcover, Dutch language edition)

–
Psyche
. London: W.H. Allen & Co., 1961. (Hardcover, English language edition)

–
Psyche
. Hamburg: Wolfgang Krüger Verlag, 1962. (Hardcover, German language edition)

–
Tochter des Zufalls
. Vienna: Buchgemeinschaft Donauland, 1962. (Hardcover, German language edition)

–
Die Tochter des Zufalls
. Stuttgart, Deutscher Bucherbund, 1962. (Hardcover, German language edition)

–
Sokea Leikki
. Helsinki: Kustannusosakeyhtiö Tammi, 1963. (Hardcover, Finnish language edition)

–
Psyche
. London: Pan Books Ltd., 1964. (Paperback, English language edition)

–
Psyche
. New York: Lancer Books Inc., 1964. (Paperback, English language edition)

–
Psyche
. Munich, Wilhem Heyne Verlag, 1965. (German paperback edition)

–
Psyche
. Toronto: Paperjacks, 1976. (Paperback, English language edition)

–
Psyche
. London: White Lion Publishers Ltd., 1976. (Hardcover English language edition)

–
Psyche
. Munich: Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, 1976. (Paperback, German language edition)

Approximate translations:
Tochter des Zufalls
, “The Daughter of Chance”
Sokea Leikki
, “The Blind Game”
De Tijd Zal Hat Leren
, “The Time Will Teach”
⁵⁶

1 We wish to thank Michael Gauvreau for his assistance on G. S. Brett, Gwendolyn Owens for her assistance on Charles Comfort, Michele Rackham and Christine Mervart for their research assistance, as well as Valerie Argue for her foreword and personal photos. Phyllis Brett Young's papers are available at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University and we are grateful to Adam Dixon, archival assistant, for facilitating our access to the collection and its treasures. Thanks also to Kathleen Holden and Joan McGilvray for their close readings.

2
Young,
Psyche
, 51.

3
Slater,
Minerva's Aviary: Philosophy at Toronto
, 1843 -2003, 237.

4
Gauvreau, Personal communication, 9 April 2008. See also Irving, “The Achievement of George Sidney Brett (1879-1944).”

5
Fass,
Kidnapped: Child Abduction in America;
Slater,
Minerva's
.

6
G S Brett.
A History of Psychology Volume 1
:
Ancient and Partristic
(London, 1912), 4-5. Quoted in Gauvreau, “Philosophy, Psychology, and History: George Sidney Brett and the Quest for a Social Science at the University of Toronto, 1910-1949,” 228.

7
Before the 1940s, Toronto and McGill were the only universities in Canada that made this disciplinary split. Gleason,
Normalizing the Ideal: Psychology, Schooling and the Family in Postwar Canada
, 22.

8
Gauvreau, “Philosophy.”

9
Raymond,
The Nursery World of Dr Blatz
, 28.

10
Dowbiggin,
Keeping America Sane: Psychiatry and Eugenics in the United States and Canada, 1880-1940
, 183; McLaren,
Our Own Master Race: Eugenics in Canada
, 1885 -1945.

11
Raymond,
Nursery
, 105.

12
Gauvreau, “Philosophy,” 230.

13
Slater,
Minerva's
, 244.

14
Gauvreau, “Philosophy,” 236.

15
Slater,
Minerva's
, 264-5.

16
Young,
Psyche
, 57.

17
Dummitt,
The Manly Modern: Masculinity in Postwar Canada
, Seeley,
Crestwood Heights: A Study of the Culture of Suburban Life
.

18
Brett, “Introduction.”

19
Young,
Psyche
, 196.

20
Young,
Psyche
, 225.

21
Paula Fass,
Kidnapped: Child Abduction in America
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 43.

22
Young,
Psyche
, 98.

23
Fass,
Kidnapped
, 63.

24
Fass,
Kidnapped

25
Fass,
Kidnapped
, 134.

26
Fass, Kidnapped
, 18.

27
Bishop, “Phyllis Brett Young: With the Canadian Slur.”

28
The authors are grateful to Gwendolyn Owens for this suggestion.

29
Grant and Hazel suggest that Venus was “identified from very early times with the Greek Aphrodite, and endowed with her mythology,” Grant,
Who's Who in Classical Mythology
, 341. Grant and
Hazel identify Aphrodite as “The Greek goddess of love,” Grant,
Who's
, 36.

30
Buchanan, “American Venus: Synopsis,”
http://tv.msn.com/movies/ movie.aspx?m=2077071&mp=syn
.

31
Radway,
Reading the Romance
(London and Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), 150.

32
Pearce, “Popular.” 533.

33
That Psyche is a heroine destined for greatness is evident in her remarkably self-possessed demeanour, even as a child. That her speech does not reflect the sophistication of her lineage and thought is realistic. However, it is relatively unusual in literary convention. Consider Pip of Dickens'
Great Expectations
, who speaks in Standard English despite his working-class background.

34
One wonders, as Michele Rackham points out, whether “the plot structure, the novel's post-war context, and references to Venus (Aphrodite) might suggest that
Psyche
positions itself as a rewriting of
The Odyssey
and, within the context of the twentieth century, engages in a dialogue with the quintessential Modernist novel, Joyce's
Ulysses?”
Certainly
Psyche
, like
Ulysses
, makes effective use of shifting narrative perspectives, the latter moving between the perspectives of Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom.
On the Subject of Psyche
, email correspondence with the author (2008).

35
Goudy, “The Case of the Reluctant Writer.”

36
Dempsey, “Private Line.”

37
“Boston University Begins Collection of Phyllis Young Manuscripts, Letters.”

38
Brown, “George Sidney Brett.” April 1961, 64-7, 127, 129, 131.

39
Goudy, “The Case of the Reluctant Writer.”

40
Bishop, “Without the Canadian Slur,” 13.

41
Bishop, “Without the Canadian Slur,” 12.

42
“In that the people are absolutely Canadian,” Mitchell, “Writer Denies Need for Inspiration, Lazy Streak Her Only Problem.” Her novels more generally have a “wholly Canadian background and outlook,” Goudy, “The Case of the Reluctant Writer.”

43
Qtd. in Dempsey, “Private Line.”

44
Bishop, “Novel of the Week.”

45
Skene-Melvin,
Canadian Crime Fiction, an Annotated Comprehensive Bibliography of Canadian Crime Fiction from 1817 to
1996 and Biographical Dictionary of Canadian Crime Writers, with an Introductory Essay on the History and Development of Canadian Crime Writing
, x.

46
Skene-Melvin,
Canadian Crime Fiction, an Annotated Comprehensive Bibliography of Canadian Crime Fiction from 181
7
to 1996 and Biographical Dictionary of Canadian Crime Writers, with an Introductory Essay on the History and Development of Canadian Crime Writing
, xv.

47
“Chapter Xv: Literature,” 223.

48
Fulford, “The Massey Report: Did It Send Us the Wrong Way?,” 1, roberfulford.com/MasseyReport.html.

49
Key texts include Frye's
The Bush Garden
, Margaret Atwood's
Survival
, and D.G. Jones'
Butterfly Rock
.