Writing about Robert Bringhurst is a gratifying although somewhat daunting task. As poet, linguist, typographer and, in our association, superb editor and designer, his calm wisdom has been a great gift to Douglas & McIntyre, the publishing house I co-founded and operated, to those authors he worked with on our behalf, and to me personally.
The first books we collaborated on – designed and, in effect, packaged by Robert – both appeared in 1979, and included a little paperback entitled Looking at Indian Art of the Northwest Coast. I think fondly of Looking at Indian Art. It was the second book from Hilary Stewart that we had published (the first, Indian Fishing, was released in 1977), and began life as a little book intended to be an inexpensive introduction for the popular market to the iconography of the Northwest Coast native peoples, without question one of the great and most sophisticated cultures of the past millennium or so. It was unambitious in its physical form: a small book of some 112 pages, written by a feisty white woman who had worked in television, edited, designed, and published by Anglophone Canadians under what is now a politically incorrect title. Yet it was published to great success in partnership with the University of Washington Press, and was greeted with nary a negative word. Since it first appeared, and without ever having been revised or repackaged, it has remained a standard introductory reference to the characters the art depicts, and has sold over 350,000 copies in North America. It still sells some 5,000 copies a year, and remains in print. I like to imagine this was one of Bringhurst’s early encounters with the power of Northwest Coast mythology, and the lively, unpredictable creatures which inhabit it – though I know that he had been looking at, and studying, the art for some time. Or, as I prefer to think, absorbing the truth of the highly stylized forms with the sensibility of a poet and typographer rather than that of an anthropologist or art historian.
Although we were a young company, still deeply rooted in British Columbia, our program for the following year was ambitious. It was anchored by several complicated visual books, three of which Robert took on. Each of these was a first book from an inexperienced author, and each pivoted on high quality visual elements that needed to be carefully and sensitively integrated into what was rather raw text, which in turn needed to be shaped and honed. The first was Gathering What the Great Nature Provided: Food Traditions of the Gitskan by the people of ‘Ksan with drawings by Hilary Stewart, based upon oral reminiscences recorded, translated, and edited by a group of some ninety elders who named themselves “the Book Builders of ‘Ksan.” The second, Sacred Places: British Columbia’s Early Churches, was by architect Barry Downs, based upon his many years photographing nineteenth-century wooden churches throughout the province, and represented a lifetime of finding, exploring, researching, and photographing British Columbia’s early architectural heritage. The third was Paula Gustafson’s Salish Weaving, which honoured one of the great aboriginal arts of North America and the new generation of artisans reviving it from virtual extinction. All were projects of passion from their creators, and all spoke to the core of British Columbia’s past. Robert fully engaged both the promise and the challenge of each. There was only a handful of book people in Canada who could take the apocryphal carton of bits and pieces, text and visuals, and turn them into a polished finished book, on time, adding personal vision to the normal crafts of editing, designing, and typesetting. All three were published internationally, and made important statements about the culture of place. All three spoke most eloquently to the combination of our early idealism and Robert’s skills. And all were ambitious in their production values, a relatively rare thing in Canadian publishing at the time – Sacred Places, for instance, was blessed by colour separations and printing done by Herzig Somerville in Toronto, using its proprietary very-fine-screen offset technologies.
In 1983, we were offered one of those seminal opportunities that push the boundaries of publishing programs. Again, Robert was called upon to help us realize the impossible. What was then still the old Canadian Pacific Railway Company had been persuaded to put very significant financial resources into an adventuresome undertaking, in partnership with TV Ontario, to create an eighteen-part television series covering the vigorous four decades of contemporary art in Canada since the end of the Second World War. A stand-alone but related art book, Visions: Contemporary Art in Canada, was to grow out of the endeavour. How Douglas & McIntyre managed to win the right to create the book is lost in the mists of time, but it presented itself, and the scale of resources available allowed the assembly of a group of the top art critics and curators then working in Canada. An editorial board of four individuals – Doris Shadbolt, Geoffrey James, Russell Keziere (then editor of the Vancouver Art Gallery’s Vanguard magazine), and Robert Bringhurst – was struck. Thematic essays were commissioned from six leading critics: Alvin Balkind, Gary Michael-Dault, Terrance Heath, John Bentley Mays, Diana Nemiroff, and Charlotte Townsend-Gault. The generous budget allowed for new photography of the art, and a healthy first printing of ten thousand copies in hardcover that we were able to sell at the highly subsidized price of $29.95.
Robert’s task went beyond just editing and designing. As lead member of the editorial board, it was his role to keep this divergent assemblage of less than shy individuals working to a common goal, if not necessarily always together. He was also charged with bringing homogeneity to the prose. The writers began to feel what some of them perceived as competition, and spent energy trying to outdo each other rather than write for what was, theoretically at least, a popular market. There were times when we felt that Robert had been cast into the reluctant role of lion tamer in a three-ring circus, yet his persistence and calm demeanor prevailed. The book – an important statement for its moment – was published on time, and to acclaim.
During this period, my relationship with Robert began to deepen. Many people find him something of a sphinx: restrained, tough to read, and so self-contained as to seem intimidating as much for his presence as for his physical stature and knowledge. Yet he became a friend as well as a trusted book craftsman, and our conversations grew more frequent and wider ranging. Because of my admiration for his knowledge of so many things, most specifically type and its use, we could digress about the state of book design, of publishing, specifically Canadian publishing, and even on occasion our personal lives. This trust extended throughout the company, and everyone who encountered Robert knew what a joy it was to listen to his patient teaching in addition to admiring his work. Authors also came to appreciate the gift of working with him.
Robert had a clearly defined design style – pristine, sensitive to the words being shaped, and demanding of standards that honoured historical precedent. Letter spacing and kerning had to be perfect, and it took him years to warm to the possibilities of the digital world. When there were disagreements between us, Robert could be in equal measure stubborn and persuasive. If he felt standards were being compromised, he would give me a look verging on a scowl. Inevitably, it worked. His books, and in many ways those commissions he undertook became his books, were always graced with a proper colophon on the last page. As I was a great admirer of the bookmaking skills of Knopf and the great days of New York publishing, we could commiserate together on what was once possible in a simpler and less commercial world where great taste, albeit often accompanied by strong egos, prevailed.
One of the stiffest conversations we ever had about quality standards in books stemmed from the practice of gluing rather than sewing hardcovers, one of the creeping compromises, always in order to save pennies per unit on manufacturing cost, which began to characterize commercial publishing by the mid-1980s. What were known in the trade as “notched and glued” bindings did not lie as flat as sewn bindings (often done on a sophisticated version of a Singer sewing machine), and were not quite as strong. More importantly, the gutter intruded into the space on the page normally allowed for careful margins. It was years before any of the books Robert was involved in could be glued rather than sewn, and it was an argument I always let him win. This issue came to a head later when a choice needed to be made for the first hardcover edition of A Story as Sharp as a Knife, and Robert was so incensed at the possibility that the binding would be glued that he offered to personally pay the difference in cost. We didn’t let him.
Robert’s quiet grace, patience (most of the time) and consideration of others make a perfect balance. He always has a twinkle in his eye, and possesses one of the most genuine and robust laughs – from some place deep within his centre – I have ever encountered. In all the years we have known each other, I cannot remember ever seeing Robert lose his temper, whatever the provocation, or at least not for long. If his anger was genuine, a deep flush spreading over his face would betray it, but that, too, would usually fade quickly.
When I think about Robert in the 1980s, it is only natural that Bill Reid should come to mind. Over the years 1982–83, Bill had completed a suite of ten exquisitely rendered pencil drawings depicting some of the creatures that populate Haida mythology. He had first approached creating such “monochrome ghosts” under commission for George MacDonald’s Haida Monumental Art, but had continued with his own interpretations following completion of that work. I had come to know Bill while working with the curator Doris Shadbolt, whom I had commissioned to write the text for a major book honouring his work. During one visit I took Don Ellegood, the publisher of the University of Washington Press, to visit the stately white apartment building on Point Grey Road where Bill and his wife Martine were living at the time and saw the finished drawings arrayed around the apartment. They were stunning: technically superb and rich in imagery. The moment caught me, and I asked Bill if he could write short pieces about each of the drawings so that we might make a little book of Haida mythology. He eventually agreed, and set to work with the sporadic rhythm characteristic of his energy levels as his Parkinson’s Disease slowly advanced. The first few stories seemed to flow easily, and were witty, full of insight, and written with Bill’s puckish sense of humour, which was often deliciously ribald. Then work slowed. After some time had passed, and hoping to persuade Bill to finish the work so that it could be successfully published, I had a suggestion – might Robert Bringhurst be engaged as editor/collaborator to speed the process, and give Bill the support he deserved? I called Doris Shadbolt, to seek her advice about whether Bill and Robert might get along. She was skeptical, but I swallowed my doubts and asked Robert. He met Bill; they agreed they could work together; and over the next few months the stories were finished, with Robert effectively writing the last few. Not only did the collaboration work, it introduced Robert to Bill and Martine, and their friendship grew. The book was published in the fall of 1984 under the title The Raven Steals the Light (Bill insisted on the inclusion of the definite article to begin the title)1 in a very handsome hardcover, with a small limited edition slipcased and bound in cloth. It then went into paperback, and the little paperback version is still in print, having sold some sixty thousand copies in North America and Europe.
Some years later, Robert became involved with another Reid project, when he was persuaded to write a text to accompany Ulli Steltzer’s photographs of Bill creating his commissioned masterwork, The Spirit of Haida Gwaii. It was to have pride of place in the forecourt pond of the new Canadian Chancery then being built to Arthur Erickson’s design in Washington, DC. Ulli chronicled the process from early maquettes and the plaster version, now in the Canadian Museum of History, over a five-year period from 1986 through to its ceremonial unveiling in November 1991. I attended the unveiling, and even now the moment brings tears to my eyes when I recollect the Haida procession, every Haida resplendent in traditional ceremonial robes, walking to the beat of drums with heads held high through a crowd of leading American political and media figures from the Chancery to the National Gallery. The imposing bronze work has since come to be known as the Black Canoe (there is a duplicate casting, nicknamed the Jade Canoe, in the Vancouver International Airport), which fittingly became the title of our book: The Black Canoe: Bill Reid and the Spirit of Haida Gwaii. In a moment of levity, I once asked Bill how he had managed to get the canoe such a rich shade of lustrous black. His answer was delivered with something of a smirk: “Multiple coats of Kiwi Black shoe polish.” Robert’s words went beyond providing context: they were a sophisticated reading of the sculpture in light of Haida mythology and included translations from oral narratives recorded by pioneering American anthropologist John Swanton from Haida storytellers at the end of the nineteenth century. While not all Haida blessed the achievement, it was the beginning of Robert’s discovery of the historical resonance of the Haida world, and the calibre of those oral poets who preserved it. This was a foretaste of what was to consume Robert for the better part of the next decade: translating the works of two of the great Haida poets.
Robert began the long process of learning the Haida language, reading, listening, and bringing all his substantial skills as a linguist to the discipline of entering another world. The more he came to understand, the more he absorbed the extraordinary complexity and richness of a culture which had all but been wiped out by disease and geographic isolation. This process led to ongoing delays as Robert needed to learn more, and also needed to earn an income which the royalty advance we were able to pay hardly covered. We had presumed that there would be a substantial introduction to what was originally to be a single volume incorporating the translated work of the two great Haida poets Ghandl of the Qayahl Llaanas and Skaay of the Qquuna Qiighawaay. As work progressed, what was to have been an “introduction” of perhaps a few thousand words expanded to reach some one hundred and fifty thousand words, plus three substantive appendices, extensive notes, and an exhaustive bibliography. It was published in hardcover in 1999 as A Story as Sharp as a Knife, the first book in what became the three-volume set Masterworks of the Classical Haida Mythtellers. The second volume, Nine Visits to the Mythworld, was published the next year; and the third, Being in Being, in 2001.
This project was the most important of my publishing career. Yet A Story as Sharp as a Knife was met with a divided response, especially from some members of the Haida community, who actively tried to stifle its sale and spread doubts about Robert, his integrity, his scholarship, and the validity of the translations. Some even went so far as to persuade museums and booksellers not to stock the book. We chose not to fight back, as such battles can never be won in the short term, but the bitterness, on all sides, has lingered on. The acrimony toward Robert in some parts of academia was perhaps the saddest example of ill-informed political correctness I have ever encountered. Timidity ruled the day until some reviewers and writers, Margaret Atwood in particular with a stellar review in the Times of London, began to see the work in perspective. This is not to say that Robert did not play a role in triggering the Haida response. He had been burned once before when attempting to have the text for The Black Canoe sanctioned by the Council of the Haida, and was determined not to go through such a process again, which would have dragged on inconclusively for a long while. He therefore did not ask permission to translate the stories (nor was he obligated to, as the original Swanton tapes were in the public domain). He remained outwardly defiant in the face of all attempts to undermine him and his work, but emotionally it must have cost him terribly.
The controversy hurt sales of all the books, although there are signs they are making their way into the literary pantheon. A Story as Sharp as a Knife went into paperback for the first time in 2001, and a second paperback edition appeared in 2011. There was a moment when Jamie Byng, the publisher of Canongate under what I suspect was pressure from Atwood, contemplated doing a hardcover edition for the UK, and I almost talked Morgan Entrekin into doing one for the US, but both publishers wanted a significantly shorter book. In the end, Robert backed away from doing it, both because of the time and energy it would have taken, and the joyless agony of doing the cutting. Both the other titles in the trilogy are also now in paperback editions, and I am satisfied that the trilogy will become steadily better known, and admired, over time. Great art often takes time to find the sun – just as the stories themselves did. The achievement is astounding, and required of Robert a great deal of labour, with little financial reward, for many years. To his critics in the Haida nation and the academy, I simply ask: why is it a bad thing for a distinguished poet, considered by many to be one of the best currently writing in the English language, to spend years of his life revealing some of the historical truths of the Haida voice, out of respect for the voices and a passion for the music of language and the wisdom of what it can tell us? In Robert’s words, these literatures are parts of “the old growth forest of the human mind,” and, as such, “are relevant to every human being.” Surely this is what ought to be remembered in the long run.
Apart from Robert Bringhurst’s many accomplishments – poet, linguist, cultural historian, typographer, contributor to Canada’s cultural landscape – it is as a mentor and friend that I treasure him most. The many books of his I had the privilege of publishing will remain, including those he wrought out of very raw clay with discernment and dedication. But it is his laugh, and all that it portends, which lingers most deeply with me.
1 Reid made clear his rationale on insisting on definite articles in an essay titled “The Anthropologist and the Article,” originally published in issue 4.2 of the Canadian Ethnography Society journal Culture, reprinted in Solitary Raven: The Writings of Bill Reid, 201–5, edited by Bringhurst and published by Douglas & McIntyre in the year 2000.