flemmings | (no subject)

Am reading Girls Fall Down, a novel set in Toronto. Oh my yes isn't it.

Even past Spadina, the traffic seemed locked in a permanent snarl, but when Alex got on the Bathurst streetcar it was no more crowded than usual. There were no visible effects of the subway incident, but he thought that people did know somehow, fragments and rumours; he was not even sure why he thought this, except for a slight modulation in the atmosphere, a measure of silence, glances of quiet complicity between the Portugese housewives and the Asian teenagers. He got off the streetcar at College and walked west in the darkness, the rain stinging his face, the fabric of his pants clinging to his knees and calves.

Just past Euclid, a shape moved out of a doorway and into the pool of a streetlight...

His apartment was just short of Grace Street, on the third floor, up a narrow flight of stairs; when he had moved in it had been above a cluttered little store selling saucepans and floral dresses to middle-aged Italian women, but now the store had been replaced by a cafe with pine tables and rag-painted walls, and his rent had risen precariously.

This kind of naming of streets and subway stations always struck me as a little embarrassing back in the 80s-- Toronto playing at being a Big Name City whose streets are as storied as 5th Avenue or Bond St, when it's nothing of the sort. Maybe I'm unkind. Maybe geographical precision is legitimate with any town. Ackroyd has no difficulty throwing about perfectly obscure street names in London, take them or leave them.

It was dusk now as he walked down Brick Lane to Christ Church, Spitalfields, passing Monmouth Street and turning down Eagle Street where the east wall of the old church rose among the ruined houses. As he walked forward the street lamps flickered alight, and the shape of the church itself altered in their sudden illumination.

Yes well, but Ackroyd bugs me too. A bit too much Wakaru hito wa wakaru. (Those who know will know.)

I must also note that Alex in the top passage has just walked from Yonge St to Bathurst, which is to say a mile and a quarter (IIRC Yonge and Bathurst are concession roads that are all spaced that distance apart.) Why he then takes a streetcar to go the further (scant) half mile to College I can't imagine. Possibly so he can see the Portugese housewives and the Chinese teenagers exchanging glances, which *I* have never noticed them doing on the Bathurst car.

And furthermore-- maybe I haven't read enough Toronto-set works, but those I do know are, by a strange coincidence, all set downtown in a narrow strip-- a mile or so north or south of Bloor with its subway line. The university is a fave, and the Annex west of it; Rosedale gets a look-in; people may even venture across the viaduct into Greektown Danforth. But Warden and Finch, Ellesmere and Morningside? Eglinton or Lawrence even? Not a hope. Griffin notably, and even Aaronovitch, take you to the burbs of London, but I can't recall anyone who takes you to Scarberia in TO.

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I feel the same way about Akyroyd. I've had his doorstopper for 6 months and am only maybe 1/4 done? Though, I think people who write about London tend to feel as Peter Grant does. Much as I really do love London and Pete, I have to admit to some vicious glee when the Irish dude smacks him down for assuming everyone in the world give a damn about London. XD

Anyhow, I think it depends on the effect the author wants to have! I think if you leave out street names, you risk making the setting really vague and the reader thinks "hm, author didn't do the research". Although I guess an author should optimize for recognizability?

In my DC urban fantasy story (orz) I intend to drop a few street/neighborhood names in. And Toronto is a much bigger city than DC! But to each their own! I can see the argument either way.

Locals do take their city's importance for granted the world over. Small-town syndrome writ large. My French cousins told me in all seriousness that Parisians, you know, the Parisians are not *French*. Which is true: they're Parisians. Nor are New Yorkers American, Londoners English, or Montrealais Canadian. (Neither are Torontonians, but we think we are. "Canadians do this," we say, citing some Torontonian trait. Drives everyone else batty.)

Not sure about Tokyoites. I think they think of themselves as Japanese first and only get uppity when someone mentions Osaka.

I agree, you can't leave out street names and keep the action pinned at all. It's just that fine line between localisation and, indeed, name-dropping: shout-outs to the locals. Who in the case of inferiority-complexed TO are *just so pleased* that someone has mentioned Robert St or Dundas.

Street names alone clutter up a passage, as Ackroyd keeps un demonstrating. Area names and landmark buildings are more helpful to the outsider. But for all I know, only a few pages in, Maggie Helwig might be making a point by naming these major trolley streets and subway stations: that transit is the life-blood of Toronto in a way (I'm told) that's unusual in US towns and, from all I've heard, the Prairies as well.

The transit -- it depends. Certainly I wish they did more with mass transportation in the US! This ain't London for sure. Within large urban centers you can usually get around okay without owning a car. New York of course. DC is more of a pain, but still possible (and the 2nd busiest mass transit system after NYC, but it's by like two orders of magnitude). Chicago, Boston, the Bay Area (but not really LA, no surprise) all have their own systems that are very heavily utilized by the locals. I know other cities usually have a little something that runs through downtown, but I am only familiar with the ones I've named.

Now I'm wondering if Harry Dresden ever gets on the El. XD Didn't read far enough to find out, don't want to ...

I was in Toronto a few years back and ... and ... TOKENS. That was a blast to the past. Also I got screwed over by one of the stations' weird layouts (long stupid story) but I guess that's just a ha-ha-stupid-tourists thing. XD

There is a YA SF novel I have read that has the protaganist living with mom and dad in Scarborough (the descriptions made me mentally substitute Jane & Finch, but it's not).

Edge of Time (http://www.susan-macdonald.com/) by Susan MacDonald.

About half the story happens on the East coast, though, including Newfoundland, which is basically like the most Canadian shout-out ever.

Newfoundland more than east coast? I think like a Torontonian, so my notion of Real Canada is anywhere east of PQ. Montreal is also Real Canada, but a different one.

Thus if you start in unreal Scarborough, you must go elsewhere for stuff to happen. Fortunately the prairie topos seems to be played out-- I mean, apologies all round, but Canlit when I was in uni was a succession of unhappy Scots-descended people growing up cold and frustrated in various small prairie towns.

There's teleporting involved, so locations change abruptly enough to disorient reader and characters. Also ocean shenanigans after they leave Halifax for the alien base that is, technically, under Newfoundland. iirc

Ironically, I think my Real Canada extends all the way to PEI, NS, and NB, because I've driven through all three, but excludes a large swath of PQ that, having also driven through, still seems unreal and unmanageable. Or maybe that's just because we usually passed through while sleep-deprived and/or slept in a parking lot because attempting to plan overnighting in PQ defeated us every time.

Or rather, places as one imagines them. In my mental construct, PQ becomes Elsewhere not merely because of the language but also the literature. Parallels between Quebec and the American South abound, and one is the liking for gothic tropes in many of their writers. Who were all my age or older so possibly the province is growing out of it.

Whereas the Maritimes are Real because they keep doing the Scots thing, and Scotland is a place of cozy nostalgia. Well, if you're a boomer from TO it is. With a sizable assist from Anne of Green Gables.

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Imaginary Places