BKMNDCNK.RVW   980102

"Mondo Canuck", Geoff Pevere/Greig Dymond, 1996, 0-13-263088-5,
C$27.95
%A   Geoff Pevere
%A   Greig Dymond
%C   Scarborough, Ontario
%D   1996
%G   0-13-263088-5
%I   Prentice Hall
%O   C$27.95 800-576-3800 416-293-3621 betsy_carey@prenhall.com
%P   243 p.
%T   "Mondo Canuck"

OK, the majority of you can go to sleep.  This is, indeed, mondo
Canuck: the world of the Canadian.  Your humble scribe has taken every
opportunity to inject CanCon (and you don't even know what that is, do
you?) into his reviews, but this book is for us, and us alone. 
Therefore, the majority of you, being non-Canadian, can hit the "next"
key, secure in the knowledge that there is nothing here of interest.

And, fellow Canucks, now that we are alone, I can say how much I
enjoyed this book.  One of the inevitable side effects of writing book
reviews is that you get a constant stream of "have you read ..."
advice from readers.  It was one such, and in reaction to a comment I
had made about a lack of etymology for the word "hoser" that I got a
pointer to this one.  And there it was, on page 106.  I was hooked.

The authors have written a series of essays on topics and
personalities (mostly the latter illustrating the former) covering a
broad range of contemporary popular culture by, for, or through
Canadians.  Given the contemporary nature of the material, the book is
unlikely to wear well, although it does reach back to the sixties and
even earlier on occasion.  The pop label gives the book sufficient
subjectivity to protect it against any possible charges of poor
choices of topics.

For a serious review, the important questions would be, is the
sampling valid, and, is the analysis correct?  (In fact, the book
contains some howlers, such as the "fact" that the Mounties sold their
image to Disney.)  To which I reply, who cares?  The content is
solidly based on shared Canadian "experiences," fun in much the same
vein as looking for Vancouver area locations on the "X-Files" TV show. 
It is enlivened by a wealth of esoteric trivia, and sometimes
surprising scholarship.

(In a lame attempt to regain my shattered reviewer's integrity, I
might point out that "popular" seems to be defined by music, TV, and
comedy, and that the book could be improved by a thorough pruning to
reduce repetitive passages.)

I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I suspect that most of you might, too.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1998   BKMNDCNK.RVW   980102