In many ways, my favorite teacher at McGill was Hugh MacLennan. I remember taking at least two and probably three courses from him. One was on English prose and one was on the modern novel. Both were well within his wheelhouse. I always enjoyed his courses and his reminiscences of Leonard Cohen as a student and theearly days of other Montreal writers – especially F. R. Scott.
MacLennan was a good teacher for three reasons; firstly, when he was simply delivering necessary information, he was clear and interesting (that alone made him stand out at McGill). Secondly, he was a born storyteller and so when a story crossed his narrative path on the way to delivering information, he never hesitated to switch to the story, no matter how lengthy it might be. And this is all to the good when the subject matter of the lecture is – say – the prose style of Dryden. (Although Hugh could make the unlikeliest of subjects quite captivating: such as the prose of Richard Steele in The Tattler and Laurence Sterne in Tristram Shandy – I still like those essays and that novel.) And his story telling was affect free and effort less. I still find his novel Barometer Rising a good tale, if somewhat stilted and over-written, but to hear Hugh tell how he was, at ten years old, in the family outhouse when the Halifax explosion happened was a wild adventure. One minute he was on the throne reading the Eaton’s catalogue and the next he was in the neighbor’s yard without a stitch on and the outhouse never to be seen again. And he had no recollection of how that transpired. When he had no critical reader in mind, he was a great story-teller.
Thirdly, Hugh was not afraid to indulge himself in any of his personal vendettas against large and powerful enemies. One particular foe of his was Coca Cola, against whom he waged a long, private and thankless war. It began, according to him, in the last year of the Second World War. The Canadian army was slogging its way through the battles of Caen and Falaise on its way to its main strategic goal: the liberation of the Channel Ports so that much needed supplies could come directly to the liberating D-Day armies, instead of dribbling ashore on makeshift floating piers. Fighting on the left flank of the Allied army, the first Canadian Army cleared Dieppe, entered Belgium and liberated Ostend, Ghent and Bruges as well the V-1 launch sights in the Netherlands. (The V-1 was the precursor to the cruise missile).
But the primary objective was the port of Antwerp. The D-Day supply lines stretched all the way back to Normandy and Antwerp was a crucial target. After a large, complex and bloody campaign, the Canadians liberated it. And that is where Hugh got to his point. The Canadians had liberated the Port, with a great loss of life. They anticipated the arrival, on the great ships, of food, medicine, and letters from home… “And what was the first cargo off-loaded?” Hugh demanded of us, leaning over his lectern. “I’ll tell you,” he shouted, “it was vast amounts of Coca Cola for the American troops! American ships, American Coca Cola!” I think that if Hugh had been a spitting man, that’s what he would have done. It was a most interesting and unusual lecture on 18th century English prose styles.
