Calgary author finds radical connections in his novel about the summer of love
http://www.calgaryherald.com/life/Back/2335854/story.html
By Eric Volmers
December 13, 2009
It wasn't until the late 1960s that author and poet Tom Wayman
realized his growing interest in world-altering, radical politics may
have been inherited.
Growing up, the 64-year-old's parents didn't discuss their past in
the 1930s radical movement, where they rallied for things that
perhaps now don't seem all that radical. But pushing for enhanced
social services and unemployment insurance would have you labelled a
communist back then, and certainly posed a threat to Wayman's father
as he attempted to get his PhD at the University of Toronto. By the
time the chill of 1950s McCarthyism crept across the border, Wayman's
parents -- who actually met at a Young Communist League picnic --
were keeping their past politics secret from their children in the
little town of Hawkesbury, Ont. So, when young Wayman began believing
in the I-too-can-change-the-world spirit of the 1960s, he didn't know
he was following in their footsteps or that their fears for him were
grounded in personal experience.
"They knew something about what it takes to start a social movement,"
says Wayman, currently on the publicity rounds for his newest novel,
Woodstock Rising. "I think they were nervous that I was going to get
into trouble. They have always been supportive. I mean, I wanted to
be a poet, my mother wanted me to get my PhD. That was the route out
of poverty for them. They were haunted by poverty and they were
nervous about political activity."
While this may not seem overly relevant to the plot points of
Wayman's Woodstock Rising, he admits he was thinking about the
differences between generations when writing the book. He was
thinking about the sort of optimism that was scared out of his
parents' generation and appeared to be buried in cynicism for the
ones that followed his. Now an associate professor in the University
of Calgary's English department and an established Canadian poet,
Wayman has more than 40 years experience instructing wide-eyed youth
at post-secondary institutions. It's given him a front-row seat in
witnessing a shift in attitude over the years.
"People are cynical," he says. "Not just about the politics, but
about hope for the future. And that kind of cynicism paralyzes people
-- 'Why bother trying, if nothing is going to change?' We thought
very differently. We thought we could change everything."
Which may sound like Wayman views the 1960s through an aging hippie's
rose-coloured glasses rather than historic objectivity. But Wayman
says he was trying to capture the complete spirit of the 1960s in
Woodstock Rising, painting it in all its psychedelic, tie-dyed glory.
While his novel certainly delves into serious and complex issues,
it's also a comedy that gleams with nostalgia. The action takes place
in 1969, not long after the Woodstock concert. A young Canadian
graduate student at the University of California finds himself in the
middle of a scheme to follow in the footsteps of Communist China,
which had successfully launched its first satellite. The students
plan to break into a missile silo so they can launch "The Woodstock
Nation" satellite into orbit.
Wayman says the bare bones plot has been percolating for quite some
time, having come to him in a dream in 1971. But he also wanted the
novel to capture everything about the period, not just the politics.
"There are sort of two main streams, one of which is the story about
going into the silo and the Woodstock satellite," says Wayman.
"That was completely from a dream and I had all these notes about it.
Years had come and gone and I wanted to write something about the
1960s that was multi-layered and multi-faceted. It seemed a lot of
what was written focused on one particular aspect. But to have gone
through it, I knew that every aspect resonated with and was
influenced by the other parts -- pop culture, the radical movement,
the music and all the normal stuff young people are concerned with."
Woodstock Rising is a coming-of-age tale, where characters dress in
hippie garb, smoke joints and occasionally utter phrases such as "far
out" or "right on." But it also looks at the political divisions of
the student movement. Wayman, like his protagonist, was involved in
Students for a Democratic Society, an early organization of America's
so-called New Left. He also spent time in the U.S. studying at
University of California, Irvine and eventually teaching at the
University of Colorado in 1968 and 1969. He never made it to
Woodstock because he decided to return to Canada in August 1969,
where he began to work in a number of labour jobs while periodically
returning to teaching. In the meantime, he became a celebrated author
and poet. Woodstock Rising is his 26th book, in a literary career
that covered poetry, essays, criticism, short stories and novels.
While this novel certainly has its lighthearted side and Wayman was
wary of preaching, he said he also wanted it to look into some of the
hard lessons learned by the movement.
"Any social movement is people and people have contradictions, and I
really wanted to get that across," he says. "There are some practical
lessons, I think, buried in the book. These students begin to realize
when you protest, you ask the ruling class to stop being the ruling
class, which they aren't likely to do. Not that you shouldn't
protest, but it's not the only thing to do."
But politics wasn't the only culture-changing force swirling around
campuses. In Woodstock Rising, Wayman takes great pains to show the
power of popular music, something he says was an omnipotent force
during the period.
In the first 60 pages alone, he extensively quotes lyrics from
Buffalo Springfield, the Supremes, The Doors, Lovin' Spoonful, H.P.
Lovecraft, Bob Dylan, Jefferson Airplane and Crosby, Stills and Nash.
Woodstock Rising enlists words of wisdom from nearly 30 songs, which
cost the author roughly $6,000. This put Wayman in the surreal
position of writing cheques to counter-culture heroes whose music has
since become multimillion-dollar industries. But even this couldn't
spark cynicism in the writer.
"I got to write a cheque to Paul Simon and Bob Dylan," says Wayman.
"For some reason, I found that really fun. I don't know why I was so
tickled by that. I guess it was my brush with fame. It make it more real."
--
Spotlight
Woodstock Rising
(Dundurn Press, 469 pages, $21.99)
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