This terms final presentation of the Letters and Arts Society took place on Thursday, March 15 and featured a reading followed by a question period with Canadian postmodern novelist, Ray Smith, and boy howdy, was it ever a good time.

Preceded by his reputation for self-effacing humour and enchantingly involved readings, Smith did not disappoint. Reading first from his most recently published novel, The Man Who Hated Emily Bronte (2004), the “cleanest bit” of his yet-to-be published, The Flush of Victory (expected April 2007), and an older novel A Night at the Opera (1992) Smith literally gave a voice to his notoriously quirky characters.

Born in Mabou, Nova Scotia, an island off of Cape Breton, Smith was educated at Dalhousie and now resides in Montreal, by way of Toronto, where he teaches English Literature at Dawson College. His first publication was a collection of short stories called Cape Breton is the Thought Control Capital of Canada (1969). Described largely as incomprehensible, the stories earned Smith the title of “groundbreaker” in the realm of Canadian postmodern literature. The years and works that followed would find Smith's work traveling all over the world and throughout time but consistently with a taste of the bizarre, brandishing wit.

Personally, Smith was nothing short of the modestly eccentric showman he is famed to be. Playing with pocket change, relating a childhood story to demonstrate the humour of Cape Breton -complete with thick, adopted Breton accents -, and singing to the few folks who posed with him for an impromptu photo-op part way through his question period, Smith personified charm.

If you were one of the many unfortunate souls who missed Smith's appearance, fear not, for a selection of his work, rife with literary wit and whimsy, is available for purchase at the campus bookstore.