War Torn: Adventures in the Brave New Canada

by Troy Parfitt, Steven Crook (Editor), Roddy Doucet (Translator)

War Torn: Adventures in the Brave New Canada is about one man’s struggle to identify with his homeland. After 12 years in East Asia, English teacher Troy Parfitt returns to Canada and embarks on a cross-country journey that covers each province and territory. The reader is treated to historical overviews, ethnographic encounters, poetic geographical-descriptions, and lively and insightful commentary on Canadian culture and society. Numerous themes emerge, but the tie that binds is Canada’s involvement in The War in Afghanistan. The author questions the war’s merits, the views of its supporters, the aims of its orchestrators, and the culture of silence surrounding the conflict. He juxtaposes quiet approval for state violence against widespread apathy for social, political, and educational reform, and shows how peace-loving Canadians now valourize war through sport, family values, Christianity, and capitalism. Framed as a travel narrative, Parfitt subverts the genre to challenge assumptions about Canadians being Americans’ friendly and progressive northern neighbours. Criticizing Canada’s swing to the right, he leaves the country again citing that it’s too insular and conservative.

296 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 15, 2015

About the author

Originally from Canada, I now live in Europe. I'm the author of four works of non-fiction, including Why China Will Never Rule the World, War Torn: Adventures in the Brave New Canada, and The Devil and His Due: How Jordan Peterson Plagiarizes Adolf Hitler. I have also penned a satirical novel called The Bigot: or How I Learned to Love Donald Trump.

Reviews

[F.E. Beyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to read Troy Parfitt’s book about China, however, it isn’t available in eBook format. I find this Old China Hand (Taiwan Hand at least) and ignored disciple of Paul Theroux interesting. What spurred him to change from travel writing to becoming Jordan Peterson’s most prolific critic? I’ve probably answered the question in the second sentence here. In any case, I chose to start with his travel writing rather than his takedown of Peterson and this travelogue about a 2010 trip across Canada was available.

Parfitt himself asserts, “Canada seems to aspire to be dull.” While the great outdoors often impresses him, dullness manifests itself in politeness, anti-intellectualism, and redneckism. It sounds like New Zealand, which might explain why I’m not that interested in Canada. However, after a slow start, I enjoyed this book.

In the book, Parfitt, on the cusp of middle age, has recently returned from the Far East. He holds progressive views but prefers to hang out in working-class pubs, allowing him to record colloquial speech patterns and show redneck philosophy. He says he has a working-class background in New Brunswick and so feels at home in this scene. I would’ve liked him to write about some woke middle-class venues too. Initially, some of his dismissiveness towards conservatives, sex only being discussed when referring to abuse, and his attitude towards the plebs turned me off…but as I read on, I found his viewpoints on many things similar to my own. Yes, he calls out ring-wing nonsense, but from his experience in China he’s also weary of left-wing nonsense:

"Socialist Worker was lousy, an ideologically inverted tabloid. Why would anyone espouse social change and improvements to democracy through the theoretical lens of twentieth century communism, with its inhuman ideology and blood-drenched legacy?"

His vision for the book – beyond doing a lot of driving as the massiveness of Canada demands – isn’t too clear, but as he’s not beholden to a publisher that’s not an issue. He wants to gather opinions about Canadian involvement in Afghanistan but this is not fully developed. He also plans several interviews but feels relieved if nobody is at home when he knocks. Sometimes he doesn’t find anything going on, and I can understand that. New Zealand has many places with not much to do, as highlighted by the recent story (in August 2023) about the Spanish Women’s Football team calling the metropolis of Palmerston North boring. Often, the narrative is kept afloat by Parfitt’s self-deprecating humour.

“I returned to George Street for a drink, not because I was lonely; or depressed about my parents being gone, my stalled career, or the book I was writing that so few people would read and so many agents and publishers would reject (“Dear Tony, after carefully considering your manuscript about Australia…”); rather, I returned to George Street because I knew that, in a pub, people would say almost anything. Anthropologists knew that, too.”

Things really get interesting two-thirds of the way through when he visits Iqaluit the capital of the far northern territory of Nunavut. At the place he’s staying at he gets roped in to run the store.

“She sold sealskin vests, Inuit snow goggles, and other Nordic fashion-items. If customers turned up while I was around, I’d deal with them as best I could.”

Then he investigates the problem-wracked indigenous community. The scenes he sketches are beyond tragic:

"Inuit men in hockey-club-logoed caps shuttled from bar to table with armfuls of beer. Others shuffled about hawking Bristol-board drawings and greenstone carvings. The drawings tended to be of Inuit spear-hunters, but one featured a polar bear beating a drum with the Montreal Canadiens insignia. Its price tag was $50. A southerner said, “Wait ‘til the third period. By then, he’ll be so desperate for a drink, it’ll be fifteen.”

Parfitt finds something that all Canadians can bond over in hockey. And even if he tends towards intellectual snobbery, he can still enjoy the national sport:

"It was my first live NHL game, and I found the experience interesting. It was part sporting event (obviously), part rock concert (lots of AC/DC before face-offs), part religious ceremony (for you had to believe), and part history lesson (a lot of trophies and retired jerseys to mull over)."

Writer John Ross said in his review that Parfitt’s book despite its negativity made him more interested in visiting Canada. It certainly has a lot to offer but Canada isn’t high on my list. I need to make the most of the great outdoors here in NZ first. I live in NZ’s capital, and in 2023, I find the unthinking wokeness here annoys me the most. That said, I know if I leave the city much bonehead conservatism still awaits. I’d like to know Parfitt’s thoughts on Justin Trudeau’s Canada. His overall view of his home country is nicely summed up in the following quote.

"Anyway, it got lonely and frighteningly cold up here at the top of the world, and loneliness translated to insecurity, which made for desperate and dangerous beliefs. Add to this a culture that didn’t value education, an inability to modernize education, a resultant wide-spread incapacity to critically reflect, and a governmental agenda which exploited this manufactured mental lethargy, and, well, hey, the results were evident everywhere."

But isn’t this true of many countries? Even if they are at the bottom of the world and not too cold. The epilogue details Parfitt’s struggles to readjust to Canada and his leaving again, this time for Europe. War Torn isn't the best choice of title, but this is an educational read with an amusingly curmudgeon-like narrator.

[Troy Parfitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm improving.