The Carpathians - University of British Columbia

The Canada Council and the Cultural
Services Branch of the Government of
British Columbia both contributed to the
funding of this book. They were robbed.
If Anne Cameron did not serve her reader's
well with A Whole Brass Band, Theytus
Books did not serve Lee Maracle well when
they sent out uncorrected review copies
of her new book, Sundogs. Despite the disclaimer
pasted on the cover of an otherwise
very professional looking publication, the
host of fragmented, misspelled, unpunctuated
sentences make an otherwise fairly
engaging book a very frustrating read.
Frustration turns to irritation when,
halfway through the book, a key character's
name switches randomly from Paul to John
and back a number of times. Some of the
errors seem to be the author's—"shoes" are
confined to spike heels, when it is obviously
"feet" that were meant, and reference is
made to the eve of a niece's "death" when it
is the eve of the funeral, a day or two after
the unexpected death, that is intended.
Sundogs, Maracle's first novel, centres
around the summer of 1990, and the effect
that the events at Oka had upon native
people in other parts of the country.
Marianne, the central character, is a protected,
rather pampered young native
woman, a self-described "social idiot".
Surrounded by a huge family with its full
share of problems, led by a mother who
talks back to the television, she slowly
wakes up, politically and emotionally, and
joins the Run For Peace that sets out across
the country in support of those behind the
barricades.
The strength of Sundogs lies in the
descriptions of family and community
interaction, rather than in the long section
on the Run For Peace that serves as
Marianne's initiation into the real world.
The closeness between relations, the attitudes
towards whites, the strong sense of
"Us and Them", the combination of hope
and despair, that are all part of life for
native Canadians every day, is very strongly
delineated in the opening passages of the
book. You get an intimate sense of who
these people are, and why their lives take
the turns they do. However, even if the
novel is subject to the ministrations of a
keen and capable editor before it makes it
into the bookstores, Sundogs will still
resemble a fine stew that needed a lot more
cooking. Maracle needed more time with
this book.
Philip Milner, TTÎÊ Yankee Professor's Guide
to Life in Nova Scotia, Lancelot P, $9.95.
Milner is "not saying that Maritimers have
smaller egos than Ontarians or Americans,"
but he does say "that people formed [in
Antigonish] are less likely to let themselves
get away with visible self-celebration, less
likely to fall into certain forms of affectation."
Milner's essays typically step back
from the ponderous and settle for that venerable
form of Maritime diffidence — the
sketch. As an outsider (he's from Indiana)
who often finds himself surprised to be on
the inside, Milner observes small-town life
with a deft mix of affection and irony. He is
perceptive on the seasonal rhythms of the
undergraduate classroom, and hilarious on
how to eat lobster. His tribute to Father
MacSween, former head of St. Francis-
Xavier's English Department, and founder
of The Antigonish Review, is filled with
understanding of the essence of teaching —
because it is confident enough to apologize,
albeit posthumously. He writes movingly
about his profession and his inability to use
English to speak effectively to his own
daughter. Thoreau's Walden is the most
insistent intertext: telling of the strong New
England connections in Nova Scotia life,
and contextualizing Milner's glimpses of
natural rhythms and his "less visibly
aggressive," Canadian, moralizing, L.R.