To All Appearances A Lady - University of British Columbia

Books in Review
spondence is different, most of all, I suppose,
because it is not based on obvious
and at times overbearing need, as the other
correspondence was, at least on Laurence's
side. No friendship of course exists without
some kind of need being fulfilled, but
between Al and me there was an equality of
it, as there was not between him and
Laurence. We grouse to each other constantly,
though it must be evident to readers
of our letters how we like each other as
men and admire each other as writers.
So we find Purdy as not only a fine poet,
but also a stimulating letter writer (there is
another, again different, volume of letters
between him and the American poet
Zukofsky), who sets us all communicating,
though in what was communicated Margaret
Laurence remains the best of the lot, for in
spite of her reticence about them, her
accounts of the struggles with her books
make them all the more meaningful to us.
A final point. The last letter but one is
dated 7 November 1980. The last letter,
written when Purdy had learned late of
Margaret's final illness, is dated 31
December 1986. (She died on the 5th of
January 1987.) Is it possible that these two
fervent correspondents went without writing
for more than six years? What has happened
to the rest of the Laurence-Purdy
correspondence?
Mennonite History
Andreas Schroeder
The Mennonites: A Pictorial History of Their Lives
in Canada. Douglas & Mclntyre, $34.95
James Urry
None But Saints: The Transformation of
Mennonite Life in Russia 1789-1889.
Hyperion, n.p.
Reviewed by Howard Reimer
Andreas Schroeder and James Urry provide
complementary accounts of Mennonite
history. Although they are similar in their
brief reference to Mennonite beginnings in
the Anabaptist movements of sixteenth
cen-tury Europe, and in the account they
provide of a social ideal that placed great
emphasis on a rural, static way of life, they
deal with distinct geographical settings:
Schroeder is interested primarily in those
Mennonites whose emigrations took them
to Canada whereas Urry focuses on the
development of Mennonite colonies in
Russia.
In their four and a half centuries the
Mennonites have found the world to be
more often hostile than receptive to their
pacifist, separatist ideals; consequently, as
Schroeder and Urry demonstrate, their
history has has been punctuated by major
upheavals, experienced in struggles for
control of their own language and education
and in frequent emigrations. Thus, in
a process that began in the sixteenth
century, Mennonites have been dispersed
throughout the western hemisphere.
(James Urry made his first contact with
Mennonites on a visit to Belize in Central
America.) And, although there are conservative
groups that retain the early rural,
separate way of life, the majority of
Mennonites in Europe and North America
have adopted an identity compatible with
life in urban centres, and have entered
into the world of commerce and the professions
in large numbers, particularly in
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