To All Appearances A Lady - University of British Columbia

literature, struggling for recognition even
at our own universities, would be studied
by Europeans. But the other selection, Neil
K. Besner's Introducing Alice Munro's Lives
of Girls and Women provides even stronger
evidence of progress in establishing the
legitimacy of Canadian literary studies.
Eighth in ECW's series of readers' guides to
major texts by Canadian fiction writers,
this book could not have been imagined
until a large audience of serious students of
Canadian fiction had developed, or written
until a substantial body of critical commentary
had accumulated.
Multiple Voices provides a variety of
material for advanced students and scholars.
It includes academic papers, informal
panel discussion and a memorable opening
address by Robert Kroetsch, in which he
blends autobiography, confession and meditation
to shed light on his creative process.
Like Margaret Laurence's "Time and the
Narrative Voice" and Rudy Wiebe's "Where
Is the Voice Coming From?" Kroetsch's "I
Wanted To Write a Manifesto" may become
a key text that is read again and again over
a lifetime of literary study.
Vividly, Kroetsch sketches a series of
images from his childhood: himself on tiptoe
reaching blindly into the font of holy
water where his fingers touched ice; his two
red-haired teachers, the one in his first
grade for whom he pretended not to know
how to read, and the one at high school
who suggested that he become a writer; the
farm well-diggers whom he tested by peeing
a few drops into their drinking water,
which they drank despite his warning; and,
in adulthood, a visit to his ancient, speechless
Aunt Rose, at whose bedside past and
present coalesced.
Similarly, excerpts from Innocent Cities,
Jack Hodgins' account of an English widow
disoriented among the unfamiliar sights
and sounds of Queensland, show what an
outsider's perspective might be like; however,
Hodgins, like his character, was a visitor
in Australia, and not an immigrant. By
concluding with this excerpt, editor Jeanne
Delbaere confuses the issue of multicultural
writing in Canada. Admittedly, the editor's
task is daunting when voice and ethnicity
are under discussion. A consensus has yet
to develop on what these terms really mean
to Canadian literature. Although the question
of voice appropriation is not raised
here, it has become important in the years
since this symposium; therefore, the categories
into which the editor divides her
selections: ethnic voices, women's voices,
French/English voices, and multivoiced fiction,
are somewhat out of date. Nevertheless,
the panelists do consider the roles of academic
fashion and Canadian politics in fostering
ethnic writing. Mavis Gallant asks
when "ethnic" became a noun, and
deplores this "horrible deviation." Just as
she expressed her impatience with questions
of national identity in her introduction
to Home Truths, here she reiterates her
conviction: "A real Canadian is someone
who says he's a Canadian." But this view is
not typical of the panelists. Janice Kulyk
Keefer recalls prejudice against the name
Kulyk. In her opinion, "Canada is no
longer—if it ever was—'Two Solitudes'—
but rather a locus of ethnic diversity." Yet
the two essays in French that appear in this
book remind us of the continued relevance
of MacLennan's phrase to two separate
Canadian literatures.
Smaro Kamboureli introduces the term
"audible minority." Although her experience
of growing up feeling lonely and isolated
was obviously familiar to other
writers present, no one speculates on the
positive effects that being an outsider may
also have generated. Sometimes, anger at
being in the minority rouses a desire to
speak stronger than the silencing force of
the majority.
Besides ethnicity and voice, these essays
also reflect recent debates over critical theory
in the Canadian literary world. In
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