To All Appearances A Lady - University of British Columbia

Books in Review
ter. However, the continuous seriousness of
the material results in a collection in which
the tone of each story blends into the next
and quickly becomes monotonous. By the
end of the collection, the reader is
exhausted and no longer interested in the
characters or the resolution they reach.
Robinson counteracts this apathy somewhat
by using some lovely phrases. In
"Finding Linette," one daughter "hugs quietly
against" her mother. Expressions like
this one hint at the subtlety that exists
within surfaces; every time the reader finds
one, the story lifts. That lift is temporary,
however, as Robinson continues to use realist
prose for essentially romantic stories.
This problem is particularly clear in her
last story, "Hiding Among the Trees." Here,
two women make love and their distinct
personalities blend into one pronoun:
"she." Such a representation is romantic
but the plot which leads to this scene delves
into social realism. In this story, Peg works
through her anger over her mother's alcoholism
on which she blames her home life
and her father's death. She wears her
father's clothes, lives in a different city,
drinks too much, occasionally has sex with
strange men, and attempts suicide. She is
rescued by a woman, Monica, who she
encountered upon her arrival at the city's
bus depot. Monica, unknown and unexpected,
proceeded to find her an apartment,
to help her get a job, to take her to
the hospital after her suicide attempt, and
to become her friend, at least until they
became sexually involved. They then fight
over Peg's lack of involvement with her
mother—a problem Peg's mother's death
solves. Her death evokes memories in Peg
which help explain the alcoholism.
Resolution is reached when Peg moves
home, feels guilty for hating her mother,
calls her girlfriend and tries on her mother's
clothes. This plot of the nurturing
friend who becomes a lover raises fascinating
questions about female sexuality and
about female friendship but never
addresses them because of the romanticism
attached to the relationship between Peg
and Monica. The story ends with a worrying
sense that Peg has merely switched
parental allegiances. "Hiding in the Trees"
is representative of Robinson's collection in
that its surfaces are made romantic and
symbolic whereas in Teleky's Goodnight,
Sweetheart they remain realist and opaque.
Unteaching Literature
Kecht, Maria-Regina, ed.
Pedagogy Is Politics: Literary Theory and Critical
Teaching. U Illinois P $15.95
McGowan, John
Postmodernism and Its Critics. Cornell UP $12.95
Reviewed by Roger Seamon
Both of these books, one rather good and
the other ranging from awful to alright, are
evidence that many teachers of literature,
particularly teachers of English it would
seem, are increasingly out of touch with
both literature and politics. John McGowan
patiently reveals how contradictory,
implausible and out of political touch are
the beliefs about society of various postmodernists,
all of whom claim to be telling
us something deep and useful about our
entire condition. And the writers in
Pedagogy Is Politics continue an ignorance
of pedagogy and politics that is as surprising
as it is alarming.
The ignorance about political life is deep
and deeply Eurocentric, for it rests on the
assumption that there is something peculiarly
wrong, even evil, in contemporary
Western society (the center of late capitalism).
This social self-criticism can perhaps
be traced to the Hebrew prophets, but its
current incarnation goes back to the late
eighteenth century when it was discovered
that Christian civilization, measured by the
standards of reason, was not the bearer of
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