\s mYevtew KALEIDOSCOPE - University of British Columbia

BOOKS IN REVIEWharbour where he has been indulging inbittersweet memories of their early marriageand imaginative escape through theadventure novels of his youth. Finally,with the aid of an ex-convict who attendshis creative writing class and wants hishelp in polishing his memoirs, Ed sets outto find Victoria where she has gone tohide in some motel in the city, hoping tooffer her some real help.During his crazy journey around thewinter city, Ed encounters various charactersfrom his past and his present.Vanderhaeghe masterfully shows everythingfrom his point of view yet alsoreveals his failings as an observer. Nevertheless,for all his faults, Ed has an unerringeye and ear for phoniness, andVanderhaeghe allows that to emergeagain and again. Indeed, it is because Edis so wittily insightful that we put up withhim, for he is even capable of seeinghimself clearly upon occasion. But he isalso obsessed: with a vision of a perfectionthat never existed except in his mindand which drives him upon his quest butmakes him unable to offer Victoria anythingshe needs when he finally finds her.Vanderhaeghe has created a sad-sackloser whose wit and intelligence renderhim somehow worthy of our complicityin his superb failure to measure up tosociety's demands. As his tale careensfrom slapstick comedy to unnervingangst, Ed holds our attention and ourconcern.There are a number of influences onecould point to, but Vanderhaeghe hasalready moved beyond them to discoverhis own novelistic manner and a languagecapable of rendering particularvoices, such as Ed's, in the context of acontemporary, Canadian, prairie city.Where he will go next, I don't know, buton the evidence of My Present Age asmuch as Man Descending he will go far.I for one look forward to reading themaps he will surely send back from hisfuture forays. Meanwhile, My PresentAge is black comedy at its intimate andsubversive best.DOUGLAS BARBOURLITTLE MAGAZINEOF THE AIRROBERT WEAVER, ed., The Anthology Anthology.Macmillan, $17.95.ANTHOLOGY, THE CBC PROGRAMME, isthirty years old, and the appearance of acollection of broadcast pieces to celebratethe occasion reminds me of the circumstancesof its origin. One evening in 1953my wife Inge and I were having dinnerwith Robert Harlow, then a Talks Producerin Vancouver, and we fell to talkingof the lack of literary magazines.Contemporary Verse had gone out ofpublication; Northern Review was appearingat long intervals as John Sutherlandslowly died; Fiddlehead was all thatremained apart from the CanadianForum and the university quarterlies.Something, we felt, had to be done toprovide an outlet for writers, and thenmy wife said, "Why not a little magazineof the air?" Immediately, it seemed theideal solution, for in those days beforethe Canada Council the CBC was theonly organization with adequate fundsand enough of a commitment to the artsto get such a project working withouttoo much delay.Harlow passed on the suggestion toRobert Weaver, who accepted it as fittingin with the trend of his own thinking,and who talked the CBC authoritiesinto providing air time and funds. As anacknowledgement of the Woodcock partin the programme's beginning, I wasappointed editorial advisor to Anthologyat $100 a month, which in those daysbefore inflation was a reassuring addition