BOOKS IN REVIEWdes jeux romanesques, jeux de langage etde style et jeux inter-, intra-, et paratextuels.C'est ce jeu qui représente pourImbert l'élément le plus subversif dans lalittérature québécoise, et comme la foliequi revient comme thème important danscette même littérature, ces jeux permettentde dépasser les stéréotypes de voirau delà des apparences. Même le rôle dulecteur et son narcissisme entrent en jeudans cet analyse aussi bien que toutes lesdifficultés comprises dans la recherched'identité, dans la situation paradoxaleindividu/société. La conclusion de cetteétude c'est que pour les écrivains québécoistels que Ducharme, Beaulieu, Brossard,etc. qui fournissent la majorité descitations dans cet ouvrage, la conventionou les conventions sont négatives et àêtre rejetées. Ce que cherche l'écrivainquébécois c'est plutôt la spontanéité,l'authenticité, un "renouveau de valeurset d'une écriture qui sont prises dans unsystème politique économique ou culturel"et c'est vers une philosophie plutôtorientale, une mode de pensée inspiréepar la philosophie Zen qui est le contrairedu christianisme tel qu'il a été vécuau Québec que se dirigent ces auteurs.Ce qu'ils ne veulent plus c'est le "combatavec l'ordre ancien ni tentative d'imposerun ordre nouveau, mais une transformationde la perception globale de l'hommeatteignant à une autre dimension."Livre alors intéressant quoiqu'un peudifficile de lecture. Important surtoutcomme étude de philosophie moderne, dela nouvelle écriture et de ces concepts decliché, de stéréotype, etc. De là à traiterexclusivement du roman québécoiscomme genre à part qui s'attaque à latradition sans parler du nouveau romanfrançais ou du roman moderne en généralnous semble un peu trop borné. Il n'estvraiment pas possible d'étudier le style etle langage du roman québécois moderne,ce que Patrick Imbert semble vouloirfaire, sans le mettre dans le contexte detoute une évolution et une révolutiondans la forme du roman occidental.SENTIMENT& SENSIBILITYVIRGINIA HARGER-GRINLINGDON BAILEY, Swim For Your Life. Oberon,$"•95·ANN COPELAND, Earthen Vessels. Oberon,$ΐΐ.95·DON BAILEY'S FIFTH BOOK, Swim ForYour Life, has eight titled chapters, shortstories laid out along a single plot line,which relate the crises in the family life<strong>of</strong> Wayne Maitland brought on by thedeath from cancer <strong>of</strong> his wife Wanda.Writing each chapter so that it can existas an independent story or be placed asan episode in a series has certain dangers.The information given to make each storyindependent may become repetitiouswhen the stories are brought together:we are told four times that the protagonistis 42 years old. Details which givepoint to the stories may by inconsistencyjar in the longer narrative : we are firsttold that the dead wife had been buried,then later Maitland tells a telephonecaller that she had been cremated. Themiddle class teacher <strong>of</strong> Film Studies, ifsuffering a mental crisis as a result <strong>of</strong> herdeath, should at least remember what hedid with her body. Incidentally cremationwas the fate <strong>of</strong> Wanda, wife <strong>of</strong>Wayne Maitland in the narrative whichlinks five <strong>of</strong> the eight stories in Bailey'sprevious book, Making Up. But theMaitland <strong>of</strong> those stories is a decadeyounger, <strong>of</strong> a lower class, and more infear <strong>of</strong> poverty and the police than <strong>of</strong>ennui. He had best be treated as a separatefigure, sharing only in the genericsimilarity <strong>of</strong> all Bailey's protagonists,neither rogue-heroes nor anti-heroes but173
BOOKS IN REVIEWmen with no sense <strong>of</strong> public role andlittle certainty about private value, haghauntedby memories, closed and warywith the doll-bitch compound calledwoman yet needing the tactile warmth <strong>of</strong>one in order to reach his goal <strong>of</strong> privatepeace. Setting is usually the submarginal,whether on a farm or in downtownToronto. Often the stories are told in thefirst person, as are the last three in SwimFor Your Life, and always the protagonistis struggling to achieve a sense <strong>of</strong>self-worth and continuity while threatenedby time, memory, and death. Themale must shop with care amidst promiscuouslyavailable commodities such as sexand alcohol if he is to maintain thatideal consumers' co-operative, the family.Swim For Your Life is a little more mellowthan its predecessors, the centralfigure not quite so near the wall, the relationshipsrather more sentimental. Thereis Bailey's magpie realism and a writingstyle which, although powerful whenpresenting the protagonist's morbid andwitty inner dialogues or turbulent flashbacks,in straight narrative reminds one<strong>of</strong> Maitland's daughter Gloria musing onpigeons: "They did not fly in the fluidway other birds did. They flapped theirwings furiously and wobbled into space."Earthen Vessels is Ann Copeland'sthird collection <strong>of</strong> short stories. Her first,At Peace, related stories set in a teachingconvent. The Back Room, her secondcollection, with the exception <strong>of</strong> one storyabout a cold-hearted perfectionist priest,urbanely deals with secular life. The titlestory is filled with exuberant humour,and in "A Woman's Touch" Gopeland isable to illuminate the shape <strong>of</strong> livesgoverned by the familial past with thesure touch <strong>of</strong> Katherine Mansfield in"The Daughters <strong>of</strong> the Late Colonel."Of the eight stories in Earthen Vessels,two are excellent: "Second Spring," and"Will." In "Second Spring" the speaker,a rather bitter woman who has left herteaching order for secular life and marriage,relates the story <strong>of</strong> Sister David, anintelligent woman who, when seduced bya promiscuous Jesuit, leaves her orderand takes an apartment to be availableto him. The speaker's tepid lie to herhusband, concealing the reception <strong>of</strong> aletter from her ex-sister, suggests that forboth women the late second springbrought little freedom. Like Claire Martin,Ann Copeland can treat the effects<strong>of</strong> convent life with disillusioned clarity.In "Second Spring" the speaker commentson her response to a sexual advancefrom the same Jesuit, "a worlddevoid <strong>of</strong> taboos loses some possibilitiesfor feeling." The same might be said forCopeland's imaginative energies, thatthey need institutional confinement tokeep from becoming dispersed. Fourstories <strong>of</strong> secular life are rather flat allegories<strong>of</strong> moral progression or regression.Two stories, about a university extensionEnglish class in a prison (unnamed butprobably Dorchester) and about Awards'Night at a Catholic girls' school, arelively brief vignettes. But in "Will," astory <strong>of</strong> a convict given parole to attenda nearby university, the central characterdoes hold the reader's interest, throughthe gradual revelation that the ravages<strong>of</strong> conscience and institutional routinehave left his inner life too brittle to survivein freedom. Spiritually he is amongthe dead, so that the discussion <strong>of</strong> capitalpunishment occasioned by a prison breakwhich he overhears in a barber shop, andwhich precipitates his collapse, is finallyirrelevant.Ann Copeland is a writer with a civilizedsensibility and a sense <strong>of</strong> her craft.If the stories in Earthen Vessels do notdevelop in range or technique beyondher previous work, they show a continuitywith it and are a pleasure to read.TOM MIDDLEBRO174
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