\s mYevtew KALEIDOSCOPE - University of British Columbia

BOOKS IN REVIEWfriendships, his writing in the early yearsand work for authors' societies in hislater life). The decision lets them focustheir discussions but it also involves acertain amount of repetition.Their uncertain attempt to move in anumber of directions is summarized intheir sub-title: "A Canadian LiteraryLife." "Canadian" is of course clearenough. But even this limitation can leadto lacunae that keep troubling a reader;when, for example, Deacon goes to NewYork in 1919 to be "in the very centre ofthe American literary scene," we findthat he returns, after half a paragraphabout his health, to Winnipeg, theAmerican literary scene disposed of withthe observation that "Though the tripwas a fiasco as far as literary ambitionswere concerned, his determination to becomea writer remained constant andtotal." We, however, have never beentold anything more precise about his ambitionsfor the New York trip than thereference to the "centre of the Americanliterary scene" would suggest; we do notknow whom he tried to meet, whom hedid meet and with what response, whatenabled him to persist in his determinationdespite an apparent setback. It maybe that the eye resolutely fixed on the"Canadian" is responsible for this sketchiness,but it may be too that a "LiteraryLife" gets its authors into difficulties, invokingas it does that sub-genre of biographywhich restricts itself to the professionallife of its subject. Professionaldecisions can seldom be explained byrecourse only to professional circumstancesand motivations and those ofDeacon are no exception. Thomas andLennox, for example, cite the importanceof theosophical beliefs to his convictionthat he should abandon law for literaryjournalism, thereby moving from theprofessional to the personal, but they donot go deeply enough into the personal(or into theosophy) to tell us why Deaconshould have wished to replace Methodismwith theosophy or to trace the influenceof this doctrine on his writing.Later, hypothesizing that My Vision ofCanada is understandable in the contextof Deacon's theosophical beliefs, theauthors draw but do not develop ananalogy with the influence of theosophyon Irish nationalism and tell us that a"they" without antecedent believed inCanada as a New Athens exemplifyingspiritual perfection. This is the sort ofanalysis that needs support: who arethese "they"? — no such belief, for example,is expressed in the writings ofMme. Blavatsky. Other examples of theprofessional life's refusal to remain distinctfrom the personal life encompassdecisions Deacon made, the biographersimply, with an eye to his mother, wife,and children: the brevity of their allusionsto these figures in the interests ofrestricting the account to the "literary"makes some of those decisions seem scantilymotivated.From a narrative point of view, perhapsthe most satisfying biographies arethose in which we can identify with thebiographer as well as the subject, inwhich we see the biographer strugglingto come to terms with the subject, toempathize, perhaps even to sympathizewith him, then to move through andbeyond that emotion to a more objectiveunderstanding which embraces it. ProfessorsThomas and Lennox achievesomething of this in a muted way. Theiraffection for Deacon is frequently in evidence,as is their conviction (and demonstration)of his importance to a phase ofCanadian literary life, yet it does notkeep them from noting the limitations ofhis own books and the conservatism of hisliterary interests; affection occasionallybecomes affectionate irony and Deacon'sunwilling and ungracious retirement andthe senility of his last years, while ascharitable a presentation as possible is178