шш in review DISCOURSE OF THE OTHER - University of British ...

шш in reviewDISCOURSEOF THE OTHERROBERT KROETSCH, Advice to My Friends.Stoddart, $6.95.Advice to My Friends consists of eightsequences of poems: five of them havepreviously appeared in print; the remainingthree, "Advice to My Friends," andthe two remarkable sequences, "SoundingMy Name" and "The Poet's Mother"are published here for the first time.Together they constitute the second volumein Kroetsch's continuing poem,Field Notes, and establish that work asone of the most important poems publishedin Canada in many years."We go into the unknown, even theunknown," the speaker in "The FrankfurtHauptbahnhof" declares, "with expectations."Readers of Field Notes willfind many of their expectations met inthis second volume. Certainly the speakerof the poems is familiar; he is that lonely,self-conscious, slightly bemused, oftensad, frequently amusing figure encounteredin the earlier poems. From "Delphi: Commentary" :Meggie was taking pictures. Laura andI stood behind the omphalos and Meggietook a picture. Meggie and I stood behindthe omphalos and Laura took a picture.How does onepose for a picturetaken at thebelly button ofthe earth? Whatsmile is not asmile of embarrassment?of selfsatisfaction?ofhybris? Whatangle of the armFrazer: Even in hisbest days he [Apollo]did not always rise toverse, and in Plutarch'stime the godappears to have givenup the attempt indespair and to havegenerally confinedhimself to plain, if notlucid, prose.does not betraya certain inappropriatepossessiveness?Here, as in so many of the earlier poems,the situation is commonplace; the poetas tourist, smiles self-consciously for thecamera, caught in the discourse of theobligatory photos. (Here's Laura and Istanding beside the omphalos; here'sMeggie and Laura by the omphalos;here's Meggie and I. . . .) The language,too, is commonplace, sometimes takingon the colour and energy of colloquialspeech, sometimes taking flight, but moreoften than not, quietly insisting, like thespeaker himself, on its own prosaic qualities."I AM A SIMPLE POET," thespeaker of "Mile Zero" writes "in thedust / on the police car hood." But weknow better. We come to the poetry expectingto find, behind the speaker'sseeming naïveté, the figure of Coyote, thetrickster; and we are mindful that thepoet's declaration of simplicity occurs ina poem complex enough that it cannotadequately be reproduced here.I looked at the duston the police car hood.I looked around the horizon.(Insert here passage onnature —try: The sun was blightenough for the wild rose.A musky flavor on the milkforetold the cracked earth . . .try: One crow foresaw my fright,leaned out of the scaldingair, and ate a grasshopper'swarning. . .try: A whirlwind of gullsburned the black fields white,burned white the darkploughmanand the coming night. . . )I AM A SIMPLE POETI wrote in the duston the police car hood.What cannot be reproduced here is theinsertion, in the new "Mile Zero," of

BOOKS IN REVIEWanother poem, "Chateau (A Landing)Frontenac," following the line "and thecoming night. . . ."The seeming simplicity of the poetry isbelied at the level of discourse: one columnspeaks to another, one poem to another,one text to the next. In "MileZero" the original version of the poembecomes the intertext of the new work;in "Delphi: Commentary" the contemporarypoet's account of his tour of Delphiis juxtaposed with passages fromPausanias' Descriptions of Greece, a second-centuryA.D. guidebook :From this point the highroad to Delphi growssteeper and more difficultto a man on foot. Many anddiverse are the tales toldabout Delphi, and stillmore about the oracle ofApollo. (Pausanias. Hisscattered Greece underRoman rule.)It is always that way, the poem, the abandonedpoem, in which the hero, seeking theanswer to the impossible question, seekingthe impossible question, takes to the road.Hero. Eros. The evasion that is the meeting.The impossible road.And we follow (so the story goes). Wefind ourselves entranced in the play oftexts, find ourselves in the relations of thetexts.In The Postmodern Condition Jean-François Lyotard defines postmodernsimply as an "incredulity toward metanarratives."In the postmodern worldthere are no master narratives; we have,finally, not one narrative but many.Kroetsch characteristically finds his ownformulation closer to home, in a passagefrom Ken Dryden's The Game whichserves as an epigraph for the new "MileZero" :. . . hockey is a transition game : offence todefence, defence to offence, one team toanother. Hundreds of tiny fragments ofaction, some leading somewhere, most goingnowhere. Only one thing is clear.Grand designs don't work.This passage could easily serve as an epigraphnot just to "Mile Zero" but to theseventeen sequences that, to date, makeup Kroetsch's continuing poem, for inField Notes poetry is a transition game,writer to reader, reader to writer, "hundredsof tiny fragments of action, someleading somewhere, most going nowhere."The evasion that is the meeting." ( Insert here a passage on / nature —/ try:" from "The Frankfurt Hauptbahn-Iwf" written in response to bp Nichol'squestion about notation in Field Notes:Notation in Field Notes, Barry, is the readerin the text. The narrator, always, fears his/her own tyranny. The notation, in the poemoccasions the dialogic response that is thereader's articulation of his/her own presence(the ecstatic now of recognition? thelonger, if not always enduring, experienceof transformational vision?)"Silence,please."Bugles.the gone strangerthe mysterious textthe necessarytransfer.The necessary transfer. Kroetsch's poetryinsists on that transfer, insists on theevasion that is the meeting.As these brief excerpts suggest, Adviceto My Friends is, among other things, ameditation on the transition game thatis poetry; it is, above all, an explorationof "the other" conceived and addressedin discourse. The need for and creationof the other in discourse is made readilyapparent in the opening game of the"Advice to My Friends" sequence, titled"for a poet who has stopped writing":if we could just catch a hold of it,catch aholt, some kind of line,if the sun was a tennis ball or somethingbut it ain't, the impossible thing is the sunif words rhymed, even we could catch a holt(a bush) and start the stacking, wordslined up, I mean, like, in the old dayswood behind the kitchen stove136

BOOKS IN REVIEWbut you take now your piecemeal sonnetwow, certain of these here poets,these chokermen can't even count tofourteenand as for Petrarch, well, I meanI've been to bed with some dandy and alsoskilledladies, sure, but would I a ballyhoo startfor the keen (and gossipy) public?I'd be sued or whatever, maybe killedbut (now and then) you've got to tellsomebodyand a reader has I guess, in spite of all,ears.The poet as chokerman. What he catchesaholt of here, gets a line on, are the earsof the other, the other conceived as ears,as somebody.In Advice to My Friends the other isvariously conceived : sometimes the "you"of discourse is a fellow writer, sometimesthe poet's daughters, sometimes the absentlover. From "Letters to Salonika" :June 4No mail at all from you. None. I talk tomyself. I begin to suspect I am writing theseletters to myself, writing the poem of you.Its title is, / Think About Women Much ofthe Time. That is the poem about you andyour silence.In the lover's discourse, as RolandBarthes observes, the other is always "absentas referent, present as allocutory."As a result, the "I" is "wedged betweentwo tenses, that of reference and that ofthe allocution: you have gone (which Ilament), you are here (since I am addressingyou)." As Barthes also pointsout, historically the discourse of absenceis articulated by the female; "Letters toSalonika" fascinates, in part, because thediscourse of absence is sustained by themale:What am I supposed to do with the eggplantin the fridge? It stares out at mewhen I open the fridge door. ... It remindsme of the color of your eyes when you areangry.I took my black oxfords, the shoes you don'tlike, to the shoemaker behind the hotel onPembina to have them resoled and he saidthey aren't worth resoling. After I throwaway my black oxfords I'm going to throwaway the eggplant. In fact I may throwblack itself, defying that absence of coloreven to color my life again. I shall therebyrefute Greek widowhood. I think of yourgrandmother, serving olives and bread andsliced tomatoes, pouring ouzo. I am, today,my own widow.The absence of the other not only colourshis life but grants him entry onto thestage of language. "Penelope was theartist, in that story," he reflects in anotherstory, "Odysseus, only the dumband silent one, approaching and beingunravelled and approaching again."The most remarkable poems in Adviceto My Friends are the two closing sequences,"Sounding the Name" and"The Poet's Mother," toward which thevolume as a whole seems to move. Bothfocus on the figure of the poet's mother.In Labyrinths of Voice Kroetsch acknowledgedsome years ago that he hadkept the mother figures very silent at thecentre of his writing, partly because thedeath of his mother caused him suchpain, and added:. . . it's funny how I kept that silent and oneof the things that I can see happening, inthe next few years as I go on writing, is akind of enunciation. But I can feel evenmy long poem, Field Notes drawing towardthat.In the last two sequences we have thatenunciation, poems that bespeak an almostunbearable pain, poems writtenwith the guard down, with the arms wideopen:In the fall of snowI hear my mother.I know she is there.In the weight of the snowI hear her silence.I count white stonesin October moonlight.I break dry breadwith a flock of gulls.137

BOOKS IN REVIEWI tear sheep's woolfrom barbed wire fences.The visible,the visible —where are you?"The central figure of Nichol's work,"Stephen Scobie writes in his recent, muchneeded study of the poet, "is separation— of the child from the parent, of thesignifier from the signified, of friendsfrom each other — and the humanistdrive to his writing is a heroic attemptto overcome such separation." Much thesame, I think, can be said of Kroetsch'spoetry. We don't think of him as a humanist;we don't want to think of himthat way. He is Coyote; he is postmodern.But he is a humanist, at least in theterms Nichol himself sets out in his 1966statement :there is a new humanism afoot that willone day touch the world to its core, traditionalpoetry is only one of the means bywhich to reach out and touch the other,the other is emerging as the necessary prerequisitefor dialogues with the self thatclarify the soul & heart and deepen theability to love. I place myself there, withthem, whoever they are, wherever they are,who seek to reach themselves and the otherthru the poem by as many exits and entrancesas are possible.Advice to My Friends is a collection ofpoems written for and about the other,about the self's need for and discovery ofthat other. (It is, among other things, thepoetic counterpart of Tzvetan Todorov'sfascinating study of the other, The Conquestof America.) At the Ottawa symposiumon "Literary Theory and CanadianLiterature" Kroetsch announcedthat Advice to My Friends had turnedout to be the last volume of Field Notes.Let's hope he proves as wrong aboutField Notes as bp Nichol has been aboutThe Martyrology.PAUL HJARTARSONUNDERSTANDINGZEROLORNA CROziER, The Garden Going On WithoutUs. McClelland & Stewart, $9.95.IN LORNA CROZIER'S SIXTH book ofpoems, The Garden Going On WithoutUs, there is a poet at home in manyplaces. She uses the old legends of theGarden and of Icarus and of swans,whether they be Leda's or Tschaikovsky's.She imagines into herself the moremodern voices of Wallace Stevens andDavid Wagoner and Georgia O'Keeffe.She traces the prairie landscape and thetimeless themes of love and family. Sheis an erudite but accessible poet.A section of "Poem about Nothing"shows Crozier's easy blend of allusion andobservation :Icarus understood zeroas he caught the smellof burning feathersand fell into the sea.If you roll zero down a hillit will grow,swallow the towns, the farms,the people at their tablesplaying tic-tac-toe.When the Crée chiefssigned the treaties on the plainsthey wrote Xbeside their names.In English, X equals zero.I ask my friendthe rhetorician who studies mathematicsWhat does zero mean and keep it simple.He says Zip.Zero starts and endsat the same place. Some compare itto driving across the Prairies all dayand feeling you've gone nowhere.138

BOOKS IN REVIEWYet the language and imagery are notalways this accessible. In the poem filedunder the title "Marriage: Getting UsedTo," the speaker blends images fromfairy tales and cocktail parties and theold northern legends of dragons :It did not take me longto get used to his leatherwings . . .It was his feet I couldn't stand,his horny feet, ugly as a bird's,It was waking to find himwith a flashlight and a mirror,staring under the covers at his feetIt was his nailsclicking across linoleumIt was the fallen gold scalesthat lay on the sheet like scattered coinsOther poems are as dry and restrainedas a prairie landscape, their allusions toplace and to near history. In "ThePhotograph I Keep of Them" Crozierwrites :It is before my brotherand long before I demandedmy own space in her belly.Behind them the prairietells its spare story of drought.I can write down only thisfor sure:they have left the farm,they are going somewhere.Or Crozier can be simply and happilybawdy, as in "Carrots" from The SexLives of Vegetables:Carrots are fuckingthe earth. A permanenterection, they push deeperinto the damp and dark.All summer longthey try so hard to please.Was it good for you,was it good?Actually, this bawdiness seems to me alittle contrived, the images as masculinelyfamiliar as inked on beards andmustaches on postered women. "My NewOld Man, He's So Good" offers sensuouslythe more remarkable lines:"snake / swallows mouse, he dies / insideme often."These poems do not lend themselves togeneralities. Crozier's voice is a consistentone, her lines short and vivid with occasionalself-effacing rhymes that includeinternal and sprung variations. Her images,whether of dragons or drought,zeros or mindlessly fertile carrots, are intenseand precise. Lorna Crozier is aregionalist in the best sense, intenselyaware of the world immediately aroundher but also of its connections to the geographicalpast and to the cultural pastbrought to the land by the language inwhich the poet writes. Icarus and Eden,Englished, are as much a part of theCanadian prairies as of the Mediterraneanworld, packed carefully in thecultural baggage of prairie settlers, alongwith hymnals and pianos and the folkwisdom of "Sex Education" :They saidmice wear paths in the linoleumhide in the couch springs andunder your bed wait for a chanceto whooshup your housecoatnest in your crotchCrozier's angels are of snow, not stone,and they melt and reform themselvesagain and again in this collection as experienceand education come together instrong and witty images.FRANCES W. KAYE139

BOOKS IN REVIEWHARNESSING ENERGYROBERT MELANCON, Blind Painting. Philipchel Tremblay's Albertine en cinq temps,has undertaken the challenge of puttingMichel Garneau's ebullient Les petitsStratford, trans. Véhicule, η.p.chevals amoureux (1977) into an equallyMICHEL GARNEAu, Small Horses & Intimate energetic English.Beasts. Robert McGee, trans. Véhicule, For Robert Melançon, getting translatedwas by no means a passive experi-n.p.A TRANSLATOR OF POETRY who IS Set ОПa close working relationship with theauthor of the original may be looking fortrouble. Frustration with the usual difficultiesence. Forced to look once more at hispoems, he found many of them wanting."Je l'ai enrichi de suppressions," hewrites in an introductory note, "et j'aiof rendering shades of meaning corrigé, parfois récrit complètement,can conceivably be aggravated by personalpresque tous les poèmes." In effect,temperament, and the inevitable"betrayal" of one language by anothermight quickly become a source of personalanimosity. On the other hand, theinteraction may stimulate the creativeprocesses; as Northrop Frye has noted,Peinture aveugle has been reborn throughthe catalytic action of translation. Melançonhas deleted whole poems from theoriginal, enlarged and changed others,added new sequences, and tinkered withthe remainder. Whether he has madesome translation is tantamount to a better poems or simply other poems cannot"creative achievement in communication,not merely a necessary evil or a removalof barriers."Such was the case some years ago whenF. R. Scott and Anne Hébert engagedin a meticulous and courteous dialogueon the subject of Scott's translation of"Tombeau des rois." The result, adroitlyedited by Jeanne Lapointe, and with anintroduction by Frye from which theabove remark is quoted, was published asDialogue sur la traduction (1970). Thetranslator can learn much from the dialogue'srevelation of inspired craftsmanshipon the part of Scott and patientelucidation on that of Hébert.In the case of the works under discussionhere, poet and translator haveworked at a level of intimacy at least asbe discussed here, though one detectsan easier flow and a more calculated elegancein the new text. The more tantalizingquestion is exactly how the collaborationwith Stratford affected the creativeprocesses of both, for Stratford tells usthat the poems "continued to change onboth sides of the crease." Perhaps theprocess cannot be disentangled at all;Melançon says that at times it was Stratford'sversion which became the original.All that one can say with confidence isthat there is, in the present Véhiculetext, a French poem on the left and anEnglish on the right which appears tobe its translation. For further clarificationwe must await a new Dialogue surla traduction.Blind Painting is arranged in sets ofproductive as that experienced by Scott carefully interwoven sequences, eachand Hébert. Philip Stratford, anthologist,critic and seasoned translator of fiction,embarked on his first translation of versepoem meditating variously upon place,season, love, time, and the creative process.The structure is essentially musical :with Robert Melançon's Peinture themes and variations orchestrated chieflyaveugle, winner of a Governor General'saward in 1976. Robert McGee, a Montrealpoet of the Solway, Harris andFurey generation, and translator of Mi-for strings and woodwinds, a muted,chromatic poetry, something like Debussyin an autumnal mood. In Liberté(décembre 1983), Melançon has written140

BOOKS IN REVIEWon the importance of music to poetry:"II cherche une langue qui atteigne àla transparence, dont le sens serait immédiatcomme celui de la musique."Here he writes of "le poème / naît parlente improvisation" and of poetry as"chant muet / où s'entend toute musique,figure / sans forme où remue / le possible"("mute song / in which all music'sheard, formless / figure that contains therange / of the possible"). This mellowsound is matched with a "taste for skiesof clouds / where the hours melt together/ in a neutral light" ("ton goûtdes ciels de nuages / où les heures seconfondent / dans une lumière neutre").Again and again the poems depict varietiesof light and surface, leading Stratfordto a diction replete with wordslike incandescent, shimmering, glistening,laquered, washed, melted and shadowless,somewhat over-rich in English perhaps,but faithful to the original and inany case quite unavoidable.Melançon's verse gives the impressionof unobtrusive music revealing by degreesan inner world of finely tuned perceptions.On the whole Stratford has beenable to do justice to his subtle tonalrange, even to the internal assonance ofindividual lines. He has succeeded in producinga convincing and familiar Englishmovement to the lines while committingfew injustices agamst the original. Wherehe does deviate significantly, it is to avoidan awkward literalism by choosing a conveniently"poetic" English word: "Notrepeu de raison" becomes "our fragile wisdom,""l'obscurité lavée" becomes "silverobscurity," and "dans l'inachevé" becomes"into the inchoate." I found onlyone truly unfortunate line. When Melançonwrites: "Les bois, les champs, laLoire, les villages / résumaient alentourle désordre universel," Stratford construesthe verb cumbersomely as "resumedaround."Michel Garneau's celebratory, idiomaticpoems are another kind of challengealtogether. There is the temptationto make him sound like Walt Whitman,and indeed there are certain similarities:a happy self-centredness, an unabashedcommitment to pleasure, a tendency tolively inventories. But Garneau seemsmuch closer to the primal juices, and hisego much less prone to cosmic posing.Some of the poems in Small Horses andIntimate Beasts, given as they are toflights of boastfulness and tongue-incheekexcess, are really for afternoondrinkers :je pète en couleurset je prends à la santé de tousune belle grosse botte de vie(I fart in technicolourand to everyone's healthI take a great big flying fuck at life)Clearly the political and social Garneauoftimes past has been swallowed upby a more elemental voice defying death,seizing the day, celebrating kinship withother creatures:comme des bouleaux qui auraient gagné laparolenous nous écorchons jusqu'à la vulnérablevéritéen nous criant des noms par-dessus latendressepour faire reculer la mort l'empêcherde baver sur nos vies(like birch trees given the power of speechwe skin ourselves down to the barest truthscalling each other names louder thantendernessto make death back off to keep itfrom drooling all over our lives)Poetry, Garneau has said, "is made byeveryone / the poet is anyone at all /and man is anyone at all." These poemsare an extended gloss on this democraticand populist affirmation. Garneauspreads his sympathies to animals of allkinds, the "animaux intimes," which are,in fact, metaphors for human feeling,and, collectively, an environment of141

BOOKS IN REVIEWenergy and tenderness. See especially thebook's last poem "pour chanter à tuetête en auto" ("to sing at the top of one'slungs while driving").Like Stratford, Robert McGee hasbeen able to work closely with his author;in his introduction he acknowledges the"luxury" of "inside information." Althoughthere has been nothing like thetransformation wrought on Melançon,one does nevertheless detect in theseverses a spirit of camaraderie, as if Garneau,who has a keen ear for NorthAmerican English himself, was able toassist McGee in some of his more inventiverenderings. How, for example, wasMcGee so confident in extracting theword "absolute" from the sub-text of "ettu as mis ta robe de présence" ("andyou put on your robe of absolute presence")except with a bit of "inside information"?Obviously, of course, there waslittle either of them could do with "lescheveux, les ch'veux les ch'veux" withits auditory pun on "hair" and "wish"except to go to "hair hair hair." Whatmakes Small Horses and Intimate Beastssuch a convincing rendition of Garneau's"hairy warmth" is McGee's own abilityto harness the energies of colloquialspeech, to make "engueuelent" mean"lambasting" and "molles" mean"shabby," and get away with it. The resultis a fresh, lively and highly readabletext.In the atmosphere of cultural détentewhich characterizes Québec at present,the art of translation, though still notthriving to the degree that it should, is atleast going about its painstaking businesswith new vigour and determination.These two Véhicule editions are outstandingexamples of the art of translation,making available in eloquent Englishtwo very different and very readablevoices from Québec.PHILIP LANTHIERBODY & LANGUAGEIn the Feminine: Women and Words. Longspoon,$9.50.к. к. RUTHVEN. Feminist Literary Studies.Cambridge Univ. Press, $8.95.THE WOMEN AND WORDS conference heldin Vancouver in 1983 has become somewhatof a legend. Writers, editors, academicsfrom across the country gatheredto explore their experiences as womenwhose lives, livelihoods and identities areembedded in the uses and meanings oflanguage. "The question is," said Alice,"whether you can make words mean somany different things." "The questionis," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is tobe master — that's all." But Alice wouldhave to wait, for as long as grammar andsyntax, educational institutions and distributionssystems were controlled by others— men, if you were a woman ; whitesif you were a Black : WASPS if you werean ethnic minority, and heterosexuals ifyou were a lesbian — she would be outside.Women are, as Louky Bersianik putit, "born on the wrong side of language."All of the major grievances were airedat the conference. Women writers areunderpaid and underpublished ; womenacademics are undertenured ; womencritics and women actresses are unemployed.Motherhood presents no problemsif you have money, daycare andcan sleep standing up. The gatekeepersin universities who shape the curriculaand the editors of professional journalswho enforce the canons are androcentricby training and conviction. In short, itwas the litany of substantive bias, professionaldiscrimination and lifestyle overloadthat has been the cornerstone offeminist criticism. By now it is familiar;nevertheless, it bears repeating.Four years later and in retrospectwhat stands out about the conference isthe enormous vitality of women from142

BOOKS IN REVIEWQuebec writing in French. Barbara Godardwho translates many of the new Quebecwriters — and who, incidentally, hascontributed a very intelligent piece onthe creativity of translating — observesthat anglophone writers are more orientedtoward their bodies, while francophonestoward language itself. Is this theinfluence on the latter of contemporaryFrench criticism, the "deconstructionists,"or is it the fact that francophonesin Canada have had to fight for the survivalof their language and for the rightto use it? Have Quebec politics madethem more conscious of language ascommunication ?Quebec politics have created a veryspecial relationship between writer andreader. Phyllis Webb, for example, writesfor herself in response, she says, to amuse, while Pol Pelletier and NicoleBrossard have committed audiences withwhom their relationships are close, volatile,and, often without aesthetic distance.It is the audience that has willed the newpoets and playwrights into existence, nota muse, not a single, individual, privatevoice. That difference is crucial not onlyfor the artist or performer but for theacademic as well. Andrea Lebowitz isconcerned that feminists in academe maywin the battle, but lose the war if theyestablish the legitimacy of feminist criticismbut cut off their lifeline with ordinarywomen who read for a variety ofmotives, good and bad, and seek a varietyof gratifications, pure and impure. Shespeaks of a new feminist elitism.But a new feminist elitism is still a longway off, for there is no consensus yetabout the specificity of the feminist voice— content, style, genre — or the feministnorms of evaluation. Both writers andscholars in this collection have tried todefine what they mean by feminist art.For some it means rediscovering womenwriters and giving them their proper duein literary history; for some it is beingfree to write about a pregnancy as adistinctively female experience; for othersit is the open, non-linear structure ofa short story as in the work of AliceMunro (according to Lorraine Weir).It has a subversive function yet celebratesthe sexuality of women; it is nonviolentand about nonviolence, yet it can alsohumanize violence. The vagueness and,often, contradictory nature of these statementsreflects the fragmentary form ofthe contributions in the book, but it alsoindicates the current state of the art. Itis particularly difficult for Canadianwomen to isolate the feminine in a societywhich is less gendered than mostEuropean societies are. In any case, it isbecoming more and more clear that thefeminine aesthetic is not a unitary, monolithicone. "Writing in the feminine,"France Theoret says, "is a plural language,and it is necessary to aim for apluralist logic if we are to give an accountof it."The more systematic efforts to definea feminist literary aesthetic are reviewedby K. K. Ruthven in a short, highlyreadable analysis. Unlike many papersand books on the same subject whichlook either at the French scholars —Irigaray, Kristeva, Wittig, Cixous — orthe Americans — Showalter, Kolodny,Simpson, Ellmann — Ruthven bringsthem together without playing off oneagainst the other. Feminist Literary Studiesincludes also a discussion of androgynouswriting to which Virginia Woolfaspired and which is still seen by manyas an alternative to the more restrictiveboundaries of women's writing. But, despitethe care and balance in his discussionof the major thinkers in the debate,Ruthven offers no solution; the majorparadigms remain: the European withits roots in linguistics, the American withits roots in social structures.The wisdom of how to live with differencesmay ultimately be the great gift143

BOOKS IN REVIEWWharton), of "absorbing interest in [her]characters" (as in Cather), of crucialthings forever lost (as in Hemingway andFitzgerald). Wilson's "manner seemsalien to American writers," more akin tothe manner of Virginia Woolf and, inparticular, to certain aspects of To theLighthouse.Thus, for all her admiration of EthelWilson, Gelfant confesses to uncertaintyand unease of response. She seems to missnot only what might be called the juiceshe is accustomed to in American letters,but many of the signals that underlieWilson's assumptions and responses, inbrief the differentiations in commitmentto ideas of order, social identity, and individualliberty that have made Canadianexperience in the "new land" differentfrom American response. Gelfant'sessay is a particular challenge to Canadianreaders, for in adopting an approachthat is on the one hand personaland national and on the other scholarlyand richly allusive, she invites Canadiansto see Wilson in a new and, in manyways, a compelling light. Thus interested,we may well on our own apply the questionsshe raises about other Americanwomen writers to writers, male and female,north of the 49th parallel.MICHAEL PETERMANTHE IMMORALISTSCOTT sYMONs, Helmet of Flesh. McClelland& Stewart, $24.95.IN THE "Preface to 'The Reverberator'"Henry James mentions that in readingover two of his early stories he realizedthat with the passing of years they had"become in the highest degree documentaryfor myself." If we understand "documentary"as synonymous with "autobiographical"— a substitution James mightnot accept — then we have an accurateenough hint of why Scott Symons' thirdnovel, Helmet of Flesh, delivers so muchless than both its dust jacket and blinkerednarrator promise. Symons' mainproblem in this novel of a homosexualCanadian writer's journey to contemporaryMorocco is that he is unable toachieve any intellectual and emotionaldistance between himself as narrator andhis hero York Mackenzie. As a result heleaves the reader with the impressionthat the author could not decide whetherHelmet of Flesh, despite its highly stylizedset scenes, the florid hot-house styleand the too obvious striving for literaryeffects, is autobiography or fiction.That the book is transparently autobiographicalshould be obvious to anyonefamiliar either with Symons' earlier forgottenand forgettable novels, Placed'Armes and Civic Square, and withCharles Taylor's sympathetic chapter onSymons in Six Portraits: A CanadianPattern. In all three novels Symons revealsthat he can not imagine a set ofevents other than those that have happenedto him or a protagonist differentfrom himself. As a result his novels alwaysleave me with the impression thatthey are edited transcriptions of notebooksand diaries in which the author isless concerned with re-imagining his ownlife in the form of a fictional re-enactmentthan with describing what had happenedto him and, not incidentally,justifying in the form of a set of positivemoral judgments, his behaviour in variousrelationships. In Helmet of Fleshthat justification appears as a tacit complicitybetween the third person narratorand his central character. As RolandBarthes pointed out, one of the ways inwhich we can discover a narrator's emotionaland ideological allegiances is toreplace, in his narration, a character'sname with the first person singular. Thesubstitution that seems to be the right"fit" will indicate a tacit relationship betweenauthor/narrator/character. If we146

BOOKS IN REVIEWdo this with the dialogue-free paragraphsof Helmet of Flesh we discover that theirnarrator's point of view — his attitudes,emotions and ideas — is identical withthe entries from York Mackenzie's journalsand with the views he articulates indialogues with others.I emphasize this issue not simply toquibble over generic distinctions but becausethe question of the author/narrator'srelationship to his main characterseems to me of particular importance inany novel which, like Helmet of Flesh,has an ideological or polemical intentionbehind it. This is evident even in thededication whose slightly shaky Latin informsthe reader that the book is for allthose desiring a better country — "Desiderantes[sic] Meliorem Patriam." Thenarrator's description of York Mackenzie(the name is deftly suggestive), the actionin Morocco, and the journal entriesinterspersed throughout the text made itclear from the start that the story ofMackenzie's journey to Morocco is to beread realistically and symbolically. Onthe former level, we have the story of awell-connected and supposedly talentedmiddle-aged Torontonian running awayfrom his young male lover and theirhome in Newfoundland. The journey toNorth Africa is thus a means of findingrespite from an intense but also wearyingrelationship and from a Canadian societyevery aspect of which Mackenzie despises.If Helmet of Flesh had been contentsimply to tell this story as effectivelyas possible then my complaints about itwould have been primarily stylistic andformal. For example, the dialogue isawkward, the English characters arestereotypes out of post-war Punch, andthe supposedly liberated Moroccans aredescribed in figures and terms alreadydated when Gide wrote L'lmmoralisteand that could provide an interestingfootnote to a revised edition of EdwardSaid's Occidentalism. The main problem,however, lies in the astonishing discrepancybetween what the narrator tellsus about Mackenzie and what the novelshows. If we listen to the narrator's tellingthen Mackenzie is a radical conservativevehemently at odds with the twentieth-century'sliberalism and secular humanismand convinced that Westerncivilization is ultimately a gynarchy, thatis, a society in which males have beenrepressed, even emotionally and sexuallycastrated by their Puritanical women. Ifwe pay attention to the tale, on the otherhand, we see a slightly pathetic, anxiousand confused homosexual desperate tojustify his predilection for young Moroccanboys and his neurotic hatred ofwomen with a confused view of sexualitythat is ultimately little more than anintellectual sublimation of his own situation.Whenever the novel generalizes on thebasis of Mackenzie's case or treats hisdilemma as representative or symbolic, itraises questions requiring critical responsesgoing beyond style, form, coherenceand credibility of plot. Thereader recognizes that more is at issuethan a particular set of fictional events.Thus when Mackenzie asserts that"Women having ruled (invisibly) foryears, are now rioting for their freedom. . ." or that the Moroccan way of life inwhich women remain cloistered whilethe men are free is the necessary antidoteto Canadian society, or that the relativelycasual homosexual coupling Mackenzieenjoys is ( ι ) different from the sexualityof the gay world he despises and (2) apossible solution to the debilitating sexualmalaise of the West — in all these casesthe reader is justified in asking commonsensicalif uncomfortable questions in theface of which the text's brittle polemicalassertiveness collapses. And with that collapseare revealed two crucial flaws inthe novel's presentation of Mackenzie'scase.147

BOOKS IN REVIEWAll of the narrator's bluster and bluffabout the extent to which Mackenzie hasbeen persecuted by his society for beinga homosexual cannot hide the fact thathis persecution has its origins not in hishomosexuality but in a love affair witha young boy, a minor. Mackenzie's selfpityingand whining lament that the Canadiangynarchy will not let him fulfilhimself amounts to little more than thefact that the boy's mother and Mackenzie'sex-wife tried to bring the affair toan end. As D. H. Lawrence would haveput it had he written about Symons inStudies in Classic American Literature,"boo hoo."Second, whatever may be the virtuesof Mackenzie's and Symons' new eroticism— and its genealogy goes backthrough Genet, Reich, Lawrence, Gideand Whitman — it is fairly obvious thatreverence for the male "helmet of flesh"and the new uninhibited love resultingfrom it involves a fundamental hatred ofwomen. It is not coincidental that thenovel's main and supporting charactersare all men, that Moroccan women areeither silent or invisible and that, withone exception, North American womenare castrating bitches. Homosexualkitsch, like its feminist counterpart, isable to deal with only one sex; the otheris sacrificed to the exigencies of an ideologicalpolemic. Had Symons writtenL'Immoraliste Marceline's illness anddeath would have taken place behindclosed doors and a guiltless Michel wouldhave been shown preaching a sermonon sensuality and homosexuality to hisstartled but sympathetic friends.Needless to say the implied comparisonwith L'Immoraliste is inappropriatesince it is obvious that Symons is simplynot talented enough a novelist to be ourGide; perhaps the best he can aspire tois being a Canadian Edward Carpenter.148SAM SOLECKISEEKER & FINDERR. MURRAY SCHAFER, Dicamus et Labyrinthos:A Philologist's Notebook. Arcana Editions,$8.00.BILL BIS SETT, Canada Gees Mate For Life.Talonbooks, $7.95.JOHN v. HICKS, Rootless Tree. Turnstone,$12.95.BOTH AS A WRITER and as a composer,R. Murray Schäfer has a longstandinginterest in ancient myths and texts, astwo compositions on the Ariadne story{La Testa d'Adriane and The Crown ofAriadne) and his book The ChaldeanInscription show. Dicamus et Labyrinthos(the title is from Pliny and means"let us also speak of labyrinths") is anelaborate and intriguing investigation ofthe Minotaur legend, cast in the form ofthe notebook of a philologist who (beforehe disappeared) had set himself thetask of translating a text written in whatSchäfer calls Ectocretan. (Schafer'sname, incidentally, appears nowhere inthis book.) In the introduction, a fictionalarchaeologist explains how a seriesof nineteen inscribed tablets were foundin 1938 at a site called Magia Tribia, andhow the inscriptions had resisted decipherment,despite a series of attempts,until the present notebook was discoveredamong the author's papers. Schäfer hascleverly introduced a small element offiction into what is largely the true historyof the twentieth-century discoveryof the Mycenean and Minoan cultures.The introduction relies heavily on JohnChadwick's book The Decipherment ofLinear B, although some facts and namesare slightly altered. Schafer's tabletsfound in 1938 at Magia Tribia nearPachino rest in fact on the discovery in1939 of tablets at Epano Englianos nearNavarino; Schafer's Bedrich Stepanovichand his book Les inscriptions ectocrétoises,Essai de déchiffrement are actuallyBedrich Hrozny and his book Les ins-

BOOKS IN REVIEWcriptions Cretoises; H. H. Kretchmer isthe Bulgarian scholar Vladimir Georgiev;and so on. Readers can if they wish recovermuch of this from the third chapterof Ghadwick's book, and various detailsthroughout the rest of Dicamus havebeen excavated from the Chadwick text.The text of the notebook proper is fascinating,clever, and convincingly proppedup with references to numerousauthorities both ancient and modern.From the first, one realizes that there ismore at stake here than the mere deciphermentof a mysterious script. (Theauthor is hopeful that the tablets will beliterary, in spite of the fact that the LinearВ texts were lists of accounts only.)"Can a translator ever tell the truth?"asks the philologist a few pages after hehad pondered on a recently discoveredGreek inscription: "The more the seekers,the fewer the finders." As the deciphermentgradually unfolds it becomesapparent that the search for the key toEctocretan, and to the crucial knowledgeof what the struggle with the Minotaurmeant (which it is hoped the tablets willreveal) is an elaborated metaphor for thesearch for transfigurement, or knowledge,or the mystery of life. In the end, thephilologist discovers that the script is acypher invented by Daedalus, that symbolicfigure of "the humanly possible,"and that far from revealing the secret ofthe labyrinth, the text breaks off justbefore the crucial encounter. Furthermore,the searcher is himself consumedby his own research (or his own text) :he narrates at the end a dream in whichhe meets the minotaur, and his paththrough the labyrinth ends in a splash ofblood. The philologist has come upagainst the limited ability of art and scienceto unravel human experience. If Imay alter slightly the inscription on thewall of San Michèle Maggiore at Pavia(quoted by Schäfer at one point) : Auctorintravit et monstrum biforme eumnecavit.Canada Gees Mate For Life is bill bissett's50-somethingth book. In the twentyyears since the publication of his firstcollection, bissett has built up an enormousoeuvre whose bulk and generalspirit are more impressive than are individualpoems. One finishes a bissett bookwith a strong sense of his continuingcommitment to countercultural values,his playfulness, his determination to keepa fresh and original eye and mind onthings; one does not come away from abissett book with a list of a half dozenindisputably fine poems that stand outabove their companions. Though inmany respects unlike him, bissett in thisway resembles Raymond Souster. Whatcounts finally is a body of work of unarguableimportance rather than a smallnumber of masterpieces.The comparison with Souster is not asunlikely as it may seem at first. LikeSouster, bissett sometimes writes littlepoems containing wry observations hehas made about everyday events in hislife. The orthography aside, "whn primeministr diefenbaker went" could almostbe a Souster poem :into spiriti was sitting in restaurant up northlooking out at th meadow th sheepη poneesi herd th radio sayhis bodee wud tour canada ina train so peopul η him cudsee each othr for th lasttimeth train went from Ontariowher it startid thru manitobato Saskatchewan wher itstoppdyet anothr viewuv geographeebissett's other much used form, the talkpoem, is on the other hand less souster-149

BOOKS IN REVIEWian. Pieces like the title poem ("we wersitting around up north talking 2,000feet above see levl in th karibu"), or"canyun uv th flying mattresses," or"hold on to yr typwritr" are in essencespiels, and represent bissett at his mostcharming. Who can resist poems that begin"god dont make me eet anothr bigmac η strawberee milk shake" or "vietnamveterans ar hunting sasquatch northuv hope be"? These poems occasionallyramble on to exasperating length, butone accepts such unselectedness as partof his poetic habits. Canada Gees MateFor Life is vintage bissett.John V. Hicks's first book, Now Is aFar Country, was published in 1978when he was 71. Rootless Tree is hisfourth collection, and it continues in thetranquil, meditative mood of its predecessors.It seems perhaps a shameful reproachto make of a poet who waited solong for book publication, but it seemsto me that this new book suffers from itssize. There are 91 poems here, some ofthem in several sections, and eventuallythe poems begin to pall. Many individualpoems work well, and even some of thosewhich are not wholly successful containarresting lines or images. There is, however,a sameness of style and voice whichover the course of 155 pages becomeswearisome. Hicks's poems are resolutelyadjectival, and though their music has adistinctive quality, many are marred bya slightly old-fashioned sense of poeticdiction ("It is a warmth and a goodfeeding, / and accepted company, morejoy's whorl / than I found ever in yourcountry. / More I may not tell ; you mustwait out / your hours till whether I comeagain"). This would be less apparent,and less aggravating, in a shorter book,and I cannot help but think that Hicks'spublishers would have done better byhim if they had pruned Rootless Tree bya third.BRUCE WHITEMANUP IN THE AIRRACHEL WYATT, Time in the Air. Anansi,$9-95-AIR TRAVEL SEEMS TO be becoming morepopular in fiction as well as in everydaylife. It was an important narrative componentin Atwood's Bodily Harm andLodge's Changing Places and SmallWorld as it is in Rachel Wyatt's latestnovel; indeed it seems to provide morespaces for fantasizing than travel by roadused to for Kerouac or Nabokov in Lolita.Wyatt's novel begins up in the airwith her male protagonist smiling ("Hehad spent roughly three thousand, threehundred and seventy three hours in theair so far") and ends with him makinga perfect landing. The facts that this isa different flight, that he is changed nowand no longer the centre of the action,and that the novel has moved away fromrealism to something close to fantasy arenot allowed to disturb the narrativeshape, which is that of the journey completed.Actually the only thing that iscompleted is the novel itself, for the storiesof all Wyatt's characters are left inthe air in this inventive comic novelwhich draws attention to its own inventivenessthrough its intricate and artificialstructure.The novel tells the story of the adventuresof Sidney /Alex Snowden, abusinessman with a double life, who, likehis business enterprise, has two bases —one in Toronto and one in Leeds, Yorkshire.While in Toronto he lives (as Sidney)with his mistress Jill, a televisionproducer, and while in Leeds (nowAlex) he lives with his wife Zoe, a historian,and their twin sons; in betweenhe flies the Atlantic and feels exploitedbecause his women "expect miraclesevery damn time." A common enoughsituation in a male novel and from thebeginning the reader might expect Snow-150

BOOKS IN REVIEWden to be heading for a nervous collapse— as indeed he probably would if all theattention were focussed on him. But it isnot, for this is a woman's novel and awittily feminist one where the women inSnowden's life not only express their ownpoints of view but actually come to dominatethe action. Snowden's adventurespale into an endless repetition of patriarchalattitudes while the adventures ofJill and Zoe, assisted by Jill's motherAlice and the wise woman Serena (alsoa television personality) reveal excitingnew possibilities in their lives as theyboth leave Sidney/Alex behind. Jillleaves her television work in Toronto to"be brilliant and shine" as the highpriestess of a secret Yorkshire sisterhood,the Wise Women of the Well, and Zoein an elaborate double act of changingplaces goes to Canada where two possibilitiesopen to her — one in televisionand one in extramural history studies atMcMaster. Both are poised on the edgeof possibly glorious futures in the finalsection of a narrative that spins out intowish-fulfilment fantasy for all. Even forSnowden the contours of desire arerounded out as, bereft of wife and mistressand his former complacency, he istaken under the wing of Serena, theglamorous mother-lover for whom he hasalways longed. His former women mayassume their freedom but for him, "Anew, steadier way of life loomed ahead.Sidney Snowden, divested of wife andmistress and assorted dreams, was nolonger a flying man. And Serena was tobe his helpmeet, eternally with him." Awryly comic ending to this story of sexualpolitics where roles seem to have beenreversed. (But what of Serena's wisdomin choosing Sidney?)Like Jill the television producer, Wyatttoo has a good eye for visuals and "seesthings framed and in sequence." Shestructures her multivoiced novel with thekind of dramatic economy that she haslearned from writing over fifty radioplays for the CBC and the BBC since theearly 1970's. This novel might have beencalled Time in/on the Air (except thatthis would have been too ponderouslyexplicit for Wyatt) for it is about mediaentertainment quite as much as it isabout flying. Every scene is carefullyscripted, and there is a neatly self-reflexivemoment when Jill in the studio "becamethe script, she was words, she wasvisuals, she was time, she was essence.This was her work." As it is the work ofWyatt the novelist. The dimensions ofunreality and artifice associated withtelevision programmes, with their onscreen/off-screendivisions of life, theirdirectives of 'Roll' or 'Cut,' and the constantpossibilities for editing, are also thedimensions within which this fictionworks, shifting as it does between countriesand points of view and between themodes of realism and fantasy. Narrativeartifice is most obvious in the elaboratepatterning of doubles — Sidney/Alex'stwo names and double life and his dualEnglish-Canadian inheritance, two countries,two women in his life (who doubleto become four), twin sons, Jill's andZoe's double choices, not to mention doublecrossing as an important survivalstrategy. The doubles game is played outin the structure of the middle sectionafter the shattering of comfortable illusionswith Zoe's transatlantic phone callto Jill, "I want to speak to Alex please,Alex Snowden, my husband. I knowthat's where he is." What follows is asequence of time slots alternating betweenCanada and England throughoutone day (Thursday, which has an occultsignificance in the narrative as well)where Jill, Zoe and Sidney/Alex reactto their domestic crisis in ways that areboth characteristic and unexpected.Through these disruptions the way isprepared, not for resolution but for theconnections and new directions taken to-

BOOKS IN REVIEWwards wish-fulfilment in the final section.Whether the promises will be fulfilled orremain the illusions of another mediaevent is left up in the air. Is Snowdenon the air at the end, even as his planeis landing? We cannot be sure.It is characteristic of Wyatt's fictionthat for all its comic fantasizing it paysattention to a wide range of human feelingsand genuine dilemmas. This novelis a family romance rewritten in an intricatelycomplicated modern way wheretraditional values like marital fidelity andthe relationships between parents andchildren are being challenged by the influencesof modern technology and modernideologies. It is strongly feminist in itscritique of Snowden's limited masculinevalues and in its endorsement of women'spower and women's secret heritage encodedin the sisterhood of the well-worshippers(their book is titled The WiseWomen of Early Britain). When Zoegives the book to Jill at Toronto airport(not knowing who she is), Jill's flash ofrecognition confirms a female bondingwhich is stated directly, seriously and invery human terms, "She wanted to takeher by the arm and lead her to the nearestseat and have a conversation thatreached far back in both their lives, andbeyond, into the history of all women."But that desire cannot be fulfilled becausereal life with its pressures of circumstanceworks differently. The narrativemakes it plain that there are limitsto freedom for women and for men, butthat these limits need not always be theobstacles that tradition has made them.The novel seriously proposes a redefinitionof limits and a reassessment of masculine/femininestereotypes by its comicstrategies of wish-fulfilment fantasy.But fantasies they plainly are, and asthe readers make the perfect landingwith Snowden and Serena at the end, wehave to acknowledge the fictiveness ofthe novel's world. Like the televisionshows produced by Jill, presented bySerena and got on the air freakishly byZoe, it is an entertainment (where "entertainment"has its double sense ofamusing and also entertaining new possibilities).The time of reading has alsobeen "Time in the Air."CORAL ANN HOWELLSFAMILY CONTINUUMCARLA L. PETERSON, The Determined Reader:Gender and Culture in the Novel fromNapoleon to Victoria. Rutgers Univ. Press,$25.00.SHBRRiLL MACLAREN, Braehead: Three FoundingFamilies in Nineteenth Century Canada.McClelland & Stewart, $24.95.JUDITH TERRY, Miss Abigail's Part or Version& Diversion. Macmillan, $19.95.ON FIRST SIGHT these three works appearto bear little in common except tothe most ardent reviewer. However, theobvious differences of literary theory, historyand fiction are less telling than theshared concerns: the problematic relationshipbetween writing/reading/receivedknowledge and the experience ofliving; the influence of culture; the familialdrama of children and parents;the concern for understanding the past,both personal and cultural, in order tofind meaning in the present; the interestin traditional narrative patterns as bothobjects of study and structuring devices.Finally, all three authors address a generalaudience. While hoping to satisfythe specialist, they remain accessible tothe generalist through a careful managementof style, terminology and format.In The Determined Reader, Petersonbegins with the observation that innumerablefictional protagonists are avidreaders, seeking escape and solutions inbooks. In studying these characters, shehopes to trace more general attitudes towardthe act of reading, as well as the

BOOKS IN REVIEWrole reading has in determining the resolutionof the quest for identity, selfactualization,and happiness. Petersonstarts with a review of our culture's ambiguousrelationship to the written word— Plato's remedy and poison — andthen focuses her study on the nineteenthcenturynovel.This period is chosen for scrutiny sincethe motif of the reader gained new impetuswith the Romantic Movement.From an initial Romantic enthusiasm forthe possibility of a new language whichcould offer an understanding of natureand the past and regeneration throughthat knowledge, Peterson traces themovement to pessimism in the later partof the century, particularly in Hardy whohas lost belief in historical knowledgeand the quest for origins.Peterson also tries to see the ways inwhich female and male authors differ intheir attitudes, and the ways in whichFrench and English authors employ themotif of reading. As a feminist critic, sheuses the "method of radical comparativism"of Myra Jehlen rather than the"gynocriticism" of Elaine Showalter inan effort to understand character, andthe ways in which female and male authorsadapt and adopt attitudes towardreading, writing and knowledge.Interestingly, Peterson argues that twowomen, Mme. de Staël through the narratorof Corinne ou l'Italie and CharlotteBrontë through the narrator/protagonistof Jane Eyre, come closest to achievingharmony and freedom through their revisionof texts and re-reading of theworld. In so doing, these authors affirmwomen's right and ability to control cultureand the possibility for radically alteringthe lives of women. All the otherauthors studied (Balzac, Dickens, Stendhal,Flaubert, Eliot and Hardy), althoughdiffering in their attitudes towardthe liberating possibilities of knowledge,are seen to fail to imagine aprotagonist capable of escape throughknowledge.Throughout the study, three narrativestructures emerge as the organizing principlefor the novels: the Bildungsroman,the picaresque and the spiritual autobiography.In discussing the cultural differencesin applying these paradigms,Peterson suggests that the English novelis always more concerned with socialintegration and reconciliation, althoughthe possibility of achieving these ends isincreasingly denied and replaced by amovement toward interiority and regression,while the French novel eschews thesocial in favour of imagining the triumphof the superior protagonist inspired by aNapoleonic will. However, the "radicalcomparison" of cultures is left entirely tothe reader, since English and Frenchworks are studied in separate chapters.The comparison of female and malewriters fares better, particularly in thechapter on Jane Eyre and David Copperfield.In particular, Peterson insists uponthe importance of the mediating role ofJane Eyre as narrator, interpreting herlife and quest. Peterson suggests that thetriumph of the actor Jane liberates thewriter, who in turn uses her writing todocument and disseminate her revisionarylife. Such success is not seen to occurin David Copperfield.Equally interesting is the chapter onStendhal and Flaubert. Peterson arguesthat these two authors "abandoned maleforms of heroism" and "turned to theirheroines . . . seeking in them the possibilitiesof artistic and heroic self-realization,"for they recognize in the female,the other, their own sense of alienationfrom patriarchal culture. Further, Petersonsees these female characters as representationsof the Dionysian artist, andtheir failures as the author's "final commenton the Romantic aspiration towardunity, reconciliation, and synthesis."While unity, reconciliation and synr53

BOOKS IN REVIEWthesis may seem impossible to the writersof nineteenth-century fiction, MacLaren'snarrative of three Scottish familieswho pioneered Canada affirms suchgoals. She suggests that her book's"strength lies not in individual renownbut within a spirit which binds the familycontinuum. In sharing their story,the Crosses, the Drevers and the Macleodshave provided us with some historicalvision of two nations, and perhapswith a glimpse of our own ancestries,whatever they are." However, the dramaof three families, who were importantsettlers and founders in Upper Canada,Lower Canada and the Red River, islittle more than a family history.Compulsive letter writers by trainingand necessity, the families offered Mac-Laren a massive amount of primary materialon which to draw. Equally committedto education, the families insistedupon education for their children, but aneducation radically different for girls andboys. In addition, as the generations progressed,training for the males turnedfrom an emphasis on a classical educationto an insistence on the need fortechnical and technological training inagriculture, animal husbandry and engineering.The pattern of education isitself a reflection of the family's fortunesbased initially on cultural backgroundand later on material achievement.Structured as the quest of each generationfor experience and success, thiswork is patterned by the actions of thesons, whose conflicts with and rebellionagainst their fathers are finally reconciledin expansion of the family fortunes inthe west. The author chooses to traceclosely those sons who seek to escapepaternal hegemony and to find personaladventure. The unsettled frontier givesthem a literal space within which to findfathers. Female members of the familyattract attention only when they displaythe fortitude and courage necessary inthe mates of such heroic figures. Thusdespite initial rebellion and inevitableseparation, all individuals are seen aswedded to the imperatives and necessitiesof the families, which by coincidencesof fate are joined together in themarriage of Ernest Cross and HelenDrever Macleod.Along the way, the reader is immersedin details of geography and adventure.Since one of the Cross sons settled inWyoming while his brother pioneered Alberta,the work promises the possibilityof an interesting radical comparison ofthe history of the settlement of the Canadianand American west. However, thework fails to deliver on this promise.Equally tantalizing is the chance to understandthe causes for the growth ofregionalism. Although frequently alludedto, regional hostilities are never exploredin any detail. Again and again, the bookturns from the social drama of nationbuilding to the family drama of fathersand sons. In telling this story, MacLarenacts only as compiler. Always sympathetic,at times an apologist, she neveranalyzes the impact, particularly negative,of the families on the developmentof Canadian culture, and her assertionthat we can all see shadows of our ancestorsin these actors, particularly if we didnot happen to come from the empirewhich controlled Canada, is tenuous atbest. While a reader may turn to thiswork for interesting incident and successfulendings, at least as measured bymaterial wealth, she will come away littlethe wiser about the larger history of Canada.The narrator of the novel Miss Abigail'sPart does, however, emerge a wiseras well as richer person. Subtitled 'Versionand Diversion,' the novel is a revisionof Jane Austen's Mansfield Parkwritten from the point of view of JaneHartwell, lady's maid. But Jane is also apicaresque hero in her own right. Dis-154

BOOKS IN REVIEWplaying many of the characteristics ofPeterson's determined reader, Jane is anorphan educated above her station. Employingher knowledge, Jane offers acritique of those above stairs and oftenspeaks for her gender and class. This isall highly amusing, especially if you happento agree with Hartwell's interpretationof Austen's characters, for example,the assertion that Fanny "was pale, mild,somewhat insipid and much put upon."Turning from books to action to completeher education, Jane indulges in romanticdalliance with Henry and therebygains sexual knowledge. Rather thanbeing destroyed by her fall from virtue,Jane, like a true picaro, capitalizes onchance and runs away with a politicalradical, who also happens to be a scenepainter employed for the disastrous amateurtheatricals at the Park. Pursued bybounty hunters, they escape only to haveJane fall, literally, among thieves, whointroduce her to even more exotic formsof carnal knowledge. Always resourceful,Jane again escapes and learns yet anotherscript, this time dramatic, whichleads her to fame and fortune on thestage. The plot closes inevitably withmarriage, as Jane finds a reasonable, educatedaristocrat, who has the good senseto marry her without fencing her in. LikeJane Eyre, Jane Hartwell turns from thelife of action back to the life of writing,and, as an instructing narrator, sets outto record her quest and to present itstriumphs and truth.Judith Terry is well aware of the narrativestructures of the novel, and putsthem to good use in her novel. She is alsofamiliar with the detail of life below andabove stairs in Austen's time, and usesfiction to convey many of the facts ofhistory. As such, the novel is an interestingsocial history as well as an amusingtale. Like many picaresque novels, characteris at times sacrificed to setting andincident. While Jane may be a-historicaland surprisingly unmarked by her culture,she does allow her twentiethcenturyauthor an opportunity to exploreconditions of gender and class which areoften invisible in the novels of Austen'stime.Although it would be inadvisable tooverburden the meaning of this novel, itdoes raise again the questions addressedby all these works. In an echo of JaneEyre, Jane Hartwell tells us that, as amature woman, she began to ponder thequestions of gender and class, rich andpoor, child and parent, past and present,and "to seek the answers with a measureof independence." Seeking the answersto these questions is the common groundfor all three works.HEART STRINGSANDREA LEBOWITZTED FERGUSON, Sentimental Journey: An OralHistory of Train Travel in Canada. Doubleday,$22.95.ROBERT H. HAHN, None of the Roads WerePaved. Fitzhenry & Whiteside, $15.00."FOLK ART" WOULD BE the formal termfor these two informal books. Ted Ferguson'sSentimental Journey is like a vastbutton collection. It presents over twohundred and sixty anecdotes of railwaytravel in Canada — reminiscences offood and weather and disaster and royalty— from as many unidentified storytellers.Each tale is bright and colourful;the whole collection is unmatched andonly roughly sorted. Robert Hahn's Noneof the Roads were Paved, on the otherhand, is more like a quilt. Bits of familyanecdote are banded together by thecharacterization of "Dad"; the patchesof story are strong in themselves, symmetricallyshaped, and unified by thenarrator's way of telling.Hahn's father propelled his familyfrom Eatonia, Saskatchewan, to the155

BOOKS IN REVIEWnorthern edge of the 1920's frontier, thenback through the prairies to Ontario andfinally to New York and wartime showbusiness. "Dad" was a Kroetsch character:undertaker, car-dealer, repairman,bootlegger (nothing like a hearse for runningthe Montana border ! ), swapper,and impressario. He traded his buildingskills for music lessons for his children,and then traded their musical talents fora family career in small-time entertainment.Hahn suggests candidly the growingcomplexity of sibling rivalry and generationalfriction, as the "HarmonyKids" moved through the rodeos, thebar-rooms, the service-club meetings,playing, singing, and dancing, underDad's orders.Each chapter is cut to the shape ofanecdote: each reads as though it hadbeen told many times, keeping familymemories vivid, and making them intoacutely felt moments of initiation, confrontation,and triumph. These are storiesof people who sound like Mitchell'sSaint Sammy, or like Laurence's NickKazlik. The stories suggest both the materialthat our prairie writers have foundavailable, and also the narrative voicesthey have heard, the kind of pitch to anaudience that has been second nature tothem.To turn back to Ted Ferguson's bookis to experience reduced interest. Therailway story in Canada is a tremendousone, and this should be one way to tellit: by clusters of anecdotes, gathered inBrandon and Sudbury, Sutton and Hamilton,Dawson Creek and Moncton. Thevery names in the stories give the kindof pleasure that children find in DennisLee's Jelly Belly rhymes. The motifs thatmake up the chapter headings promiseto work well: "battling the elements,""the sporting life," "the war years," "theturbulent Turbo" — most of us recognizethe aptness of such groupings by a surgeof personal memories that could footnoteeach chapter. Many Canadians rememberstories of the colourful people whoselives were somehow linked with railwaytravel: Harry McLean, John Diefenbaker,King Clancy, Fred Sloman of the"school-on-wheels." But somehow thewhole collection doesn't work, over thelong haul. No really engaging voicessound, no really surprising touches ofregional diction or time-tied detail pullthe heart-strings. And if folk art doesn'twork in that way its force is gone.The problem perhaps is that Ferguson'smethod as well as his material isfolksy. His introduction tells us nothingof his methods of interviewing, of recordingthe original versions of the taleshe heard, or of selecting and editing thefinal versions. Fair enough, in a book designedfor general interest. But even thegeneral reader will lose some of the realpleasure of oral history, because of theextent of silent editing. A sample ofverbatim transcription, complete with"urns," and run-on sentences, and repetitionsand hesitations, would add arough authenticity. And you don't haveto be a social historian to find the processof collection suspect. Ferguson knewwhat he wanted: "I tried a dozen differentsources looking for someone whohad been on a harvest special," he says.Not a good method, and in this case notone to produce a valid report. The neighbourwho eventually produced the requiredreminiscence believed that theharvest excursions ended around 1930.Many easterners could tell a differentstory: McGill graduates still remembergoing from Montreal to Regina on thewartime harvest excursions, in 1942, forinstance, under the alcoholic chaperonageof that engaging academic, ProfessorCulliton. Or the war brides story, touchinglytold by the Brigadier who chaperonedthem — was this chosen in lieu oftales told by the brides themselves?(They're still an articulate and available156

BOOKS IN REVIEWgroup. ) The whole book would be betterif it followed, discreetly and unfussily,more canons of oral history. As it is — anice bunch of buttons, but many of themare a little too smooth. Yet, like theHahn book, these folk stories do stirmemories worth preserving, both of Canadiantravel and of Canadian taletellers.CRITICALPROGRAMMESELIZABETH WATERSTONRONALD BINNS, Malcolm Lowry. Methuen,$5-95-KERRY MC SWEENEY, Four Contemporary Novelists:Angus Wilson, Brian Moore, JohnFowles, V. S. Naipaul. McGill-Queen'sUniv. Press, $24.95.THE VERY LOOK and shape of these twobooks signal some of the contrasts thatwe find within; indeed, prompt thereader to consider the possibility of somekind of comparative reaction. RonaldBinns' is a thin paperback, about pocketsize, with a crisply inked black, whiteand red cover hinting at urgency of response.Kerry McSweeney's is a sturdycloth-bound volume of standard size witha mutely coloured grey, white and reddust jacket inviting in the reader a certainsolemnity of response. In each case(and let me say right away that we havetwo good studies here, however different), tone implied by surface featuresbetrays something of tone of voice within.Binns dashes gaily and engaginglyabout, dancing here and there amongstand astride current critical attitudes, almostflaunting an eclectic and informedpost-modern critical flair as he elucidatespieces of Malcolm Lowry's life and, moreextensively, Lowry's work, published andunpublished alike. McSweeney, occasionallywilling to acknowledge the influenceof contemporary criticism either upon hisown work or upon the novelists withwhom he is concerned — Angus Wilson,Brian Moore, John Fowles, V. S. Naipaul— often seems barely able to endurethose very instances and, when it comesto open preference (or prejudice), eschewsanything smacking of the criticalfashions offered by structuralism, orsemiotics, as he proceeds deftly, tenaciously,carefully — indeed, cautiouslyand conservatively, when judged byBinns' greater derring-do — closely readingthe many novels which constitute hismaterial.McSweeney, with his far longer list ofworks, relies on a systematic — essentiallycomparative — close reading of successivetexts, preferring to vary in form onlya little from chapter to chapter, subsectionto sub-section, in his discussionof theme, structure, character, and technique.He begins with Wilson, consideringhim not only as novelist of mannersand as social realist, but also as investigatorinto man's moral condition, particularlyinto what McSweeney refers toas "the dilemmas of liberal humanistswho are forced to confront the reality ofevil without and within." McSweeneybrings to the work of what must be theleast known of his subjects, Brian Moore,an assessment focussing on what he seesas the cumulative richness withinMoore's work as it progresses throughtwelve novels; he finds special assurancein the representational quality in Moore's(as also in the other three writers') fiction,and sets it in the context of thetechnically conservative Moore's negativeattitudes — his "anti anti-roman"stance — toward much contemporaryfiction. Fowles seems to offer McSweeneythe richest field for investigation andanalysis: it is Fowles whom McSweeneymost relishes as he writes. Though Mc-Sweeney exults in what he thinks of asFowles' conservative aesthetic, his ample157

BOOKS IN REVIEWexploration of Fowles as stylist and technicianmakes him seem a little harsh inusing Fowles — without much of anyqualification or question — to launch anattack (again) on the nouveau romanand its many relatives which involve somuch self-exploration of art as art. InNaipaul's work (again as in that of theothers) McSweeney praises the writer'saim to "communicate" (a term Mc-Sweeney likes to use in relation to hispreference for representational art) andcriticizes novelists in whom the concernfor "style and technical perfection" seemsto predominate over any obvious societalconcerns.Although he is sometimes boxed in byhis own structure, McSweeney spreadshis analysis evenly to all the clearly identifiedcorners of each of his subjects inturn, with a tone more controlled, lessobviously vigorous, less pressing thanBinns'. Where McSweeney actually losesground and flirts with the possibility ofa reductive treatment of his material isin his repetitive pursuit of categories tooartificially, too obsessively sustained. Atthe same time, the rigorously maintainedstructure of his project provides a kindof linear clarity the reader misses inBinns' seemingly more random approachesto various kinds of fiction. Mc-Sweeney allows no gaps, no snap judgments;Binns risks, and willingly extends,both.Binns, touching on many but not committedto any critical programmes(though Marx and Freud keep makingappearances alongside other kin), neatlyavoids the pitfalls of using critical postureswhich might simply close in upontheir own mode of discourse without eversaying very much about the literary textsat hand. He conveys a sense of warmlyembracing worlds wider than his subject's,and of using those worlds to enlargehis subject, and, in the process, hisreader. McSweeney, sometimes miffed atthe very existence of critical postureswhich revel, for example, in the "pyrotechnics"of writing (such as JohnBarth's), prefers to incorporate his respectivenovelists' own statements aboutlife and literature in the formulation ofcentral parts of his thesis, in the mappingout of his terrain. Sometimes heuses these sources — valuable enough asleads, though dangerous when appliedliterally — a little too passively, however;he takes the writers too much at theirword, takes without sufficient cautiontheir statements of intention, in his effortto admire and assess and place theirwork.Binns, placing Lowry in the anti-realisttradition and ascribing to him a role oflonely, pioneering metafictionalist pursuinga fiction of "fracture, disintegration,warring moods and tendencies," opensfor Lowry students doors McSweeneyprefers to shut. In urging on his readeran expanded and expanding critical viewof Lowry, Binns reveals that Lowry'swork can endlessly reward, and withstand,a growing legion of critical enquiries.Ironically enough, in the endBinns' opening of doors to shed freshcritical light is actually confined to roomsthat even McSweeney (with his reiteratedinterest in humanity) feels at homein, by insisting that Lowry's is a "humancenteredexperimentalism."Even non-print technologies such ascinema are seen — like current criticalideologies — as threats by McSweeney,opportunities by Binns. For example,Binns suggests that cinema providedLowry with one of many metaphorical orconceptual models for expanding hisrange as a writer, that cinema in factstimulates the novelist, contributes to thegrowth of the novel. Indeed, for BinnsLowry's film-script based on the novel ofa fellow artist (Tender Is the Night byF. Scott Fitzgerald) represents a majorand important stage in Lowry's develop-158

BOOKS IN REVIEWment as a writer. Binns aptly describesthe (soon-to-be-published) script as "akind of hybrid metafiction which deconstructsthe Fitzgerald novel and remakesit in the image of one by Malcolm Lowry.. . . When it is ... published it... canonly boost Lowry's reputation." Mc-Sweeney is altogether fearful of literature'sconnections with cinema and, acceptingat face value references to thetyranny of film upon the passive viewer,or to the fragmentation of modern manby the medium of film (while the novel"offers an approach to the possibility ofwholeness" ), reiterates arguments oftenrehearsed in literary reviews as early as1920. Of course, these arguments —though most have been long eclipsed —have some truth in them, but surely Mc-Sweeney is too categorical, too dogmatic,in his application of these truths.Underlining Binns' interpretation ofLowry is a political reading — interweaving(oddly, perhaps, for a critic trying tokeep some distance between life and art)the stages of Lowry's political attachmentswith the stages of his writing.Binns stresses Lowry's drift away fromleft-leaning politics partly by pointing tothe contrast between Lowry's marriageof the 1930's (to Jan Gabrial) and hismarriage of the 1940's and 1950's (toMargerie Bonner). Political attitudes ofthe 1930's, Binns suggests, gave Lowry aoneness with his material which he wasalmost unable to recapture after writingUnder the Volcano. But Binns, howevershrewd in freshly placing Lowry as manand artist within wide frames of reference(whether in terms of critical idiom,the context of cinema, or the influence ofpolitics, for example), sometimes giveshis subject short shrift of his own kind.For example, when he says that forLowry "these two characters representthe poles of human possibility — whetherto be actively part of society, fighting tochange it, or whether to be outside italtogether as addict, visionary and dropout,"he is on the verge of caricaturingLowry.Certainly both critics, however dissimilartheir responses, are alert to the"problematic nature of fictional form inour time" (to quote from McSweeney'sreference to Bergonzi) ; and a comparisonof their vastly different stances ascritics suggests something of the problematicnature — and the richness and variety— of the form of criticism in ourtime. McSweeney might very well enjoyreading Binns, for Binns has in the endemployed contemporary critical formsconservatively, however effectively. Mc-Sweeney is too shrill in eschewing suchtechniques. Yet, ironically enough, it isMcSweeney who borrows from postmodernfictional codes when he insertshimself fairly intrusively into his owntext, intervening, for example, to describecaustically the very process by which itwas appraised by a reader when it wasstill in manuscript form. Does Mc-Sweeney thereby claim the last chuckle?McSweeney's study — unlike Binns' —ends with an index, thereby remindingus that it can lay claim to a degree ofencyclopedic breadth of analysis. It invitesthe reader who will return timeafter time, seeking out commentaryevenly distributed title by title. Binns'book awaits the writer who will carry onthe conversation.ШPAUL TIESSEN159

BOOKS IN REVIEWLAZAROV1TCHTO LAYTONELSPETH CAMERON, Irving Layton, a Portrait.Stoddart, n.p.IT IS ALL SUMMED up on pages 452-457.We learn that like "many Jewish immigrantsto North America, [Layton] hadmade an important contribution to thearts and to culture." He won prizes. Etc.His poems are a "truly remarkableachievement": "roughly fifteen areworld-class poems. . . ." "Another thirtyfive are extremely good." Etc. "In hisbest work, he does not employ coarse language.""As a lover, Layton was exciting,bold, all-consuming, tender. . . ." "Itis as a father that he has been most vulnerable."Etc. "He proved himself theperpetual child."Thus, and with a little more of thesame, Elspeth Cameron sums up IrvingLayton. But why, after 450 pages, isthere this need for a condensed Layton?Not, I think, just to close off the book.Not just to retain (or re-establish) thetidy voice. It is, rather, a compensationfor the fact that she had lost track of hersubject some 100 pages earlier — perhapsas early as the chapter "The Day AvivaCame to Paris" (pages 305-307; the yearwas 1959). Granted, her subject was onthe move. But somewhere along the wayCameron lost the authorial voice whichshe had established in the earlier part ofthe book. Her predicament raises somequestion for us about biographical writing,especially on prominent authors, onsubjects like Layton whose life is alreadyinscribed in writing.Irving Layton, a Portrait provides, forabout 300 pages, if not a model at leastan organized representation of a life thatwas already authorized as culturally significant."Irving Layton" had alreadybeen invented : the life, the life-style, thename (something more than just the invented"Layton" from "Lazarovitch" ).The biographer of an already culturallyestablished figure has, at the very least,a doubled task: the invented must bere-invented. A given life must be reproducedin a "closed" text, in this case theframed portrait, and given again. Bakhtin'sterm "heteroglossia" takes us to theproblem: "all utterances are heteroglotin that they are functions of a matrix offorces practically impossible to recoup,and therefore impossible to resolve." Thepossibilities for achieving objectivity areslim indeed.In Biography: Fiction, Fact & Form,Ira Nadel has argued persuasively thatbiographical writing is, in special ways,fiction. Within the fictional mode of biographicalwriting, we expect somethingresembling objectivity, an authority establishednot by facts but by perspectiveand discourse. Cameron provides muchfactual material, and for awhile herwriting provides the perspective necessaryto create such authority. But for anumber of reasons — her own position,her subject, the cultural congruities andincongruities residing in herself and inher subject — she fails to maintain herdistance, to maintain her perspective, herown authority. Perhaps Cameron herselfknows that it would have been better topublish a different book, Irving Layton:the Early Years. Her archaeological projectwould not then have left so muchdebris.Biographical writing has its specificconventional modes: the exemplary life,the growth of the writer's mind, the lifeand work (or times) of X, the "casestudy" of Y. (Nadel provides a valuablediscussion of the problem.) Cameronchose one of the most demanding conventions,the "life and work," almost"life and times," model. Authority in thismode is established by, among other powers,patience, "sheer plod," combined160

BOOKS IN REVIEWwith the awareness of cultural factors,including ideological factors, that constructa life: selection, arrangement,omission, connection, all within someplan. For the early years, Cameron carriesout this procedure with deliberation.The plan is in place, if somewhat awkwardly,at the beginning: it is that ofdocumenting the transformation of thesubject, the movement — seemingly inevitable(fictionally considered) —fromIsrael Lazarovitch to Irving Layton.Let it be said: there are wonderfulre-creations in this book. The documentationof family situation, early schooling,the immigrant community in Montreal,the influence of certain teachers, theearly reading, his study of politics, therelation with Suzanne Rosenberg, thepolitical activism, the attraction to andrevulsion from institutionalized learning,and the steady movement towards becoming"Layton" — these provide insightnot only into the subject, but intothe forces of Montreal's intellectual andliterary (and anglophone) culture. Cameronrightly documents Layton's study ofpolitics, but she does not demonstrate anadequacy of political and ideological insightinto what the issues are. This is thecase with her treatment of Layton's relationto Nietzsche. She sloughs off ideologicalreferences when they are the formativematerial for the kind of biographythat she is writing. The put-down ofLayton's M.A. thesis ("fuzzy" because,for example, he "argued that Nietzscheand Marx were similar") is too slick. Tomake her point, Cameron needs to showwhat grounds of similarity Layton putforth. There are similarities. Cameron'sjejune ideological references mar her frequentlyinformative discourse. In her"Preface" (written last, we assume), sherefers to Layton's career as a zig-zag inscribedbest by Zorro's "Z." This cheapensthe effort from the start (and itmarks, of course, the fate of her owndiscourse), but it does set up the possibility(the missed opportunity) of usingNietzsche's Zarathustra, an emblem whocould have led her into the kind of seriouslife-writing, the kind of critique, thatis finally missing from this book.The point here is not to note specificfailures, but rather to emphasize thecomplexity of writing about a life thathas to a considerable degree already beeninvented, in a sense, already written. Thebook is conceptually at odds with theparticular talents that Cameron has:gathering information, getting people totalk openly to her, organizing a difficultproject, persistency in tracing possibleleads, becoming an authority over detail,mastering the mysteries of annotation.Had her model been consistent with hertalent, then we could have had a coherentbook. She would have done well totake an example from her colleague,G. E. Bentley, Jr., whose Blake Recordsprovides the guidelines for what, ideally,ought first to be done, before the archaeologicalsite has been cluttered.In the biography of a poet, there mustbe an accounting of the poems, of thepoet's own reading of her or his life.Cameron's forte is not textual interpretation.Poems fit most often into thisbiography as pieces of documentation:"Here's an event. Here's a poem aboutit!" This failure of interpretative power,by omission and commission, is conspicuousin the treatment afforded "A TallMan Executes a Jig." This is identified as"one of his best poems." Its narrative"approximates Shakespearian blankverse." (Why or how it approximatesShakespearian blank verse we are left towonder.) The dying snake is noted.There is a summary discussion of "execution,"and then the conclusive summingup: "To attain aesthetic beautyand stature, Layton's poem suggests, thepoet must be an immoral hypocrite." The161

BOOKS IN REVIEWthought that this will be quoted in studentessays is too much to bear.The reading that Cameron offers ofthis poem, coming as it does at what Ihave already noted as a turning point inthe book, marks the move from the authorityof disclosure, which is the biographer'sposition, to her own authorial,interpretative disapproval which characterizesthe later part of the book. It willbe interesting to see which way Cameronmoves next : I hope that it will be towardthe kind of serious biographical writingthat she has, at times, shown herself ableto do.DIAMOND& DAYDREAMBEN JONESw. p. KiNSELLA, The Iowa Baseball Confederacy.Collins, $19.95.LIKE W. P. KINSELLA'S first novel, ShoelessJoe, this book defies easy description.To call either work "just" a baseballnovel would not do it justice, for bothdeal with far more than the game; theyare about life itself, the bittersweet qualitiesof loves lost and time past, and inthe new book a marathon game in Iowabecomes a metaphor for the physical andspiritual struggles of the human condition.The Iowa Baseball Confederacyconjures up memories of such diverseworks as "Back to the Future," OurTown, The Wizard of Oz, Faust, LakeWobegone Days, One Flew Over theCuckoo's Nest, and "Dear Hearts andGentle People." Mostly, however, it remindsme of Shoeless Joe's mix of subjects:love, family, baseball, religion,mystery, local colour, Indian lore, history,time, magic.To enjoy this book fully, you must believe— or want to believe — that magicis possible, that the immutable forces oftime and death can and should be challenged.If you don't, you probably won'taccept the outlandish premise of thenovel: a man named Gideon Clarkeattempts to demonstrate memory inheritedfrom his father, namely that the1908 Chicago Cubs, contrary to all survivingrecords, really did play a fantasticexhibition game against a collection ofIowa All-Stars. Seventy years after thefact, Gideon sneaks through a "crack intime" to relive the epic struggle that tookplace in a tiny town on the outskirts ofIowa City.Magic in this novel affects time, place,and action. It is startling enough thatGideon is able to travel back in time,but what at first appears to be an innocentyearning to experience the pastturns out to be a struggle to the deathwith death and the ravages of time. Fromthe beginning, when Gideon's father recountsthe "one moment in which youwould like to live forever. . . . One momentwhen you'd like to be frozen intime," to the end, when Gideon hopes,"Perhaps there does not have to be anymore death. Perhaps time can be defeated,"time and death prompt the fascinatingrevelations of this novel.The magic of place shapes Iowa Cityand its fictional neighbour, Onamata,formerly called Big Inning. Residents ofIowa City (Johnson County) — and theCanadian Kinsella is one of them, dividinghis time between there and WhiteRock, B.C. — speak of a certain "magic"which pervades the area, much as didGideon's father, who was "always talkingof the magic in the air."The magic of action is the sport ofbaseball. Here as elsewhere, Kinsellalyrically praises the great game, butagain, baseball is the means not the end.Baseball is the perfect medium throughwhich to illumine the magic and mysteryof human existence.162

BOOKS IN REVIEWName me a more perfect game! Name mea game with more possibilities for magic,wizardry, voodoo, hoodoo, enchantment, obsession,possession. There's always time fordaydreaming, time to create your own illusionsat the ballpark. I bet there isn't amagician anywhere who doesn't love baseball.Take the layout. No mere mortalcould have dreamed up the dimensions ofa baseball field. No man could be that perfect.Abner Doubleday, if he did indeedinvent the game, must have received divineguidance.When does a dream become a quest,and a quest become an obsession? Thisquestion is central to the novel. Gideonand his father are obsessed with provingtheir theory, defeating time, and rewritinghistory. His friend Stan alwaysdreamed of making the big leagues, buthis success against the Cubs in Iowa turnsthe dream to an obsession : eventually heis ready to leave his faithful wife Gloria"behind" in the future. The Indiannamed Drifting Away is obsessed withdefeating time by restoring his dead wifeto life, and his will collides with that ofthe ancestral spirits who insist on theirown obsessions. What links all of thesecharacters is the song "I Shall Not BeMoved." This is the favourite hymn ofBig Inning/Onamata believers and thewatchword of the caricatured Twelve-Hour Church of Time Immemorial. Thechurch members have their obsessions,too — "Iowa stubbornness" and bizarrereligious customs. It takes the flood, lightning,and death of the apocalyptic fortydayballgame to bring them all to a senseof tolerance and self-sacrifice.If the book were not so well paced,one could easily be inundated by theabundance of stimuli, but the novel'sstructure, with only a few exceptions,precludes that. The plot is roughly dividedinto thirds, not exactly correspondingto the three parts called "The Warmup,""The Game," and "Post-gameShow." Each segment addresses the questionsfacing the narrator: Was therereally a league called The IBC? Did itsall-star team play the champion Cubs?Can one go back in time? As these questionsare answered, others arise, introducinga new stage of the novel andkeeping the reader wondering until therapid denouement: Will Gideon be ableto change history? Will he get to staywith his love, Sarah? Can he and Stanreturn to 1978? Who will win the biggame, and what forces are at work prolongingthe action?The tale is reported in the first personby Gideon Clarke, but segments of hisfather's book on the Baseball Confederacyare reproduced in italics, and putativearticles from the Iowa City Citizen,which nowhere mention the conspiracy,are interspersed in the narrative. Scornedby an unbelieving public but absolutelypositive that the league existed, Gideongains the reader's sympathy and supportas he strives to prove his contention.When a dying man confirms Gideon'sbelief, we share the narrator's satisfactionthat his intuition was correct andjoin him in slipping through the knotholein time which admits us to the ballparkat Big Inning, Iowa.This is the transition from the firstpart of the novel to the second. Themove from the second to the third partoccurs when Drifting Away, the Sac-FoxIndian who holds the key to the contest,tells Gideon, "I will tell you about thegame, the whys and wherefores of it."His revelations, however, are gradual,and the reader must wait until the endof the book for enlightenment. It is onlythen, as we yearn for the denouement,that the novel shows its major weakness.The game is too long and the explanationfor it too complex and confusing, atleast on first reading. In creating moresuspense than in Shoeless Joe, Kinsellahas sacrificed some of the clarity andsubtleness that marked the former novel.His otherwise delightful propensity for163

BOOKS IN REVIEWfantasy and innovation becomes so bizarrethat the reader, who was willing to"believe," begins to question the faith.Whereas slipping through cracks in timeis an exquisite idea, watching Leonardoda Vinci float in on a balloon and claimto have invented baseball is not. NamingGideon's sister Enola Gay might be cute,especially when she turns out to be anurban guerilla, a "bomber," but animatingan Iowa City statue called The BlackAngel and putting her in right fieldagainst the Cubs is distracting. Therecould have been less time spent on theIndian lore and on Gideon's love affairwith Sarah. Both play an important rolebut, like the game, would be more effectiveif condensed.When Kinsella writes in his last chapters,"The game slogs on," and "Thegame sputters along," the reader istempted to say, "Yes, and so does thenovel." That would be clever but unfair,for The Iowa Basehall Confederacy is anextremely entertaining book. But ShoelessJoe is the proverbial tough act tofollow. If Shoeless Joe is, as some believe,the greatest baseball novel ever,then The Iowa Baseball Confederacy isnot far behind.ALLEN E. HYEDE SE DIREIRENE BELLEAU & GILLES DORION, eds., Lesoeuvres de creation et le français au québec,Tome III. Editeur officiel du Québec,n.p.THIS IS THE THIRD volume of proceedingsof a conference titled Language andSociety in Quebec. The conference, heldin 1982, was co-sponsored by the reviewQuébec français, the Quebec Associationof Teachers of French and the Conseilde la langue française. The text includestwelve sections, each treating a differentarea of Quebec's cultural life: comicstrips, song, literary criticism, the legendand short story, children's literature,pedagogy, poetry, the novel, the téléroman,science fiction, minority cultures,and feminist literature. There was aworkshop on theatre at the conference,but it was not included in this volume,for reasons which are not explained.The keynote speaker was Victor-LevyBeaulieu. His remarks are provocative inthe extreme. He accuses Quebec of beingprovincial, traditional, banal, and "neutralisé."According to him, Quebec suffersfrom "l'absence d'un véritable projetcollectif, tant politique que social et religieux."He refers to the province as "cemonde arrêté, enfermé et moisi" andaffirms that the only true writers Quebechas produced are Hubert Aquin andJacques Ferron. For Beaulieu, "le Quebec,ce n'est pas un pays, mais une chorale!"He concludes by announcing hisintention to return to writing, "puisqueécrire est un désespoir, bien sûr, maisun désespoir entreprenant, radical etjoyeux."The remainder of the presentationsare less polemical and more scholarly.Gilles Dorion, for example, on the subjectof the novel, discerns two groups ofwriters since 1970: those, like JacquesGodbout, who are concerned with politicalquestions, and those, like Marie-Claire Biais, who write about social andpersonal issues. He notes, however, thatthese differences are more apparent thanreal and uses the writing of Yves Beaucheminto illustrate his point : "Cet écrivaintraduit bien la double orientationdes romans de la dernière décennie: lesproblèmes de la collectivité québécoise etles préoccupations de l'individu." UnlikeVictor-Lévy Beaulieu, Gilles Dorion isimpressed with Quebec's literary life andis optimistic about its future : "Le romanest devenu très florissant et il contribueà accorder à la littérature québécoise unevoix singulièrement puissante et une au-164

BOOKS IN REVIEWtonomie indiscutable parmi les littératuresde langue français."Noël Audet's piece on language is thestuff of which Victor-Levy Beaulieu'sworst nightmares are made. Audet arguesfor continental French as the languageof Quebec and the mainstay of the Quebecnovel. However, he recognizes thatthe novelist must be free to use all thelinguistic resources at his disposal : "Dansce sens, les langues d'une collectivité sontcomme un orchestre sous le doigt du romancier,orchestre dont il faut savoirharmoniser les voix selon ce que l'on veutdire." Audet dismisses as myth the notionthat Quebec has the power to impose"joual" on the French-speaking world,since it isn't even common to all of Quebec.He concludes urging Quebec writersto use "nos parlers comme une richesse etnon comme le signal d'une indigencelinguistique que l'on essaie de faire passerpour un droit sacré."Gabrielle Poulin's contribution, "L'Espaceromanesque: un territoire à défendre,"is a spirited defence of the writer'sartistic integrity and his struggle to expresshimself amidst commercial considerationswhich sometimes seem overwhelmingand tend to dominate discussionsabout literature. For Gabrielle Poulin,if publishers must be concerned withsales at home and abroad, the properterritory for the writer's concern is thecentre of himself which he explores whenhe puts pen to paper. That is the territoryto defend.The collection is a lively and diversifiedseries of presentations which representsmodern Quebec. In the words ofone of the editors, "ces multiples facettesde l'écriture québécoise manifestent unevolonté collective de s'affirmer, de senommer, de se dire avec une foi et unevigueur sans cesse renouvelées."PAUL G. SOCKENMEANINGFULNONSENSEELIZABETH CLEAVER, The Enchanted Caribou.Oxford Univ. Press, $8.95.ROBERT HEiDBREDER, Don't Eat Spiders, illus.Karen Patkau. Oxford Univ. Press, $9.95.ALLEN MORGAN, Le Camion, illus. MichaelMartchenko, trans. Raymonde Longval-Ducreux. Editions La courte échelle, $5.95.ROBERT MUNSCH, Le Dodo, illus. MichaelMartchenko, trans. Raymonde Longval-Ducreux. Editions La courte échelle, $5.95.DON oicKLE, Edgar Potato, illus. Sue Skaalen.Ragweed, $4.95.IF "WE ARE ALL poets when we read apoem well," then children's books oughtto be particularly sensitive to the kind ofpoetic creation their books permit. Anillogical, facile, condescending book createsits own appropriate reader; an imaginative,demanding book creates a verydifferent one. Whether in response torhythm, dialogue, humour, or illustration,reading demands that a child participatein the text, and given that theirintended audience differs so remarkablyfrom their creators, children's authorsshould be particularly sensitive to questionsof participation. Even nonsensemust respect its reader. What is thebook's attitude towards the child, howdoes the book involve the child, makinghim or her in Carlyle's sense a poet, sensitiveto the meaning of the universe?One certain way to create the childpoet/reader is through humour and illustration.La courte échelle has just publishedtranslations by Raymonde Longval-Ducreuxof Robert Munsch's Mortimerand Allen Morgan's Matthew andthe Midnight Tow Truck. Both textspreserve the original illustrations by MichaelMartchenko. In Le Dodo the perspectiveis that of the adult outsider.What does one do with a child who refusesto sleep but persists in singing atthe top of his lungs? Munsch and Mart-165

BOOKS IN REVIEWchenko's response is to exaggerate thesituation and laugh at both the child andthe tormented adults. With each threat,the child's song grows more exuberantuntil after his seventeen brothers andsisters warn him, his song fills the room.Martchenko's illustration shows musicnotes upsetting the bed, the lamp, thecurtains, even the teddy bear. The policeare then called in, and the next illustrationparodies the criminal's interrogationas their bright flashlights seemingly intimidatetiny naked Simon (Mortimerin the English version) and his teddy.Martchenko even adds a detail not mentionedin the prose, a frightened Simonhiding under the blankets as the policedepart. But the joke is that no one wins.Upstairs Simon continues to sing; downstairseveryone screams, and Simon bored,finally falls asleep. Perhaps if anyonewins, it is Simon, still blessed with thechild's ability to ignore noise.Le Camion tells its story from a child'sperspective, the fantasy of a little boywho loves two things above all, liquoriceand toy trucks. His daytime frustrationprovokes his midnight adventure/dreamin which he helps a tow truck driver dohis work. The driver not only appreciateshis help; he shows that Mathieu's valuesare his own, for his lunch box is full ofred liquorice: "La réglisse rouge c'estbon, ça donne de gros muscles." Thedriver even tows trucks for his own collectionand when he gets two similarones, he trades them. The magic thatchildren's fantasy allows explains howthe driver keeps a collection; he takesMathieu to a magic carwash that shrinkscars. By the end of his adventure,Mathieu's initial sadness has disappeared ;he has also learned how to protect hismother's car from the midnight towtrucks by sticking a piece of liquoriceunder the windshield wiper, and evenbetter, his mother believes him. In thefinal illustration, mother and child walkaway both clutching their magic tokens,red liquorice.Young children's books seem obsessedwith all kinds of food as seen in the titlesof two other books, Edgar Potato andDon't Eat Spiders. Unlike Wilbur the pigin Charlotte's Web, Edgar the potatowants to be eaten but is fearful that hisexceptional size makes him unlovableand therefore undesirable: "'Who wouldever want you, Edgar? . . . You'll betough and pulpy.'" Obviously a childsubstitute in his yearning for acceptanceand friendship, Edgar is even shownwearing a diaper. This all seems verycute until we think about a child's possiblerelationship to such a text. Concentratingon the loneliness of the unhappypotato, Don Oickle does not pursue thepeculiar implications of these vain potatoeswanting to be devoured. Obviouslyin Oickle's universe, as is likely in ours,vegetables exist to be eaten. The ludicrousvanity of potatoes fantasizing theirultimate appearance — baked, fried, orinstant — is not fully explored when Edgargets his wish and wins a contest at acountry fair. The triumph frees him fromhis sense of inferiority, but what happensto prize-winning potatoes? The analogycan only go so far, leaving a story necessarilyincomplete and unsatisfactory, forwhat child identifying with Edgar wantsto be eaten?Don't Eat Spiders is far more successfulin respecting a child's relation to thetext, and exploring the meaning of eatingand being eaten. Robert Heidbreder'srhythmic nonsense poetry is reminiscentof Dennis Lee with its attention to Canadianplace and detail ("The Casa LomaDragon" and the polar bear at Churchill,Manitoba) as well as its belief that fearand food are the two children's topicsalways popular, especially in conjunctionwith a few naughty words. So "the barebear fell / on his big bum bum" and"Ellie the Elephant" ends with "YUK!"Ι 66

BOOKS IN REVIEWSome poems are essentially children'sjokes as in the ending of "Hippopotamus":but you don't see wheelson a Hippopotamus —UNLESS SHE'S ROLLER SKATING!Some poems work through titillation, exploringthe unacceptable, as in the titlepoem where the child ignores the father'swarning and eats a spider, a brave act ofdefiance and curiosity that leaves himmiserably transformed. Adults never answerchildren's questions — had Daddyexplained why he should not eat spiders,would the child have listened? We willnever know, but the child spider certainlygives us sufficient reason not to indulge:"Cause if you eat spiders / You mighteat ME!" Always the child reader ismade part of the text: the dinosaur birdwho gobbles children in "Bird's Nest" islooking for him; the child trapped insidea polar bear in "Polar Bear Snow" appealsfor help; "Here Comes the Witch"and "The Giant Snail" both approachthe reader. In all of these poems, thechild is either eaten or barely escapesbeing eaten. Comedy results from the expressionof the unspeakable fear. Only"Sticky Maple Syrup" reverses the pattern,as Heidbreder explores anotherchildhood food fear, the unacceptablebut avoidable dilemma of making a mess.In the poem the mess has spread "Fromsea to sticky sea." Karen Patkau's illustrationgives us a child in bed beingrolled by splendid waves of syrup. Thespeaker vows never to be trapped by a"grizzly bear who's hungry / For mymaple syrup feet" and thus finds justificationto do the politely taboo, lick upmaple syrup "Wherever you may be."Elizabeth Cleaver's The EnchantedCaribou raises the issue of definition. Althoughchildren are implied in Cleaver'snotes on how to construct shadow puppets,the book is a children's book onlythrough our mistaken assumption thatchildren alone want to read books withillustrations. If that is true, so much theworse for the adults, for The EnchantedCaribou, both prose and illustration,would seem to fit Carlyle's view of thetrue book, the one in tune with the spiritualnature of the universe, the one thatinspires us to wonder and a recognitionof order. If citing Carlyle seems incongruousin a review of children's books,we should recall that Carlyle bitterlylamented that in his time this true seeingwas frequently relegated to the world ofchildhood. Yet Cleaver's story aboutartistic creation and the power of languageshould be appreciated by adultstoo. Her spare prose and black and whiteillustrations create a permanence of thistale about the caribou, a feeling aboutthe significance of all our actions quitedifferent from the silliness of Edgar Potato.Children deserve more books likeThe Enchanted Caribou and fewer likeEdgar Potato with its implicitly trivialconcept of children's literature. There isnonsense and then there is meaningfulnonsense, the story that takes us beyondsense into wonder and poetry. A bookjust good enough for children is not goodenough.ADRIENNE KERTZERPOET-CONFESSORL. R. EARLY, Archibald Lampman. Twayne,n.p.L. R. EARLY'S Archibald Lampman isthe first book-length critical study of oneof the most important and interestingfigures in Canada's literary history.Early's book is a well-written and generallyintelligent work, providing manyvaluable insights into Lampman's poetry.However, Early's study is also limitedand deficient in a number of important167

BOOKS IN REVIEWways that give it preliminary rather thana definitive status.Early's first biographical chapter is oneof the weakest in the book. It consists ofa largely pedestrian summary of factsabout Lampman's life and literary career.Early has not adequately related hissubject to the socio-economic and culturalmatrix of late nineteenth-centuryCanada. Neither has the critic made asufficient attempt to analyze Lampman'scharacter and motivations, to probe intothe more intimate areas of his life, suchas his relationship with Katherine Waddell.These shortcomings result in arather stodgy account of an extremelyinteresting man. They likewise leave usinadequately prepared to understand therelationships between Lampman's poetryand his life, a possibly serious deficiencyin dealing with an artist who wrotelargely in the Romantic "confessional"mode.Early's next chapter deals first with theinfluence upon Lampman of English Romanticism,the critic stressing the centralimportance for Lampman's verse ofWordsworth and Keats. Early is certainlycorrect in seeing these two poets asdecisive for Lampman's art, and he discussesthe various aspects of their influencein an intelligent, informed manner.However, the critic's stress here andthroughout his book upon the significanceof the Romantics for Lampmanis unfortunately at the expense of aproper appreciation of other influencesupon the poet. Early says nothing concerningthe possible impact upon Lampmanof the New England Transcendentalists,who surely form a bridge bothhistorically and geographically betweenthe Confederation poets and the EnglishRomantics. Early also underestimatesand sometimes unjustly stigmatizes theinfluence upon Lampman of the majorVictorians. For example, the poet doubtlessderived his ideas about elective sexualaffinity at least partly from Browning,while Tennyson was an obviously significantand often beneficial influence uponLampman's poetic style. In "The Storyof an Affinity" and elsewhere, there area number of striking passages that recallthe Laureate in their cadence and/ortheir felicity and exactness of descriptivephrase :The meadow with its braid of marguerites,That ran like glittering water in the windHe passed unseen. The tireless bob-o-link,Poised on the topmost spray of some youngelm,Or fluttering far above the flowered grass,Showered gaily on an unobservant earHis motley music of swift flutes and bells.Finally, something should have been saidabout Lampman's relationship to latenineteenth-century Aestheticism, to the"fin-de-siècle" temper.Early's next five chapters deal successivelywith Lampman's nature poems, hisverse devoted to political and socialthemes, his love poetry, and the lastpieces written during the years 1896-99.In general, Early displays an intelligent,judicious, and cultivated mind. His analysesare almost always solid and helpful,and provide frequent insight. For example,his brief discussion of "the imageof a prolonged high noon" as it relatesto some of Lampman's early nature poemsis excellent. So is Early's treatmentof "The Story of an Affinity," a neglectedpiece in which the critic discoversmuch to merit respectful attention. Forinstance, Early finds in the poem a richmythopoeic synthesis of redactions of theOdysseus story and Biblical/Mil tonic accountsof man's fall and redemption.Sometimes, however, Early's discussionswould have benefited from being pushedfurther, from more intellectual risk-taking.The critic might also have paidmuch more attention to Lampman's consummateskill with metre, sound "colour"and the like: while Lampman's "paint-168

BOOKS IN REVIEWerly" bent is obvious in his verse (anaspect of his art to which Early doesmore than justice), the poet was likewisemasterful in handling the "musical" aspectsof his form.Early's commentaries upon Lampman'sbest-known works vary in theirvalue. The critic's treatment of "Heat"is adequate, but he fails to combine hisown good insights with those of previouscritics to synthesize a definitive interpretationof this rich and complex poem.Early might, for example, have pursuedmy own previous hints about the influenceon "Heat" of Coleridge's theoriesconcerning the imagination. The criticobviously dislikes "At the Long Sault. . . ," and to me he does this fine andmoving poem a major injustice in attemptingto dismiss it as conventionaland largely lacking in significance. Onthe other hand, Early's analysis of apiece he finds inspiring, "The City of theEnd of Things," is excellent. His treatmentof the poem in terms of psychologicalforces that shape civilizations is illuminatingindeed. He is less successful indealing with "The Frogs." He could havesaid more about the complex implicationsof the poem's central symbol (thefrogs for example combining a sexual/Dionysian with a spiritual/Apolloniansignificance), and have noted Lampman'sechoing of Tennyson's "The Lotos-Eaters."Archibald Lampman is by no meansunworthy as the first full-length study ofan important Canadian writer. The deficienciesof Early's work stem in partfrom a certain intellectual narrownessand naivete, and doubtless also from therestrictions of the Twayne format. Bothof these impediments to Early's expressionof his very real critical gifts canfortunately be remedied in the future.Early is capable of writing a major bookon Lampman, and it is to be hoped hewill do so after further thought andstudy.CONSERVATISMEJOHN OWERROBERT LALONDE, Une Belle journée d'avance.Seuil, $14.95.MONIQUE LAROUCHE-THIBAULT, Amorosa. Boréal,n.p.JACQUES SAVOIE, Le récif du prince. Boréal,$10.95.CES TROIS ROMANS étant parus presqueau même moment, et comportant encommun certains traits thématiques etstylistiques, on peut, avec prudence, leslire comme témoignant, dans une certainemesure, de l'état du roman québécoisde l'époque, voire des valeurs etquestions qui travaillaient alors la sociétéquébécoise. Le trait commun principalnous semble être — malgré l'apparentehardiesse de thèmes comme l'incesteet l'avortement — un conservatismeidéologique et stylistique: par certainsde leurs aspects thématiques ou stylistiquesces romans manifestent un attachementà des valeurs traditionnelles.Par exemple, Une Belle journée d'avanceet Le Récif du Prince comportentle thème de l'amour conjugal fortementvalorisé (on ne sait si le "je" et la "tu"du premier sont mariés, mais ils formentun couple qui tient à durer, puisqu'ilss'évertuent fort agréablement à fonderune famille). Tout dans Une Belle journéed'avance chante le couple "je" et"tu," son amour, son bonheur; mais aussiceux des parents du "je," Gertrude etMaurice, qui s'aimaient tant qu'ils onttenu à mourir ensemble. D'autres couplesdans ce roman (Rachel et Leopold, Malvinaet Sam) sont malheureux parcequ'ils n'ont pas su vivre l'amour et lebonheur conjugaux, fait qui valorise encoreceux-ci. Dans Le Récif du PrinceTania écrit une lettre à son mari Fran-169

BOOKS IN REVIEWcoeur: même si elle lui raconte son aventureavec un autre, Tania y dit toujoursplus fortement son amour pour son mari,et on sent que le couple se reformera,plus solide que jamais, quand Tania reviendra.A cette valeur traditionnelle del'amour conjugal, s'ajoute le thème del'amour et de l'unité familiaux. L'héroïnedu Récif du Prince, Vassilie, longtempsamoureuse de son père, sent à la fin duroman que celui-ci appartient inéluctablementà Tania. Vassilie part donc enFrance décidée a découvrir l'amour etla sexualité avec l'amant que Tania vientd'y quitter; mais on sent qu'une fois queVassilie aura triomphé des problèmes quelui imposent ses rapports avec ses parents(amour incestueux pour le père,sentiment d'infériorité par rapport à lamère), la famille connaîtra un nouvel etplus heureux équilibre. "Je" et "tu" dansUne Belle journée d'avance veulent fonderune famille; en outre, le narrateurveut renouer avec ses parents décédés,qu'il aime d'émouvante façon. "Je" écritun livre dans lequel il raconte, à l'aidede sa "mémoire imaginante," la journée,voire le moment de sa propre conception,allant jusqu'à s'identifier au désir quihabite ses parents, au baiser qu'ils échangent,à leurs salive, sueur, souffle; il sedit oeuf dans le ventre de sa mère etraconte même sa fécondation par lablanche masse de sperme paternel! Ilrecrée ses parents jeunes, beaux, désirants,amoureux — comme lui-même;c'est à dire qu'il en fait à la fois desparents et son frère, sa soeur.Amorosa valorise implicitement le coupleet la famille en dépeignant avec uneironie mordante une société dans laquelleils sont difficiles à créer et à vivre, problématiquesdans plus d'un sens. Dans lepremier chapitre, une jeune femme raconteà la première personne sa brèveliaison avec un homme égoïste et dur quil'a abandonnée dès qu'elle s'est découverteenceinte, ce qui amène la femme àse retrouver dans une clinique d'avortementsclandestins avec quatre autresfemmes. Les quatre chapitres suivantsracontent à la troisième personne l'histoiredes autres femmes pour expliquercomment elles en sont arrivées là:"L'Elégante," suite à un viol; "La Tanagra"parce qu'elle ne veut pas subirles contraintes de la maternité (l'enfantsemble impossible dans l'univers de lamère, puisque celle-ci habite le bordelque fréquentait son père, avec qui elle aconnu une longue liaison incestueuse,avant que la mort du père et sa ruinen'ait obligé sa fille à y travailler; c'est làqu'elle a rencontré son amant, bellâtrelouche qui ressemble beaucoup au pèredisparu . ..) ; "La Boutonneuse," femmelaide mais riche doit se faire avorterparce que sinon son mari divorcerait(homosexuel, il l'a épousée pour son argent,ne lui a fait l'amour qu'une seulefois, et ne tient nullement à devenirpère) ; "La Grosse Toffe" se fait avorterpar révolte contre son statut de femmeprisonnièreau foyer. Les hommes apparaissentdonc les principaux empêcheursdu bonheur conjugal et familial, maisnon les seuls.Dans ce dernier chapitre, le premierpersonnage reprend la narration et relateson avortement cauchemardesque.Ce roman présente une vision d'ensemblenégative de l'avortement clandestin,aussi bien en tant qu'intervention qu'enraison des mobiles et circonstances quiamènent des femmes à y avoir recours.On ne saurait dire toutefois qu'il valorisel'avortement légal, qu'il n'évoquepoint. Amorosa se présente surtoutcomme un conte philosophique illustrantla vérité d'un passage de Laborit placéen exergue, et selon lequel la liberté, lebonheur n'existent pas; ce roman jetteun regard sans complaisance sur la sociétécontemporaine.Si Le Récif du Prince et Amorosa utilisentle thème contemporain de l'inceste170

BOOKS IN REVIEWde façon un peu racoleuse et commerciale,le premier emploie bien le thèmede la famille médiatique : Tania et Francoeurtravaillent pour une chaîne detélévision et souvent ne sont vus par leursconjoint et enfants qu'au petit écran! Lacontemporanéité de thèmes tels que l'inceste,l'avortement, et l'influence de latélé font peut-être partie de la dimensioncommerciale de ces romans, terme utiliséici avec une valeur descriptive plutôt quepéjorative; cette dimension commercialefait partie du conservatisme de ces romans,en ce sens qu'elle témoigne d'uneconception peu avant-gardiste du livreen tant que marchandise â vendre plutôtque texte à structurer à des fins purementesthétiques. Cette dimension commercialen'est pas absente d'Une Belle journéed'avance, roman québécois publié enFrance et soigneusement conçu pourplaire au marché français. Il y a, biensûr, la thématique, chérie des Français,de la nostalgie et de la recherche dupassé et de la magie de l'enfance. Enoutre, ce roman comporte fortement destraits qui, selon Jacqueline Gérols {LeRoman québécois en France) sont attendusdu roman québécois par le publicfrançais. Une Belle journée d'avance offrel'exotisme de la nature et des personnagescanadiens: lacs, forêts, ours,cerfs, un métis bon sauvage, une "sauvagesse"à la sexualité libre et dévorante.Gérols démontre qu'outre l'exotisme géographiqueet humain, le lecteur françaisrecherche dans le roman québécois uncertain exotisme stylistique: ce romancomporte des recherches stylistiques intéressantes— le "je" se scinde en deuxpuisque le "je" qui écrit "le livre" yconfie la voix narrative au "je" d'uneautre époque de son existence, quand iln'était que désir de ses parents, oeuf desa mère, ce qui permettra la scène inusitéeprésentant la fécondation et sessuites de l'intérieur. La focalisation multipleest menée avec habileté et permetaux différentes histoires — les deux principales(celle du "je" et du "tu" au présent;celle, en 1946, des activités de Gertrudeet de Maurice le jour de la conceptiondu "je") et les secondaires (cellesqui arrivent aux divers personnages, ycompris un chien dont les sensations et lapsychologie sont longuement analysées)— d'alterner sans transition, mais sansconfusion.A d'autres égards toutefois, l'écritured'Une Belle journée d'avance obéit auconservatisme esthétique: c'est vrai deseffets d'exotisme canadien, de l'emploid'images-clichés telles que celle du "soleilor fondu" répétée à satiété; et del'ensemble de l'effet-poésie provenant destechniques d'évocation du monde naturelet humain, techniques qui font une largeplace aux images-clichés. L'écriture desdeux autres romans est encore plus conservatrice,nonobstant la présence desthèmes de l'inceste et de l'avortement et,dans Le Récif, un épisode agréablementbizarre dans un théâtre abandonné. Ceconservatisme stylistique fait sans doutepartie de la dimension commerciale deces romans (au moins Lalonde a-t-ilcompris qu'un habile mélange de rechercheset de tradition scripturales attireraitplus de lecteurs que le conservatismepur) tout comme la langue de cesromans, où règne presque exclusivementun français international.Rien d'étonnant à ce que ces trois romansmanifestent un certain conservatismeidéologique et esthétique à uneépoque où le conservatisme politiquetriomphait dans les principaux pays occidentaux.Sur le plan esthétique, UneBelle journée d'avance est de loin le meilleur;tous pourraient s'avérer pédagogiquementutiles dans des universités canadiennes(je songe aux anglophones dansles remarques suivantes) : celui de Savoiepourrait fort bien être étudié en premièreannée, celui de Larouche-Thibaulten deuxième année, et celui de Lalonde171

BOOKS IN REVIEWen troisième ou quatrième année, parexemple.IMPERFECTCONQUESTSNEIL В. BISHOPj. L. LEPROHON, The Manor House of DeVilleray, ed. Robert Sorfleet. Journal of CanadianFiction, no. 34, $6.00.MME Ε. BERTH., Le Tour du Québec par deuxenfants. Liberté 163 (February 1986),$8.00.FROM SEVERAL POINTS of view, these twobooks have much in common. Both areshort novels; each takes up the wholenumber of a periodical which otherwisenormally publishes shorter pieces of criticismand creative writing; both are supposedlywritten by women ; and both dealwith national issues pertaining to Quebec.The two novels also deal with thepressure of historical realities on theeveryday lives of relatively uncomplicatedpeople. Leprohon writes aboutthese realities in English in a romance setin the later eighteenth century, and Bertildoes so in French in a satire on contemporarylinguistic issues in Québec.Elsewhere, the differences between thetwo books are striking. If anything, it isnot the century between their compositionsthat sets the books apart, but theirrespective tones. Leprohon's book is oneof the earliest Canadian novels in English.It appeared serialized in the MontrealFamily Herald in 1859 and i860,and its pages are replete with the quietromanticism and the gilt-edged feelingsof affection and loyalty that coloured thefrontier rainbow dreams of colonial Canada.Bertil's book (if, in fact, Bertil exists)is a late twentieth century allegoricalsatire about language, class, socialprétentions and the vanity of nationaldreams. The contrast in genre betweenthe two books is therefore almost absolute.But despite the contrast, the two booksshare one powerful idea. They both dealstrongly with the desire for cultural survivalof a vanquished race against whicha conquest was never anything more thanmilitary. In the background is the commonhistorical theme that the conquestwreaked by one culturally and politicallysophisticated race on another leaves allbut its immediate military problems unresolved.The theme of the imperfect conquestis dominant in both books. In TheManor House of De Villeray, the themeis responsible for many of the types ofcharacters and many of the circumstancesbehind the novel's plot. In LeTour du Québec par deux enfants, thetheme is the source itself of the dreamof the Québécoise grandmother (exiled inManitoba in childhood) of someday findingagain "le coeur vibrant du Québec."This search for the vibrant heart of theprovince is the central and unifying ideaof Bertil's book. The perfection of thehopes, dreams, and desires of the charactersof both books throws into reliefthe utter imperfection of the eighteenthandnineteenth-century conquests of Europeanwars which provoked them. Inthe name of their respective glories, theimperial powers tried to subjugate oneanother's settlers in the various NewWorlds scattered about the globe, and abattlefield won was so often a culturalwar born.And yet the stories of these two novelshave little in common. The ManorHouse of De Villeray, written by aMontreal-born woman of Irish-Catholicdescent, and published a century and aquarter ago, is a sad love story of yet acentury earlier. The fall of Quebec tothe English is its background. Its intrigueis the parentally arranged engagementof a beautiful young aristocrat, the172

BOOKS IN REVIEWnewly orphaned seigneuresse Blanche ofthe fief of De Villeray, to a sincere youngFrench officer, Gustave De Montarville.The problem of the lovers is that Blanchefeels that she does not yet know how tolove De Montarville, and she wants tolearn how before she marries him; andhe, in the meantime, falls desperately inlove with the paysanne Rose Lauzon,whom Blanche has brought up as hersister and social equal. Rose reciprocatesDe Montarville's feelings, cruelly torn bydivided loyalties to mistress and lover. Inthe ensuing struggle, true love wins out.Injured in a useless duel over Rose's honourat the moment that the battle of thePlains of Abraham is fought, De Montarvillerecuperates and marries her. Heand Rose board a French vessel carryingaway the departing conquered local administratorsof New France to permanentexile in France. Blanche, her beauty nowdisfigured by an attack of smallpox, remainsalone in the conquered colony, andv/ill later leave most of her manorial possessionsto the children of De Montarvilleand Rose. In the context of thebackground colonial war, though permeatedby the gilt-edged emotions of theromance, Blanche's stock nineteenthcenturycharacter does achieve epic proportion,however little. The personal humancondition is symptomatic of a muchlarger universal quest. Blanche turnsLeprohon's novel into something farmore significant than historical romanceitself. The dream of a nation dies as itscourage is born, and Blanche's charactermanages to put the message across.By contrast, Le Tour du Québec parDeux Enfants is a satiric spoof, and isbiting in spite of its broad comedy. Thenovel has supposedly just been written byMme Ε. Bertil and published as a separatenumber of the periodical Libertéin the face of a most urgent need toeducate school-aged Québécois childrenin patriotism. The young Québécois havesuposedly lost their patriotism under conditionsthat the mock preface does notclearly explain, but that the satire of thefollowing main part of the work identifiesas the post-independence referendumtorpor that has settled on theprovince.The name E. Bertil is a configurationof the letters of the title of the periodical,and the one lonely entry for the surnamein the Montreal telephone books does notanswer to the existence of an author. Thestory of the novel by this probably anonymousauthor is that of a St-Boniface boyJulien, aged twelve, and his sixteen-yearoldsister Sophie who are first orphanedof their parents and later also of theirgrandmother who harbours them. On herdeathbed, the grandmother who wasborn in Quebec expresses her dying wishto the children that they should not weartheir lives away in futility trying to befrancophones in Manitoba. She urgesthem to go East on her small legacy inorder to find "the vibrant heart of Quebec. . ." where they can be their nationalselves in peace. The last wish is also theold lady's last spoken phrase. The children'sfather was killed in their yetyounger days because he couldn't understandan anglophone foreman's warningshout to avoid a moving steamshovel,and the two children set out for Québecto avenge the destiny of their father'sincomprehension.The journey that leads Julien andSophie from St. Boniface to Winnipegand Ottawa by Via Rail, and then fromOttawa to Trois-Rivières, the Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean, the Gaspé Peninsula, QuébecCity, and then finally Montreal in avariety of hitchhiked and other benevolentvehicles, is peppered with viciouslysatiric encounters. All the English-Canadianand Québécois national types comein for a beating.The monsters up to the Ontario borderare practically all Anglo-Saxons. First173

BOOKS IN REVIEWthere is the collective anglo figure of thebilingual Via Rail in which everybody,including the French-Canadians, speakonly English. There is also Mary Bordeleau,the anglophone widow of a Franco-Ontarian who belonged to a generationof francophones for whom marryingEnglish was a step up on the social ladder.In a taxi ride from the Ottawa CNstation, Mary robs Sophie and Julien ofthe last of their grandmother's money forno other reason than to make theirsearch for "the vibrant heart of Québec"as painful as possible.Once across the border in the promisedland of post-referendum Quebec,Julien and Sophie meet the figures(sometimes real people) and types whosurvived into the 1980's out of the 1970'sand 1960's. There is the New-New LeftCatholic priest who preaches the jargonof "l'épanouissement" and "la libérationde l'ego," and who lives his "mammelized"religion in nude romps with hismarried friends. By way of the statues ofthe famous Curé Labelle in St-Jeromeand of the rebel Louis-Joseph Papineauin Montebello, the children arrive at Repentignybetween Montreal and Trois-Rivières. There, Sophie and Julien areundertaken as a cause by a collection ofRotarians for whom advertised charity isa handy ladder for social climbing. Withtheir clean-cut accountants' looks andtheir bitchy well-dressed wives, the Rotariansresemble a gathering of the QuebecLiberal Party.As their quest for the vibrant heart ofQuébec becomes more and more known,Sophie and Julien become famous andmake the newspapers. They end up insuburban Outremont in the heart ofMontreal, the poshest French residentialarea in the whole of Quebec, whereMayor Jerome Choquette, who was Ministerof Justice in Robert Bourassa's governmentduring the FLQ crisis in 1970,receives them at a couple of extraordinaryreceptions. In attendance are noless than the editor of Liberté; the formereditor of Le Devoir, Jean-LouisRoy; Camil Laurin, the author of Quebec'slanguage Bill 101; Pierre Trudeau;and one of Quebec's earliest independentists,Pierre Bourgeault. In the neardistance,during the last open-air partyfor Sophie and Julien, an English-speakingGreek immigrant couple, with theirsix French-speaking children, cannotunderstand why all those Frenchmen immigratedto Canada if they wanted tospeak French (under Bill 101, immigrantchildren have to go to French schools).Although neither The Manor Houseof De Villeray nor Le Tour du Québecpar deux enfants will create new directionsin English-Canadian and Québécoisliterature, they are nevertheless symptomaticof a number of literary currents.It is the first time that The Manor Houseof De Villeray is published in Englishunder a single cover, and its appearancein a critical edition suggests an uncompromisinginterest in the English Canadianliterary past. Sorfleet's editing ispragmatic and wise, and his introductionis excellent on the text, the romance,and the history of the novel. The editionof this little novel, which was publishedin a French translation as early as 1861,reveals a whole aspect of the literary sensibilityof English Canada in the face ofQuébec history in the last century.Le Tour du Québec par Deux Enfantsalso bespeaks a kind of revelation. Nationaldestiny like all destiny appears alittle senseless. The distinctions betweenthe good, the bad, the beautiful, and theugly are considerably blurred. In thissatire, there is a prevailing feeling of theimminence of chaos, and the satirist'syardstick is disturbingly obscure in thebackground of humanity's uncorrectedfoibles.ANTHONY RASPA174

BOOKS IN REVIEWDRAMA SUMMARYELAINE F. NARDOCCHio, Theatre and Politicsin Modern Québec. University of AlbertaPress, $21.00.IN HER "INTRODUCTION," Elaine Nardocchioclaims that Theatre and Politicsin Modern Québec "is intended as ageneral source book and ready guide"which "strives to provide a systematicand informative overview of the sociopoliticalnature and evolution of theatrein French Québec." She should haveadded that it is written for students whodo not read French and know nothingabout Québec. French professors, dramascholars, and theatre professionals willfind very little of interest in this briefstudy.Chapter I, "Politics, Religion, and theEarly Theatre: From New France toEarly Canada," sketches the history offrancophone theatre from "Le Théâtrede Neptune" (1606) through the 1930's.Professor Nardocchio has obviously readthe extensive corpus of Québec theatrehistory. However, in attempting to summarizea vast amount of material, theauthor has written a thumbnail sketchwhich does not do justice to the subject.Her short, simple sentences and short,choppy paragraphs give the impressionof research notecards shuffled and writtenup in (more or less) chronologicalorder. In this background chapter, shedescribes the Catholic Church's powerover the cultural life of New France, theamateur nature of early French-speakingtheatre, and the reliance on the continentalrepertoire. In tracing the growthof indigenous francophone theatre, shepoints to the nineteenth-century vogueof historical dramas and to the nationalistictendencies of French-Canadianplaywrights.Chapter II, "The Duplessis Era: Fromthe Dark Ages to a Coming of Age,"concentrates on theatres, actors, directors,and playwrights leading the French-Canadian drama movement in the forties,fifties, and early sixties. Nardocchiodescribes the formation of various theatrecompanies as a necessary first step towardthe professionalization of theatre in Québec.Once there were trained actors, directors,designers, etc., the stage was setfor dramatic authors like Gratien Gélinas,Félix Leclerc, Eloi de Grandmont,Paul Toupin, Jacques Languirand, andMarcel Dubé. At a time when the conservativegovernment of Maurice Duplessis,together with the Church, wasfighting a rearguard action against theforces of modernization, industrialization,and urbanization, French-Canadian theatrereflected the tensions and conflictswhich accompanied social changes.Chapter III, "The Quiet Revolution:Nationalism and Québec Drama," summarizesthe cultural ferment of the sixties,linking political change and theatricalactivity. Nardocchio catalogues thetheatre groups and experimental companieswhich were important in the sixties,comments on the form and contentof a number of plays, and then spotlightsRobert Gurik, Françoise Loranger, andMichel Tremblay. Professor Nardocchioseems more comfortable dealing with thepolitically charged plays of the sixties.The plot summaries of this chapter willmake interesting reading for those unfamiliarwith the material.Chapter IV, "Theatre in ModernQuébec: Permanence and Change," documentsthe explosion of theatrical activityin the seventies. Amateurs, children,feminists, revolutionaries, poets, and theatreprofessionals were writing and performingplays in school gymnasiums,summer theatres, cafés-théâtres, and theatresall over the province. Nardocchiogeneralizes about the form and contentof the new Québécois theatre and thenanalyzes the work of Jean Barbeau and175

BOOKS IN REVIEWJean-Claude Germain in more detail. Althoughnoting the anti-feminist tone ofCitrouille, Nardocchio chooses to glossover Barbeau's misogyny. Because thischapter brings the history of Québectheatre only up to 1980, it seems somewhatincomplete. The contributions ofthe Théâtre expérimental des femmes,the Nouveau Théâtre expérimental, MarieLaberge, Jovette Marchessault, René-Daniel Dubois, Normand Chaurette, andothers are neglected. While ProfessorNardocchio never claimed that her studywas a comprehensive guide to theatre inmodern Québec, one must question thedecision to draw the line at 1980.A more serious criticism must be madeof those who should have proofread thetext. This slim volume contains an unacceptablenumber of spelling mistakes,inconsistencies, and missed accent marks.There are over forty typographical errors.The first page spells "Québécois"with a mistake: "Québécois." On somepages, one name is spelled two differentways: "Roulx" — "Roux" (p. 25).French words, names, and titles aremangled so badly that a francophonereader could take offence. On page 83,for example, Jean-Claude Germain's Siles Sansoucis s'en soucient, ces Sansouciscis'en soucieront-ils? is written Si lessousoucis s'en soucient, ces sancousis-cis'en soucieront-ils?Anglophones with an interest in Québecand a reading knowledge of Frenchshould not bother with Theatre and Politicsin Modern Québec. Those who cannotread the superior works of Québécoisdrama, historians and critics will bedisappointed by Professor Nardocchio'sstudy. It is not the "lively" and "timely""indispensable" guide promised by EugeneBenson's "Foreword."176JANE MOSSPAST FORMULAJOY FIELDING, The Deep End. Doubleday,$ΐ9·95·CHRISTOPHER PAWLING, ed., Popular Fictionand Social Change. Macmillan, £4.95.WHY WOULD SERIOUS SCHOLARS wastetheir time studying "minor" authors likeF. Pohl and C. Kornbluth who wrotescience fiction in the 1950's or "trash"like domestic stories in low-priced women'smagazines when they could bestudying seventeenth-century poetry, afar more academically respectable andprofessionally rewarding endeavour? Theeight British lecturers in sociology, communicationstudies, and English featuredin Popular Fiction and Social Changeargue that traditional literary criticism istoo restrictive and needs to be supplemented.Pawling points out:To the disinterested, non-literary specialistthe neglect of those texts which have capturedthe interest of wide sections of thereading public must seem a little strange.. . . literary criticism should be looking forwardto the moment when it is able toaccount for the whole of literary culture,and not just that segment which has beencanonised within the academic institution.Popular Fiction and Social Change beginsto redress that critical imbalance byfocusing on general trends and specificauthors or works in science fiction, romance,thrillers, best sellers, and fantasyfiction.One of the challenges inherent in editingany collection of disparate articles isfinding a coherent framework. PopularFiction and Social Change holds togetherbecause all of the authors examine theirsubjects from a shared theoretical assumption:popular fiction both reflects social meanings/moresand, perhaps more importantly,intervenes in the life of society by organisingand interpreting experiences which havepreviously been subjected to only partial

BOOKS IN REVIEWreflection. Thus, to 'understand' popularfiction is to examine it as a form of culturalproduction and as a process of meaningcreation which offers a particular wayof thinking and feeling about one's relationshipto oneself, to others, and to societyas a whole.Each author, therefore, attempts to showhow the main characters and plots intheir genres both reinforce and underminesocial realities. For example, RosalindBrunt explains the appeal of BarbaraCartland's romances by examiningthe tension between Cartland's overtaffirmation of traditional sex roles, love,and marriage and her covert indictmentof the harsh economic realities womenface.Unfortunately, the strength of Pawling'scollection — its emphasis on popularculture as a complicated ideologicalprocess rather than a unidirectionalproduct — is also its weakness. Surely weknow by now that fiction is not a simplereflection of reality. We need to go beyondthis essential but elementary assumptionto explore new questions. Mostnotably, we need to study the interactionbetween readers and texts. In his usefuland clearly written introduction, Pawlingindicates that he deliberately choseto omit analyses of readers' interpretations.I think that decision was a serioustheoretical error. One of the authors includedin the volume, Bridget Fowler,perfectly summarizes the problem ofignoring readers: "A problem exists,clearly as to how precisely these storiesare interpreted. When we say .. . that astory really deals with the problem ofsocial order, or conflict, is this how thereaders perceive it?" Rather than dealwith this dilemma, Fowler backs off witha bland acceptance of ignorance: "Wedo not yet know what assessment of thestories is made by the readers nor howfar the general world-view of the authorsbecomes part of the mental apparatus ofthe readers." It is not sufficient to admitour ignorance: we must do somethingabout it. How can one seriously study "aprocess of meaning creation" withoutexamining the key recipients/creators inthat process?Joy Fielding's seventh novel, The DeepEnd, is a suspense novel that could verywell be a subject for Jerry Palmer whocontributed the article on thrillers to thePawling collection. Applying his analysisto her novel is an interesting exercisebecause it reveals a problem with bothPalmer's analysis and Fielding's novel.In The Deep End, Joanne Hunter'sorderly life is falling apart. Her husbandhas left her; her teenage daughters arebeing difficult; her best friend is seriouslyill; her beloved grandfather is fadingaway in a nursing home; and, to top itall off, she is getting threatening phonecalls from the Suburban Strangler whowarns her that she is the next victim. Noone, including the reader, quite believesher about the phone calls and Joanneherself wonders if she is going crazy.Fielding is a skilled storyteller and shesustains suspense, enlivened by touches ofhumour, throughout the novel. After anawkward, overwritten first chapter, thenarrative goes into a smoothly writtenfifteen-chapter flashback before returningto the present for the remainder ofthe story. Fielding handles these transitionswell, incorporating even flashbackswithin flashbacks with ease. She capablycreates a pervasive mood of suspicion sothat the reader shares Joanne's apprehensionsabout nearly everyone she knowsor meets.So far Fielding conforms to Palmer'sdefinition of a thriller: thriller suspenseconsists of experiencing everything fromthe point of view of the hero; the heronever starts the action; he always reactsto prior aggression; the hero undertakesto solve a heinous, mysterious crime likemurder which is a major threat to the177

BOOKS IN REVIEWsocial order. On the next criterion, however,Fielding and Palmer part company:the hero is distinguished from theother characters by his professionalismand his success. Palmer comments : "Professionalismconsists of the capacity forplanning, in a flexible manner, for learningfrom experience, for improving faston the basis of experience." While JoanneHunter develops these characteristicsby the end of the novel, initially shefalls far short of being a hero. In athriller, we are supposed to side wholeheartedly,exclusively, with the hero butJoanne's fumbling, apologetic lack ofself-confidence so annoys the reader thatempathy is difficult. By the time she hasmisplaced her keys and set off a falseburglar alarm time and time again, thereader is ready to join forces with theSuburban Strangler. Fielding has writtenabout this type of rather brittle, selfpityingwoman before ; she needs to moveon and create a strong female hero frombeginning to end.On the other hand, Fielding's characterizationsreveal the problem with Palmer'scriterion for a thriller. Does his useof the term "hero" mean that, by definition,thrillers can only feature male mainprotagonists? If he were to reply, "Ofcourse not, I used the term genericallyto include females," then we must questionwhether or not the model itself, andnot just the language, is sexist. It couldbe that Fielding and other womenthriller writers are altering the genre bycreating more fallible human heroes andheroines in the place of the superheroeswho have reigned supreme before. Fieldinggives as much time and space to developingher heroine's relationships withfriends and family as she does to generatingsuspense. This, too, could be a revisionof the old thriller formula with itsemphasis on "action." If "professionalism"means being flexible and learningfast from experience, I would urge bothFielding and Palmer to be more "professional"— to infuse their insightful,competent work with new perspectivesand life.ITALIAN-MADEMARGARET JENSENJOSEPH piVATO, ed., Contrasts. GuernicaEditions, $14.95.THIS COLLECTION OF TEN critical essaysby Italian-Canadian authors proves to bean invaluable contribution to research inItalian-Canadian writing; they providea wide spectrum of perceptions into whathas become, in the last decade, an importantfield of Canadian Studies. Theessays cover many literary, social, andthematic concerns, but their methodologyis predominantly comparative since Italian-Canadianwriting is strongly influencedby English, French, and Italianliterary traditions. Even though the criticalapproach which Pivato adopts is themost appropriate one for tackling thethematic and linguistic complexities ofItalian-Canadian writing and placing itin a world context "which transcendsthe parochial, the provincial and nationalboundaries," it does not seem tojustify his generalization that "The narrowenvironmentalist biases of currentCanadian literary criticism are not supportedby the essays in this collection."Canadian criticism has, in the past decadeor so, been experiencing a radicaltransformation from traditionally privilegedthematic and sociological concerns,to structuralist and post-structuralist approacheswhich are often influenced byEuropean and American literary theoriesthat transcend any "narrow environmentalistbiases." The very openness of Canadiancriticism towards new and experimentalwriting practices has createda literary space where a wide variety of178

BOOKS IN REVIEWtexts, including ethnic ones, are givenfull critical attention. Indeed, had thesituation of current literary criticismbeen the narrow environmental onewhich Pivato makes it out to be, his volumeContrasts would never have beenpublished.Pivato's opening essay provides a usefulexcursus into the works of the majortheorists of comparative criticism. Amongthese is E. D. Blodgett's Configuration(1982), one of the first studies to openthe way for serious critical examinationof ethnic literature. Pivato's diachronicaccount of comparative criticism beginsin the 1890's with Charles G. D. Roberts,whose poetic skills enabled him torender the original French works intofaithful and literally valid English versions,and closes with Ronald Sutherland'sand D. G. Jones' work in the1970's and 1980's. Pivato's view is thatuntil the 1980's Canadian literary criticismhad been dominated by 'anglocentrism,'but that this was a historical phasewhich critics had to go through andcome to terms with before minority ethnicliteratures could begin to be takeninto consideration. So when Pivato attackssuch texts as John Moss's Patternsof Isolation and Laurie Ricou's VerticalM an I Horizontal World as "narrow readingsof Canadian writing" because theiremphasis fell on English works, he isreading these critical texts from a mid-1980's and not from an early 1970's pointof view; the two literary historical contextsare very different. In the early1970's ethnic writing had yet to find thevoice it has found in the 1980's, and so itwas not in a position to receive the criticalattention it is receiving today.One of the most famous and accomplishedItalian-Canadian writers today isFrank Paci, whose trilogy on the Italianimmigrants has perhaps been one of themost influential contributions to the recognitionof the ethnic dimension in fiction.In his article, "Tasks of the CanadianNovelist writing on ImmigrantThemes," Paci emphasizes the importanceof the particular as a vehicle tounderstanding the universal, the microcosmwhich reflects the macrocosm. Bychoosing an image of three concentriccircles to illustrate his thesis, he placesthe tasks of the novelist in general withinthe wider one; in a smaller circle onefinds the tasks of the Canadian writer,within which is enclosed the final circleof the writer tackling immigrant themes.All three circles are fluid and overlapone into the other, but only through theouter circle one can reach the inner one,and vice versa. This image is a revealingone because applied to Paci's writing itis self-reflective: he is at the same timea writer, a Canadian, and an immigrantcommitted to building up a realistic accountof characters within a specific socialand historical context. For Paci themajor task of a novelist is to 'presentreality,' but in his concept of reality traditionaldefinitions are stretched in orderto embrace concepts of fantasy and themarvellous, so that it becomes a form ofrealism which reaches the depths of humanconsciousness. Paci recognizes thatthe strongest influences in his works havebeen Margaret Laurence, whose novelshe deeply admires and from whom hehas acquired the concept of 'compassion'as a guiding principle when creating hischaracters, and his ethnic origins, whichinspired his three novels, The Italians,Black Madonna, and The Father. Hisbackground provided him with such importantthemes as the self-sacrifice offirst-generation immigrant parents, theinevitable clash between the old worldand the new world expressed through theconflict between two generations, thesimplicity of a peasant culture as opposedto the corrupt sophistication of anAnglo/American one, the problem of ac-179

BOOKS IN REVIEWquiring fluency in an alien language andthe strength of family ties.G. D. Minni's article, "The ShortStory as an Ethnic Genre," shows howsome of the characteristic features ofshort story writing are typical of ethnicfiction as well. Minni sets up a series ofcorrespondences between the short storyand ethnic writing, the most importantof which are the presence of marginalpeople who are lonely, nostalgic, feel exiledfrom their roots, experience identitycrises, suffer from feelings of inexplicableregret, and have different values andviewpoints from the norm. The mostcommon theme is usually alienation orthe corollary one of characters who havedifferent emotional terms of reference.Minni's contribution is particularly usefulin a Canadian literary context, wherethe short story genre is diffuse and wherean ethnic dimension is just beginning toshow. Minni's range of examples, drawnfrom the works of Robert Kroetsch,Gaterina Edwards, John Metcalf, AnneHebert, Benato Donati, and others,clearly situates Italian-Canadian writingas an ethnic genre within a wider contextof anglophone and francophonewriting and, ultimately, within an internationalliterary tradition.An original structuralist approach istaken by Roberta Schiff-Zamarro whoisolates the figure of the mother in FrankPaci's Black Madonna, evaluating herimportance in a community (like theItalian) woven together by the unit ofthe family. Schiff-Zamarro analyzes thebinary structure of Black Madonna inwhich the two conflicting and parallelrelationships of father/son and mother/daughter predominate, and she exploresthe latter on two levels : on the first oneshe sees the relationship as a quest forself-identity which the daughter Marieachieves through a gradual process ofrejection/acceptance of her mother. Ona second and more symbolic level Marie'squest is seen as a search for the greatMother figure, or the female principle,which was overshadowed by the adventof the patriarchal order. Patriarchaldominance came about with the rise ofJudeo-Christian societies, when a radicalsubversion of the Great Goddessmyth took place. At this stage of its historicaldevelopment the figure of theGreat Mother had a threefold nature:she was a white goddess of birth andgrowth, a red goddess of battle and love,and a black goddess of death and divinization.In Christian mythology the triplegoddess is supplanted by a triple god, theFather, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, andthe person of Mary, mother of God, survives.Mary is now identified with thefigure of the Great Mother, and herblack connotation derives from theHecate phase connected with death andthe underworld. In Paci's novel Assuntais the Black Madonna, the mother whois also a monster who becomes an obstaclein Marie's quest for an Anglo-Canadian identity and physical appearance.In their article "Death Between TwoCultures: Italian Canadian Poetry," AlexandreAmprimoz and Sante Visellianalyze dominant images of death anddeparture, suffering and blood, in someof the most prominent Italian-Canadianpoets like Pier Giorgio di Cicco, FulvioCaccia, Mario Fraticelli, and evaluatetheir attempts to transform the values oftheir native culture into a new literarylanguage. The authors illustrate theirthesis with examples from many poemswhich touch the depths of pain, loss, andsuffering, experienced by a generation ofimmigrants who are forced to leave theirbeloved mother country and venture to anew land where the unknown languageisolated them in an existence whoseprincipal metaphor was one of emotionalsuffering and physical sickness.180

BOOKS IN REVIEWOne of the most acclaimed Italian-Canadian poets to emerge from this fertileethnic context is Mary di Michèle.Robert Billings examines the cultural andsocial contexts which led to the birth ofan Italian-Canadian group of poets inthe 1970's and 1980's, identifying theimportant influence which Roo Borson,Susan Glickman, Bronwen Wallace, andCarolyn Smart had on them, and locatesMary di Michele's development as apoet, the first one being her "academic,objective phase" when she wrote Tree ofAugust (1978). This collection of poetryshows the author's search for her ownvoice and form, and she is successful infinding it in those poems which deal withher Italian family. In some of these earlierpoems one finds the germs of herfuture writing, personal events presentedin a straightforward manner and bathedin the light of emotions. Her later collections,Bread and Chocolate (1980),and Mimosa and Other Poems (1981),find her exorcising her family ghosts andcoming to terms with her experienceas a first-generation Italian immigrantdaughter, and all its ensuing conflictsand strifes. Di Michèle uses the techniqueof identifying the past and thepresent with the third and first personvoice, thus giving a dialogic structure toher poems where the self either reflectsitself in a series of fragmented and alternatingvisions, or is split into the visionof two sisters whose dialectic relationshipbecomes the dramatic narrative of herpoems. Her later collections, NecessarySugar (1983) and Moon Sharks show amovement to a confessional form in thekey of feminist awareness.In "The Italian Writer and Language"Fulvio Caccia applies to minorityliterature a trilinguistic model borrowedfrom Henry Gobard, to reveal thecomplexities of a writer's relationshipwith language. The three languages arethe vernacular, which is of rural or ethnicorigin, vehicular language, which belongsto the social infrastructures inwhich the subject is situated, and mythiclanguage, which belongs to religion andarchetypal structures. The distribution ofthese languages varies from one socialgroup to the other, and they play animportant role in the development of awriter's poetics.The context of Quebec as a historical,cultural, linguistic, and literary space inwhich a great number of Italian writersmust come to terms with in order to beable to create their own literary traditionis dealt with by Antonio D'Alfonso andFilippo Salvatore in their two usefularticles which close the anthology.Exile is the dominant condition whichcharacterizes all immigrants and has featuredin Italian literature since Dantewrote his Divine Comedy. Pivato outlinesthe most important Italian authorswho have dealt with this issue, and thenfocuses on the different ways in whichItalian-Canadian writers have grappledwith this concept. For Romano Porticarini,who lives and writes in BritishColumbia, exile means the detachmentfrom home which is associated with anidyllic childhood. Canada thus becomesthe land of adulthood, reality, and disillusionment.Marie Ardizzi's protagonistNora in Made in Italy needs to keepalive an illusory internal subjective realityconnected with childhood in order tobe able to survive in a harsh exteriorreality. However, for Ardizzi the ultimatecondition of exile is the breakdownof communication between an inner realitywhich has not been able to adaptitself to and change with the times of anouter reality. Pivato concludes with theobservation that a significant shift is beginningto take place in Italian-Canadianwriting which no longer sees theNew World as a land of exile, but as aPromised Land that has freed immigrantsfrom poverty and has given them181

BOOKS IN REVIEWa new home. Pivato quotes RobertKroetsch's statement: "We haven't gotan identity until somebody tells our story.The fiction makes us real." As linguisticand cultural barriers between the oldworld and the new world are beginningto break down, Italian-Canadian authorsare putting together for the immigrantsand their children an identity and a newsense of reality toward which they havebeen grappling for decades.Pivato's collection of essays closes witha bibliography which shows how diversifiedItalian-Canadian writing has become.There are three language lists, onefor works in English which is also thelongest one, one for works in Italian,and a third one for works in French.There is a final list of literary and historicalstudies published both in Canada andin Europe, which provides the researcherwith useful background on the subject.GIOVANNI BONANNODISCOURS-FLEUVENADINEMACKENZIE, Le coupeur de tètes.Saint-Boniface, Manitoba: Éditions desPlaines, $7.95.GILLES VALAIS, Les deux soeurs. Éditions desPlaines, n.p.CES DEUX LIVRES canadiens-français horsQuébec s'ajoutent à la presque cinquantainede livres déjà publiés par les Éditionsdes Plaines et nous font comprendreque la francophonie canadienne, horsQuébec, est bien vivante, en voie de s'affirmertoujours davantage. C'est certainementquelque chose dont il faut se réjouiret les Conseils des Arts provincialet fédéral font bien d'appuyer ce mouvementde leur aide financière. C'est en lapratiquant que la culture se renouvelle etse développe.Des deux livres, et ceci malgré tout leféminisme que je partage avec Nadine182MacKenzie (sauf en ce qui concerne sonapparent mépris pour la femme aufoyer) et taut d'autres, je préfère celuide Gilles Valais. Valais, qui avait déjàpublié un récit intitulé Les deux frères,est sans aucun doute à présent le meilleurdes deux écrivains. MacKenzie qui apourtant, elle aussi, déjà publié plusieursouvrages, n'a pas encore réussi à se débarrasserd'un certain style un peu maniéréet précieux. Ce style ressemble àcelui qui anime parfais les émissions deRadio-Canada, pour laquelle MacKenzietravaille. C'est un style un peu trop enjoué,malicieux, méticuleux (oh! ces passéssimples et ces subjonctifs de l'imparfait!),bref, artificiel. En écriture, ce styleva contre l'attention du lecteur, contreson plaisir du texte. Du moins, c'est làmon avis.MacKenzie a, dans Le coupeur detêtes, suffisamment de bons élémentspour un roman d'initiation solide. Ils'agit dans son récit d'une femme dans laquarantaine, en instance de divorce,forcée de retourner sur le marché dutravail, avec toutes les difficultés qui s'ensuivent: recherche d'un emploi qui luipermettra de s'occuper quand même deses deux enfants, timidité à vaincre, confianceen elle-même ébranlée par le faitque son mari se soit tourné vers unefemme de carrière plus jeune qu'elle . . .en plus du divorce lui-même avec sesaspects dégradants y compris la guerreautour de la garde des enfants. Mac-Kenzie a donné à cette femme une amiesolide, prête à la sontenir, sorte de guidevers une vie nouvelle.Mais au lieu d'écrire un roman d'initiation,qui certes aurait pu intéresser aumoins un public féminion, MacKenzie,pensant peut-être que cela serait tropsimple, introduit dans son histoire un"coupeur de têtes," jeune homme fouqui se dit homme d'affaires mais est envérité escroc, menteur, obsédé sexuel,pervers animé d'une étrange foi reli-

BOOKS IN REVIEWgieuse et, de plus, assassin de femmesseules. Ajoutez-y un mari égoïste, despoliciers maladroits et vous vous trouvezdevant une histoire rocambolesque à souhaitqui vous distraira peut-être pendantquelques heures, mais qui n'est pas vraiment,et ceci est dommage car NadineMacKenzie a certainement du talent,une oeuvre littéraire.Notons en plus qu'il y a certaines coquillesdans ce texte dont la présentationparaît pourtant à première vue claire etsoigneuse: transferré au lieu de transféré;cueillers au lieu de cuillers; unesonnerie qui résonne au lieu de sonnertout simplement etc. Cela fait tachedans un livre agréable à l'oeil. Il est regrettableque les Éditions des Plainesn'aient pas pu éviter de telles erreurs. Etce qu'il y a de bizarre, c'est que dansLes deux soeurs, livre que je trouve doncmeilleur, je n'aie rien détecté de tel.Deux nouvelles constituent le recueilde Gilles Valais, Les deux soeurs. Lapremière, du même titre que le volume,conte, un peu à la manière de GabrielleRoy (celle de La petite poule d'eau),l'histoire et le développement de deuxjeunes filles du Nord manitobain. Chacunea un talent: Martine chante etcoud à merveille, Gemma est intelligenteet studieuse. Mais les deux vont abandonnertoute idée de carrière personnellepour se consacrer l'une, Martine, à unmari professeur, l'autre, Gemma, à leurpère devenu sénile. Et Martine, qui avaitautrefois détesté les aspirations intellectuellesde sa soeur, subit maintenant lesdiscours de son mari, alors que Gemma,qui n'avait pas voulu être ménagère, estdevenue la garde/cuisinière/infirmièred'un vieux malade. Deux sorts étranges,observés par un narrateur sensible etdiscret qui n'émet aucun jugement.Le personnage de ce narrateur permetune écriture assez proche lu monologueretours en arrière, les questions parfoislaissées sans réponse. Le lecteur ou laintérieur, donc une écriture qui coule,favorise la description et la réflexion, leslectrice peut y mettre du sien, les personnagesprennent forme dans son imagination,puisque rien de trop précis ne luiest imposé.Dans la deuxième nouvelle, "Lettre deMaud," Valais a opté pour la formeépistolaire. Maud écrit à Steve, camaraded'études, mentor. Elle ne sait pasvers quel pays lointain celui-ci est parti,mais elle retrace pour lui, pour ellemêmeet pour nous les principales étapesde sa propre vie. Fille d'immigrés européens,elle a fait, contre la volonté de samère, des études, s'est éloignée de sapetite ville natale où "trop de dimanchesavaient tendu leurs fils d'araignée." Ellea travaillé, voyagé, regardé le mondeavec curiosité.C'est un monde où elle, en tant quefrancophone, est minoritaire et où d'autresminorités — russes, ukrainiens, mennonites,huttérites, doukhobors — se doiventde lutter contre l'assimilation queleur imposent les anglophones. C'est cettelutte précisément qui rend chaque groupefier de son état, de sa langue, de sescoutumes, de sa religion. Pour Maud, la"résistance à l'assimilation" des francomanitobainsse résume par le fait que laconclusion d'une chanson apprise au pensionnat,". . . leurs enfants élevés parleurs ennemis . . .," ne pourrait jamaiss'appliquer à eux. La chanson fait plutôtallusion auxcompatriotes qui vivaient dans les Etats . . .ils parlaient une langue mêlée, portaientdes vêtements extravagants, se bourraientde saucisses et de whisky, peut-être mêmen'avaient-ils plus de religion ... ils étaientassimilés, des bâtards, c'était fini, on pouvaitleur appliquer cette conclusion. . . .Maud affirme qu'on peut jouir d'êtreune minorité, y trouver une source d'inspirationet d'enthousiasme. Elle observele rôle que jouent les initiatives personnellesdans cette lutte constante, l'impor-183

BOOKS IN REVIEWtance des écoles et de la radio francophones,ainsi que des "vieilles vertus."Venue de la région de Winnipeg, villedont le nom, comme nous l'apprend Valais,signifie "eau boueuse," Maud va serendre dans l'Est du pays, faire la connaissanced'un Québec où elle se sentiradéplacée, étrangère et où elle va donc serendre compte que le Manitoba est sonpays. Y retournera-t-elle ou bien finira-tellepar se laisser assimiler per la mondequébécois? Valais ne nous le dit pas, nouslaisse libre d'imaginer la suite.La forme épistolaire, tout comme lemonologue intérieur, permet de nouveauun discours-fleuve, avec rapides, chutes,affluents. Valais utilise les deux formesavec aisance et un évident plaisir qui finitpar devenir celui du lecteur. Les deuxsoeurs est un beau livre, un de ceux quifont que les Éditions des Plaines méritentnotre respect et notre intérêt.ON STRATEGIESMARGUERITE ANDERSENROBERT KROETSCH & REINGARD M. NISCHIK,eds., Gaining Ground: European Critics onCanadian Literature. NeWest Press, $21.95;pa. $11.95.SERIOUS READERS OF Canadian literaturehave cause to be grateful to RobertKroetsch and Reingard Nischik for focusingattention in Gaining Ground onsignificant studies of the subject currentlybeing produced by European scholars.Although it has been an open secretamong academic specialists for the pastdecade that the study of Canadian literatureis a minor growth industry inEuropean universities, this is the firstbook to describe and illustrate the phenomenonin a reasonably comprehensivefashion. And it must be said at the outsetthat the book is a good one: dividedinto two sections, it not only offers atimely survey of the state of Canadianliterary studies in about twenty Europeancountries, but also presents evidenceof the scope and maturity of scholarlyinterest in the form of seventeencritical essays.In "New Horizons: Canadian Literaturein Europe," Dr. Nischik explains thegenesis and development of Canadianliterary studies in the countries where itcommands the most attention: France,Italy, and West Germany. She points tothe success of individual scholars in thesecountries in initiating and developingcourses for high schools and universities,up to the graduate level, and in specialprojects, such as Walter Pache's developmentof an inter-library loan base forCanadian journals at Cologne University,and the marathon translation workdone by Amleto Lorenzini in Rome. Shealso notes the growth of Canadian StudiesCentres such as those at the Universitiesof Bordeaux, Dijon, and Rouen,the proliferation of Canadian StudiesAssociations, and the increasingly frequentconferences on both general andspecialized aspects of Canadian writing.There is also a useful survey of CanadianStudies in the United Kingdom;and we learn that, curiously, Britishscholars seem more interested in French-Canadian writing than in Anglo-Canadianliterature, a situation that is reversedin France. There are brieferdescriptions of the interest in Canadianliterature in Scandinavia, the Low Countries,Austria, Switzerland, and EasternEurope, with names and university affiliationsof prominent scholars. There isalso a 300-item bibliography, divided byscholars' nationalities and entitled "EuropeanPublications on Canadian Literature,"which gives an indication ofthe range and focus of European scholarshipin the last ten years or so.Early in her survey, Dr. Nischik offersperceptive observations on the nature of184

BOOKS IN REVIEWcurrent European scholarship. She pointsout, for example, that since Canadianliterature is a foreign literature to Europeanreaders, it has rarely been seen inthe thematic context often favoured byCanadian critics, and can never, ofcourse, be "regarded as a means of 'seeingourselves.'" Instead, "the critical approach. . . has often been more textual.Individual works have been regarded asaesthetic artifacts rather than as sociologicaland socio-psychological documents,"and the prevailing critical trendis to analyze narrative strategies, or moregenerally, to look at structural and technicalaspects of the works. Europeancritics also favour subjecting Canadianworks to comparative or generic study:"more distant from the works in pointof language, cultural background, andpersonal concern, European scholarshave felt freer from the beginning to putspecific Canadian works into a larger internationalcontext than has been thehabit in Canada itself."The critical approaches found in theessays included in this collection givecredence to Dr. Nischik's observations.(It should be pointed out here that theeditors made no restrictions as to subjectmatter or approach when they contactedpotential contributors.) Twelve of theseventeen essays offer either a closeanalysis of text or narrative technique,or subject the creative works to a comparativeor generic consideration, whilethree others straddle the two approaches,adapting elements of each as they help toilluminate particular works.Gaining Ground begins and finisheswith remarkably strong essays. SimoneVauthier's "The Dubious Battle of Story-Telling: Narrative Strategies in TimothyFindley's The Wars" which opensthe volume, is in one sense the ideal criticalstudy. Through incisive analysis andlucid presentation it provokes the readernot only to reread the novel carefully,but to rethink the larger question ofeffective narrative strategies in fiction.Problems of authority posed by the coexistenceof two narrative strands in thenovel, for example, are examined in aclosely reasoned and convincing analysisof Findley's complex narrative techniques.A later essay in the collection,Walter Pache's '"The Fiction Makes UsReal' : Aspects of Postmodernism in Canada,"examines the related narrative experimentsof Robert Kroetsch (particularlyin The Studhorse Man and GoneIndian) and George Bowering (in BurningWater). In doing so, Pache arguesthat "the rejection of literary conventions,patterns of thought, and old valuesystems clearly implies more than a newstructure for the narrative text. It becomesa means of giving a new 'voice' toCanadian fiction." Vauthier would undoubtedlyagree.Other explorations of narrative techniquein the work of contemporary Canadiannovelists (a group the Europeancritics overwhelmingly favour), includestudies of Rudy Wiebe by WolfgangKloos, "Narrative Modes and Forms ofLiterary Perception in Rudy Wiebe'sThe Scorched-Wood People," and PierreSpriet, "Structure and Meaning in RudyWiebe's My Lovely Enemy." The latteressay is intriguing for its insights into therelationship between Wiebe's latest noveland earlier works in terms of "the rejectionof rational sense which informs MyLovely Enemy . . . [and] the refusal oflogical or conventional meaning detected"elsewhere in his fiction. In anotheressay, "Narrative Technique inAritha van Herk's Novels," ReingardNischik offers a rather tentative comparisonof techniques employed in Judithand The Tent Peg; while Michel Fabrelooks in detail at some of the short storiesof Mavis Gallant and their "complexjuxtapositions of points of view" in"Orphan's Progress,' Reader's Progress:185

BOOKS IN REVIEWVoice and Understatement in MavisGallant's Stories." Both Paul Goetschand Coral Ann Howells examine the fictionof Margaret Atwood. Goetsch's essay,"Life Before Man as a Novel ofManners," is a lucid interpretation ofone of the novel's central hypotheses,that "even in a so-called liberated age,every kind of human relationship, includingsexual, is subject to rules." Howellstakes a different approach, revealingways in which "contradictory discourses[involving fantasy and reality] generatemultiple meanings" in Atwood's text inSurfacing and Bodily Harm (as well asin Alice Munro's Lives of Girls andWomen and Who Do You Think YouAre?).Criticism of French-Canadian writingis represented by only two essays: RosmarinHeidenreich's "Aspects of Indeterminacyin Hubert Aquin's Trou deMémoire" and Cedric May's "Form andStructure in Les Iles de la nuit by AlainGrandbois." Noncontemporary literaturein English receives almost as little attention,although Karla El-Hassan's essay onLeacock, "Reflections on the SpecialUnity of Stephen Leacock's SunshineSketches of a Little Town" is interestingfor its treatment of the Sketches as aprecursor of "the linked short stories orshort story ensembles which at presentare very common in Anglo-Canadian literature";and Rudolf Bader's study ofGrove, "Frederick Philip Grove and NaturalismReconsidered," offers some provocativeobservations on The Master ofthe Mill.The final essay in Gaining Ground,Eva-Marie Kröller's fascinating studyentitled "Nineteenth-Century Canadiansand the Rhine Valley," is in its way asstriking as Vauthier's opening piece. Arefreshingly original study, it charts thepatterns in reactions and attitudes generatedby visits to the Rhineland by anumber of prominent nineteenth-centuryCanadians, beginning with Joseph Howein 1838. The essays offers a backdrop tocontemporary pieces such as Layton's"Rhine Boat Trip" and Gallant's storiesin The Pegnitz Junction; but equallyimportant is its testimony to the longstandingtradition of intellectual exchangesbetween Canada and Europe. Itis a tradition to which the essay, andGaining Ground in its entirety, make avaluable contribution.STANLEY S. ATHERTONVOICE OF ONE'S OWNSUSAN MUSGRAVE, Cocktails at the Mausoleum.McClelland & Stewart, $9.95.A PRECOCIOUS WRITER who published inthe Malchat Review (sic, from the Mc-Clelland & Stewart publicity) at seventeenand issued a volume of poems atnineteen, Susan Musgrave at 35 has alreadywritten a dozen books and made anotable contribution to Canadian poetry.It hardly seems necessary for her publisherto re-issue or "roll over" the earlierverse of such a productive poet insuposedly "new" collections. Eight of thepoems in Cocktails at the Mausoleumappeared in Tarts and Muggers (1982),which itself mined four of her earliervolumes — but at least that identified itselfas "Poems New and Selected," whichthis does not. A browser who gets insidethe meaningless cover and the inaccurateback-cover blurb will not learn of theoverlap until page 151 (the last page).So much for the publisher. The poetone encounters here is partly the resultantof previous selves (sea-witch, manburier),partly an evolving persona, humanizedby time and pain, that I thinkwill prove more sympathetic and likeablethan either. At first Musgrave practiseda kind of West Coast necromancy inwords, stirring a blend of dreams, moon,186

BOOKS IN REVIEWfantasy, and native lore. Like most stylesand spells, these worked at some timesand not at others. Set next to the presentvolume, Songs of the Sea Witch ( 1970)looks obscure and overly dependent onsnake-slime, while Grave-Dirt and SelectedStrawberries (1973) invokes apower of Haida material — at its worsta kind of easy shlik — without managingto transmute it into poetry. Yet Entranceof the Celebrant (1972) is clearly thework of a genuine talent, at least in"Birthstone" and "Dog Star," which aremade of typical under-thirty Musgravematerials: night, spirits, dreams, anddeath. "Facing Moons" introduced the"moon of constant sleep inside / sleep,moon that I am," which rarely sets forher.These preoccupations culminate inThe Impstone (1976). "I was born with/ witch-power and / two wings," shewrites: "Somebody cut them off" ("AllWill Fall") ; "The old frog-moon / laysher eggs in my heart," says the personaof the fine "Mourning Song." Otherwise,though, sorcery does not correlate highlywith equality, which is found instead inhumane and intelligible work like "OGrave Where Is Thy Victory" andthe beautiful "Chiaroscuro." A Man toMarry, A Man to Bury (1979) is a similarmélange: Musgrave often writes ofdreams and moons, but only "Woodcutter,River-God and I" turns magical subjectinto magical artifact, while "A CuriousCenturion" and the strong, cold"Fishing on a Snowy Evening" succeedwithout recourse to the preternatural.Here she breaks through the type-castingand finds a second voice.In the present collection, the moonwitchof the western isles still dreams,but generally that mode is less importantnow; Musgrave continues to broaden herappeal. The first section, for example,"Coming Into Town, Cold," documentsthe Canadian encounter with Latin, especiallysouthern cultures. Here — andto some extent elsewhere in the volume— the crucial polarity is not nature/supernature but self/other, and I wouldargue that the most patently autobiographicalpoems — or even parts of poems— are the least successful. The section'stitle-poem and "Supposing YouHave Nowhere to Go" are particularlylimited by chit-chat about the poet's age,financial problems, and low opinion ofMiami; they are lineated journal entries.(Of the eight poems that I wish shehad withheld, five are lessened by thiskind of self-indulgence.) On the otherhand, where she submerges herself inthe human condition, as in "Hunchbackon the Buga Road," "Ordinary People,"and "The Unconsidered Life," she is apoet.I am the bride withworms around her heartand a skull bursting with goodnesslike a church goblet.This is not the "I" of "I'm over twentynine."These are three of the nine poems (inthis collection of five or six dozen) thatI would use to convince anyone of Musgrave'stalent. Three more are "rollovers"from Tarts and Muggers (thefour "timely" Queen Charlotte Islandpoems all appeared there), so there is nopoint in discussing them here. The lastthree touchstones are the title-piece andtwo poems in the final section. "Cocktailsat the Mausoleum" is both a typicallywacky piece of Musgrave fantasyand her Ode to Melancholy; cocktailstaste better at the mausoleum, but deathstares from the bottom of the glass.I decided long agothat death was not serious, but nowwith a jewelled hand something tugged,and I felt the cold earthrising to meet me.Finally, when "you"(a late entry)187

BOOKS IN REVIEW"sucked the spicy liquor from my / lastsmall breath," drinking intertwines withthe other kind of dying — shades of JohnDonne. Beyond the literary echoes, Musgrave'sown maturing voice is clear:I wasthinking of love spent, and grief thatgropes slowly like a tendril. . . ."I Do Not Know. . ." (etc.) is a remarkablysuccessful "exorcism" of (welearn from Musgrave's notes) HowardNemerov's "Death and the Maiden."Nemerov himself — or Roethke orHughes, other objects of homage —would not spurn such a phrase as "acompass of blood in the heart's / wreckage,"though it is not all that good. Boththis and "You Didn't Fit," however,seem to me deeply humane poems aboutcoming to terms with parents, time, madness,and self. In the first, shrinks try to"cut the / stubborn mother from mywomb"; in the second, the poet's vividdream of her father's not fitting his coffinbecomes a symbol for both of their lives :"neither of us fit." Here Musgrave hasoutgrown the cuteness and extrahumanobscurity that marks some of her youngpoems. "I Do Not Know" is a paringdown to essentials:I think of the choices we madealong the way, how thingscame to pass, or happened,what brings us finally together.The years will make sense of it.These are not her most "poetic" lines,but they make immediate contact, withthe warmth of a sympathetic friend whohas been through it.When Musgrave is off, she is usually, Isuggested, being merely personal, thoughonce, in "Eaglet Tricks," she seems tooimitative. Her other weakness is too littledetachment from prose — i.e., insufficientrevision — which shows up as flacciddiction in, for example, "ThreeWitches Go for Lunch in Elora." Herear is not flawless; she needs to judge, toedit, to purge, as every good poet does.Robert Graves, to whom she once madea pilgrimage, would be one healthy guruin this respect. Another she long agochose herself — in "Skookumchuk" fromThe Impstone:I guess it's inmy bloodto want to be likeEmily CarrIt takes some work to move that desirefrom the blood to the hand. What isclear is that in Musgrave's case the resultwill be worth the effort. One coulddo worse than be the Emily Carr ofpoetry.RICHARD BEVISVAN LITGARY GEDDES, ed., Vancouver: Soul of aCity. Douglas & Mclntyre, $24.95.ALLAN SAFARiK, ed., Vancouver Poetry. Polestar,$12.95.THE EDITORS OF BOTH these Vancouvercentennial anthologies, according to theirintroductions, seek the city's identity inits literature. Geddes, through a selectionof poetry and prose, tries to capture the"soul of a city" ; Safarik, through poetry,the city's "heart and pulse."Geddes begins his search for the city'ssoul with himself. His account of hisVancouver roots and subsequent writingcareer in his introduction, however, ismore concerned with his own identitythan Vancouver's, and since he includesin his anthology numerous writers whoseroots lie elsewhere, his emphasis on theimportance of Vancouver origins is asirrelevant as it is self-indulgent. Whenhe turns to other writers he singles outthose who, he finds, share his own "halfurban pastoral, half Bosch nightmare"vision of the city, a judgment that leads188

BOOKS IN REVIEWnot to close analysis of the writing in theanthology but to asides on Social Creditanti-intellectualism and the role of thewriter in such a milieu. Brief concludingreferences to the city's one hundredthbirthday and probable literary future donot compensate for the lack of focusthroughout.The anthology itself, striving for comprehensivenessand popular appeal,achieves only length and unevenness.The ninety selections are grouped thematicallyunder nine eye-catching headingssuch as "Real Estate in Paradise"and "The Race that Never Ends," thelatter dealing with the city's ethnic communities.Too many prose selections, likeSir Robert Borden's telegram expressinghis party's racist labour and immigrationpolicies, consist of brief one- or two-lineexcerpts wrenched from context and offeredwith unhelpful or no editorial comment.Other selections, such as the excerptfrom Margaret Laurence's TheDiviners and stories by Jane Rule andAudrey Thomas, seem to owe their inclusionto their writers' reputations ratherthan to their portrayal of Vancouver.Reputation and popular taste seem tohave influenced the choice of poetry aswell; it ranges in quality and tone fromthe sentimental rhetoric of Pauline Johnsonto the social criticism of Al Purdy, sothat the reader must sift through muchsecond-rate material to find the worthwhile.Geddes' inclusion of Pauline Johnsonand Eric Nicol brings to mind R. E.Waiters' similar concessions to populartaste in his British Columbia: a CentennialAnthology ( 1958), but Geddes' slapdashediting falls far short of Watters'more scholarly approach. Whereas theopening section of Waiters' anthologyconsists of journal and newspaper excerptscovering British Columbia's firsthundred years, only a few scattered selectionsin Geddes' — such as Yun HoChang's memorable account of his lifein turn-of-the-century Vancouver — offerglimpses of an older city. UnlikeWatters also, Geddes provides relativelylittle bibliographical information: his'notes on contributors' list titles andgive some bibliographical data, but seldomidentify the work from which aspecific excerpt is taken, or supply itsdate.Since the material in the anthology isarranged thematically rather than chronologicallyand since portrayals of earlyVancouver are rare, the city shows littlesense of passing time. All too often itlacks a sense of place as well, since Geddeshas chosen a large number of worksthat explore the human psyche (usuallythe writer's own) in a generalized orinterior setting that could be anywherein the modern world. Thus Vancouverseems to have no real identity at all.Safarik's "informal history" of Vancouverpoetry, on the other hand, providesstructure and focus for his questfor the city's identity. Beginning in the1910's with the founding of the VancouverPoetry Society and ending in the1970's with a list of currently active poetsand publishers, Safarik's introductorysurvey is objectively, although somewhatawkwardly, written and appropriatelyillustrated in the anthology by the firstVancouver Poetry Society Chapbook(1925), the Ryerson Poetry Chapbookof 1936, and individual poems of previousand subsequent decades. As the poetryevolves from late Victorian to modernand postmodern, so the perceptionof the city varies from, for example, theFirst World War fervour of Alice M.Winlow to the post-Second World Wardetachment of Tom Wayman.Safarik's flexibility in handling the historicalstructure keeps the anthologyfrom becoming a dry academic document.After the 1930's he modifies strictchronology to bring together poems treat-189

BOOKS IN REVIEWing a particular time period or subject,such as wartime Vancouver as experiencedby Al Purdy and Joy Kogawa, orOakalla by bill bissett and Peter Trower.More importantly, an underlying concernwith "the human condition" in the citysupplies the selections with a commontheme which gives coherence to thechanging poetic styles and accounts forthe presence of "historical curiosities"whose subject matter, despite the mediocreverse, reveals the long tradition ofsocial criticism in Vancouver poetry. Anothereditorial plus is a sense of humour :poems by Al Purdy and Red Lane admirablydemonstrate that good poetrycan be both funny and serious.The main flaw in the editing lies inthe sometimes sketchy documentation.The Vancouver Poetry Society Chapbookconcludes with a brief account of its publicationand a briefer reference to theimmediately following Ryerson Chapbook,but since no comparable note concludesthe latter, the reader has only the1936 date after Anne Marriott's poem tomark the end of the sequence. Dates ofcomposition and/or of publication of individualpoems, and birth and deathdates in the notes on contributors, arealso lacking. Despite these flaws Safarik'santhology is a worthwhile centennialtribute to Vancouver. His workmanlikeapproach to his subject offers more convincingand satisfying insight into thecity than does Geddes' egocentric randomness— and at a fraction of the price.STILL HEROMARGARET DOYLEWILLIAM R. HUNT, Stef: A Biography ofVilhjalmur Stefansson. University of BritishColumbia Press, $29.95.WEARE FREQUENTLY TOLD that we nolonger have heroes. The explanation maybe that people's expectations are nolonger what they once were. Too oftenvenerated figures, when subjected to closescrutiny, prove to have feet of clay likethe rest of us.Polar exploration once seemed majesticin the symbolic struggle of managainst the elements, an in extremislaboratory in which true mettle could betested. Unfortunately various reappraisalsof the great figures associated with ithave revealed undignified competitivenessand back-biting. It has seriouslybeen questioned whether Frederick Cookever scaled Mt. McKinley and it was notRobert E. Peary but his Black companion,Matt Henson, who actually reachedthe Pole — information that Peary's familystrenuously tried to suppress.Vilhjalmur Stefansson (1879-1962)was subjected to prolonged harassmentduring his lifetime, but he has been fortunateenough to find a biographer whohas managed to defend him without tendentiousness.William R. Hunt tells hisstory in a reassuringly low-keyed way."Stef" was born in Manitoba of Icelandicparents who soon moved to SouthDakota. At the University of North DakotaStef was known as a bright, outspokenstudent — so outspoken that itwas suggested by the authorities that hemove somewhere else. At Harvard hebecame interested in anthropology, andin 1906 he was assigned to the Anglo-American Polar Expedition in which histask was to make an ethnological studyof the Mackenzie River Eskimos.His great advantage was that he waswilling to accept the Eskimos on theirown terms and to learn from them. UnlikePeary, he took the trouble to learntheir language and, despite his dislike ofseafood, he accustomed himself to a fishdiet and mastered their hunting techniques.Above everything else, he observedevery aspect of their culture withmeticulous attention. As a result he returnedfrom his first visit to the Arctic190

BOOKS IN REVIEWwith the conviction that attention shouldbe paid to its people and their resourcesrather than to exploration alone.On his famous journey of 1909, accompaniedby Rudolph Anderson (laterhis implacable enemy), he discovered theCopper Eskimo people of Victoria Island.These people used copper implements,and their colouring was muchfairer than any Eskimos yet encountered.He was intrigued by the possibility thatthey might be descendants of the Vikingcolony established in Greenland in theMiddle Ages.When Stef returned to New York hisaccount of Eskimos with blue eyes andrusty hair was greeted with derision inmany quarters, but this discovery madehim into a celebrity. It initiated a seriesof books and widespread lecture tourswhich continued for the rest of his life.Hunt does not make it sufficiently clearhow valid his views were.His subsequent forays into the Arcticwere to prove just as controversial. Themost notorious of these expeditions wasthe Karluk disaster of 1913. The expedition,sponsored by the Canadian government,set out to make a comprehensivesurvey of the central arctic coast aswell as to explore terra incognita. Stefreally worked best on his own, and thepreparations for the ambitious undertakingwere somewhat chaotic. The expeditiondivided into two sections, thenorthern group headed by Stefansson,supported by a brigantine originally usedfor fishing. While Stef went ashore witha hunting party near Port Barrow on thewestern Arctic, a fierce storm blew up,the Karluk went adrift, and in theghastly months that followed, the shipwas sunk and most of the members of thecrew died. Stef was accused of hiringinexperienced men and taking on an unseaworthyvessel. In defence of Stef,Hunt maintains that he had the best andonly men and equipment available.The issue that roused most ire amongStef's critics was his espousal of "thefriendly Arctic" which became somethingof a crusade with him. After five and ahalf years of continuous polar serviceduring which he had lived on game andfish and had discovered approximately100,000 square miles of unknown territory,he claimed that living in the Arcticpresented no difficulties so long as oneadapted to the habits of the natives. Hisopposition came from white supremacistsand those who feared that his commonsenseapproach would undermine themyths of arctic heroism. Hunt could havemade much more of Stef's prescience.His book is disappointing in its lack ofpsychological analysis. There must havebeen something about the man that madeit difficult for other people to work withhim. At times Hunt admits that heshowed poor leadership and irritated hismen unnecessarily by his arrogant attitude.Was he a man of real probity? Whydid he never acknowledge his Eskimochild? Hunt maintains a polite distancefrom his subject, even careful not to becomeinvolved in the disputes of longago. His book does not make excitingreading and the maps are not sufficientlydetailed. Nevertheless, it is a sober, sensiblebook, and Stef would undoubtedlyhave been pleased.PHYLLIS GROSSKURTHRUNE-WRITERDAVID WILLIAMS, Eye of the Father. House ofAnansi Press, $12.95.THIS NOVEL COMPLETES Williams' LacjardinTrilogy, which also includes TheBurning Wood (1975) and The RiverHorsemen (1981). The stories and charactersof all three novels are discrete, thenovels being linked only by the centralimportance of symbolic patterning ineach and by their settings, although only

BOOKS IN REVIEWone part of Eye of the Father is actuallyset near Lac jardin Lake.Of the three novels, this last is theboldest in concept and execution. Williams'story is surrounded, most oftenironically, with large figures and patternsfrom Norse mythology. One-eyed Othin(Odin) is omnipresent, and almostequally important are Sigurd, Loki, andBaldr, who give their names respectivelyto the three major divisions of the novel.Williams also begins each of these threeparts with a runic letter, the ancientmeaning of which suggests the centralsignificance of the action within thatpart. Hence, in the first part the runedenotes man; in the second part the runesuggests necessity, compulsion, and distress;and in the final part the rune designateshomeland or native land.The story itself concerns the life anddeath of Magnus Vangdal, the 'father'of the title, as well as the bewilderedstruggles of his wife and two daughtersand, subsequently, of his grandson tocome to terms with this man who hasmarked all of their lives so viciously. Itis the story of a young man, born inHardanger, Norway, who, after beingseduced by an already pregnant girl,Gyda, flees his homeland to escape beingforced into marriage. His exile takes himto New York, to Duluth, Minnesota, andeventually, after gambling away hisfather-in-law's farm in central Minnesota,on to the Lacjardin district of Saskatchewan,and finally to Rossland andTrail, B.C., where he dies.Before marrying Hilda Gunnar, all ofMagnus' experiences with women convincehim that women are deceitful, sohe is unable to accept that his wife isindeed faithful to him and that hisdaughters, Sigfrid and Christine, are actuallyhis. His early experiences warp hischaracter until he incessantly brutalizeshis wife and all those around him as hedrinks, gambles, whores, and searches forthe elusive fortune that he believes hewill discover in 'Amerika.'The ironic overtones of the Norsemyths begin to assert themselves whenMagnus assumes the surname Sigurdsonand climbs through a circle of fire torescue Hilda (Brynhild?), whom he thenmarries in order to get her father's farm.Although he may have started life withthe potential of Sigurd's son, he quicklyis turned into a Loki figure and wreaksdestruction within his lower abode. Thisirony ends with Magnus' death fromcancer of the bowels, penniless after yearsof mining for gold in the Rossland mine.The real tragedy of the story lies withthe patient, self-sacrificing Hilda, whogives up all her own aspirations to herlove of Magnus and who gets nothingbut heartache and loneliness in return.Her story, told in a moving, unself-grievingfirst person, is a memorably powerfulone, and one effect of it is to make thesubsequent accounts of Christine Goodman,Hilda's younger daughter, and ofWayne Goodman, the grandson, somewhatpale by comparison.It is Wayne's story, though, that completesthe overall design of the novel. Heis a young professor of Icelandic atthe University of Saskatchewan and isdriven, as his mother and aunt havebeen, to come to terms with his deadgrandfather. He even considers a trip toTrail to somehow confront Magnus, buthe grows to realize that such a questwould be fruitless. He and his wife,Karen, discover their capacity for lovewhile adopting a child, and this newawareness allows Wayne to lay the ghostof his grandfather to rest. After a remarkablescene in which Wayne hallucinatesthat he sees the old man in theform of Odin, hanging by his feet andwrithing in agony because of the woundin his side, and turning his vacant eyesocket toward Wayne, Wayne is able toaccept his own responsobility for main-192

BOOKS IN REVIEWtaining love in his world and to stopusing his grandfather as a sort of scapegoatfor his own weaknesses. In a climacticpassage near the end of the novel,Wayne says, "'Karen, I don't need to goto Trail. My grandad's not there. He'swaiting in the book I have to finish. He'ssure to see me get my share of pain. Butmaybe we can see to it that our son getsnone.'"If Williams' Eye of the Father is thebook that Wayne has to finish, then trulyWayne has found his grandfather and,in doing so, has also achieved a sort ofrebirth, a life of his own beyond hisgrandfather's 'eye' that has not been possiblefor his mother, his aunt, or hisgrandmother. The Baldr figure of thelast section would seem to sanction thisoptimism since Baldr was, in the Norsemyths, the primary figure in the rebirthof the gods. It is as though Wayne himselfbecomes the Odin figure, writhingon the world-ash tree Yggdrasil, reachingin his agony to the ground to pluckup the runes that will restore him andgive him even greater wisdom. Hence,are the runes that begin each section ofthe novel those that Wayne has securedand articulated?It is impossible for any brief commenton Williams' novel to do justice to itsrichness of texture and its imaginativeforce. For example, one immediate problemthat faced the author was that ofhow to have Magnus tell his part of thenarrative when the character at thatpoint knew no English. Williams solvesthis problem by giving us Magnus' recollectionsand his dialogue with other WestScandinavian speakers in English, butusing blanks to indicate actual Englishwords that Magnus hears but cannotunderstand. Such presentation leads toconsiderable humour in scenes such asMagnus' encounter with the immigrationofficer at Ellis Island after his ship hasreached New York.The techniques of the novel, as well asits Norse trappings, provide considerableand unusual challenge to the reader, butthe result, as with Williams' other novels,is that the reader comes to feel an activeparticipant in the creative experience ofthe novel. It is as though the reader, too,is struggling to take up and compose therunes which lie on the ground for thetaking.WILLIAM LATTABONDS OF DIGNITYM. o. HESSE, Gabrielle Roy. Twayne, $30.00.PROFESSOR HESSE'S BOOK is a useful introductionto the works of Gabrielle Royfor those who know nothing about theauthor and her writing and who read noFrench. It is written in English and allquotations are in English, with the originalFrench provided in the notes."The Development of a Writer" givesa very brief outline of Gabrielle Roy'sbackground and career. There follows achapter on "The Urban Novels" (Bonheurd'occasion and Alexandre Chenevert)and one titled "Idyllic Interludes,"which presents La Petite poule d'eau andCet Eté qui chantait. Mention is made,in the latter chapter, of the children'sstories, Ma Vache Bossie and Courte-Queue, "A Pilgrimage to the Past" is astudy of Rue Deschambault and LaRoute d'Altamont. "An Artist's Credo"is devoted to La Montagne secrète. LaRiviere sans repos is treated in a chaptertitled "Worlds in Conflict." Un Jardinau bout du monde and Ces Enfants dema vie are grouped together under therubric "The Canadian Mosaic." The sixpage"Summary" is a brave and by andlarge successful attempt to put into focussome of the themes discussed in the bodyof the text. The bibliography is very briefand selective but the choices are reliable.193

BOOKS IN REVIEWA closer proofreading would have uncoveredthe occasional lapse. GabrielleRoy's death is duly noted but at anotherpoint she is said to be leading "a lifedevoted almost exclusively to her art."Each chapter consists for the most partof an account of the critical reception ofthe works in question and a detailed plotsummary. There is some room, however,for analysis and commentary. The importanceof the themes of childhood andmemory is well illustrated in the discussionof Rue Deschambault and La Routed'Altamont, there is a sensitive presentationof La Petite poule d'eau and CetEté qui chantait, but the comments onAlexandre Chenevert are disappointing.Hesse does not appreciate the revelationand transformation at Lac Vert andmisses the profound message concerningthe individual's opportunity for self-discoveryand regeneration. The chapter onLa Montagne secrète affords Hesse anopportunity to discuss Gabrielle Roy'sunderstanding of the artist's vision androle in society. The artist's calling imposesa solitary life and, yet, one thatultimately creates bonds of solidarity withthe reader.The brevity accorded each text is morecruelly felt in some cases than in others.The two pages dedicated to Ces Enfantsde ma vie are simply too few to yieldanything but the most superficial plotsummary for one of Gabrielle Roy's trulyimpressive works.Hesse correctly emphasizes GabrielleRoy as the Canadian writer most concernedwith the Canadian mosaic andunreservedly sympathetic to Canada'snew settlers and the homeless. The"stranger" is, for Gabrielle Roy, a metaphorexpressing the human condition.Hesse makes the point directly: "It ismeaningless to speak of 'strangers' for itapplies to no one or every one."In the summary, the author of thisstudy places Gabrielle Roy in the contextof French-Canadian literary historybut stresses the universality of her writing.Her works are concerned with humandignity and the ideal of fellowship,and her characters embody the strugglefor the realization of that dream. Hesserepeats Donald Cameron's observationthat what one finds in Gabrielle Roy iswisdom, in spite of the fact that she is anintuitive, rather than an intellectual,writer.Hesse notes that Gabrielle Roy's workswhich take place in the past are primarilyidealistic and Utopian, whereas theones situated in the contemporary periodare mostly "realistic." She presents GabrielleRoy's fiction in terms of a seriesof dualities — the ideal and the real, theprairie and Quebec, life and death, selfand others — but there is, nevertheless,an essential, underlying unity. One finds,in the final analysis, a bond between theauthor and her readers that extends beyondthat relationship to represent thelink between the individual and his fellowman.This volume does not so much constitutean addition to the increasingly variedcritical material on Gabrielle Roy asan opportunity for English-Canadian andAmerican readers to acquaint themselveswith one of Canada's best writers. MordecaiRichler once commented sardonicallythat Canadian literature is the onlyworld literature to be read exclusively inCanada. Any serious attempt to remedythat situation should be welcome.SHALLOW GRIEFSPAUL SOCKENDAVID GiLMOUR, Bach on Tuesday. CoachHouse, $12.50.IMAGINE A DILUTED mixture of Lowry'sUnder the Volcano and Salinger'sCatcher in the Rye and you have the

BOOKS IN REVIEWfeel of David Gilmour's first novel, Backon Tuesday. After a disagreement withhis ex-wife J. ; Eugene, the self-pityingnarrator, steals his five-year-old daughterFranny from school and flees with her toJamaica, where in a long drunken nightof wandering from bar to bar he revealshis sorry life story of self-destructive selfindulgences.Like all the anti-heroes ofthis kind of male romance, Eugene is achildish and violent misogynist whoproves incredibly attractive to women.He had to work hard at driving J. away— through a string of affairs with beautifulwomen — but is now hurt at havingsucceeded. In the course of his Jamaicandark night of the soul, another attractiveand successful woman offers herself tohim. It's all too predictable. He knowsall the stories have already been writtenand he will never be as important toanyone as he wants to be: "You're notthe new kid on the block anymore.There's no reason to believe that thenext one will be different from the lastone." Even his jaded nihilism has beenanticipated. As J. has explained to him:"No grief, no matter how shallow, lastsforever."This is a defensive book. It has all theanswers. Anticipating the objection thatthere are no characters, it explains thatcharacters are nothing but fictions, rolesassumed and cast off like costumes. Anticipatingthe objection that nothing happens,it makes that disappointment itscentral theme: "It felt as if I'd spent mylife stealing out of white rooms to walkdown dark roads — and every time I'mconvinced that some night I'm going tostumble across something, a happiness asbig as the sun. But it's a lie of course.There's nothing out there." There isnothing here but patterns of words andimages, some fin de siècle world-weariness,some Wildean wisecracks, somemuted adolescent angst — and a lot ofanxiety of influence.What else could you expect from anovel about two English students, whosehappy memories include meeting inShakespeare class and studying togetherfor a Chaucer exam? The novel evenparodies its immersion in a sea of cliché.When Lily, Eugene's latest conquest, askswhat he is writing (in response to a liethat impresses even him — he has toldher he is here to write a book), he answers:"it's about a guy who comes tothe tropics and loses his marbles." Lilyoffers: "Like what's his name's book.""Yeah, exactly," he answers. Even thatcriticism, then, has been denied me. Hehas said it before I could. This is likewhat's his name's book. And it's not abad approximation. Gilmour handlespacing well. Back on Tuesday is sensitiveto language, drunk on images, steeped inliterary traditions (chiefly American andEuropean) — but it has nothing to say.Trapped in the narrator's solipsism,Toronto is reduced to "an ugly house onan ugly street" and Jamaica, to the expatriate'snightmare in paradise. This isa determinedly "universal" novel, locatingits universalism in the consciousnessof the middle-class i960's male, forwhom life's greatest tragedies have beenthe death of John Lennon and the pressuresto grow up. Using the combativelanguage of this genre of fiction to describehis decision to phone J. and giveup Franny — "There comes a time whenyou've got to stop ducking and take apunch and Tuesday morning, that's whenI took mine" — he finds, in an appallinglyinappropriate simile for the 18hours of his self-induced ordeal, that"We must have looked like war veterans,J. and I." A lot of talent has producedan empty book.•НГ-0DIANA BRYDON195

BOOKS IN REVIEWDUST BOWLTO NEVER LANDANDREAS SCHROEDER, Dustship Glory. Doubleday,$19.95.Dustship Glory does not bear the slightesttaint of pedantry, yet it is one of thoserare, fine novels from which we learnmuch, and learn it joyously. Subtly, webecome aware, as we read and reflectupon Andreas Schroeder's perfectly proportioneddocumentary novel, that wehave grown because our awareness ofmany things has enlarged — of parochialthings, including the life of Finnish immigrantsto North America, the conflictsamong constituent groups of rural communities,the vast scope of the Prairie(which Schroeder captures in powerfulsea imagery) and its effect on the spirit,the struggle to survive on the Prairiethrough the twin plagues of dust bowland Great Depression, bureaucratic insentience,and compassion. Above all, wefinish Dustship Glory knowing moreabout catholic matters — about the humansoul, about marriage, love, andfriendship, about pride, untutored genius,even monomania — than we knewbefore.Schroeder's protagonist is a representationof the historical Finnish-CanadianTom Sukanen, who actually did spendthe Depression years in southern Saskatchewanbuilding and all but puttingthe finishing touches on a sizeable seaworthyfreighter a nightmare away fromthe sea. The novel's documentary formatis a series of interviews with family,friends, and acquaintances of Sukanen(through Schroeder's fine sense of language,each speaks in an appropriatelydistinctive voice ), interspersed amongchapters of sensitive interpretation anddescription by the omniscient investigator.The pattern permits the illusionof more or less objective reporting, andthe "true" Tom Sukanen emerges slowlyfrom the happy patchwork of contradictoryperceptions of him, as well as fromhis own myriad eccentricities. "Theman's a harmless eccentric,.. . and thisone's a natural born frustrated engineerto boot," insists Thorndike, one of thefew sympathetic neighbours, with anEnglish tolerance for eccentricity. "Aw,let's face it," comments Clay Jackson, alocal with an opposite view, "he weren'tnuthin' but a ringading nutcase." Thebroadly comic chapter comprising aninterview with Avro Sukanen, Tom'spuffed-up, malapropian nephew, is aloneworth the price of the novel as he discusseshis uncle's "abominational" behaviourapprovingly.At face value, Sukanen's actions tendto support a derogatory view of him. Asan immigrant to rural Minnesota, Sukanen,who is nothing if not direct, getsinto difficulty with the law by accidentallybreaking the back of his partner inan icy marriage as he claims what heassumes to be his conjugal right. Whateverthat says about him, his trek to hisnew home in Canada tells volumes. Alwaysa navigation buff who wears acompass around his neck, he walks,swims, and shoulders his way the sixhundredmiles to Manybones, Saskatchewan,across roads, fields, and rivers ina line astonishing for its unswerving perfection.We trifle with such men andtheir dreams only at our peril.The interview technique also allowsSchroeder to achieve effective dramaticirony. For example, to one of the informants,Margaret Hollington, Sukanen'snaming of his fantastic ship Sontianen,Finnish for "dung-beetle," is a questionof "cheap theatrics," designed by the obsessiveold crank to play all of the localpeople for "monumental fools." Weknow that there is more to it than orneriness,however. We have been present atthe moment when, having himself just196

BOOKS IN REVIEWcome through a tornado that kills aneighbour's family, he comes across adung-beetle that he cannot destroy bysmothering with sand, stomping, or burning;so closely (and rightly!) does heidentify with that indomitable little survivorthat on the instant he decides toname the cargo steamer — in which hehas invested his soul — for it.Our admiration for Sukanen growsover the course of the novel in spite of,sometimes because of, his detractors.Next to him they are small people whoexist or go under without vision. Moreand more he comes to acquire — to us,not to them — the stature of Old Testamentprophet. In that hellish time andplace, unwashed and increasingly unclothed,railing madly against womenand the government, he is utterly in hiselement. Almost infinitely resourceful, hemakes do with practically anything.While all the others are cursing the ravaginglocusts, he finds them a blessing:"I have-it now lunch any time I hungry."Able to trade, scavenge, invent,build all he needs for the ship, he knowsto smear himself with horse manure tokeep off the flies, and to lubricate hispathetic deadman winch, with which hemust inch the vessel fifteen miles to thenearest water, with the grease of crushedsnails and slugs.But his greatest invention is the dreamof the freighter which his attackers seeas a threat to their sense of order andeven his defenders cannot begin to understand."A ship in a dust-storm. That'sthe kind of sense he wanted us to believe,"complains the irate Mrs. Thorndike.Yes, we come to realize, and thatis the only kind of sense that makes sensein the central circumstances of theirlives. "Much Madness is divinest Sense,"as Emily Dickenson told us. His beliefthat government relief is to be avoidedbecause it contains poison may be metaphoricallytrue. And he does have aningenious plan to get his ship to the sea.With the mystical star chart he hasdrawn on the ceiling of his poor towerhouse,with his treasured compass, it doesnot matter that he is planning to sail hismythic Grockersland on the Arctic Seaor to the Sea of Malagar in the southernhemisphere or back to Finland. Once you"Demur — you're straightway dangerous— / And handled with a Chain —."It only matters that the Sontianen isa-building when nothing else is a-buildingamong those God-forsaken couleesand prairies, and that one dream soarswhere no other can kick free of the sand,and that Andreas Schroeder shows usthat so well.FROST SHADOWSALAN SHUCARDRICHARD LUSH, A Manual for Lying Down.Wolsak & Wynn, $7.00.PATRICIA YOUNG, Melancholy Ain't No Baby.Ragweed, $8.95.COLIN MORTON, This won't last forever. Longspoon,$7.00.DALE ziEROTH, When the Stones fly up.Anansi, $8.95.THECOVER OF COLIN MORTON'S Thiswon't last forever bears a photograph ofa typewriter festooned with icicles. Thismay not be a common sight in Canada,but for an outsider like myself it suggestsa lot about a country which is so arcticas to seem almost mythical. Whereas thedominant images in Australia are thesea, the bush, and the desert — all hotand highly coloured — Canada seems tolive in the shadow of frost, threatened bythe blank erasure of snow.When the frost strikes, though, it canbe the same in both countries. RichardLush's collection starts with a series ofpoems detailing the breakup of a marriagebecause of a lesbian relationship.The hurt, the bewilderment, and the197

BOOKS IN REVIEWanger are caught in poems which evadeself-pity. Lush's strength is in buildingpictures, in subtle and economical dramatisationsof complex situations in nondramaticlanguage:This is a name day andsleet begins to tick at the window.The kitchen woman whispers, "I'm sorry."Man and child leave. And there areno words for what has happened.The awareness that no words will reallydo causes Lush to be wary of their seductions,frugal in his choice. The resultis an eloquent plainness which issophisticated and very assured. Thistransforms vulnerability into poignancy,in a poetry where glimpses reveal morethan acres of gazing.The poems of Richard Lush that Ifind least satisfying are those exploringa new love. It seems hard, today, towrite fully satisfying love lyrics. Perhapsit always was. Colin Morton does hisbest, but his efforts just go to prove howdifficult it is without the conventionsthat sustained earlier love poets. Hispoems seem superfluous: if the relationshipis as good as they suggest, then it isa lot better than the poems. It may beanother case of there being "no wordsfor what has happened." But Morton hasother strengths. "Waking up in the1960s" will chill the blood of anyone intheir forties with its acute hindsight; andhis playful way with language producesa hilarious variation on Hamlet's soliloquy:To be or not to be: that is the quickstep;whether 'tis nobler in the minimum tosufferthe slip-ups and arsenic of outrageousfoundlingsor to take armistice against a seam oftrout. . . ."Inventory" and "Poem without Shame"are among a number of other poemswhich show a lively and quirky talentwhose curiosity about language is also away of seeing things freshly. Although itis an uneven book, its title This won'tlast forever, while true, is unnecessarilydeprecating.Patricia Young's Melancholy Ain't NoBaby ranges less widely. Like many otherwomen poets, she writes about what isclose up, so close to home that many mencannot even see it:The absolute terrorof living like this. With food on the table,wine in the fridge, a good man in my bed.Her perspective illuminates common experience,not only from a woman's pointof view but also from a child's. Menwrite of their love with a gratitude thatsets it aside from the business of living.But for Patricia Young love is somethingwhich presents its own problems — children,purpose, identity — and has to becoped with daily. Moreover it is imbricatedwith the one language which hasto make do for all things. Her poetry islively, unsettling, and very attractive.Dale Zieroth's When the Stones fly upis, from an outsider's point of view, themost obviously Canadian in setting andtopography. Yet for me it is the leastrewarding. Strangely, these poems aboutchildhood on the prairies are little differentfrom many others about childhoodin small country towns in verydifferent parts of the world. "1956: Theold Lutheran pastor" — one of the bestin this collection — could as readily havebeen written in South Australia, wherethere is a large German emigrant population.These poems delineate the newtrans-national imaginative territory —nostalgia, which is much the same everywhereand, by definition, offering littlethat is new. Which goes to show that beingfaithful to local detail is not enough,unless that faith is tempered by a radicalcuriosity. Zieroth is not untouched bythat, and some of his poems explore behindthe scenery of the scene. But Pa-198

BOOKS IN REVIEWtricia Young's view of domesticity is notonly closer to home, but also far lessfamiliar and more exciting.OVER & OVERANDREW TAYLORBARBARA K. LATHAM & ROBERTA J. PAZDRO,eds., Not Just Pin Money — Selected Essayson the History of Women's Work in BritishColumbia. Camosun College, $12.00.RICHARD THOMAS WRIGHT, Overlanders. WesternProducer Prairie Books, n.p.THESE TWO BOOKS appear to have littlein common and essentially this is true.Pin Money is entirely about women'sexperiences in British Columbia; Overlandersis 99.99% about men's experiencesin the Gold Rush days. Overlandersis more or less a continuous narrativebased on diaries, news items, and letters;Pin Money is a collection of papers givenat the Women's History in British ColumbiaConference in 1984. Overlandersis more sure of its goal and for that reasonis more successful; Pin Money editorsadmit that "its audience is neither homogeneousnor predictable." Still, sinceboth deal with history, I found readingthem together enlightening if only becausethe fact that history is largely amale account of the past is the raisond'être of Pin Money and is self-consciouslyalluded to in Overlanders. Moreabout that later.I read Pin Money first and wentthrough various stages of deep interest,annoyance, and frustration. It is a veryuneven collection and it is far too long.I am beginning to have doubts about theacademic habit of publishing conferencepapers anyway. Orally presented papersthat anticipate audience participation aredifferent from articles or essays preparedfor journals. But perhaps the biggestproblem is that the editors, in this case,have included materials that differgreatly in quality and kind. The so-called"essay" on women MLA's, for instance,is not an essay. It consists of brief biographieswith photos but lacks focus oranalysis; "Postscript: Women in WhoseHonour B.C. Schools Have BeenNamed," described as "tables" by theauthor and "preliminary results of aproject" (though I don't know how itcan be both pre- and post-), seems inappropriatein this collection because itis without context. Other essays sufferbecause they repeat the obvious. Perhapsthe authors would respond that what tosome is obvious is news to others, but(although my knowledge of women'sstudies is not profound) I came acrosslittle that surprised or informed me.What I kept hoping for and all too oftendidn't find was interpretation or analysisor any sort of theoretical approach to thematerial. A lot of groundwork has beendone (and must continue) but where dothe historians go from there? What dothey make of their findings? Now thatthere is proof that women have beenexploited, disenfranchised, abused, deniedfundamental rights, have most oftendone this or that depending on race andclass and era, what comes next? Dowomen just go on collecting more andmore data?The essay "When You Don't Knowthe Language. . . ," on the history ofNative Indian women, was one of theessays that for various reasons was worthpublishing (which is not to say otherswere not worth presenting at a conference). Mitchell and Franklin alert thereader to the importance of an analyticalapproach to historical information. "Criticalassessment" and "new directions"are announced as goals by the authors.The remark that "matriarchies were concoctedby males to provide justificationfor the way the world is and ought to be— truly patriarchial and male dominated"challenges assumptions and sugr99

BOOKS IN REVIEWgests a re-evaluation of research alreadydone. Pazdro's "From Pastels to Chisel:The Changing Role of B.C. WomenArtists" places her biographies in a widercontext: "The question that is more importantthan the individual achievementsof these women artists is why they havebeen misrepresented and ignored andwhat this treatment reveals about art history."Margaret Conrad in her introductoryessay "Sundays Always Make Me Thinkof Home . . ." (are the often incrediblylong titles another indication of the originof the material?) remarks that "Virtuallyevery historical topic is evaluateddifferently when seen through the eyes ofwomen." I wondered if I was too consciousof this when I was reading Overlandersbut, like a bolt from the blue,Richard Thomas Wright reveals his sensitivityto the implied criticism in thatview and interrupts his narrative to lecturea bit on it. He is somewhat exercisedby the attention given "Catherine Schubert'stravel" (an overlander or just thewife of an overlander?) and remarks "ifshe is given heroine status for walkingthe plains while pregnant, the samestatus should be accorded inany otherMétis and Indian women." But surelythat principle applies equally to the men.What these mostly white, male overlandershave done is nothing more than Metismen or Indian men have done — infact they have done it often enough to beguides for the white men. The two paragraphswhich follow are uncharacteristicallymuddled including puzzling andgratuitous remarks like that on the relationshipbetween men (Overlander?Elizabethan? Victorian?) being "a culturalbonding that resulted in a certainamount of homosexuality that was not'buggery'."Fortunately Wright avoids philosophizingin most of the book. He succeedsquite brilliantly in weaving together themany accounts left by overlanders intoa continuous and engaging story. Thereis bound to be a certain amount of repetition— men knee-deep in mud draggingoxen to firm ground, mosquitoes, rain,snow, hunger — they were the commonlot but personalities do emerge. For NovaScotians the narrative by Joseph A.Wheelock of Bridgetown (typo in book)will be of special interest but it is alsoamong the best. The amazing and perhapsamusing conclusion to the typicallyfive- to seven-month arduous adventurewest was that relatively few of the menactually ended up panning gold. The expensesof the overland route came toabout one hundred dollars but, ironically,the mining tools were the only articles"found to be unnecessary."EXCESSESKATHLEEN TUDORPIER GIORGIO Di cicco, Post-Sixties Nocturne.Fiddlehead, $6.95.BRUCE WHiTEMAN, The Invisible World Is inDecline. Coach House, $6.95.STEVEN SMITH, Blind Zone. Aya Press, $8.00.THERE'S NO POINT in mincing words:Pier Georgio di Cicco's latest collection(his tenth since 1977) is disappointing.Quality is not necessarily contingentupon lack of quantity — there is noguarantee that those poets who publishvery little will be the best — but there isa danger in publishing too much toosoon without giving the work a chanceto "set" so the author can evaluate it asobjectively as he can. Writers are not tobe castigated for a large output, only apoor one.When I reviewed The Tough Romancea number of years ago, I said thatdi Cicco's work had "both the strengthof sincerity and the integrity of talent."The same can not be said about Post-400

BOOKS IN REVIEWSixties Nocturne. The post-sixties postmortems(the book could well be subtitledBaby Boomer's Lament) are, forthe most part, too commonplace to beinteresting. Di Cicco is self-conscious,aware that he's a poet with a capital P.He writes out of a fashionable and now,for him, habitual pose: that of the poetas hip-talking seer and social critic.He also has an annoying tendency tojump from one idea, one image, to anotherwithout providing adequate bridgesfor the reader. For example:Who would want to brave things in thecold? How manyjackasses does it take to have lunch andreport on thelatest Salt Talks?We saw Peter Pan flying low on the land,and Popeye andDaffy Duck crying like madmen in thecomic book sky.Surprising and difficult leaps are not uncommonin contemporary poetry (ErinMouré's work comes immediately tomind), and there's not a thing wrongwith them — so long as they make sense.I suspect that in di Cicco's case the leapsare indications of a lack of craftsmanship.Di Cicco can sound good, but if onetakes the time to look at what's beingsaid, one notices a conspicuous lack ofmeaning :I pretzel my fears, I have and alwayswill like some mad rover. I hear thegong tonight, as any other night —the cold, the shallow winter air. . . .Pretzeled fears, mad rovers, gongs, coldweather — where is the connection here,the unity?And then there's the "cuteness" withwhich the book abounds:I have two hundred dollars in the bankandthink of writing about Charleston. Thebankteller tells me my account is on hold. Iexplain to her that I'm learning Martiandialectsand live on Mars.As for di Cicco's juxtaposition of slangand the sublime (the coarsely colloquialand the lyrically elevated), it makes forsome wonderful lines when it works —which it often doesn't, mainly becauseof the problems discussed above.Perhaps the biggest flaw in Post-Sixties Nocturne is the rampant excess:too much of too much. Di Cicco has anenergetic imagination, but it needs to bechannelled into more carefully revisedand edited writing.Bruce Whiteman's The Invisible WorldIs in Decline, a sequence of 39 prosepoems, is in some respects as excessive asdi Cicco's book. Whiteman relies on anoverwhelming dose of scientific jargon,reminiscent of Christopher Dewdney(who, incidentally, edited this volume),to hammer home the point that the selfin modern society is being smothered bythe world's "invasion" — informationoverload. Bio-babble, techno-babble, babbleof all kinds — language becomes analienator. All this terminology is effective,up to a point. It forces the readerto experience the confusion and frustrationthe poet is trying to convey. However,a whole book of this is tedious, contrived,and unrelentingly intellectual.It is dangerous for a writer to letlanguage dominate so completely. Forinstance :Its spherical harmonic is a rational integralhomogeneous function of the three variablesof sex,birth and death. At any given pointequidistantfrom its centre a man has the blessedimpressionof stillness in the midst of a polymorphouspromiscuous rattletrap universe.Or how about:He was responding like a remote-sensingdevice to2OI

BOOKS IN REVIEWthe black quadrilateral suggestiveness of theearth and an image from heaven relayedby thetrigonometry of direct triangulation. Themultitudinous layers of the Homeric cityrose likeincreasingly decadent elaborations of aninhumanperception. But like all memory itculminated indeath and total loss, a whiteout.After reading this type of thing, I aminclined to agree with Whiteman whenhe says "Language is over all our heads."It sure is in this book.In Blind Zone by Steven Smith languageis once again seemingly more importantthan what is being said. GertrudeStein would be proud of Smith's"'portrait' for steve mccaffery,"portrait is a/ is a picture/ is a Stephen/picture a Stephen/ a source/ a sound/ a sourcebeyond/ is a sound beyond source/ beyondpicture/ beyond a sound/ beyond imagining/ animageand John Cage would probably emphathizewith the inspiration behind the twopoems dedicated to him: "This Is aPoem About Sound," which is a blankpage, and "alterations" which I quote infull: "pr*p#r!d p=&n%." (No, theseare not typographical errors.)And a whole host of bad writers coulduse the opening of the "white cycle"sequence as justification for publishingtheir own work: "anyway / (a new whiteyawn) / wishing / you want negatives /many say hand / see a hand here / writing."So very little goes such a long way:64 pages to be exact.=00=EVA TIHANYIHUMANE VISIONSHIRLEY NEUMAN, ed., Another Country:Writings by and about Henry Kreisel. Ne-West, $19.95/9.95-THIS BOOK HOLDS OUT three differentkinds of interest to its readers. First, butnot necessarily most important, is thesampling of Henry Kreisel's uncollectedcreative writing, some juvenilia (poems,short stories, fragments from a novel)by the young internee of the 1940's, aradio play from the 1960's, and a coupleof short stories from the 1980's. Secondis an assortment of literary, cultural, andsocial criticism. The most interesting,witty, imaginative, and wise is by HenryKreisel himself: essays, letters, and talkswhich explore the problems facing animmigrant writer in the Canadian culturalscene and which range over a varietyof authors, Canadian and European,whose example and inspiration helpedKreisel to find his own voice. More familiarfare, by comparison, is the selectionof critical articles by other scholarswho offer explications and assessments ofthe whole body of Kreisel's achievementsas a writer.The third focus of interest — and thisis what makes the book worth readingand re-reading — is the bringing togetherof a rich selection of autobiographicalmaterials which dramatize for us in detailand vividly the life, especially theinner life, of a remarkable man who,over a period of forty years, has made amajor contribution going beyond literatureand criticism to his adopted Canada.The earliest writing certainly remainsjuvenilia in its naivete and technicalawkwardness. But it is nevertheless admirablefor its precociousness, the productof an adolescent Austrian Jew, fugitivefrom Nazism, eagerly struggling toexpress himself in the unpropitious conditionsof internment, and driven by apowerful urge to do so in a foreign lan-202

BOOKS IN REVIEWguage whose literature he had barely begunto discover. What the fiction showsmost clearly is Kreisel's early commitmentto the study of human character insituations of stress, where moral andspiritual challenges are encountered, andpowerful basic emotions are endured. Hisattraction to the simplicity and clarity offable is also evident, as is his reliance onsymbolism and symbolic action to manifestinner reality. Indeed, although thelater stories and novels demonstrate amuch greater control over the techniquesof realism, like their predecessors theycontinue to suggest to the reader thatverisimilitude, the carefully constructedpersuasiveness of observed details thatring true, is for Kreisel not a virtue torank with the kinds of moral truth thata shaped tale can communicate. Readingearly or late Kreisel we often find ourselveswanting to suspend our disbelieffor the sake of what we can learn aboutthe human condition.It is this sacrifice of superficial consistencyfor underlying power that temptsKreisel's critics, and even Kreisel himself,to be apologetic sometimes. Theyseem to believe that there are ways ofapproaching the novels and short storiesthat will remove a recurring sense of uneasinesswith the realistic texture. Butthe limitations even of mature works likeThe Rich Man and The Betrayal aresimpler to ignore than to argue away,just as those who find the Biblical parablesilluminating and moving are unlikelyto question whether dialogue orsettings are entirely convincing. It is notby accident that the two principal modelsKreisel found to help him enter thestream of English language writing andCanadian literary culture, Joseph Conradand A. M. Klein, also pay only lipservice to the conventions of realism.Understandably, Klein had more tooffer than Conrad, though Kreisel ponderswith insight the different motivesand methods that brought that greatPolish predecessor into the heart of Englishliterature. "Conrad's solution of howto deal with the raw materials of hisexperience could not be mine. It wasA. M. Klein who showed me how onecould use, without self-consciousness, thematerial that came from a specificallyEuropean and Jewish experience." Howquickly and fully Kreisel seems to haverecognized the necessity for him to becomeCanadian without ever abandoningthe "strength and vividness" of his deepestroots.It is Henry Kreisel's personal story,sketched in, supplemented, recapitulated,consolidated in section after section datingfrom the 1940's to the 1980's, thatAnother Country tells so eloquently. Theintense, idealistic Jewish refugee boyclings to his sense of the value of art andliterature as the expression of the greatnessof the human spirit, in the confinesof internment in England and Canada;freed, he plunges into the stream ofCanadian social and cultural life andagainst all odds swims strongly to the topof the educational system; he achievessuccess as a creative writer and as aprofessor and active citizen of the socialand academic community. All the whilehe never forgets the dark forces of evilwhich decimated Jewry and drove himand his family into exile, which nearlydestroyed civilization, which at times appearall too close to doing so still. Andall the while he studies, compassionatelybroods over, keeps flowing freely, thedeep stream of human passions, especiallythe need to give and receive love,which is the only real counterbalance tothat evil. It is a voice concentrated bythe painful experience of absolutes in thecrucible of modern times, but speaking apowerful affirmation, that reaches usclearly and simply from the life and workof Henry Kreisel.F. w. WATT203

BOOKS IN REVIEWANYBODY HOMEBYRNA BARCLAY, The Last Echo. NeWest,$19-95/7-95·NANCY BAUER, Wise-Ears. Oberon, $12.95.THESE TWO NOVELS struggle with importantthemes, but are ultimately unable,as Columbus failed to find hisshort-cut to the Orient, to find a directroute to the heart. For opposite reasons,having to do with density and craft, thetwo authors recognize their countries onthe map but don't quite take us there.It is feminine territory, fertile landstaked for storytelling, populated bywomen with the energy and temperamentto give and sustain life.The Last Echo is the sound of hoovesbeating on the wooden floors of a burninghouse as the horses of Revelation aretranslated into lemmings rising from theashes of the old world to scamper off tothe new. It is also heartbeat, the impetusto undertake and survive the quest fornew beginnings in the New Jerusalem.Byrna Barclay's novel, legato movementin The Livelong Quartet, the story ofSwedish settlement in a Saskatchewantown, is the synthesis of Genesis andRevelation, symbolic language recordingthe transplanting of hope in the PromisedLand. Certainly this is not an originalresponse to the prairie which, morethan any other region in Canada, seemsto have inspired in writers an archetypalresponse, the language and metaphor oftraditional mythologies.At the centre of this novel, a songspielin the oral tradition of Homer and Chaucer,rich in humour and visual detail, isthe earth-mother refracted in the coloursof four Swedish daughters, mares withthe strength and grace of Biblical horses.Their song is re-creation and it bubblesfrom instinct.Inside the music box; a ring set withthree runic stones. I hold it up to the sunbut it does not catch light. Stone is onlystone in Livelong. I slide it on my weddingfinger, twist and turn it, making a wish:"Canada. Now I am for that place."Barclay's prose is rich in sensual detail.It has the line and colour of paintingsby Breughel. What is missing is thedeeper resonance that comes from acloser identification with the intelligenceand feeling of her characters. Somehowwe are distracted by the wealth of gorgeousdetail, the wood carving and embroiderythat catches the eye and disengagesthe heart and intellect. They arecolourful shapes in a fairytale gestalt,passionate and real as far as we areallowed to penetrate the surface of intuition.We just want to know them better.There is such a richness in thisprose, we are left with a longing to knowone heart carved in a proliferation ofsinging clocks.Wise-Ears, a novel by Nancy Bauer,is very nicely gift-wrapped in fine paperwith an appropriate cover painting byMaxwell Bates. Inside, there is somethingbreakable, the glass heart of a middleagedwoman seeking her own truth inthe kind of therapeutic activity our cultureseems to oblige us to undertake.Sophie espouses good causes and continuesto fret over children who havealready dropped their first feathers andgratefully flown the coop.Much of this novel is excelsior shavedto protect its fragile centre. Unfortunately,like the stuffed lives of womenlike Sophie, much of it is banal, the spinningof threads that lead nowhere nearthe truth. Sophie's letter-writing andforays into the kitchen are self-consciousattempts at creativity. We feel sorry forher but find ourselves dozing off into thatgood night as she avoids her real rageand pain with the usual anodynes.Occasionally we jerk awake longenough to wish her off her broadeningderrière as her sexless soap opera lists204

BOOKS IN REVIEWoff into dreamland. The only perk is ason who just might liven things up bycoming out of the closet and enraginghis male parent. Unfortunately, just intime, he switches the channel to redeemingheterosexuality, saving Sophie andletting us lapse back into lethargy. Goodold Edmund.The novel reads like one of Sophie'sprojects, activity contrived to take theedge off boredom. We never get to herheart of darkness, so busy are we tickingoff the daily lists.On 8 and g June, Sophie sat at the kitchentable all morning worrying. What kind ofproject could she do that would makesense at the end of July? On 20 June shesat again now desperate. Redecorating wasout. Some self-improvement project? Loseweight? Swim every day? Memorize poetry?Learn the names of wildflowers? Crochetan Afghan, maybe a crib-sized one. Somehownone of her ideas seemed importantenough to justify the build-up she hadgiven her project.Amen.ART WESTLINDA ROGERSMARILYN BAKER, The Winnipeg School of Art.Univ. of Manitoba Press, $16.50.BRUCE HAiG, Paul Kane Artist. Detselig Enterprises,$10.95.THESE BOOKS ARE historical accounts ofhow painting can develop and grow in apioneer setting, where populations aresmall and resources seemingly nonexistent.The first, by Marilyn Baker, is asort of expanded catalogue, which documentsthe founding and development ofthe Winnipeg School of Art from 1913,when it was founded, to 1934, three yearsafter Lemoine Fitzgerald became its principal.The occasion for publication wasan exhibition, "The Early Years" (heldin 1977), which not only gathered up thework done by Winnipeg artists duringthe first twenty years of the WinnipegSchool, but also set out "to investigatethe relationship between art educationand the art produced at that time." Italso includes biographies of all the studentsand teachers who studied andtaught at the school during those formativeyears. Not less interesting are thenotes about the citizens who were associatedwith the school — men and womenwho must have believed in the possibilityof art, even in a remote provincial citywhose chief concerns were money, wheat,and settlement. I happen to have beenone of the children who attended Saturdaymorning classes in 1927-28, and Istill remember a beautiful Christmascard from Lemoine Fitzgerald, who, ifhe did not actually teach my class, musthave at least visited it.Predictably, the first directors of theschool were British or American, andLemoine Fitzgerald, appointed principalin 1929, was the first local and only secondCanadian artist to head the school.The other Canadian was Franz Johnston,a member of the Group of Seven, whohad been principal from 1921 to 1924.Fitzgerald was no jumper-onto-bandwagons;although he had managed tostudy in New York for a year and totravel all over Canada and the UnitedStates, he came back to paint the snowfilledbackyards and sun-glittered roofs ofWinnipeg, and to exhibit the work ofArthur Lismer, Lawren Harris, andJ. E. H. Macdonald. At a time whenCanada was still very much of a colonialoutpost and a country with no flag of itsown, he believed that these painterswould stimulate the students, and theirwork would help them to realize the possibilitiesof their own Canadian subjects.In 1932 Fitzgerald joined the Group ofSeven and remained the principal ofthe Winnipeg School of Art until 1949.Among the students who attended theWinnipeg School are such well-known205

BOOKS IN REVIEWartists as Philip Surrey, Charles Comfort,William Winter, and Irene Hemsworth.There are many others, illustrators andteachers, who — judging by the paintingsreproduced here — deserve to be betterknown than they are: Cyril Barraud,Beth Ballantyne, Lars Haukaness, andGeorge Overton.This is a rich book, full of interestingand important facts and beautiful illustrations,but it suffers from the attemptto do too much — to be both an allencompassinghistory and a contemporarytribute, as well as a catalogue andan interpretation. The double columnlayout and the fitful organization makeit hard to read and follow, and the frequentlapses into newspeak with the useof such words as "art-wise" and "upcoming"are unforgivable. Yet in spiteof these faults, The Winnipeg School ofArt provides a wonderful source-book forfuture researchers, and impresses all of uswith the stubborn and persistent beliefin art and art education that promptedthe citizens of Winnipeg to set up, tostruggle for, and to support a school inthe wilds and isolation of their prairiecity. That is what civilization is all about.And civilization takes courage toachieve. Paul Kane, as he emerges fromthe pages of Bruce Haig's Paul KaneArtist, must have had plenty of courageof the physical sort to follow the routethat Haig traces. Published under theauspices of the Alberta Historical ResourcesFoundation, this study is one of aseries, "Following Historic Trails." Haig,an explorer and former teacher, is thefounder of a program which gives studentsthe opportunity to follow historictrails as part of their curriculum. Indeed,this book is mostly a well-researched,carefully annotated map of Paul Kane'sroutes. With the help of Haig's maps, theart explorer can figure out just when andwhere Kane found his encampments,canoes, buffalo and Indian subjects between1846 and 1848 when he made hiswestern journeys.Unfortunately, from my point of view,the author's technical interests and travelroutes largely overshadow the human aspectsand psychological motivations ofKane's journeys. One is left with a compass,a how-to-follow Kane, and a lot offragmentary bits of information whichsomehow never come together to showus either a man or a painter. One is alsoleft with a sense of wonder that Kaneaccomplished these difficult forays intowhat are still today impenetrable, mountainous,and mosquito-ridden wilds; andalso amazement at how the author followedhim there. Haig is certainly a courageousexplorer, but it takes a differentkind of courage and a more enduringimaginative effort to make a writer.MIRIAM WADDINGTONTRIAL BY EXPERIENCEANNE MARRIOTT, Letters from Some Islands.Mosaic Press, $8.95.LEONA GOM, Private Properties. Sono Nis,$6.95.ANNE MARRIOTT'S BOOK is divided intofive sections. Two are single works; theother three are cohesive groups of poems.Marriott is particularly concerned withtravel and landscape. But travel inevitablyreminds her of the British Columbiashe has left behind, and of her childhoodthere, as in "The Danish Sketches" of thefirst section, where vivid scenes of Denmarkoften lead to meditations on Canadaand the past. Marriott seems to havetaken the theory of the objective correlativeto heart (she began writing in the1930's when it was so influential). Placefor her becomes a set of metaphors foremotions or relationships, and this preventsthe travel poems from becomingmere postcards or anecdotes. One divi-206

BOOKS IN REVIEWsion of the book is actually called "Notesand Postcards," but — to take the firstpoem and the last — in "Ironwood: Eastof Indio" a desert tree becomes an imageof the self after a trial by experience, andin "The Black Rocks of Oregon" harshimagery of sea and rock is emblematic ofgrief and loss.Trial by experience: Marriott countslosses in this book. The loss of youth, theloss of love. A vanished marriage hauntsthe poems. Marriott's experience as ahuman being and artist has not made herglib. The poems are direct in style andfeeling; vulnerable. Not confessional inany sensational way. The reader is movedaesthetically — by diction, line sense, andabove all imagery — and emotionally.The poems in the "Travels in NorthAmerica" section are especially intense."Summer Rivers" and "Interstate Five,"elegies for lost love, are noteworthy : theywork through their correlatives in a perfectlynatural (perfectly artful) way.There are failures in the book."Golden Gate Libretto" provides somesnapshots of San Francisco that do notseem important enough. And the titlesequence, a kind of poetic diary keptwhile waiting for a love letter, does notwork as a coherent sequence. There aretoo many gaps, too much brooding andanxiety rendered in flat lines. Recurringmotifs (dreams, sea images, architecturalmetaphors) try to bind the poems together,but there is not enough context.Waiting for a letter is a kind of plot, butnot a very tight one. Fortunately, thebook can survive a weak section : on balance,its strengths are conspicuous.Leona Gom has written so well abouther background in rural Alberta that wemight overlook her range as a poet. Sheis also a brilliant satirist and a sophisticatedstudent of urban life and its discontents— and of suburban life, too.Private Properties begins with a sectioncalled ".. . keeping in shape." Aerobicdancing, trendiest of trends, is an excellentvehicle for Gom's satire. The practiceembodies some common obsessionsamong the upscale: appearance, fancyclothing, the quest for self-improvement.The aerobic poems modulate into commentson home-owning, marriage, andinvestments. Gom has just the tools fordealing with these topics: understatement,overstatement, and the revealingmetaphor (arthritis as a symbol for anaging house) used in the right proportions.The middle section, "... a better revolutionary,"deals with women's issues:rape, toxic shock, pornography, batteredwives. The humour of the first sectionfades, of course, but the satirical gift doesnot. My problem with some of the poemsis that they seem willed rather than imagined.I am thinking particularly of"Aprons," "Matricide" (about witchesand misogyny) and "Grade Three"(where a child learns that men create artwhile women create crafts). I am moreconvinced by poems like "Silver WeddingAnniversary" and "The Neighboour"(about a voyeur), poems in which Gomhas created convincing characters as wellas typical situations. The last poem in thegroup, a witty reply to the question of"What Women Want," is not about charactersor even a situation, but it showsGom's sharp wit:not much/everything.a bra not as sadistic as it looks,peace on earth, not getting our periodsin rush-hour traffic, a few good friends,remembering our postal codes,the elimination of rape, growing oldwithout poverty, wearing sleeveless blousesand unshaved armpits and not caring,children by choice, never having to fakeorgasm or interest in hockey, workwe enjoy, size twelve thighs,crossing off everything on the list,that's about it/that's a beginning.The mixture of seriousness and humouris just right.207

BOOKS IN REVIEWIn the final section, ". . . warm vinegar,"the poet indulges herself a bit.The humour grows raucous in the threepoems about mice that turn up in oddplaces, and "Dogfood" makes comedyout of the possibility of eating man's(humanity's) best friend. There arepoems that seem quite personal in spiteof the overworked second person narration.This section is not so unified as theothers, but its contents fit the concernsand tones of the rest of the book. Thelast poem, "Growth," suggests that thebook as a whole is an affirmation of lifein a society whose obsessions range fromthe trivial (aerobics) to the deadly serious(the abuse of women). Leona Gomtakes the measure of these obsessions veryintelligently, giving due weight to each.CASTLESOF CHILDHOODBERT ALM ONLOUISE MAHEUx-FORCiER, A Forest for Zoe.Trans. David Lobdell. Oberon, $12.95.Deep in the heel of the Italian boot,somewhere between the port of Bari andthe city of the tarantella, at that pointwhere there is just enough room to turnaround between the shores of one sea andthose of another, a tiny village languishesbeneath the hot blue sky, out of sight ofboth bodies of water. . . . The name of thevillage is Alberobello.THIS IS THE WAY her story "should havebegun," thinks a young woman writerstruggling with a personal narrativetaken over by the obsessive presence ofher childhood friend Zoe. Because of Zoe,the conventional introduction with itsromantic cliché of the young couplehoneymooning in Italy is abandoned.The fictional narrator's unsuccessful attemptto write the traditional romanceallows Louise Maheux-Forcier to examinethe process of writing a novel — atheme that has become a commonplaceamong new works of fiction.The nature of narrative is not, however,the essential subject of this slightnovel, published in 1969 in French asUne Forêt pour Zoé and winner of theGovernor General's Award for fiction in1970. Like a work of Marie-Glaire Biaisor Alice Munro, it is an exploration ofnascent sexuality. In a series of impressionistictableaux, it looks back on theprotagonist's erotic encounters with otherwomen — her eccentric piano teacherMia, her convent friend Marie, herphotographer friend Isis, and especiallyher childhood love Zoe, who hovers overall Thérèse's relationships. In her disembodiedpresence, Zoe represents theauthentic life that Thérèse cannot live.At the end of the novel, a red-headeddoll resembling Zoe, symbolic relic ofThérèse's childhood, is found by her husbandin Thérèse's bed.Maheux-Forcier's first novel Amadouwas published in 1963, followed in 1964by L'Ile joyeuse, and in 1969 by UneForêt pour Zoé. The author describedthe latter as the centre panel of a triptychhaving a single theme or obsession,and this central novel takes the explorationof sexual attraction back into earlychildhood. In Amadou, Maheux-Forcierinsisted on the novelty of her subject,quoting Tagore: "Le chant que je devaischanter / N'a pas été chanté jusqu'àce jour"; the love of Nathalie andAnne is not represented as abnormal.For Anne, the narrator's fifteen-year-oldlover, evil lies only in acting against herown nature, while good is doing what herwhole being desires. The presence ofmale lovers in the novels, especially ofStéphane in L'Ile joyeuse, indicates thatthese are not exclusively lesbian relationships,and a walnut tree in A Forest forZoe symbolizes Thérèse's enigmatic voluptuousnature: "I am like the walnut208

BOOKS IN REVIEWtree whose twin blossoms borrow theirgender from both sexes."Thérèse, like Anne, extols pleasure, butsees that "once it has been sanctionedand sanctified, once it has received society'sblessing," it becomes a fraud. She isacutely aware of hypocrisy, as are theother protagonists of Maheux-Forcier'snovels and the author herself. Life, saysMaheux-Forcier, "est un tissu d'apparencesderrière quoi la réalité se cache,"the writer's particular virtue being thathe tries to tear off that mask. When publishedin 1969, Une Forêt pour Zoé wasa more daring protest against sexualhypocrisy than it seems now when Thérèse(in the 1986 translation) protests:I can't stand the thought of people marrying.I can't stand the thought that thepleasures of the bridal chamber should beextolled by the very ones who denouncethem outside that sanctified setting, thoughthey may date from the period in earlychildhood when it would have been unthinkablethat they should be sanctified atall.Maheux-Forcier's revelations of the realitybehind the mask make her a socialsatirist in the classical sense.It is hard to classify these slight novels,or to see them as resolving the problemsencountered by modern writers in handlingfictional narrative. On the otherhand, Maheux-Forcier's style is at oncelucid and lyrical. It is beautifully renderedinto English by David Lobdell,leaving the reader with the hauntingsense of the loveliness of irrecoverablechildhood evoked in one of the thematicpoems that separate the chapters:In the light of the setting sunthe queen sat weepingbefore the ruins of the castle.Someone said to her:You have a hundred castlesMore lovely than this one.The queen spurred her mountand fled the scene with a wail:More lovely than the castle of childhood?MARGARET BELCHERIN PRINCIPIODOUGLAS LOCHHEAD, Tiger in the Skull: Newand Selected Poems, 1959-1985. Fiddlehead/Gooselane,$12.95.RAYMOND sousTER, It Takes All Kinds.Oberon, n.p.PATRICIA DEMERS, ed., The Creating Word:Papers from an International Conference onthe Learning and Teaching of English inthe 1980s. Univ. of Alberta, $24.95."IN THE BEGINNING was the Word," saysthe Evangelist. Ever since they inventedliterature, poets and story-tellers havebeen pleased to see themselves as imitatorsof God the Creator, at whoseWord chaos became a universe. The conceitis easy, but these three books showthat acting on it may be a differentmatter.Raymond Souster, in It Takes AllKinds, makes, or remakes, a world bydumping a load of empty words into it.In a ramble called "Parts of a Year:Entries From an '84 Engagement Calendar,"Souster complains, apparently ofhis own lot in life :Some days you scribble down three poems,then you may have to waita whole miserable weekbefore the next one's given you.And he announces that, as an infant:the first short cries I gavemy purest, truest poem.Perhaps the thrice-daily scribblings andbabyhood wails are poems to Souster andhis nearest and dearest, but to strangersthey are mental meanderings, unburnishedby craftsmanship, emotional intensity,or evidence of thought. The Torontostreet poems, the baseball poems,and some of the soldier poems have alittle life, partly because of Souster's abilityto quote speech and partly becausethey relate to concrete things and specificevents. But most of the effusions in ItTakes All Kinds are flaccid. Clichés blur209

BOOKS IN REVIEWdescription and deflate passion, exclamationmarks replace emotion, and Souster'scareless use of specific terms wouldweaken even newspaper prose. His lackof thought shows up embarrassingly in"Full Moon," in which his subject is anAlex Colville serigraph the actual titleof which is "New Moon" (Souster alsodescribes the "Full Moon" as "scythelike")and in "The Regina Manifesto:A Found Poem," where Souster takescredit for the poetic qualities of a documentthat is a stylistic descendant ofevangelical preaching and the KingJames Bible.Souster would "give my eye-teeth rightnow / just to have written any stanza /of Tantramar Revisited." His envy of SirCharles G. D. Roberts contrasts withDouglas Lochhead's sense of involvementin literary continuity. In a poemfrom High Marsh Road (1980) republishedin Tiger in the Skull, Lochheadshows his connection with tradition:the total glimpse of it [truth] as Robertstook to Tantramar.using his telescopehis eye revisited.now I search thesame dikes for details of shore-birds,the weirs hold straggler ducks.it isgood to have such footstepsCharles G.D.Roberts, pince-nez and tails, flieslike an angel by Stanley Spencer overthis placeThe poems in Tiger in the Skull arecarefully crafted, the centrifugal force ofthought and emotion almost, but neverquite, escaping the centripetal control ofform and technique. Like Roberts, Lochheadhas the rare ability to write simplyabout ordinary things and yet provokethe reader to new insights and emotions.Perhaps the most amazing feat of thissort is "The soft doves appear," in whichimage-making and description gentlyforce reconsideration of, yes, pigeons.Lochhead's poems about romantic or sexuallove are, thanks to his technical control,tense with emotion.The Creating Word consists of elevenintellectually uneven and tenuously relatedconference papers. "The Teachingof Poetry," by Robin Skelton, and "CreativeWriting: Can It Be Taught?" byRudy Wiebe, seem unpremeditated andsolipsistic. John Dixon and Martha Kingwrite about teaching "language arts" toyoungsters to enhance psychological development.Kenneth Smillie puts intoperspective the craze for computerassistedlearning and "computer literacy"in elementary and high schools. RowlandMcMaster and Norman Page both writebrilliantly, McMaster about Great Expectationsand Page about The Mill onthe Floss, but their essays are almost unrelatedto the stated topic, as is SusanJackel's "Canadian Literature in theSecondary Curriculum," a well-documentedand insightful history and descriptionof, and prescription for, theteaching of Canadian literature in Albertaschools.The first three essays in The CreatingWord are thoroughly researched andcarefully considered responses to thetopic by scholars of international standing.In "Construing and Deconstructing,"M. H. Abrams relates the philosophyof Jacques Derrida to the radicalskepticism of David Hume and rehearsesJ. Hillis Miller's reading of Wordsworth's"A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal"to describe and demonstrate deconstructionism.Then, in outlining his reservationsabout practising and teaching deconstructivecriticism, Abrams explainseven more clearly the nature and uses ofthis discipline. Louise M. Rosenblatt callsdeconstructionists "basically anti-humanist"in "The Literary Transaction." Bydisregarding the emotional impact andhuman interest of literature, she argues,they disregard the reader. In Rosenblatt'sview, a work of literature is "evoked" by210

BOOKS IN REVIEWthe reader in "transaction" with the text,rather than inherent in the text itself,although she tries to dissociate herselffrom the subjectivism of reader-responsetheory. Rosenblatt articulates her positionskilfully, but she is not a carefulwriter. She uses "inner ear" to mean "themind's ear," and her metaphors confuseher to the extent that she wants readers"to handle . .. reverberations" and torange around a fulcrum while bringingcircles of contexts to bear on an aestheticevent."Rhetoric and Rightness: Some Fallaciesin a Science of Language," byJacques Barzun, begins the book. Barzunargues that there are objective standardsfor English that must be both observedand taught if English is to continue itscourse as "the most flexible as well as therichest language on earth." He recommendsstandard Latin-based grammar,conscious vocabulary development, andthe teaching of students by instructorswho are themselves competent writers."Rhetoric and Rightness" could replace"Politics and the English Language" onuniversity reading lists; Barzun's recommendationsare much like Orwell's, buthe is a learned man, his arguments arelogical, and his essay is itself a model ofeffective organization and clear writing.As for literary theory, Barzun says, "Paradoxis piled on pedantry when thosewho undertake to expound literature declineto make themselves understood.""Rhetoric and Rightness" gets to theheart of "the Creating Word," and it isby itself worth the price of the book.CDLAUREL B0ONELA VUECOMPARATISTEMAX DORSiNViLLE, Le Pays natal.Editions Africaines, $12.00.NouvellesGET OUVRAGE, COMME l'annonce l'auteur,est un ensemble d'essais ou d'articles ( 13au total dont 5 parus dans CanadianLiterature et constituant autant de chapitresdivisés en trois parties de fort inégalelongueur) regroupés sous le signethématique du Pays natal. Conseil: pourne pas être déçu, prendre dans son sensle plus fort la remarque de l'auteur enla Préface: "Ces essais . . . sont des instancesdialectiques forcément soumisesaux temps forts ou faibles de leur parutioninitiale." Entendre par là que l'unitéet l'équilibre de l'ensemble paraîtrontpeut-être peu évidents à certains.La première et la deuxième parties,respectivement consacrées aux Antilles età l'Afrique, le chapitre II ("Québecnoir") de la troisième partie et enfin laPostface ("Le mythe du nègre dans leslittératures américaines") semblent lesplus directement pertinents au sujetévoqué par le titre et tel qu'on s'attend àle voir abordé dans un ouvrage publiéaux ΝΕΑ; le reste de la troisième partie,de loin la plus étoffée est consacré uniquementau Québec et accuse davantageson âge.On comprendra que nous dispensionssous peine de faire de Γ "auto-allumagecritique" d'évaluer les chapitres V et VIqui sont eux-mêmes des comptes-rendusparus au demeurant dans Canadian Literature(Summer 1974; Spring 1980).Sur les Antilles, c'est Césaire qui sertde référence centrale, avec les notions deRetour et de Pays natal et le phénomènede la "réception" cher aux comparatistes.S'étant d'abord démarqué avec force deR. Wellek dont il rejette avec raison les aprioris culturels occidentalistes réduc-211

BOOKS IN REVIEWteurs, l'auteur estime nécessaire de privilégier,pour l'étude des littératures duTiers Monde, une approche critique tenantcompte des facteurs historiques etsocio-économiques (en particulier la Décolonisation,la Guerre Froide, le sousdéveloppement)qui président à leurémergence.De la dépendance économique conjuguéeà la servitude linguistique, naît chezl'écrivain colonisé la prise de consciencede l'exil qui le tient éloigné de son peuple:il se mute bientôt en "bouche" desmalheurs de sa race (par exemple Césairedans le Cahier). Indigénisme, Afrocubanisme,Négritude sont autant d'étapessur le chemin de cette prise deconscience qui débouche sur l'écrituretiers mondiste au centre de laquelle jouela thématique du retour que l'auteur voitcomme un parallèle du mythe de la chutedans la pensée occidentale. Ici, recourscomparatiste quasi inévitable sur le planoù se situe Dorsinville à Defoe et Conraddont les héros se rachètent, se "blanchissent"par la traversée et la mise envaleur du désert noir. L'enfant prodiguenoir — et l'auteur le démarque fort heureusementen fin d'essai de l'enfant dumythe biblique — l'enfant prodigue noir,rentré au pays doit, pour être authentique,assumer à la fois son acculturation(par la colonisation) et le malheur deson peuple opprimé à l'intérieur d'uneesthétique "justifiable de la matière deson art et du vécu qu'il traduit," en d'autrestermes, une esthétique de l'authenticitéet de l'existence. Mission malaiséeque l'auteur illustre de façon convaincantepar des exemples tirés de diverscorpus (Caraïbes, Afrique noire, Amériquelatine, et surtout Césaire dont leCahier est abondamment utilisé).On aimera le détour par le mythique(le mythique fondateur de R. Wellek)au coeur d'un essai qui pose l'histoirecontemporaine comme fondement de laseule distinction qui soit opératoire lorsqu'ils'agit de littératures du TiersMonde: celle qui existe en littératuresdominées et dominantes. Dans "Pays,parole, négritude" un parallèle aujourd'huifort documenté est établi entrela poésie de la Négritude et celle duQuébec, nées toutes deux aux mêmessources de l'exil et de l'aliénation, toutesdeux braquées sur la notion de pays àretrouver et à libérer, toutes deux déçueset repliées maintenant (cas de Chamberland,Préfontaine, Césaire à l'appui) surdes "redites" et sur "l'hermétisme et l'intériorisationfinale de l'engagement." Untel jugement paraît excessif, quelquequinze ans plus tard, aussi bien pourCésaire que pour la poésie québécoise, sidiverse et si dynamique. Et si "redites"il y a, il semble bien que ce soit Senghorqui s'y livre, et précisément parce que saNégritude reste étonnamment indéçuepar l'échec politique et socio-économiquedes indépendances.La question de la réception de Césaireau Québec, abordée dans deux essais,repose sur les mêmes prémisses: la situationhistorique existentielle de colonisécommune au Québécois et à l'hommenoir. Mais la réception critique (universitaireen gros) reste loin derrière la réceptiondes écrivains: Vallières, Miron,Préfontaine, Chamberland, J. G. Pilonont lu Césaire qui est un phare pour lagénération du malaise québécois. L'accueilréservé à Césaire s'explique clairement,selon l'auteur, dans une approchecomparatiste. On retiendra surtout latrès pertinente observation — qui demanderaità être développée — sur larécupération, par tout langage critiquespécifique à une culture, de l'objet deréflexion qui a son origine dans une autreculture. C'est là, à notre avis, tout leproblème de la pertinence de l'outil critiqueblanc tel que le pose une grandepartie de l'intelligentsia négro-africained'aujourd'hui (cf. Mudimbé, etc.).212

BOOKS IN REVIEWA l'Afrique (Tiers Monde) revient laportion congrue (18 pages seulement)de l'ouvrage. Sur la toile de fond de l'exilvécu, soit comme privation et éloignementdu pays, soit comme propédeutiquedu retour, sont affirmées la continuitéafricaine et la pratique salvatrice du"marronnage." Ce cantique nous paraîtun peu chargé de parti-pris euphoriqueet ne rend pas à Depestre ce qui lui estdû, à savoir l'idée de "marronnage idéologique."L'Afrique est vue ensuite sucessivementcomme asile fécond pour lesécrivains haïtiens qui y trouvent refugevers la fin des années 60 ( essai no. 2 ),puis comme terre de l'ambiguïté culturelle,religieuse, politique (essai no. 3) àtravers quelques grands romanciers noirsd'expression française et anglaise. Sur leQuébec (troisième partie) des réflexionsaujourd'hui fort connues sur nationalismeet littérature, parallèles Québec-Tiers Monde, recentrement du théâtrequébécois contemporain et problématiquedu livre québécois.Dans la Postface l'auteur retourne auprojet initial pour conclure sur l'évidenceque l'image juste et réelle de l'hommenoir s'écrit en Afrique dans le romanafricain et non dans les Amériques jugéesincapables de concevoir le vécu noiren dehors du mythe raciste.Pour conclure à notre tour: un livredont la lecture est utile et dont les effetssont le mieux perceptibles lorsque l'auteurexplicite un point de vue comparatistesur l'écriture négro-africaine ou antillaise.Par contre on trouvera sans peineque le fil thématique qui relie ces diversessais est par endroits bien ténu, ce quienlève à l'unité et à la force de persuasionde l'ensemble. Par ailleurs, on regretteravivement l'absence d'une bibliographieou même d'un index des nomscités.C. BOUYGUESSTUFFEDWITH LEGENDSANTONINE MAILLET, The Devil is Loose!Philip Stratford, trans. Lester & OrpenDennys, $21.95.THE DUST JACKET describes The Devilis Loose! as "a rollicking tale of smugglingand romance." Set in the era ofprohibition in the early 1930's, the storycentres on the bootlegging activities ofthe "smuggleress" heroine, Crache-à-Pic,mistress of the Sea Cow, and her archrivalDieudonné whom she invariablyoutwits. Acadian New Brunswick isevoked in a roll-call of place-names:Grand-Digue, Pré-d'en-Haut, Champdoré,Bois-Joli, Cocagne, Village-des-Trois-Maisons, Anse-aux-Outardes,Sainte-Marie-des-Cotes; with on thehorizon the "faraway islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon," source of the finewines and cognacs destined for the tablesof the President of the United States orChicago gangsters. Crache-à-Pic is describedin Harlequin romance terms —"a long-legged girl with a turned upnose, a mane of windswept blonde hair,and a pair of blue eyes that would takeyour breath away," who, however, "spatand swore like a man."Maillet self-consciously uses folkloristicmaterial, style, and structure, "the oldstorytellers' sacks stuffed with legendsof the sea." The narrator, Clovis-à-Clovis, "Clovis-son-of-Clovis-the-blacksmith,"learned "the trade of story-tellingfrom the forge, instead of blacksmithing,"the forge being the centre of villagegossip and legend. "Old Clovis knowswords. . . . Knows them as well as thefleas in his shirt." There is much emphasison oral tradition:It was Old Clovis told the story to myfather. He remembered it all happening.But they say that when he cocked an eyeat the ways of the world his left pupil was213

BOOKS IN REVIEWmore elastic than his right. Not only that„but his tongue was so rough and his gulletso rasping that words lost a vowel or two, orgot their consonants jumbled as they camethrough. In passing it on to me, my fatherhad no choice but to plane the sentencesdown and scour the phrases clean of mossand verdigris. And now I in turn pass onthis true story to you, stripped of all verbalornament or twist of wit.Maillet's diction is not "stripped of allverbal ornament"; on the contrary, sheoften strains for literary effect: "the redball leaps to the eastern horizon andstrikes the sea like a gong." The bookseems overwritten. Repeated motifs, suchas the veering of the weathercock signallinga change of fortune, or the reiteratedphrase "The devil is loose!" after awhilebecome tiresome and heavy-handed. The"ballet" of the cows in the nuns' pasture,drunk on bootlegged wine and cognacfrom St. Pierre, should be funnier thanit is. Maillet falls between two stools —the straining after literary effect, cleverness,showing off as a writer; and thestraining after authentic folklore and oraltradition. The book is pulled between thetwo styles and becomes artificial andforced.Maillet is perhaps more effective atthe pathetic than the "rollicking." Twoimages stand out: the homeless wanderer,Ti-Louis the Whistler, seekingrefuge in a barn on Christmas Eve,being warmed and watched over by theanimals; and the pièta of Crache-à-Picprotectively cradling her epileptic brotherin her arms.ROBERTA BUCHANANCOMIC SOLUTIONSHOWARD ENGEL, A City Called July. Viking,$18.95.WITTY CONVERSATIONS, fast-paced action,and entertaining characters — theseare the elements of Howard Engel's mysterynovels. Add to that a sense of placeand an affection for Toronto's Jewishcommunity, and one has mystery fictionthat can interest the literary critic as wellas the general reader. Four previousBenny Cooperman novels — The SuicideMurders, The Ransom Game, MurderSees the Light, and Murder on Location— have made Engel's intuitive privateinvestigator a Canadian institution, asort of Canadian version of Columbo,the energetic, rather disorganized, andyet obviously good-hearted detective popularizedby the American actor PeterFalk.A City Called July deals with yet anothercrime solved by the bumblingCooperman, whose intelligence and goodhumour extricate him from some difficultand embarrassing situations. Refusing totake himself too seriously, Coopermanassures the reader that "I'm a professionalprivate investigator as well as amember of the Jewish community. It'slike talking to the doctor. Practically thesame thing." Nevertheless, his skills asan investigator leave much to be desired,though he is a master, when necessary, ofevasive action: "I splashed my way outof there fast, nearly skinning the Olds ona silver Audi driving through the gate."Cooperman's eye for detail and ability tosee the humorous side of situations keepus interested as the witty, accident-pronedetective lurches from one crisis to another.This investigator likes readingmysteries because of "the way things happenedbang-bang-bang one after theother. Nobody ever sits around listeningto the shadows growing longer." Andwhat Cooperman likes in his own readingis certainly found in Engel's imaginativerendering of the detective's latest mockheroicadventure.The story concerns the mysterious disappearanceof Larry Geller, a local lawyerwho has departed with several milliondollars in investments, savings, and214

BOOKS IN REVIEWmortgages entrusted to him by ingenuousclients. During the search for Geller,whose body is eventually discovered in arecently poured concrete footing, Coopermaninterviews Geller's brothers,Nathan and Sid, as well as other membersof the Geller family, and surveys anextensive network of friends linked toLarry Geller's business interests. Suddenlythe investigation uncovers twoother murder victims: Nathan Gellerand Wally Moore, a friend and businessassociate. And Cooperman wonders:"What possible motive can connect alow-lifer like Wally Moore and a fancysculptor like Geller?" Ultimately, as onewould expect in this tightly plottednovel, the murderer turns out to be afamily member, Debbie Geller, who hasbeen divorced from Sid and has thenturned to Larry. (Sid, fortunately, is stillalive at the novel's dénouement.) Apparently,after leaving Sid, Debbie hasdiscovered a "main chance, an entry intothe big time" — specifically, Larry's planto abscond with his clients' money. WhenLarry converts his stolen goods into diamonds,she murders him, leaves his bodyin wet concrete ("that short stopover atthe construction shack") and when othersbecome curious after Cooperman beginshis investigation, murders them aswell. At the end of A City Called July,Cooperman remarks that Debbie was"bored by the ordinary lives most peoplearound her were living. She always hada short attention span."That is about as far as the psychologicalanalysis goes, but then in a detectivenovel anything more complex wouldprobably be inappropriate. Indeed, muchof the book seems to exist on the surface :witty, accurate, and exceedingly entertainingdialogue; details of the Jewishcommunity that are very visual :The place hadn't changed much sincemy bar mitzvah. The long pews were stainedthe same walnut brown as the wood trimon the cream-painted walls. The skylightstill showed symbolic beasts painted in areedy style in faded yellow and green onthe four sides of the rectangle. The ark atthe front was closed and covered with awine-coloured velvet curtain.In the context of this world, Cooperman'sreveries are ingenious and compelling.His mind, as he describes it, is"a whole graveyard of tombstones," andmany of these relate to his Jewish background.His other world is North Americanpopular culture: heartburn, television,glamour magazines, and junk food.His comments about this environmentare also very funny and certainly add anabsurd dimension to a rather peculiardetective story.A City Called July includes severalclever variations on the traditional detectivenovel. Cooperman discovers one clueby using the re-dial feature on Larry Geller'stelephone. Larry himself finally decidesto convert to diamonds, but Debbiecarries the process one step further: sheconceals the diamonds by freezing themin an ice-cube tray. As Cooperman attemptsto unravel this "fine web of intrigue,"he meets a vast array of characters— most, it seems, named Geller —who give detailed explanations of theirdealings with the departed Larry. Sincethere is little character development, it issometimes difficult to separate their personalities;and, since Cooperman is, bydefinition, not given to psychologicalanalysis, it is sometimes difficult to knowexactly what these people are like. Althoughthe novel largely avoids stocksituations, there are several : a lawyer abscondingwith his clients' money; a bribe(offered to Cooperman but returned) ;and the usual collection of characterswho could be in any American policedrama.Yet the clarity of the writing and controlof plot more than compensate for afew minor shortcomings. In addition to215

BOOKS IN REVIEWthe attractive character of Cooperman,what emerges is a warm profile of aToronto Jewish community, a portraitone might expect more in MordecaiRichler's work than in a detective novel.Indeed, in some of its self-criticism ACity Called July might even be considereda partial, if rather gentle, satire onthat community. It is certainly no accidentthat The Suicide Murders andMurder Sees the Light have successfullybeen made into films, for Engel is askilled screenwriter, and the devices offilm — accurate dialogue, visual montages,rapidly shifting scenes — are asobvious in A City Called July as they arein Richler's novels. In a recent reviewof the film of Murder Sees the Light,John Guff wrote that "it is virtually impossiblenot to like [Engel's] character, around-shouldered, pot-bellied little guywho klutzes from clue to clue and solvescrimes almost in spite of himself." Andjust as one cannot help liking BennyGooperman, one cannot help liking thislatest detective novel by Howard Engel,a novelist whose use of the detectivegenre comes very close to art.RODERICK W. HARVEYLANGUAGES OF EXILEHALLVARD DAHLIE, Varieties of Exiles: theCanadian Experience. Univ. of British Columbia,$22.50.KERBY A. MILLER, Emigrants and Exiles. Oxford,$48.95.The language of the exile muffles a cry, itdoesn't ever shout. . . . Our present age isone of exile. How can one avoid sinkinginto the mire of common sense, if not bybecoming a stranger to one's own country,language, sex and identity? Writing is impossiblewithout some kind of exile. ... Ifmeaning exists in the state of exile, it neverthelessfinds no incarnation, and is ceaselesslyproduced and destroyed in geographicalor discursive transformations.JULIA KRISTEVA IN A 1977 essay gives adefinition of exile similar to the oneDahlie deduces from Ovid: "genuineexile is a permanent condition characterizedby dislocation, alienation, and dispossession."But he limits his study severelyto "writers who have physicallymoved to or from Canada, as long asthey have communicated a substantialimaginative or artistic perception of therealities and/or myths about Canada."Although he protests that his approachis "basically quite uncomplicated andstraightforward," that last clause isfraught with problems of definition andjudgment. Rather than enter the fraylike Kristeva, armed with the vocabularyof current literary theory, Dahlie choosesto remain traditional and therefore riskstriviality since his strictures are so arbitrarilyimposed. The muddiness is apparentat the end of his introductory chapterwhen he explains that he has limitedhimself to "fifteen or so" writers, fromFrances Brooke to Josef Skvorecky, butthen concludes: "my major concern ismore to demonstrate that the phenomenonof exile has been a frequently recurringelement in Canadian literature."Beyond the level of truism, that largeclaim needs to be argued by more thana reference to fifteen books.Clearly I find worrying aspects toDahlie's methodology. When he gets onto practical criticism — plot summarythen geographical mapmaking — he issolid enough, but these days one expectsa livelier texture to criticism than solidity.One might begin by carping at thetypographical errors, sometimes three toa page, but more disturbing are imprécisionsexacerbated by orotund parsing:"Though he modifies his views towardsCanada according to the fluctuations inhis relationships with Emily, the outcomeof the novel [The History of Emily Montague]dictates the centrality of this attitudein Brooke's overall vision." Dahlie216

BOOKS IN REVIEWis also clearly unwilling to countenancetextual play, seeing Jameson's classicalallusions as "disruptions" to the narrativeflow of her journal.The earlier part of the book is moresuccessful within Dahlie's prescriptions.An excellent survey of Duncan's British-American-Canadian novels is weakenedonly by the lame conclusion that "Canadaremained for her ... a little bit special."There is a good chapter on Salversonand Grove, though he might havepicked up on Grove's statement that hewas an exile from people who "metaphorically,spoke my language"; and heidentifies Levine's "recycled" dilemmas.But Dahlie's preoccupation with author("it is at times difficult to distinguishbetween protagonist and author") andplace ("exiles in a sense must alwayscreate a new reality out of nothing")rather than language, is increasingly unsuitedto more contemporary authors andto the conclusion arrived at rather tortuouslythrough Lowry, Lewis, and others,that modern exile has to do withexistential angst and the dissolution ofnations. The approach really comes unstuckwith Mavis Gallant, whose provocativenotion that marriage instigatesa kind of exile is ignored in favour of,again, geography; yet "it is of courseindividuals rather than national typesthat Gallant is concerned with, andtherefore it is risky to generalize."Especially in the latter half of thisstudy one can sense a perceptive criticyearning to escape his self-spun theoreticalstraitjacket, particularly with thestylistically and philosophically rich fictionsof Brian Moore, Clark Blaise, andJosef Skvorecky. His analysis of The Engineerof Human Souls, in the contextof a section on academic exiles, is especiallypromising. I hope Dahlie goes onto write more in this vein, to considerwhat Lowry called "this migraine ofalienation" as a controlling element inthe prose and pattern of most postcolonialnovelists.At first glance, 568 pages seem like toomuch blarney with which to offer thethesis that "Irish-American homesickness,alienation, and nationalism were rootedultimately in a traditional Irish Catholicworldview which predisposed Irish emigrantsto perceive or at least justify themselvesnot as voluntary, ambitious emigrantsbut as involuntary, nonresponsible'exiles,' compelled to leave home byforces beyond individual control, particularlyby British and landlord oppression."But Professor Miller weaves together statisticsand ballads in a totally convincingand beguiling way. His concluding chapteron American wakes epitomises histhesis and method ; Malthusian cycles areset within folk ritual and oral history, ashe teases out the causes and implicationsof the Irish regarding the westward journeyas one towards death.The book traces Irish emigration toNorth America from 1600 to 1900, constantlyreturning to the primal mythestablished by the seventeenth-centuryGaelic bards that Ireland was a fallen,betrayed Eden which would one day berestored. The myth was used in variousways by the Irish Catholic clergy, nationalists,Irish-American patriots, andthe emigrants themselves, to justify eithertheir successes or their failures. "BloodyBess and cursed Cromwell," it seems, hada lot to answer for in the Old World andthe New. Miller's vast research amplifieshis theme always in the direction of ironyand paradox, never obfuscation.Canada appears only marginally, as inthe fact of James Buchanan, an IrishbornBritish consul who sent 3,000 countrymenfrom New York to frontier settlementsin Upper Canada in 1819, or the65% of the 400,000 emigrants between1828 and 1837 who went to Canadarather than the U.S. But, read in conjunctionwith Dahlie's book, it actually217

BOOKS IN REVIEWgives a more complex picture of the"exile" than does the latter's literature.One sees that the potato famine, in itself,does little to explain Irish emigration.The facts, of course, continue to bogglethe mind: between 1845-55, 1.5 millionimmigrants to the U.S., 340,000 to BritishNorth America. But Miller gives thebig picture, from local agricultural boomsand busts to the effects of transportednationalism in the New World. Of thelast, Miller concludes that the Irish-American nationalists were lucky theAnglo-Irish War of 1916-21 happenedwhen it did, since support, which wasbased on the myth of betrayal and oppression,was on the wane.Miller rarely allows himself a stylisticflourish, preferring to balance his copiousfactual details with letters andpoetry; but he does allow himself onedelightful thrust at the very end of hisexhaustive chronicle: "By 1923, exceptfor the continuing trickle of embitteredCatholic emigrants from Northern Ireland,the long, dark winter of Irish exilein America was over. The golden summerof Irish-American tourism was aboutto begin."DAVID DOWLINGSTORY POSTPONEDAUDREY THOMAS, Goodbye Harold, GoodLuck. Penguin Viking, $17.95.ONCE AGAIN AUDREY THOMAS createscompelling images: a man offering awoman a captured hummingbird to hold,another man tearing a tentacle off anoctopus and throwing it to a girl whowinds it around her wrist "like some horriblebracelet," a set of children's sandalsin graduated sizes, a jar full of babyteeth, a message appearing magically ona steamy hotel mirror. Once again wemove through her literary landscapes:Ghana, Galiano, Edinburgh, Greece. Andonce again Thomas shows her commandof a variety of styles.George Bowering has attempted tocategorize Thomas's work on the basis ofstyle, suggesting in the Audrey Thomasissue of A Room of One's Own (March1986) and in his "Introductory Notes"to Fiction of Contemporary Canada thatsome of her fiction is well crafted andsatisfying, "mimetic, if not autobiographicalto the extreme" and the rest "selfreflexiveand discontinuous," even "daring"and "odd." Needless to say, Boweringprefers the odd to the well crafted.Using a time-honoured tactic, he createsa duality and promotes one over theother. Of course, he knows better, but isattempting a little affirmative action, tryingto right an imbalance in the widerCanadian literary world where conventionalwriting gets more attention than itdeserves. Thomas, partly because she isoften experimental, partly because shewas born in the United States, and partlybecause she writes in British Columbia,has certainly been undervalued. But itdoes her an injustice to suggest her workis all one thing or another.In this collection, the overtly experimentalworks are, in fact, weaker thanthose that might be labelled mimetic orautobiographical. Take, for example, thefairy tale "The Princess and the Zucchini": the Prince is turned into a giantzucchini; the princess doesn't buy his"happily ever after" line, so she cookshim for dinner. But she's still in thekitchen, and she's not very nice. Thefeminist implications are far more complexthan "ha, got you"; readers are intendedto puzzle. "One Size Fits All,""The Man With Clam Eyes," and "CompulsoryFigures" are also intellectually,rather than emotionally engaging. InGoodbye Harold, Good Luck, the successfulstories are rather those where theidea of a single or certain reality is strictlyqualified, not because the narrator is218

BOOKS IN REVIEWcrazy or prescient or playing games, butbecause of shifts in point of view, suddeninsights, coincidental juxtapositions ofsimilar messages, doubled or layered narration.Often the main narrator is awoman like Thomas, with children, with"ordinary" middle-class problems, fears,and responses.One story, "Breaking the Ice," is superficiallya "woman's magazine" story:divorced woman spends Christmas withouther children, doubly depressed becausea man she has recently met hasn'tcalled. One of her daughters arrives forNew Year's, so does the man with hisdaughter, and all get along splendidly : itwould be easy to call the story banaland superficial. But like Alice Munro,Thomas is not really interested in plotanyway. The romantic conventions in"Breaking the Ice" are heavily qualifiedby discussions of a cat stalking birds andby the bellowing of mating sea lion bullson the nearby rocks. The narrator insiststo all who are concerned about her thatshe is "Perfectly all right," noting to herselfthat this of course means "PerfectlyAll Wrong." She dresses up to visit theneighbours so they won't suspect her misery.The present unhappy Christmas isoverlaid by happy past memories andpotentially happy planned future ones.At one point, the narrator considersphoning the man and putting him offbecause her daughter protests, a thoughtthat produces the potential for an unhappy,rather than a happy ending. Thehappy lovemaking is overlaid by worryabout "Who would leave first?" Thestory is built out of layer after layer ofpossibility, like a lacquer box, so that thestory is, paradoxically, both profoundand superficial. Of course, some readerswill see only the happy ending; otherswill notice that to break ice is potentiallyto drown in icy water.Another story, "Relics," begins with agypsy telling die fortune of a womanvisiting the boarding house in Scotlandwhere she lived when she was a student.She discovers that Morag, the womanwho used to run it, has been decapitatedin a car accident. Her memories of herfirst lovers are intermingled with herrealization of how nasty she and all thestudents were to Morag, who scraped by,exhausted by the housework. She remembersone moment where Morag tried totalk to her, and hints at the possibility ofa different story for both of them.The title story is about a mother anddaughter travelling, a situation commonto several stories. In this one, the narrator,Francine, is trying to decidewhether to leave her husband, a demandingperfectionist. In a hotel, whereEmily, the daughter, has been taking abath, the words of the title appear "writtenby somebody's finger or with a pieceof soap." This handwriting on the mirrorbrings out the ghostly story of anotherunhappy couple, and, indeed, the storiesof all the people in that room, to hauntthe "real" story.All the stories are haunted by what wedon't see and can't know, even about thelives of those closest to us. "MotheringSunday," reveals the dark side of motherdaughterrelations, as the narrator thinksof her mother: "I have wounded hermany times; she has wounded me. Wedon't talk about this. We send each otherletters and greeting cards and presents;we worry about one another. We wonder."Sitting alone in a restaurant onMother's Day, the narrator thinks ofeverything that gets left out of the myth :"No blood, no bloody Mary in the nativityaccounts. Immaculate conception, immaculatedelivery. We mothers knowbetter, sitting here with our legs underneaththe table, sitting here sipping ourdrinks, picking at the expensive food."(Note the stories crammed into the simplephrase "with our legs underneath thetable.")219

BOOKS IN REVIEWAnd so I would like to suggest whyBowering's categories don't work. Becausewomen have been on the "wrongside" of the duality for so long, they aremore concerned with what gets left outof stories, usually, than with what getsput in. But both sides need to be there:Francine had seen a button in a women'sbookstore.THEY SENT ONE MAN TO THE MOONWHY CAN'T THEY SEND THEM ALL?It was funny, but not really. Would Emilygrow up hating men? The woman on thetrain was worried about some adult puttinghis arm around her daughter; what happenedif the opposite were true, never ahug or a kiss?The same pattern appears in one ofThomas's earlier stories, "Initram" (thatis, "Martini" in a mirror), where a separatedwoman travels to Vancouver totell her story to her friend Lydia, onlyto discover that Lydia has also separated.Lydia's story is "both moving and bizarre"; the narrator feels that Lydia has"put something over" on her. The narrator'sstory has to be postponed, andthis is the emotional point of the story.Putting in both sides, then, does notmean forging a harmonious whole, as intraditional stories. Rather it means revealinghow one story exists at the expenseof another — indeed, how storiesproliferate, endless voices drowning eachother out, contradicting each other. Thevitality of this collection lies in Thomas'sability to write "mimetic" and "autobiographical"stories that constantly revealthemselves as partial, inadequate, andunresolved: that is, as "self-reflexive anddiscontinuous."MARGERY FEEBUGS, BATTLES& BALLETVERONICA TENNANT, On Stage, Please. Mc-Clelland & Stewart, $3.95.GREGORY SASS, Redcoat. Porcupine's Quill,$7-95-DAVID SUZUKI 4 BARBARA HEHNER, Looking atInsects. Stoddard, $8.95.THAT THREE BOOKS which severally featurebugs, battles, and ballet might betreated in a single commentary corroboratesa fact particularly fundamental tothe development of children's literatureover the past few decades in Canada:authors and publishers have considerablywidened their net to appeal to the diversityof interests of the television-nurturedyoung audiences of the 1980's. In additionto exploring diverse subject matter,these three paperbacks for young Canadiansreflect three distinctive subgenreswhich collectively represent the majorportion of books published for childrentoday; namely, informational books, historicalfiction, and realistic fiction.Looking at Insects is the second bookby David Suzuki and Barbara Hehner inthe Stoddard Young Readers series, andlike its forerunner (Looking at Plants,1985), it follows a prescriptive formulawhich deftly balances general scientificinformation, intriguing details, and simple"hands-on" experiments. To thecredit of the two writers (there is noindication of their respective contributions),this balance is accomplished withan ease which belies the burden of didacticismwhich all information books carry,and while the book's format, scope, simplifieddrawings, and vocabulary level indicatethat the work is primarily targettedat inquisitive youngsters, readersof any age would both enjoy and benefitfrom the book (including parents in needof a refresher course on insects). As forthe tone of the book, readers familiar220

BOOKS IN REVIEWwith Suzuki's engaging television personawill detect here the same blend of informedauthority, gentle humour, andpervasive respect for all creatures.The organization of the material essentiallydefines its primary audience, movingas it does through a general overviewand description of insects, on to specificson insect orders, including moths andbutterflies, beetles, bees, ants, and finally,to a closing chapter on the "distant cousins"of insects, spiders. The book does notoverwhelm the young reader with toomuch information (at least there is noconscious sense that this is occurring),yet it covers pertinent details such asbasic insect physiologies, metamorphoses,defence mechanisms, and specialized behaviouralpatterns. Enveloping these scientificdetails is a perspective whichDavid Suzuki seems particularly skilledat imparting: far from being the creepiecrawlies of which nightmares are made,insects are a fascinating and integral partof the world around us. The acceptanceand curiosity fostered in the young readerare complemented by the some 25 "somethingto do" sections interspersed throughthe book. These sections give simplifiedscientific practicums on things such asmeasuring a caterpillar's appetite orstarting an ant colony, and following atenet of all superior information booksfor children, include safety rules (for theprotection of all participants, includingthe insects) and a call for adult supervisionwhen required.Of course all books for children mustultimately interest the child if they aregoing to be read, and it is instructive tosee, when regarding the numerous genreswhich fall under the rubric of children'sliterature, how Gregory Sass, writing historicalfiction, relies on strategies andmethods unique to that particular genreto attract his audience. In Redcoat, Sasssucceeds in transporting his reader backto the early years of the 1800's, and heaccomplishes this first and foremost bycreating an eminently believable characterwith whom the young reader canidentify. Once this identification occurs,the same historical details and backgroundmaterial which many young readerswould reject in a history text, becomeintegral props in a compelling story.Shadrach Byfield is a young, idealisticScot who, because of his family's poverty,runs away from home at age 13 tojoin the military and, as he himself putsit, not to return until he "had lived to bea man." By the time Shadrach does returnto his Lowlands home after fightingfor General Brock in a distant, cold landin the War of 1812, the young reader hasaccompanied him through a stint in aDickensian-styled workhouse and theperils of his premature soldiering whichfeatures, along with numerous lesser discomforts,his capture at the hands ofIndians, his being wounded and maimedin battle, and his being wrongfullyflogged as a deserter.Shadrach's progresses are no romanticizedromp through the pages of history,however, and few adolescent readers(most historical fiction is written forchildren over ι ο years of age ) would missSass's concern with the realities of poverty,social injustice, and war. Because ofhis poverty, Shadrach is inexorably victimizedby institutions common to anyage; namely, those representing education,law, and finally, order (here symbolizedby the British infantry). What thehistorical setting does (and this is skilfullybuilt up by Sass's judicious use of language,topical reference points, and detailsof clothing and food, is to frameand crystallize Shadrach's struggles whichrender them at once a product of theperiod and a parable which carries arelevance today.As the summary of Redcoat suggests,like most works of historical fiction, it isan adventure story, and like so many of221

BOOKS IN REVIEWthese, has war as its focus. But Sass goesbeyond merely using this focus as an easyaccess to his young audience and Shadrach'sexperiences are not merely graftedonto the setting. Rather, they evolvenaturally and credibly from the historicalbackdrop. Moreover, as implied above,both the details of plot and the developmentof the novel's two main characters(Shadrach's fortunes are fatefully entangledwith those of a cruel and amoralacquaintance throughout the book) combineto underscore themes which transcendthe immediate historical setting.Shadrach Byfield's story is, in its widestapplication, a quest story, and his grailturns out to be an understanding of himself,an appreciation of his heritage andfamily, and the knowledge that while hedid live to be a man, he did so not byfighting for General Brock in Canada,but by returning to his Lowlands roots.Veronica Tennant's On Stage, Please(published first in hardcover in 1977)has now been released, as the book's promotionalbulletin states, "in an inexpensivemass market format" in the hopethat it might "delight yet another generationof aspiring ballet dancers." Thatthis new edition, which suffers only minimallyfrom the compromises of inferiorpaper and print and which succeeds incapturing the beauty of Rita Briansky'soriginal illustrations, should be new fareto another generation of readers just adecade after its first publication, bespeaksnot only of the market realities inchildren's literature, but also of the factthat for serious ballet students, trainingbegins at about age 10.On Stage, Please is best categorized ascontemporary realistic fiction. It is a convincinginsight into the world of ballet —convincing because this is not simply anarid guidebook for aspiring ballerinas. Itis, instead, an expertly crafted novelwhich is certain to keep the child reading,and to do so, refreshingly, not inspite of its literary distinctions, but becauseof them. On a narrative level, thestory traces the career of Jennifer Allen,a ballet-loving girl of 10 years, from herarrival in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, afterher family emigrated from England,through the challenges, frustrations, andtriumphs of the first six months of herstudies at the "Professional School ofBallet" in Toronto. On a secondary level,the book treats of a theme with whichmost young readers can identify: theneed for acceptance and to be regardedas competent. Veronica Tennant probesthis theme with an eye for both the detailand the aura of the ballet worldwhich perhaps only intimate exposurecan bring (Tennant graduated fromCanada's National Ballet School in 1964and joined the National Ballet Companyas principal dancer in 1965 ).Jennifer Allen's favourite ballet is Cinderella,and it is this story which in turnmetaphorically reflects her beginning career.After numerous setbacks (includingthe dubious ministrations of a cigarsmoking,overweight instructor in SaultSte. Marie and an injury suffered at theschool in Toronto), Jennifer begins torealize her ambitions to become a dancerguided by the advice of an older friendat the school (the fairy godmother parallelis inviting) and her own genuinelove for ballet. Along the way, Jenniferexperiences the inevitable uncertaintiesabout her talents and commitment, butshe presses on, learns about the discipline,perseverance, and sheer hard work requiredof a ballerina, until she "discoversher dream" when she is one of the twostudents chosen to dance in the PerformingCompany's Christmas production of,appropriately enough, Cinderella. Thestrength of On Stage, Please is that whileit is informative, it is also subtly insightful,and while the young reader learns ofpirouettes, barres, and pointes shoes, theplot, characters, and attendant threads of222

BOOKS IN REVIEWthe story are gracefully woven by VeronicaTennant to suggest resonances towhich all young readers might relate.CONFEDERATIONPOETSJAMES GELLERTDUNCAN CAMPBELL SCOTT, Powassan's Drum:Poems of Duncan Campbell Scott, eds. RaymondSouster & Douglas Lochhead. Tecumseh,$7.95.BLISS CARMAN, Windflower: Poems of BlissCarman, eds. Raymond Souster & DouglasLochhead. Tecumseh, $9.95.MURIEL MILLER, Bliss Carman: Quest & Revolt.Jesperson Press, $36.00.THAT TECUMSEH PRESS has decided topublish reading editions of the selectedpoems of Duncan Campbell Scott andBliss Carman is commendable. As membersof the so-called Confederation groupof poets, both Scott and Carman areimportant figures in the development ofCanadian poetry. Until now, however, ithas proved difficult to locate substantialselections of their work in print. For BlissCarman one had to go back to LomePierce's anthology of 1954 or the RobertSorfleet edition of 1976. For Scott it wasa matter of using E. K. Brown's SelectedPoems of 1951 or Tecumseh's earlierSelected Poetry of 1974, edited by GlennClever. This paucity of texts has meantthat all too often readers know Scott andCarman only through a few well-knownanthology pieces.While Powassan's Drum and Windfloweroffer readers a generous selectionof the poetry of Scott and Carman, thevolumes prove far from ideal. They havebeen cheaply produced: the font for theScott edition is too small for easy reading,and the Carman volume is inked sodarkly that each line appears emphasized.Indeed, it looks as though TecumsehPress intended the volumes as interimeditions for the new reader. They werecertainly not produced with the seriousstudent in mind, since they contain neithernotes nor bibliography. In Tecumseh'searlier edition of Scott's poetry, theeditor at least gave some indication ofthe chronological progression and supplieda brief biographical note. This timethe editors have chosen to present thepoems in vague thematic groupings,which suggest a fin de siècle preciosity.Moreover, the double introductions byRaymond Souster and Douglas Lochheadare largely uncritical. Both Souster andLochhead mention that they read Scottand Carman when they were young, andthey claim to have been influenced bythem, but they offer little evidence ofhow and why the poets remain importanttoday. Tecumseh's decision to publisheditions with no historical backgroundmay well prompt readers to ask whatCarman and Scott mean to them as poetsonce the protective lens of "historicalimportance" has been removed.By far the more interesting volume isthe Scott selection, Powassan's Drum.The editors chose to begin with sevenIndian and Metis poems which capturethe plight of these peoples poised betweendifferent cultures and time periods.These poems are undoubtedly amongScott's most original. Yet when seen inthe midst of the current debate aboutnative and ethnic rights and cultures,they appear somewhat dated. While Scottsympathizes with the individual caughtbetween cultures, he also believes in akind of Coleridgean moral evolution.From this evolutionary perspective, thenative people are seen as essentially"savage," redeemed only when they moveupwards to a "higher" state of spiritualunderstanding. Consequently, Scott tendsto undermine the essential dignity of theindividual by dissolving it in a higherspiritualism, a problem for all those im-223

BOOKS IN REVIEWbued with idealist or historicist perspectives.For the contemporary reader, much ofwhat follows Scott's Indian and Metispoems seems weak, with numerous landscapelyrics containing virtually no Canadianfeatures; indeed, few detailedfeatures of any kind. In these pretty butinsipid poems, Scott offers pictures of thechanging seasons, which then allow him,rather abrutly in most cases, to posit hisintuition that a "diviner thing" or a"peace deeper than peace" exists behind"the changeful hour." These are largelyamateur pieces, although a number suchas "The Ghost's Story" and "Afterwards"offer some piquancy.With poems such as "In the CountryChurchyard," dedicated to Scott's father,Powassan's Drum begins to reveal a newdirection, indicating that one of Scott'sstrengths derives from his handling of thelonger poem in which he introduces hisuncertainty about the nature of romanticabsolutes. This strength develops furtherin "The Height of Land" where Scott,following his Wordsworthian model, finallycombines his meditations with actuallyperceived landscape details. Herehe ends with the question of whetherman will eventually evolve beyond hispresent condition — confined to brief,ecstatic sensations about the meaning ofthe universe — to a comprehensive intellectualknowledge based on an understandingof divine law which allows for"closer commune with divinity." Takenas a whole, Powassan's Drum leaves theimpression that Scott overworks themoonlight-and-roses motif, that he toooften indulges in derivative language.Still, in his Indian poems, and especiallywith the hesitations in which he coucheshis later work, one feels that here was agenuine poet in the making.In Windflower, however, a wholly differentimpression emerges: Carman appearslargely as a popular versifier in lovewith his own music. While it is possibleat times to be caught up in his boyishexuberance about the open road, andwhile the swing and delight of his optimismcan be enjoyed for short periods,yet to give oneself over to Carman proveslargely an act of nostalgia. A surprisinglysmall number of poems prove worthkeeping, and these are mostly poems ofmood which capture Carman's own violentswings of feeling. "Low Tide onGrand Pré," "The Eavesdropper," and afew of the Sappho poems stand out asquite exceptional. All too frequently Carman'simage of man's life as a journeyalong a narrow road hedges his visionround so that the poems cannot expandinto the open countryside on either side.Obsessed with the God-figure who waitsin various allegorical disguises at the endof life, Carman turns everything alongthe path into trite and standardized imagery.He rarely seems to look at whathe describes, with the result that thesymbol overtakes and overwhelms theparticular.Given Carman's enormous reputationin his own day, and the fact that heseems to be sinking rapidly in contemporaryesteem, the appearance of a newbiography appears serendipitous. MurielMiller probably knows more about Carmanthan anyone else alive today, for shehas been writing about him for most ofher life. Bliss Carman: Quest & Revoltis intended as "a replacement" for her1935 biography with Ryerson Press —Bliss Carman: A Portrait. For this newbiography, Miller has collected an enormousamount of additional informationabout Carman's life. At times it seems asthough one could retrace every foot ofCarman's many journeys across NorthAmerica. While Miller offers an excellentdiarylike account of Carman's activities— his employment, his friendships, andhis love affairs — she throws little light224

on his poetry or his ideas. Indeed, thevolume is almost resolutely anti-intellectual,barely mentioning the various ideasand movements with which Carman wasinvolved. The New England Transcendentalmovement, for example, greatlyinfluenced Carman's thought, yet this isonly briefly touched upon. Similarly, Millerdiscusses at length Carman's involvementwith Mary Perry King in a schoolof Delsartean acting, yet never describesthe Delsartean methods. In lookingthrough Miller's index for Carman's individualpoems, one realizes that she discussesonly a few, and says little aboutthem.Even more damaging for a biography,Miller so immerses herself in the detailsof Carman's life that it becomes difficultto gain an overview of Carman's character.One sees his proclivity for hurlinghimself into romantic affairs as well assomething of his personal reserve, butthe two fail to coalesce into a portrait ofCarman. At one point Miller quotes Carmanas saying that for a biography "atrue photograph of the exterior person iswhat is needed. The pose, the bearing,the motion, the stride, the voice andtone, a trick of the eye, a habit of thehand all mean so much." Unfortunately,Miller does not succeed in creating this"true photograph," in bringing the manto life.While her painstaking research is admirable,and her tracing of Carman'ssteps will no doubt be of help to futurescholars, in the end, one senses that, forMiller, this biography has been a labourof love, but a love that drowns Carmanthe man and the artist in a sea of details.A pity, for Carman's lyricism, if it is tobe appreciated today, needs new insights,new techniques for reading. That, andthe highlighting of a brighter brush.RONALD HATCHBOOKS IN REVIEWMURDER & LIESERIC WRIGHT, A Single Death. Collins, $1995.TIMOTHY FiNDLEY, The Telling of Lies: AMystery. Viking, $19.95.E. L. DocTOROw ONCE SAID of fictionwriters: "ours is the only professionforced to admit that it lies — and thatbestows upon us the mantle of honesty."Perhaps it is the overt playing with liesand honesty, as well as with such basicsas life and death, that makes the mysterystory an important form of postmodernfiction. The detective story is alive andwell in all its forms in Canada today,from the straightforward and gripping"good read" to the complex and intricatepostmodern playing with convention.The more popular version is most admirablyrepresented by Eric Wright's latestnovel, A Single Death, another storyfeaturing Inspector Charlie Salter of theMetropolitan Toronto Police. The fine,exciting plotting is matched by delightfulwry humour and complex characterizationthat makes you care about the majorplayers in this drama, a drama that is asmuch about marriage and separation, theloneliness of life alone and the dangersof intimacy, as it is about murder andlying. For all its humour and well-crafteduse of the detective story conventions,this is a novel that touches on and illuminatesthe major themes of most contemporaryliterature: gender and familyrelations, aging and death, generationaland class conflict (within a "classless"capitalist society), the paradox of thehaunting, inescapable past and yet theurgent need for a sense of history — bothpersonal and public — so vividly soughtin our postindustrial urban society.And these too are the themes of TimothyFindley's The Telling of Lies.Though carefully subtitled A Mystery,this is a very self-reflexive, metafictionalkind of mystery, sharing as much with225

BOOKS IN REVIEWthe work of Borges and Robbe-Grillet aswith that of Wright. As the archetypicalinvestigation of the nature and existenceof lies, the murder mystery or detectivestory is, in fact, a very popular "marker"of metafictionality today. In other words,it is a readily recognized way of signallingto the reader the conventionality andfictionality of what she is reading. It isitself a most self-conscious genre: thinkof all those little ironies uttered by characterswithin such novels about how"things like this only happen in detectivestories, never in life" — that is, art! Butthe other characteristic of the genre thatmakes it so apt for metafictional purposesis the importance it overtly accordsto the hermeneutic act of interpreting.The detective story reader is the paradigmfor all readers: she is a detectivetracing clues. The author is both creatorand murderer, according to this metaphor,which is obviously set up by a playon words: the plot of narrative and theplot to kill. In Murder in the Dark, MargaretAtwood spoofs this somewhat, endingwith a new Cretan paradox Doctorowwould enjoy: "by the rules of thegame, I always lie. Now: do you believeme?"To lie, then, is to fictionalize. In Findley'sother novels, this same equation hadarisen: the debate between Quinn andFreiburg in Famous Last Words over thetruth-status of Mauberley's writing onthe wall is carried out in these sameterms that equate the act of narration orwriting with that of telling falsehoods aseasily as truths. In The Wars, photographsalso partook of the same ambivalentpower to reveal the truth and to lie.In The Telling of Lies, then, we are infamiliar Findley territory, a morally ambiguousworld where the past alwaysconditions the present. The narrator isone Vanessa Van Home, a well-knownAmerican garden designer and sometimephotographer. Her very self-consciousdiary-writing, which we read, has beendirectly occasioned by death: the murderof pharmaceutical magnate, Calder Maddox,and the impending "death" of theNew England summer resort, the AuroraSands Hotel (conveniently, ASH forshort), where she has spent almost all ofher 60 summers — except for those spentin a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp at"Bandung" during the war. The plotshifts between, on the one hand, Nessa'spresent-time attempts to discover bothCalder's murderer and also the reasonfor the high-powered American governmentalsilencing of the murder and, onthe other, her memories of Bandung, ofgrowing up in prison, of the commandingofficer, Colonel Norimitsu, who wasequally responsible for her father's deathand for teaching her about compassionand the beauty of formal gardens.Throughout the narrative, Nessa is moreobserver than participant, as she recordsevents with either her camera or her pen.She is a most unwilling detective, whoresists engagement in the moral and hermeneutic"game" until personal devotionand friendship intervene.She is also a most unwilling writer, awoman with a visual imagination and afinely honed sense of moral ambiguitywho distrusts language, while acknowledgingher reliance upon it. She writesof the brutalizing experience in thecamp:I dislike the word unmoved. It is like theword hate. They do not always tell — aswords — precisely what is meant. I do notmean that Mother was cold or cruel whenit came to other people's sorrows and pain— and certainly nothing of the kind whenanyone died. Unmoved, in prison terms,means something else; and perhaps it meanssomething it cannot mean anywhere but ina prison. It meant, in Mother's case — andin the case of countless others, myself included— that feeling was masked. It wasnot withheld. Even masked sounds cold. Itwas not.226

BOOKS IN REVIEWContext is all. This remark occurs in apassage which marks the centre or coreof the novel. In the context of a detectivestory such a passage might feel strange;yet, in The Telling of Lies it feels not inthe least incongruous, and this probablypoints to the different kind of (metafictive)mystery which this novel represents.This passage is an extended meditationon lies and truth, death and aging,life and living — all in the context ofour investment of history in places andpeople. The final solution to the murdertoo goes beyond neat plot resolution tooffer a timely political (and Canadian)twist, a warning and a revenge thathover over our reading like the bizarreand mysterious iceberg which appears inJuly in the harbour outside the ASH.A hermeneutic puzzle or a grippingread: whichever you see as the reasonfor reading detective stories, you will notbe disappointed with either of these novels,different as they are. There seemslittle doubt, however, that The Telling ofLies must be read in the context of thoseother contemporary postmodern metafictionswhich paradoxically exploit andsubvert the murder mystery conventions,novels like Peter Ackroyd's Hawksmoor,Patrick Siiskind's Perfume, or even GabrielGarcia Màrquez's Chronicle of aDeath Foretold.MACHINEROMANESQUELINDA HUTCHEONWON RivARD, Les silences du corbeau.$Ι5·95·FUYANT UNE DECEPTION amoureuseBoréal,attachéeau nom de ses deux amantesFrançois et Clara, un Québécois nomméAlexandre se réfugie dans un ashram àPondichéry. Il s'y retrouve aux piedsd'une jeune "mère" qui devrait le réconcilieravec lui-même et avec la vie. Lessilences du corbeau, troisième romand'Yvon Rivard, se présente donc commeun journal en trois Carnets rédigés parAlex. Son cheminement ne sera pas solitairemais intégré, de mauvaise grâce ilfaut le dire, à un groupe de disciplesvenus chercher quelque révélation auprèsde la mère.Apparemment c'est une double quêtequ'Alexandre poursuit en sol indien:recherche de soi, surtout de son enfanceen Mauricie et recherche du visage de sesfemmes. En fait il s'agit d'une seule etmême démarche. Alex ne cherche personned'autre que lui-même. Son plaisirde faire la lessive et sa manie de se laverles mains sont symboliques de cette attentionobsessive à soi. Par là, le livre estune nouvelle prise de vue du narcissismecontemporain mis en scène cette fois dansle cadre conventionnel du trip indien.Alexandre ne s'implique dans rien maisil est complètement et détestablementcentré sur lui-même. Pour la forme, il sepose toutes ces questions profondes "toutde suite les grandes questions, c'est ça lanuit" qui ont (im)mobilisé sa génération,celle qui s'interroge aussi dansMaryse. Cependant, il ne se penche audessusde ces questions qu'en autantqu'elles lui renvoient sa chère image etqu'elles s'intègrent à son introspectionbien douillette.Car Alexandre, fils de la psychanalyseet de la sémiotique, introspecte et interprètefurieusement. On sent dans toutesses interventions cette volonté globale etimpérieuse de tout interpréter pour quetout ait un sens, soit signifiant/signifié/significatif de quelque chose. A la fin,tant de soupçon existentiel provoque unecertaine lassitude chez le lecteur qui voudraitque le récit avance sans tout cedécodage.Puisqu'il s'agit de sa propre aventure,il n'y a donc dans le roman qu'un seulvrai personnage et c'est Alex. Les autres227

BOOKS IN REVIEWne sont là que comme confidents du narrateur.Le style du journal est celui quilui convient le mieux et ce sont d'ailleursles plus belles pages du roman. Dansl'utilisation du discours rapporté, deschoses vues et entendues Rivard est à sonmeilleur et c'est là qu'Alex est le plus envoix, quand il n'a pas besoin de briller etqu'il cesse d'interroger son miroir.Si le personnage d'Alexandre se tientbien, il n'en est pas de même du choeurdes personnages secondaires qui ne sontque des esquisses et des clichés: défroqués,homosexuel, artiste, adepte du YiKing. Ceux-ci sont décrits avec tous leslieux communs idoines et placés dans lessituations les plus prévisibles. J'en prendraicomme exemple l'agression de Peter,l'homosexuel, et le dialogue de feuilletonqui s'ensuit entre lui et Alexandre.Une technique répétitive utilise cespersonnages secondaires comme mode denarration circulaire qui exprime les différentesopinions, les différents points devue. Un exemple de cette utilisation despersonnages secondaires comme fairevaloirdu narrateur apparaît dans cespassages fréquents où l'auteur fait parlerchacun à tour de rôle de façon systématique.Au souper, le nouveau régime d'austérité àété l'objet d'unelongue discussion où se sont affrontés lesjansénistes et lesquiétistes. Véronique a paruparticulièrementaffectée par laperspective d'une telle séparation. Elle necomprenait pas. . . .Thérèse ... l'a rassurée en disant que.. . . François doutaitfort. . . . Louis lui a fait remarquer . . . ,ce à quoi Françoisa rétorqué. . . . Hermann partegeait l'avis deMère. . . . Peter a violemment rejeté lacomparaison d'Hermann. . . .Après quelques applications de cettetechnique, le procédé est trop apparentet le récit apparaît comme superficiellementarticulé puisqu'en fait c'est toujoursAlex qui mentalement fait le tour dusujet en donnant la parole à ses propresvoix intérieures. Il n'y a donc pas dedialogues mais seulement un long monologueet la typographie trop évidemmentdialogique de certaines pages a quelquechose de si forcé que ni les gros caractèresni les vastes plages blanches n'emportentl'adhésion du lecteur.Cette distanciation du trop spirituelAlex par rapport à ce qui se vit à l'Ashramnous le rend difficilement crédiblequand il plonge dans son drame personnel,la seule véritable quête dans laquelleil soit vraiment impliqué. Les femmesqu'il aime il ne les rejoint qu'à traversdes photos et des cartes postales où ellesse fondent l'une dans l'autre pour se perdreelles aussi dans son questionnementperpétuel. L'insensibilité d'Alex se retournealors contre lui. Sa douleur nenous touche pas. La mémoire de son enfanceen Mauricie est le seul lieu où il yait encore une certain émotion et de lasincérité. Hors de ce lieu d'authenticitéAlex a tout le factice de sa culturespirituelle ramassée dans les proverbes etles sentences qu'il cite à tout propos.A première lecture, le livre offre uneapparence de simplicité qui pourraitépouser un dépouillement intérieur résultantde la démarche spirituelle. Cetteimpression ne dure pas. Sous la simplicitéde la surface percent les ressorts del'écriture qui font que le livre est tropécrit. Comme ton général, il y a un discoursironique, léger qui donne lieu àquelques réussites dans certains rapprochementsinattendues jaillis de l'imaginairecultivé et débridé d'Alex. Exemple:l'apparition impromptue de MariaChapdelaine à la fin d'une conversationavec Thérèse:Thérèse s'est mise à fixer un point invisibleau-dessus de la table et, avant même que jepuisse détourner la conversation sur unautre sujet, elle a commencé à moudre ensilence les trois ou quatre mots de son228

BOOKS IN REVIEWmantra. Elle était désormais seule, au boutde quelques minutes, je me suis retiré sansqu'elle s'en aperçoive. Maria ensevelissaitsous les Avé le corps de François Paradis,ma mère séchait discrètement ses larmes enattendant le retour du printemps, le retourde mon père. ... Si le paradis existe, ce nepeut être que pour toutes ces femmes quiprient, qui pleurent.Au total, Les silences du corbeau estun roman brillant, éblouissant même parendroit comme son personnage principal.Le motif du corbeau qui traverse commeune figure fantastique les journéesd'Alexandre offre un bon exemple desressources d'invention dont Rivard estcapable. Tel qu'il est, le livre demeuresuperficiel, une sorte de machine romanesqueexacte, sans souffle et sans espace,comme un exercice littéraire. L'attentionest provoquée par les variations de ton,par les changements d'interlocuteursdans les dialogues, bref par les procédésde la narration. Mais à ce niveau, toutest contenu dans les cinquante premièrespages et pour la suite du roman, la machineronronne sur sa lancée.HITLER'S LETTERJACQUES JULIENw. GÜNTHER PLAUT, The Letter. McClelland& Stewart, $22.95.THE SUBJECT OF THIS short novel interestsme very much; yet I found it disappointing.Its essential subject is Hitler's"Final Solution," the mad effort to destroyevery Jew within the Third Reich.The theme is still powerful and relevant,but the action in Plaut's fiction is onlyintermittently gripping and suspenseful.One can seldom become wholly involvedwith the lives of the characters, perhapsbecause of their predictability and Plaut'sleaning heavily on coincidence. Certainlythe heroine, Helga Raben, is interesting,dynamic, and believable. Jewish by birth,she is at risk from adolescence onward inNazi Germany; she is in love with a Naziarmy officer, Rolf Baumgarten, who fromthe autumn of 1939 is surreptitiously apart of an underground anti-Hitlerclique.The violence of Nazi Germany arrivesearly in the novel: in November 1938,during the first pogrom, Helga's father'sfactory is seized, her mother raped; bothparents commit suicide (as did real-lifefriends of the author) while Helga is inEngland. After her return to Germanyshe is compelled, with her lover's help,to adopt a new identity. Soon, plausibly,The Letter comes into her hands. It is amemo from Adolf Hitler to HermanGoring, explicitly commanding the implementationof the Final Solution: "Iwant the Jews to disappear from the faceof Europe." Helga smuggles the letter toSwitzerland, with the aid of an Americanmilitary attaché, Ken Driscoll, withwhom she also falls in love; subsequentlyNazi operatives attempt to retrieve theletter, fearing that if its contents areknown outside of Germany, the image ofthe Führer may be tarnished, especiallyin America. The letter, deposited in abank vault in Bern, is traced to Helga,who flees to America, where she worksas a translator and propaganda agent,accompanied by Driscoll. (In the meanwhile,her German lover, Baumgarten,has disappeared into the no-man's landof Poland.) Helga is unable to arouseany American interest in the plight ofmillions of German Jews in Nazi concentrationcamps. Even an interview with anoncommittal President Roosevelt is unhelpful.Nazi agents in the U.S.A. abductDriscoll and ship him by U-boat to aconcentration camp in Germany, wherehe stoically endures much suffering.In Germany, readers of The Lettermeet, at least briefly, the major figuresin the Nazi high command: Goring,Himmler, Heydrich, and Eichmann, and229

BOOKS IN REVIEWalthough we hear much about Adolf Hitler,Günther Plaut unaccountably neverputs him on the fictional stage. In time,the whereabouts of both Driscoll andBaumgarten is discovered, creating a romanticdilemma for both Helga and thenovelist. In a time-honoured tradition,Plaut solves the problem on the last pageof the book. The war comes to its bloodyconclusion, with, inevitably, an emphasison the extermination of six million Jews.One would think that, after the suicideof Hitler and the defeat of the Nazis, theletter would have no further value. Notso, for Plaut has the most dedicatedNazis determine to carry on, from SouthAmerica or other safe havens, the causeof a greater Germany ; hence, the deificationof their defeated Führer must befurthered by the seizure and destructionof the incriminating letter. I can only sayhere that Plaut's disposition of the letteris unsatisfying and unconvincing.This was a novel that I could bear toput down. Only occasionally was it powerful;it lacked the passionate intensitythat one might expect from an authorwhose family was in part destroyed bythe Third Reich. (Plaut himself settledin the U.S.A. in 1935; in 1961 he movedto Toronto, where he served for manyyears as rabbi of Holy Blossom Synagogue.)A reader may be irritated withPlaut's frequent moralizing. He will notallow the reader to draw his own conclusionsfrom a situation; he nudges himin the direction that he must go. In thisbrief illustration Heydrich is at a concert:"[His] Iron Cross . . . was earned forhis valor in torturing prisoners and dispatchingJews, Gypsies and other unwantedcreatures to premature deaths."Plaut's occasionally slangy style seems inappropriateto the period and the seriousnessof the book.It is inevitable to compare The Letterwith another recent Canadian novel onthe same subject, Sylvia Fraser's BerlinSolstice (1984). If Plaut read this novel,it influenced him little. Fraser's is a muchmore powerful and substantial book; ithas a wider focus, with a greater immediacyin descriptions of ruthlessness andcruelty, with more dynamic characterizationand dialogue. Indeed, Fraser's indignationseems more intense than Plaut's.Berlin Solstice is also superior to Plaut'snovel in its willingness to make AdolfHitler and his associates central to thestory line. These men seem here to beimportant to the themes and motivations,whereas in The Letter the Nazi hierarchyis always peripheral. The Letter isperhaps an exorcism of old ghosts froma distance of four decades; it has a significantvalue in a somewhat quiet, unimpassionedway as a reminder of aterrible period in human history, nowbeyond the memory of a high percentageof the population of Canada.WRITING LIFEROBERT G. LAWRENCEJOHN в. LEE, Hired Hands. Brick Books,$7.50.MARIA JACOBS, What Feathers Are For. MosaicPress, $8.95.IN Hired Hands John Lee undertakes topresent a life and portrait of moronicfarm hand, Tom. We follow his careerfrom cradle to grave through a series oflyrics interspersed by a number of shortprose passages headed "The Well," astructural device that refers to the initialepisode of the book in which the protagonistis dunked head first into a wellfor peeing his bed. This, or perhaps alater episode in which he falls on hishead off a roof, is the source of Tom'smental deficiency. The narrator is theson of the farmer who has hired Tom.The account seems rooted in reality, butthe narrative voice does occasionally soar,perhaps inappropriately :230

BOOKS IN REVIEWPoems are twisting at his headlike fingerson a stem-windertrying to wind his life up.The basis of this conceit is that Tomcollects old clocks and watches. But this"poeticizing" does not always work. Itseems more a literary indulgence than afurthering of our understanding of Tom.And this points to the main problem ofthe book : are we getting Tom, or are wegetting an imaginative youth's romanticview of a lovable retardate? Lee wantsus to have both, but some blurring offocus emerges. Sometimes Tom's viewpointis conveyed not by his, but by thepoet's way of thinking:He rememberswhat he likes —not what happenedor isor will bebut what he likes.He is constantlywritingand rewritinghis lifefor he remembers perfectlywhat didn't happen and whyand why.By the time you have figured this out,is it really Tom's thoughts? It might beperfectly accurate, in a way, but not inTom's way. The poem is successful whenthe viewpoint shifts to the observer:When he plays harmonicahis eyes get wildI've seen that lookin a sheep's eyeswhen its head is caughtin a fence.So the problem is one of distance and thetemptation to go beyond the experienceitself:Tom watches the TVfrom another room.He can barely seethrough the smoke from his Trump cigarlike Hecatesquinting through a fog.The Hecate reference is surely unneeded.Despite these reservations we do get asense of Tom's simplicity and isolationas well as the affection which he inspiresin the narrator/poet. Perhaps this is allwe have a right to expect. There cannotbe much personal interaction, givenTom's handicap. And the book is oftenvery funny. In fact the humour is handledwith complete success. Tom's failedattempt at courting and his visit to afortuneteller in town, among other passages,are deftly executed. The bookneeds cutting, but its heart is sound. Theillustrations by Michel Binette are finedrawings, but do not always suggestTom's oddity.Maria Jacobs's second collection ofpoems offers explorations of love, authenticor illusory, many in retrospect, ofhuman relationships in general as well aspoems of observations and fantasy. Thispoet's writing has a directness which isappealing. She does not indulge in verbalconundrums or brain-twisting conceits.She likes to get to the point right off, hitor miss. Her hits are very good:I still see youformal blazer and tiemy letters and photographin your outstretched handreturning me to myself.Sometimes she misses, as with this tangleof tropes:With one foot firmlyin the romantic traditionthe other in quicksandwe are not well equippedto take charge of our lives.This poem seems to be about fidelity —about how it can get boring:Ask anyone — me for exampleleaving home now and thento see what my feathers are forbut back again inevitablyto my indispensable husbandready to be groundedfor my irrelevant leanings.But the poem doesn't come to grips with231

BOOKS IN REVIEWthe real issue that underlies these vaguesuggestions. Yet it ends well (except forthe last line) :I would fight like anythingto be liberatedonlythere is no oppressor.Or else I am he.Despite her unsureness in places, thispoet is always interesting and honest.Having quoted her at her worst, it isonly fair to add that certain passagesmore than compensate for the weaknesses."Mid-life" complements "Straddling"and suggests that Jacobs has adeeper understanding of the long-termhuman commitment than she does ofromantic dreams:We search in other eyeseince yours reflectwhat you must catch in mine:the shaded side, Augustgusts of resentmentagainst the steady flowtroubling our surfacesbelow which we see nothing.This writing combines directness andsimplicity with great subtlety of feeling.Jacobs's unevenness comes from hertotal involvement in the experiences sheis depicting — she dives to the depthsand comes up with mud or a pearl. Thewriting never takes precedence over whatshe is writing about. Jacobs explores herinvolvement in human relationships witha vitality that conveys both depths andheights. In certain passages of unaffectedfinesse she excels with an enviable naturalgrace.ARTHUR ADAMSONROMAN HEARTBEATANTONIO D'ALFONSO, The Other Shore. Guernica,$20.00; pa. $9.95.PASQUALE VERDiccHio, Moving Landscape.Guernica, $17.50; pa. $6.95.the accent is Celtic,the "ths" are perfectthe heartbeat, Roman.ALEXANDRE AMPRIMOZGUERNICA EDITIONS' Essential Poets Serieshas since 1978 given Italo-Canadianpoets a forum in which to exchange, givea name to, and make known their sharedexperience. That experience (also documentedin a flurry of 1970's novels,poetry anthologies, and literary journals)can be best summed up as "the biculturalsensibility," which Pier Giorgio Di Gicconoted is shared by an ever-growing numberof New Canadian writers who arescattered all about the country. Perhapsone should refer to a tricultural sensibility,taking into account Canada's twoofficial languages.There is no question Di Cicco's "sensibility"exists. However, here are severalas yet unanswered questions with whichthe sympathetic reader should approachItalo-Canadian writing: who thought toimpose the "Italo-Canadian" label in thefirst place — the group of writers whobanded together, or a faceless and indifferentCanadian literary establishment?To what purpose might this literarylobby best be applied? What languageshould the writers speak among themselves,and in their work? Is there anItalo-Canadian tradition offering richimages through which writers may exploreand express new-found identity, ora jumble of subjective experiences inaccessibleto the reader who either does notunderstand, or wish to understand, amicroexamination of cultural background.232

BOOKS IN REVIEWTo these questions a tremulous "It depends.. . ." The fact is, as with any artform, it is up to the individual artist tomake powerful feelings as real as possibleto the reader/spectator. The search forself is a necessary process through whichthe writer on the cultural margin passes,to fit into, or just "be," in the NewWorld. Joseph Pivato, in an article entitled"The Arrival of Italian-CanadianWriting," quotes Robert Kroetsch's pithycomment: "The fiction makes us real."Italo-Canadian writers are and havebeen compelled to write about confusedfeelings of rootlessnes, frustration, andnostalgia brought upon them by "exile,""marginalization," "invisibility," "culturaldeath," "assimilation," "voicelessness."For Italo-Canadian poets in particular,the dangers of mixing poetry and polemicsis the other side of the opportunity tosense a long-awaited belonging. In someunsuccessful Italo-Canadian writing,therefore, unwanted and clanking literarytropes can be found, what PasqualeVerdicchio describes as a "particularcanon : ... your mother in her mourningclothes, your father laying bricks, yourfirst trip back to Italy." Antonio D'Alfonsosuggests, "If Italian writers in thiscountry wish to be taken seriously, theywill have to work very seriously at tryingto render intelligible their complex traditionsnot only to other peoples in thisland but to themselves."All that having been said, D'Alfonso'snew book of poetry, The Other Shore,"A notebook without a beginning, withoutan end, only a flowing towardsbeing," fails to involve the reader emotionallyin the difficult struggle with dislocation,with what D'Alfonso elsewheredescribes as the "search for balance betweenthe natural and the cultural, theOld and New World, between the pastand the present, between Italy and Canada.. . ." That failure arises specificallyfrom D'Alfonso's choice of form. Unlikethe lyrical Black Tongue (1983), TheOther Shore is, as the coverline suggests,a "notebook" of prose-poem perceptionsorganized into seven lengthy sections.The poet's aperçus are punctuated byhaunting, grainy black and white photographsof passageways, stairs, doorways,taken by the author while in Italy. Thebook's divisions, it becomes clear, charta voyage of self-discovery, starting particularlywith "L'Uomo Solo," acrossoceans of memory and longing to homeland"Guglionesi," and back again to theinner self, "To Criticize Oneself." Thevoice that emerges from the diarylikeentries speaks in the vernacular, andgenerally steers clear of poetic effects.The result is either a flat, featurelesstone, in which the poet reflects to himselfand to the overhearing readerThe cultures of being whatbeing can never again be. Here orthere: cultureless identity. The Italianculture: what does it mean to be Italiantoday if you live outside Italy? "Ifyou don't live in Italy, you're not Italian."What does such a phrase mean?or voluminous rhetoric. And then thesentences do not hold the obvious intensityof the poet's unreined-in emotion:Words rot in my mouth, no text possibleon the beauty of the coming toin this world. Not in Vietnam, not inNicaragua, not in the hamburger standas clean as a new valium container. Notin my dress you cannot distinguish frommy work-clothes. Not in a flavourlessstew — О melting pot of frigidity.Furthermore, D'Alfonso's journey ofdiscovery is frequently too personal —what with overwrought reportage oflove-making, a string of dedications tofriends and fellow writers, homage tocertain family members — and reducesthe reader to a stay-at-home voyeur,when he really wants to be on the journeytoo.2ЗЗ

BOOKS IN REVIEWThe poems in West Coast writer/editor/translator Pasquale Verdicchio'sMoving Landscape (his first collection)are admirable, especially for their emphaticvisual appeal. Quick flashes ofrich, intense thought are expressed inimages that get to the essence of "things,"as in "Fish":Moon tears in sea skinconverse creatureswalled by currentsscale sensesgills, fins motion secretsNew phosphorescencetapering into fin lobevanishes with darknessMany of Verdicchio's poems, in fact,have a kind of picaresque quality (movinglandscapes), as his gaze is fixed, andthen lifted, and then fixed again on anotherpoint of the map. Startling picturesappear, as in "Barcelona" :There is no flamencoechoing in thesestreetsanymore :the accent is all that is left.Picasso women, white powdered faces andtwistedeyes,stare and follow their noses up alleys.Addressing the question of culturalidentity, Verdicchio applies the sametechnique, or way of seeing, to advantage,and so we are compelled to seewith him into the tableaux of presentand past, "the dreams / which ancestorscarved in stone / and described in jewels":Arms of Etruscan figureswhose loins spawned words of gold andsilverfrom the sperm of mystery which spilledinto the Arno and down to the sea.their eyes closed in damp excavations,arms embracing the memorywe hold of them.The title poem, the longest and lastin the collection, does battle with thecomplexities of belonging and yet notbelonging in the New World — the Italo-Canadian (or immigrant) condition.Verdicchio laments his "ready-made history,"the frustrations of "functioning asan absence," and of living in "this city,not my city, any city." He mourns, aboveall, the fickleness and shortcomings oflanguage that, in the end, "must go ondeceiving."LOUISE MGKINNEYNOVEL HERSTORYDALE SPENDER, Mothers of the Novel.Methuen, $25.00.RESURRECTING FORGOTTEN or neglectedwomen writers and arguing for their inclusionin the literary mainstream areamong the most valuable undertakings offeminist scholars. Dale Spender has surveyedwomen novelists before Jane Austenand produced an all-out attack onWalter Allen, Ian Watt, and other historiansof the novel in English who havelimited themselves to male writers. Spender'sstatistics are rough but impressive:well over one hundred women and onlyabout thirty men were producing fictionfrom the sixteenth to the end of theeighteenth century. Her argument ischronological and qualitative as well asquantitative; why is Eliza Hay woodcalled the "female Defoe" when she gotthere first with significant innovations inthe novel? Why isn't Defoe the "maleHaywood"? Why does Richardson getthe credit for his limited male perceptionsof female character in epistolaryform when women had been publishingtheir female perceptions in epistolaryform for decades?These and other questions accompanybiographical, critical, and bibliographicalmaterial on the women novelists, twenty-234

BOOKS IN REVIEWtwo of whom are singled out for relativelydetailed consideration. As well,Spender examines significant elements inthe world of letters as they affectedwomen: literacy, publishing practices,circulating libraries, access to bookstores,the making and unmaking of literaryreputation. The scope of her book isambitious.Spender devoted "almost two years"to the preparation of this book and shethanks numerous friends and colleaguesfor their assistance. It is greatly to beregretted that her haste and her dependenceon others have resulted in an unreliablepiece of work. As a referencebook, it is only as good as its many secondarysources, which range from theimpeccable (Patricia Köster), to the uneven(Janet Todd), to the outdated(B. G. MacCarthy). Among other mistakes,some novels are wrongly dated, includingtwo by Frances Brooke, lists oftitles and editions are sometimes incomplete,names and titles are occasionallymisspelled, reprintings of "lost" novelshave been overlooked — and grammaticalerrors obtrude. Some standard referenceworks have not been consultedand much recent scholarship has beenignored; Spender has been satisfied, forinstance, with B. G. MacCarthy's 1944discussion of Lady Mary "Wroath" insteadof consulting Josephine Roberts'srecent work on Lady Mary Wroth. Inher pages on Eliza Haywood's FemaleSpectator, Spender stitches together quotationsand unacknowledged paraphrasesfrom two critical sources, and, ratherthan going to the text of the FemaleSpectator itself, takes her Haywood quotationsexclusively from those sametwo sources, including the ludicrous error"lubrications" for "lucubrations."Throughout Mothers of the Novel, heavyand uncritical reliance on an erratic collectionof seocndary sources, often insufficientlyacknowledged, reduces thescholarly quality of the book, while thelarge number of those sources casts doubton the degree of critical neglect thatSpender claims these women novelistshave suffered. However, where little previouscriticism is available, as in the caseof Mary Brunton, that claim is justifiedand Spender's work is original and useful,despite her practice of "skipping"Brunton's passages of overt Christianmoralizing, which Spender dislikes. Andit is useful to have the full range of women'sfiction — that is, the history of mostof the mainstream of the English novel— brought together in one book, howevertiresome the repeated attacks onmale historians become. Mothers of theNovel serves a valuable purpose as theflagship of Pandora's fleet of reprints ofnovels by women currently being published— a most welcome project. Onecan only wish the flagship had beenmade shipshape.ANN MESSENGERDRAMATIC FRINGENANCY BELL with DIANE BESSAi, ed., Fivefrom the Fringe: A Selection of Five PlaysFirst Performed at the Fringe TheatreEvent. NeWest, $6.00.CHRISTOPHER INNÉS, Politics and the Playwright:George Ryga. Simon & Pierre,$11.95.CANADA'S MOST GENUINE and successfultheatre festival is undoubtedly the FringeFestival, a nine-day event in August thathas been taking place annually in theOld Strathcona district of Edmontonsince 1982. The festival has grown in sizeand popularity since its first year, whenfounder and organizer Brian Paisleyscheduled forty-five plays in five performanceareas, to 1986 when it featuredone hundred and fifty plays in thirteenspaces from theatres to warehouses,stores, schools, hotels, and streets. Ticket235

BOOKS IN REVIEWsales have surpassed expectations everyyear, from 7,500 for the First FringeTheatre Event to 135,000 for Fringe theFifth ; each year it has doubled the numberof tickets sold the previous year.The loose organization and warm welcometo any theatre group accounts forthe festival's attraction. There is no settheme or grand design, and groups areaccepted on a first-come, first-servedbasis; they pay a small registration fee,are provided with a technician, and keepthe money they take in at the box office.Such an open policy has attracted performersand companies from across Canadaand abroad, and has featured playsthat have gone on to play far beyond theborders of Alberta: Charles Tidler'sStraight Ahead I Blind Dancers, MichaelBurrell's Hess, and Janet Feindel's AParticular Class of Women.This success has prompted NeWestPress to publish the collection of one-actplays, Five from the Fringe. The shortestand the best — One Beautiful Eveningby Edmonton's Small Change Theatre— is from the first Fringe. It is a simpleand heart-warming story about an elderlywoman and man who meet at a communitybingo hall; though they neverwin a game, they do win each other andgo off arm-in-arm at the end of thenight. The inherent sentimentality ofsuch a tale is blunted by the humourand distanced by the masks and mime inthe play; the only characters who speakare the announcer and some of thosewho do win. Life After Hockey is a onemanplay by Kenneth Brown dealingwith an enduring element in the experienceof Canadian boys and men. RinkRat Brown, a husband and father overthirty years of age, relives his boyhooddays on the rink and fantasizes abouttaking Mike Bossy's place to score theovertime goal in the 1984 Canada Cupfinal against the U.S.S.R. But the playdoes not probe deeply enough into theCanadian psyche and is undercut by thegimmickry of inserting the voice ofWayne Gretzky, "a godlike voice fromabove," and the Red Army chorus, andby a silly ending that has Guy Lafleurmaking a comeback with the MapleLeafs and inviting Brown to play on hisline. Cut! by Lyle Victor Albert is aneven sillier play, whose title the editorsmight well have applied to the play itself.Based on the premise of bringingtogether characters rejected from wellknownplays, it might have sparkled likeStoppard's Rosencrantz and GuildensternAre Dead, but it does not. The rejectedcharacters — Clyde, Prince of Denmarkand Hamlet's brother; Fiddleditch, anelderly Victorian butler; Nippletitus, thesister of Oedipus; Mrs. Kowalski, themother of Stanley; and Joey, a rejectfrom a modern musical, Hey, Dud!!!(with all three exclamation marks) —have some clever and witty exchanges,but too many are predictable and derivative.The final flat joke is the appearanceof Godot — an old man in baggy pyjamaswho has been moaning in thewings throughout — when all the othershave left the stage. Eating a cucumbersandwich, the remnant from anotherplay, he looks out at the audience andsays, "Where is everybody?" If the audiencewere wise, he would be referring tothem.Plays with greater possibilities thanthese two fantasies are two realisticdramas about the plight of the Métisand native Indians respectively. The Betrayalby Laurier Gareau concerns a confrontationbetween Gabriel Dumont andthe parish priest at Batoche, Julien Moulin,O.M.I., in 1905, the year before Dumont'sdeath. Told from Dumont's pointof view, it condemns the role of thepriests at the battle of Batoche, and supportsDumont's questionable belief thatbut for the betrayal of the clergy theMétis would have won the battle. The236

BOOKS IN REVIEWFrench/Métis dialogue between the twomen helps recreate this imagined momentin Canadian history. May we hopethat Gareau or someone else will write afull-length play on Dumont as Coulter,Dorge, and others have done for Riel.The Land Called Morning, by John Selkirkwith Gordon Selkirk, is a series ofvignettes about four Crée teenagers inSaskatchewan. This is an age group ofour native people not often seen on thestage. Despite the suicide of one of thecharacters and a sentimentalized ending,we are given a positive view of theirprospects for a good life, with a littlehelp from Emily Dickinson's poem, "Willthere really be a morning," which givesan added dimension to the lyric nature ofthe play.One Alberta-born playwright who hasgone far from the Fringe is George Ryga,the subject of Christopher Innes's Politicsand the Playwright, the first in aSimon & Pierre series, The CanadianDramatist. Innes has written an importantbook that surveys Ryga's career as aplaywright but also looks at his poems,novels, short stories, film scripts, andoratorios. It focuses on Ryga's changingpolitical and dramatic vision from Indian(1964) to the recently performed Paracelsus(1986). In seven chapters Inneslooks briefly at Ryga's Ukrainian originsin northern Alberta, his short stories,early novels, and Indian, devotes lengthychapters to The Ecstasy of Rita Joe andCaptives of the Faceless Drummer, andthen goes on to show the evolution ofthe playwright's craft and vision in separatechapters on his dramaturgy, hisattempts to create a Canadian mythology,and his place in the alternativetheatre in Canada. Using unpublishedmanuscripts from the Ryga collection atthe University of Calgary as well asRyga's published work, interviews andletters, Innes gives a broad and probingportrait of the most provocative ofEnglish-Canadian playwrights. The portraitis not always sympathetic, particularlyin Innes's presentation of Ryga asthe creator of his own image of the artistas martyr. "Ryga," he says, "began creatingthe persona of an artistic outsider,persecuted for his political convictions,"and though he cites some examples fromRyga's career, they are not conclusiveand may lead to an unfair questioning ofRyga's commitment to the cause of thepoor and underprivileged.Innes's analysis of the two major playsin his study are detailed and full of insight,too detailed at times. With accessto the manuscripts he compares all sixversions of Rita Joe up to the final oneat the National Arts Centre directed byDavid Gardner, which was used for thepublished text. A closer analysis of thattext and its impact on the Canadianstage and theatregoer would be moreuseful and interesting. Innes recountedin enough detail the controversy surroundingthe Vancouver Playhouse rejectionof Captives to provoke a spiritedresponse from Peter Hay, the theatre'sdramaturge at the time, in Theatre Historyin Canada (Spring 1986). Respondingto Innes's chapter in that journal,"The Psychology of Politics," Hay calledhis rebuttal "The Psychology of Distortion."Regardless of whose version ismore exact, the controversy and the imageof the playwright that emerged fromit "contributed to Ryga's relative ostracizationin the last decade." If Hay'sversion of the events is correct we shouldlook forward to a fuller account in hisbiography of Ryga, announced in CanadianTheatre Review (Summer 1979)with an excerpt, "George Ryga: The Beginningsof a Biography."Innes uses his wide background inmodern theatre to give a perspective onRyga's dramaturgy. He shows Ryga'ssearch for a form of his own, and discusseshow Ryga's work differs from ex-237

BOOKS IN REVIEWpressionism, epic theatre, naturalism, anddocumentary. In bringing many Europeanand American playwrights to bearon the plays of Ryga, Innes was not inhibitedby what he calls, "the pressure tolimit the frame of reference solely toCanadian comparisons." But he mighthave made more of the French-Canadiancomparisons for his purposes. He citesJean-Claude Germain for whom, as forRyga, "history is the self-justification ofthose in power." Innes, and Ryga too,might well look at other French-Canadiandramatists — Gélinas, Gurik, Tremblay,Loranger — to see how an oppressedpeople have expressed themselveson the stage. The feminizing of Germaine's(sic) proper name throughoutthe book, and the incorrect page referenceto him in the index, suggest moreattention might have been paid to modelscloser to home.Nevertheless, Innes shows well the importanceand development of Ryga's aimto create a Canadian myth, and how hedoes that, especially in his later plays,by dramatizing the working-class hero.Though that is too narrow a view, Rygahas committed himself to it in his recentplays and in his involvement with communitytheatre groups that have beenperforming and touring them in his homeprovince of British Columbia.Some minor shortcomings detract fromthe usefulness of Innes's work. He includesonly one photograph, of Rygahimself, and regrets that "visual materialfrom Ryga's Vancouver productionsproved to be unavailable." Thisbeing the case, photographs from otherproductions would surely have beenappreciated. Quotations from severalsources are often included under onefootnote, which makes the effort of identifyingthem more arduous than it shouldbe. Innes dismisses the need for a separatebibliography because these detailsare given in the Endnotes. This is presumablyfor the sake of economy, but it isa false economy that is no service to studentsand scholars looking for primaryand secondary sources by and aboutRyga. Economy enough was gained bythe compact print and large pages ofthis slim volume.One final irony emerges from eventsafter the publication of Politics and thePlaywright. The Vancouver Playhouse,in conjunction with Expo '87, decided tomount the premiere of Paracelsus, fourteenyears after it was completed andthirteen after that theatre's rejection ofCaptives. Despite a lavish productiondirected by John Juliani, the play wasnot a critical or popular success. Innes'sbook shows that yet another setbackshould not deter Ryga, whose politicalwill and dramatic vision will spur himon to invent new forms of drama in creatinga Canadian mythology. Perhaps heshould consider the Fringe Festival;that's where his people are.JAMES NOONANMISSION TO CHINAALVYN j. AUSTIN, Saving China: CanadianMissionaries in the Middle Kingdom 1888-'959- Univ. of Toronto Press, $27.50.BY I 919 THERE WERE 175 Christian missionorganizations in China whose staffsincluded 321 missionaries from the CanadianMethodist, Presbyterian, andAnglican churches, and more affiliatedwith other groups. In a few years RomanCatholic missionaries would go out fromQuebec. In the face of opposition, poverty,and disease these people foundedchurches, schools, hospitals, orphanages,printing presses, and newspapers — aprocess that began in 1888 and endedfor all but a few in 1951. Alvyn J. Austin,the son of China missionaries from Ontario,has written a lively and detailed238

BOOKS IN REVIEWaccount of these emissaries of Christianityand Canadian culture. Saving Chinais well written, edited and printed, andbased on interviews and mission archives.Its approach is biographical and historical,with a focus on the missionariesthemselves, their backgrounds, activities,and attitudes. Austin's approach is sympathetic,yet objective; he understandsreligious motivation, but points out thenarrow egotism of some, as well as theextent to which missionaries relied onthe support of colonial powers in China.The author's view of China itself isdeliberately limited. As he says in thepreface, "I have tried to present theChinese not necessarily as they were butas Canadian missionaries saw them andreported them in letters home." This isclear enough, but the result is a fragmentaryand distorted view, with Chinaglimpsed hurriedly between the cracks ofnarratives about missionaries and theirinternal politics. In the period covered,China was in worse shape than it hadbeen for centuries, because of overpopulation,administrative corruption, andinvasions of Britain, France, Russia, Germany,and Japan. The missionaries cameunprepared, idealistic, and self-righteous.Most Chinese resented them; their workwas slow and difficult, and their spousesand children died of diseases. The resultis a jaundiced view of China that Austin'sdisclaimers do not offset.Given this limitation, the book is abalanced discussion of missionaries fromall the major Canadian churches, discussedin the historical context of thelarger mission movement. There is interestinginformation here on the perspectiveof Quebec Catholic missionaries,some of whom felt a certain familiaritybetween Chinese villages and their own,and identified with Chinese dislike of theBritish. Austin also notes the importantrole of women, who made up two-thirdsof the missionaries in the field. Theywere concerned with the social and educationalliberation of Chinese women aswell as with the salvation of their souls.Half of the missionary women were unmarried,so they also developed a new,high profile vocation for Canadianwomen. The impetus for Quebec missionscame from societies founded bySister Délia Tétreault in the late-nineteenthcentury. But the real puzzle posedthroughout this book for those at a seculardistance is, "why did they go?" Whatin the world were these people doing inChina, a civilization far more ancientthan their own? What a combination ofreligious fervour and cultural arrogance,of ethical dedication and sheer foolishness!And yet they did some good, bothfor the Chinese and for Canada, whoseinvolvement with the larger world wasstimulated by their appeals.Alvyn Austin has done well what heset out to do. The next step is to integratethis material into the larger realmof cross-cultural interaction, and fromthere use it to better understand ourselves.DANIEL L. OVERMYERMUNRO'S PROGRESSALICE MUNRO, The Progress of Love. McClelland& Stewart, $22.95.SOME YEARS AGO, while being interviewedfor Jill Gardiner's 1973 NewBrunswick M.A. thesis, Alice Munrospoke about her use of retrospective narratorsand the problems they confrontin her stories, saying that as we growolder: "life becomes even more mysteriousand difficult," so that "writing is theart of approach and recognition. I believethat we don't solve these things —in fact our explanations take us furtheraway." The Progress of Love, Munro'ssixth collection since she began publish-239

BOOKS IN REVIEWing during the 1950's, everywhere displaysits author's unequalled maturity,her unerring control of her materials,and of their multitude of interconnections.It leaves its reader enraptured —over the stories as narratives, certainly,but more than that, over their humandetail and most of all over the uncompromisingTightness of the feelings theydescribe, define, depict and, finally, convey.Yet at the same time, and in keepingwith her sense of the mysteries of being,Munro's insights here are both more ambivalentand more technically complexthan those she has offered previously.One does not so much review this collectionas savour its delicacies. In "Eskimo,"which tells of a doctor's receptionist/mistress,Mary Joe embarks on aplane over the Pacific. Amid the strangethings she sees and dreams while aloft,we are offered this recollection of herdoctor, a snippet of their relationship:He liked her when the braces were stillon. They were on the first time he madelove to her. She turned her head aside, consciousthat a mouthful of metal might notbe pleasing. He shut his eyes, and she wonderedif it might be for that reason. Latershe learned that he always closed his eyes.He doesn't want to be reminded of himselfat such times, and probably not of her,either. His is a fierce but solitary relish.When the narrator of the title story,now a divorced real-estate agent, visitsthe house she grew up in, her memoriescause her to lash out at an off-handedremark made by Bob Marks, the man sheis with. He immediately apologizes and,in a conciliatory follow-up, asks "'Wasthis your room when you were a littlegirl?'" This question is equally inaccurate,but the narrator acquiesces so asto smooth things over. She then explainsto herself, and to us:And I thought it would be just as well tolet him think that. I said yes, yes, it wasmy room when I was a little girl. It wasjust as well to make up right away. Momentsof kindness and reconciliation areworth having, even if the parting has tocome sooner or later. I wonder if thosemoments aren't more valued, and deliberatelygone after, in the setups some peoplelike myself have now, than they were inthose old marriages, where love andgrudges could be growing underground, soconfused and stubborn, it must have seemedthey had forever.Trudy, the protagonist in "Circle ofPrayer," recalls her feelings after Dan,her husband, left her for another woman.She holds these feelings suspended intandem with a memory she has of Dan'smother playing the piano in the ramshacklehotel where the older womanlived, and where Dan and Trudy, yearsbefore, had spent their honeymoon.Munro describes Trudy's wonder:Why does Trudy now remember thismoment? She sees her young self lookingin the window at the old woman playingthe piano. The dim room, with its oversizebeams and fireplace and lonely leatherchairs. The clattering, faltering, persistentpiano music. Trudy remembers that soclearly and it seems she stood outside herown body, which ached then from the punishingpleasures of love. She stood outsideher own happiness in a tide of sadness. Andthe opposite thing happened the morningDan left. Then she stood outside her ownunhappiness in a tide of what seemed unreasonablylike love. But it was the samething, really, when you got outside. Whatare those times that stand out, clear patchesin your life — what do they have to do withit? They aren't exactly promises. Breathingspaces. Is that all?Reading passages such as these in context,we first notice family resemblanceswith other Munro stories — in subject,technique, tone, and effect — but thematurity of these stories eclipses earlierefforts and even exceeds those in TheMoons of Jupiter (1982). "Jesse andMeribeth," for example, which tells ofthe connections between two girlhoodbest friends, is related in subject andtreatment to "Boys and Girls," "RedDress—1946," and "The Shining240

BOOKS IN REVIEWHouses" from Dance of the HappyShades (1968) as well as Lives of Girlsand Women (1971). At the same time,Munro is extending her range; "TheMoon in the Orange Street SkatingRink" has a nostalgic air about it as itmatter-of-factly tells the histories of twobrothers from the farm boarding in townto attend business school. Calmly and ingreat detail, Munro recounts their activities,the difficulties which lead to theirsudden flight from the town, and eventually—fromthe perspective gained alifetime later — she offers a seemingsense of resolution. Beautifully done, thestory is unlike most of Munro's otherwork. Another, "A Queer Streak," dealsalso in familiar materials — weaving theinterlayered relations and connections offour generations together — but it doesso at much greater length.But more than such comparisons, TheProgress of Love offers both greater complexityand, oddly enough, greater uncertaintythan we have seen before: notuncertainty of purpose, control, or detail,but rather uncertainty of meaning or uncertaintyof being — these stories offer acomplex wonder at the strangeness of itall. In the passage from "Eskimo," forinstance, the paragraph builds matter-offactlyto the telling descriptive line —"His is a fierce but solitary relish" —which is so precise and right in its focus.Yet such a detail, which encapsulates thedoctor's stern, Ontario-WASP demeanour,is offered only incidentally, asnapped, subtle phrase. In the narrativeitself, Mary Jo either misunderstands ormisperceives a scene between two fellowpassengerson her Tahiti-bound plane, anEskimo man and a teen-aged métis girlhe is travelling with. After she experiencesconsiderable vexation over theirdisagreement, offers to help the girl,and finally sleeps through some bizarredreams that include these passengers,Mary Jo awakens to find that: "Somehowa pillow and a blanket have beenprovided for her as well. The man andthe girl across the aisle are asleep withtheir mouths open, and Mary Jo is liftedto the surface by their dust of eloquent,innocent snores." Munro concludes "Eskimo":"This is the beginning of herholiday." While generally still offeringsome sense of an ending in The Progressof Love — defined by a suitable summaryparagraph — Munro now seems, mostovertly here in "Eskimo," loath to saywhat it all means.But if not composed explicitly to conveythe fragility of being and of understanding,the stories here proclaim Munro'suncertainties by their structures, andby her masterful interweaving of eventsdisparate in time, yet inescapable in connection,and so in personal resonance.Two differences are striking in this collection: Munro's more usual use of thethird person, evident since Who Do YouThink You Are? (1978), has persistedand these stories, more than ever, reflecther return to Huron County. Indeed,they seem to offer us southwestern Ontarioin something of the same wayDance of the Happy Shades does, butbalanced now by an older narrative perspective: we no longer see Huron countyfrom the point of view of one growingaway and going away from her homeplace — the stories in The Progress ofLove encompass more time, offering usthe longer view, often the cradle-tomiddle-ageperspective of a returned native.From her earliest stories, Munro'snarrative perspective has graduallygrown older, so here many characters,like Mary Jo, have personal histories —and so perspectives of time and space —roughly equivalent to Munro's own:forty or fifty years of age, born in ruralOntario, living there still or living thereagain, divorced, remarried, preoccupiedwith spouses and mature children, andgrowing older (though not yet old).241

BOOKS IN REVIEWThese characters, whose perceptionsand perspective Munro recreates throughthat emphatic yet detached way she has,share a comomn task. Their "real work"in their stories, as the narrator in "MilesCity, Montana," says, is "a sort of wooingof distant parts" of themselves. Perhapsthe most complex story in the collection,"Miles City" interweaves thenarrator's childhood memories of a youngacquaintance who drowned, with morerecent memories of her own daughter'snear drowning on a family holiday. Thenarrator interconnects memory with incidentand with perspective upon her formerself and upon her now formermarriage, marvelling, in the words ofanother Munro narrator, at "all this lifegoing on." In these stories we approachthe mystery of being, follow the narrativewooing of self and, in the end, if wedon't achieve understanding, we emphaticallyrecognize life — as it is lived, felt,and wondered about. Through them,Alice Munro's "real work" proclaims inevery way the precise delicacy of herapproach, recognition, and progress.FOLKTALESROBERT THACKERELLIOTT в. GOSE, JR., The World of the IrishWonder Tale: An Introduction to the Studyof Fairy Tales. Univ. of Toronto Press,$12.95.GERMAIN LEMIEUX, Les Vieux m'ont conté,vol. 23. Bellarmin, $20.00.THESE WORKS REFLECT polar differencesof approach to the study of folktales inCanada, and like most highly polarizedstudies their respective virtues and vicesmay be readily underlined. To beginwith the more challenging of the two,Gose's The World of the Irish WonderTale is introspective and speculative;Lemieux's is down-to-earth and practical.Gose is a literary scholar; through literaturehe has discovered folktales. HisPreface informs us of his belief that folktalesbear within them "unconscious,compensatory images, promptings whichseek conscious recognition. ... Unlike thefolklorist [whom he mistakenly believesto be preoccupied with the "typical"], Ihave tried to find not the most typicalbut the most compelling version of a particulartale." In order to elucidate themeanings and messages of his selection oftales, he has adopted a seemingly eclecticset of theoretical approaches, the insightsfrom which he applies as his "sense of itsparticular structure and theme seemed todictate." The particular approaches Gosefavours include the ritualistic — which"helps to suggest the animistic way ofthinking that also informs wonder tales";the psychoanalytic, making use of bothFreudian and Jungian views; structuralist,drawing both on Vladimir Propp andTzvetan Todorov's perceptions; and to alesser extent, insights from comparativemythology, comparative religion, and thecross-cultural studies of anthropology.All these disciplines are, however, "adjunctsto my own literary approach. I aminterested in how the narratives work,how characters become involved in conflicts,how plots embody themes, and howreaders are implicitly involved in a processwith psychological consequences."One of the failings of folklore scholarshipuntil the 1960's was its lack of concernwith interpretation of the abundantdata accumulated over the preceding150 years; not that there had not beennumerous interpretive forays made, butmost had been based on what proved tobe ultimately groundless and unprovabletheories. One of the areas that provokedthe greatest ire of international folkloristswas the psychoanalytic; most of thosewho applied Freudian theory to folktaleanalysis were readily able to prove whateverpoints they wished to prove, to dem-242

BOOKS IN REVIEWonstrate that such-and-such a tale was aclear example of the Oedipus theme, butin a manner which smacked of readinginto, not out of, the tales. In short, psychoanalystshave tended to rely on idealexamples of tales upon which to basetheir interpretations, and have generallyfailed to base their analyses on a largebody of comparative data. Folkloriststended to provide the comparative data,but to avoid overly speculative interpretations.Gose has also restricted himselfto select texts which will serve to illustratehis theses, and has, moreover, compressed,condensed, and taken episodesout of context.There is a considerable body of literaturedevoted to attacks on the varioustheoretical stances Gose adopts (and, inall fairness, a similarly large body of supportivestudies). The plethora of opposingviews simply confirms the speculativenature of many of them : one man's opinionis just as valid as another's ; but to beuseful, conclusions must be drawn whichwill inform the reader, offering insightsof many kinds, helping an individualstimulate his or her intellectual activity.This has always been an aim of literarycriticism, and the themes Gose explores— "Acts of Truth," "Self-transformationand Alienation," "Aspiration and Identity,""Love and Violence," "Healingand Wholeness," "Destiny and Fate," toname some of the chapter titles — areall matters which concern the thinkingindividual and which form the focus ofmuch creative literature.Apart from a few perfunctory remarksabout the oral style of some of the Irishnarrators whose narratives eventually becamethe subject of this study, Gose nowhereacknowledges the fact that "wondertales" or Märchen can still be collectedin living oral tradition, with thesame complexity of theme and plot, thesame variety of narrative style and dramaticperformance as he associates withthe former Irish tradition whose tales hedraws upon. Such an approach not onlystresses the literary applications of folktalestudy, it also stresses frequent scholarlyneglect of the actual storytellers,people who may well be illiterate orsemi-literate, but who have been over thecenturies the active transmitters not onlyof the tales but of the aesthetic criteriaassociated with their transmission. Tothink of storytellers as the unwittingbearers of uncut diamonds, the value ofwhich the scholar alone can appreciate(a nineteenth-century view which hasendured well into the twentieth), is anunwitting act of cultural elitism; butworse, it ignores the considerable researchundertaken during the last twentyyears or so by folklorists attempting toelicit from the tale-bearers themselvestheir views and interpretations of thetales they transmit. For the "folk" understandtheir tales and interpret them, inelegantlyperhaps, possibly without complextheoretical stances to back them;surely, any interpretation of such talesshould at the very least take into accountthe views of the storytellers themselves.Professor Gose's study is, in the finalanalysis, an example of the divorce betweenthe collector and interpreter ofdata collected in a living context, andthe dilettante interpreter who chooses themost appealing or useful approaches toserve very personal ends.It is not wrong to adopt such an approach;artists and authors and othersmay make such use of the human copyrightas they see fit. But it is anotherthing again to present the creative use offolklore as "An Introduction to the Studyof Fairy Tales." Gose's knowledge of thefield is limited to a few pertinent areas,but insofar as any "Introduction" willprovide an adequate historical survey ofthe scholarship, covering at least themajor schools of thought, the work is, atbest, mistitled. An approach that dwells243

BOOKS IN REVIEWon abstract themes alone is incomplete,and ignores the human context fromwhich they spring. A number of minorbibliographical errors betray Gose's datedfamiliarity with folktale scholarship, butthe work is certainly interesting and provocative.Germain Lemieux's Les Vieux m'ontconté, twenty-third volume in a serieswhich will include at least thirty such,is, to use a folk idiom, a different kettleof fish entirely from Gose's. This particularcontribution includes six folktaleswhich conclude Lemieux's presentationof the repertoire of Antoine Landry, anative of the Gaspé where he was bornin 1871. Sailor, lumberjack, fisherman,carpenter, Antoine Landry was also an"official storyteller" in the lumbercamps;shortly before his death he claimed toknow about 250 versions of folktales; oneof his sons considered this a modest estimation.Most of the volumes in this collectionconsist of the repertoires ofstorytellers gifted or not-so-gifted, prefacedby brief biographical notes on thenarrators.Father Lemieux began collecting folktalessome forty years ago, eventuallyproducing a doctoral dissertation underLaval University's Luc Lacourcière. Lacourcière,and the majority of his students,were comparatists concerned withquestions of dissemination and variationof folktale texts. Their work was in thetradition of the so-called Finnish historicgeographicschool which had elaborateda. methodology originally designed, at theend of the nineteenth century, to helpsolve questions of origins. Such problemsrarely motivate contemporary folkloristswho, since the late 1950's, have begun toexplore new issues using, amongst others,some of the theoretical and methodologicalapproaches adopted by Gose. Lemieux'swork has always been primarilyone of collection and publication of datain the context, broadly speaking, of theFinnish method. In this respect he hasnot been concerned with interpreting hisdata, and this is today a major criticismthat can be levelled at his research; onthe other hand, one does not expect, withall due respect to Lemieux, to teach anold dog new tricks; it is enough indeedto trust that a septuagenarian will beable to complete his life's work, andmake available to scholars what is undoubtedlythe largest published collectionof French-Canadian folktales.There are nonetheless weaknesses inthe series. The tales are given the mostsummary of identifications according tothe Aarne-Thompson catalogue of internationalfolktales, The Types of the Folktale.No attempt is made to provide listsof motifs according to the widely usedwork by Stith Thompson, the Motif-Index of Folk-Literature (the most recentco-ordinates of which were apparentlynot known to Gose). Instead thereader is offered an analytical indexwhich attempts to replace motif numbers.Admittedly, to provide motif numbersfor the many tales in the serieswould be a time-consuming task; theyare, however, expected by internationalfolktale scholars.In one respect, Lemieux has departedfrom the Laval school of folktale publication,and in this he is to be commended.Folktale specialists trained atLaval were text-oriented. In comparativematters, the text is primordial, and concernwith textual accuracy did not includefidelity to the spoken word.Contemporary folkloristics is much preoccupiedwith performance theory andrelated matters, and this concern demandsa method of transcription whichreflects as accurately and as legibly aspossible the actual verbal utterance. Lavalscholars have been mainly concernedwith the narrative content of texts and,under pressure from colleagues in linguistics,resort to phonetic transcriptions244

BOOKS IN REVIEWwhich are readily accessible only to theinitiated. Thus, a typical folktale publishedby a Laval-trained scholar standardizesand deforms the oral text; it istherefore impossible to talk, for example,about matters of style.Lemieux devised his own system oftranscribing the oral text. While his systemis cumbersome and might readily berefined, it has the virtue of attemptingto provide a close approximation ofwhat was actually said. Thus, futurescholars will be able to do more thansimply study the content of his tales. Hissystem does require some practice tomaster, but to the serious scholar it is byno means a daunting task.His awareness of that problem, however,partly inspired Father Lemieux toprovide, following each original text, arevised and standardized version. Scholarswill find this unnecessary, and themethod doubles the size of each volume.But Lemieux also wanted to make histexts available to a much wider public,and so attempts to kill two birds withone stone.GERALD THOMASFULL STOPSALi-jANNA WHYTE, Economic Sex. CoachHouse, $i 1.95.THIS IS A FIRST NOVEL by a womanwriter whom Coach House Press coylyidentifies as "a somewhat mysteriouswriter" who is "now thirty years of ageand lives in northern Ontario." Since thenovel is largely about identity, it is perhapsa deliberate joke that the authorshould conceal her identity.The story is of Sarah Stauton, a bluebloodOntarian in her late twenties andworking in the publishing trade in Toronto.She is a contemporary woman —working out at the University of Torontogym without paying dues, juggling threemale relations at the same time, andsporting the attitude toward sexual encountersof any healthy philanderingmale: get what you can out of the relationshipand then move on. The narrationfocuses on one week during whichshe reminisces over her entire biography,discovers she is pregnant, and has anabotion. Following the abortion she disownsher materialistic bourgeois past andthe metapyhsics of the "Mind/Bodysplit," renouncing her identification withRich, Powerful People and vowing tolisten to her body, and to no longer useit for the ends identified by her greedymind.The novel is a first-person narration,largely retrospective. It begins with Sarahdining with Nicholas while dispassionatelyand critically observing both himand herself. During the following weekof psycho-narrated interior monologuewe learn Sarah's entire biography. She isa Stauton, a wealthy Ontario Lakeshorefamily. The portrait of Ontario societydoes not ring true. And Sarah seems tohave been doomed to encounter onlystereotypes throughout her life. Thereare some twenty-two named charactersincluding a manipulative mother andself-sacrificing father, a lecherous uncle,a series of phallocentric youths and men,and a comprehensive set of femalefriends: the plastic American, the EarthVirgin, the athlete, the poor ethnic, theearnest suburbanite child, and the NewWoman. Sarah herself is a New Womanstill imprisoned in the nets of class andsocial ambition. The novel releases herfrom these tangles by means of Nicholas,a crass, wealthy, philandering Americanwithout any redeeming features that Icould discern. Nonetheless, cold, calculatingSarah falls hopelessly in love withhim — only to be cast off like an oldshoe. Sarah's pregnancy is not a seriousproblem in the relationship, for she readilyobtains an abortion. However, con-245

BOOKS IN REVIEWfronted with her body's "betrayal," Sarah,for the first time in her life, confrontsherself, a union of mind and body. Themeaning of the experience is conveyedby a following scene in which Sarah sitsin her bath with the shower pouring overher: "Sitting in the pond. In the water.Breathing easy. Comfortable. Warm. Atiny fetus in the world womb." The contrastto this is Nicholas's remark whenshe asks him for affection — even genitalaffection: "It's all economic sex."Despite all of this Sarah inexplicablycontinues to long for Nicholas.The greatest difficulty I had with EconomicSex arose from its prose style.Whyte has decided to represent Sarah'sstream of consciousness by the scrupulousavoidance of sentences, and the liberaluse of the full stop. The passage I havecited is typical of the entire novel. Sucha telegraphic style certainly slows downthe reader, and does catch the fragmentarynature of Sarah's psyche. But 200pages of isolated noun clusters is a bittrying. Thematically the novel left me alittle puzzled, and — even more damaging— a little bored. The difficulty, Ithink, is that Sarah and all the othercharacters never rise above stereotype.Sarah herself and the minor charactersappear to be introduced primarily to"cover" this or that thematic topic essentialto The Great Canadian FeministNovel. (Although I must admit thatthere is not a single allusion to lesbiansor French Canadians.) The characterizationand incident are so pro forma thatI found myself wondering if the novelwas not an allegory rather than a representativefiction. Sarah's genuine love forher American beau Nicholas is so poorlymotivated that I was tempted to concludethat it was meant to be read allegoricallyas an account of American-Canadian relations. Sarah, perhaps, isthe female Canadian victim willinglyplowed by the male American predator,246and cast aside when his interest turns toMexico.As an account of the life of the NewWoman, Economic Sex is not withoutinterest, and certainly it is a serious attemptto engage serious moral and socialissues. For this reader those concernswere unnecessarily blurred and marginalizedby the effort to incorporate an assessmentof an imaginary Ontario classstructure, of Canadian-American relations,and of consumerism. In short, thenovel reads as if the author were determinedto include it in everything she hadto say about women, the middle class,Canada, the U.S.A., history, and metaphysics.If she has a lot to say, it mustlook superficial when compressed into200 pages. If she hasn't something newto say on every topic, it must look trivialand hackneyed. Alas, the novel tumblesinto one or the other of these pits.CRISIS OF FAITHLEON SURETTERAMSAY COOK, The Regenerators: Social Criticismin Late Victorian English Canada.Univ. of Toronto Press, $15.95.THE "CRISIS OF FAITH" engendered by achanging world view and the assaults onthe Scriptures mounted by "scientific"historians left believers in Canada as elsewhereto hunt for new certainties. Somefound them in their moral and socialconvictions. These fill most of RamsayCook's book; but there were others whomhe notices as well, including spiritualistsand those who itched to use psychiatryon the soul itself.Cook is a social and intellectual historian.That is to say that his book isconcerned with certain events in a processof social change, chiefly deliberateattempts to mould public opinion. ApparentlyCanada was "Victorian" long

BOOKS IN REVIEWafter Victoria, and Cook, who begins inthe mid-nineteenth century, works hisway through the Mackenzie King era.He tells his story mainly through thelives of a cast of characters whose eccentricitiesand zest clearly delight him. Wemeet social reformers (Salem Bland, J. S.Woodsworth and, yes, Mackenzie King,who occupies most of a chapter), philosophers(John Clark Murray, JohnWatson, and George Paxton Young), amystical psychiatrist (Richard M.Bucke), and two spiritualists (BenjaminFish Austin and Flora MacDonald Denison).In the background there are a fewdreary spoilsports — Anglican traditionalists,Methodist fundamentalists, andvague purveyors of moral uplift whofound all the intellectual excitement deplorable.There was even Sir WilliamDawson, a man who opposed Darwin,objected to the "integrated" education ofwomen, and fought battles with JohnClark Murray, the social-gospel philosopherof the hour. But the role of the naysayers,naturally enough, is relativelysmall in the story which is, after all,about the "regenerators." The title istaken from a satire in the CanadianMagazine of 1893 probably written byS. T. Wood but, though Cook does notthink that religion did get "regenerated"(the large Protestant denominations arein more trouble now than they were inthe late-nineteenth century), he does notmean to satirize his characters.Some of the regenerators were outrightfailures. Spiritualism did not catchon even as well in Canada as it did inBritain and the United States, but mostof those mentioned by Cook played identifiableroles in bringing us the world wehave today. Bucke was a pioneer — notjust in Canada — in the physical treatmentof mental illness. His general thesisthat sick minds imply bodily disturbancecarried the day, even if his specific practicesand his theories about morality andthe sympathetic nervous system are forgotten.He makes me think of The ClockworkOrange, but in his profession he issomething of a hero. Mackenzie King'svision was fuzzy, but he lived to be ableto recognize its realization — fuzz andall. J. S. Woodsworth is still a name to bereckoned with.Cook tells his story well. We can sensethe delight with which Watson putsdown the social Darwinists for "applyingEvolution to a wholly different class ofcats," and appreciate the absolute if suicidalintegrity of the Rev. Mr. Austin ashe defends himself against a charge ofheresy based on spiritualism by remindingthe Methodist assembly of the soundnessof their other enemy, the "highercritics." We watch the misty mind ofMackenzie King work its way unerringlyfrom socialism to the support of Rockefeller,and worry along with J. S. Woodsworthas he confronts the Protestantmind in Gibson's Landing, British Columbia,and wrestles hopelessly with itsattachment to capitalism and the ImperialCause in the First World War.The chapter on Mackenzie King ismuch the sanest and most intelligible accountwe have of that curious mind.Cook can even make Henry Georgesound plausible, but he does not succeedin getting us to understand how many ofthe social gospellers could, at the sametime, tie a whole movement to propositionsthey found in the New Testamentand welcome the critical attempts toshow how unreliable the New Testamentreally was. And the mind boggles atCook's account of the beliefs of W. D.Le Sueur, one of the founding fathers ofour public service, who "was a defenderof Auguste Comte's positivism, CharlesDarwin's theory of natural selection, andHerbert Spencer's materialistic ethics. .. .He was also an admirer of St. Beuve,Matthew Arnold . . . and Ralph WaldoEmerson." One recalls Leacock's head-247

BOOKS IN REVIEWless horseman and Canadians will not besurprised to learn of Le Sueur's role inthe development of their Post Office.This is a good book to curl up with ona chilly night and a good book in itself,but an analysis of its structure raises afew doubts. I have two worries: one isabout its omission of specifically Canadianideas (as opposed to ideas borrowedby Canadians) and the other is aboutthe way in which the material is abstractedfrom its context. Cook describesa Canada in which ideas essentially flowin from abroad and Canadians react tothem in ways which closely parallel theAmericans and the British. The mainproblems he examines are those posed byevolution and the "higher" criticism ofthe Bible. Bucke did have some veryoriginal ideas, but few other characterswho receive extended treatment fromCook did. And even many of Bucke'sideas were borrowed from outside. Infact, however, there were some whollyCanadian elements in our intellectuallife. George Blewett, a Canadian-bornphilosopher who does not get mentioned,went to Alberta as a young Methodistminister in the 1890's and came awaydisturbed both by what was being doneto the Indians and to a fragile environment.His The Study of Nature and theVision of God (1907) reflects somepurely Canadian concerns which turnedhim away from orthodox Methodism. Hedid have an effect, however, on laterCanadian Methodism. There are otherCanadian elements in the shift in religiousbelief, too. The distribution of populationcreated small isolated communitiesin which one could not maintainnumerous denominations. It did have animpact on the "de-doctrinalization" ofreligion.Even more important is the relation ofreligion and literature in Canada, andyet, though Dickens and Matthew Arnoldget mentioned, Canadian literatureis largely ignored. There are specific interestingproblems which thus do not appear.E. J. Pratt was perhaps no Victorian(but was Mackenzie King?), yethe published his Studies in Pauline Eschatologyin 1917 — well within the timeframe of this book. He had his own wayof dealing with Biblical veracity — a waywhich rings true in a Canadian tradition— and it echoes in his poems and in thekinds of imagery which struck home toa good many Canadians. His way of tyingreligion to nature is an alternativeto the reorderings which Cook discusses.To omit such things is to make us seemmore colonial than we really were.The second doubt arises from the factthat Canadian Protestantism never existedin a vacuum, as did British Protestantismin an era when Catholics were atiny and generally impoverished minority,or American Protestantism whenmost Catholics were immigrant workers.Religious thought in Canada thereforegets distorted when one tells the storywith the Catholics left out. Their effecton Protestantism was often negative, butnot always.To say, more, however, Cook mightalso have had to say less — for his essayis about the maximum length for a manageablebook. No doubt there are otherbooks to be written, but, for now, we canbe grateful for this one.LESLIE ARMOUR248

BOOKS IN REVIEWPRAIRIE LOVECAROL FAIRBANKS, Prairie Women: Images inAmerican and Canadian Fiction. Yale Univ.Press, $22.00.THIS BOOK, WRITTEN by an Englishteacher at the University of Wisconsin,Eau Glaire, is sometimes illuminating orprovocative. It is also often strangely dissatisfying.Nevertheless, its exploration ofpopular literature, images and themes inwomen's fiction, prairie writers, and theinterrelationship of history and literaturewill interest a variety of readers.Fairbanks sets out to determine women'svision as recorded in over 120 workswritten by prairie women over the pastcentury. "The small facts of women'sversions of experience," she asserts,"when analyzed and interpreted as structuresof signification, lead to a new visionof women's roles in the cultures of Canadaand the United States." No longer iswoman solely "reluctant pioneer" ora "worn and resigned, but determined"figure. Numerous images emerge, likelysome variant of Prairie Victim, PrairieAngel, or Frontier Hero. Chapter headings— "Women and the Prairie Landscape,""First Wave Women," "WhiteWomen and Indians," "Second WaveWomen," "The Prairie Town," "PrairieBorn, Prairie Bred" — suggest the scopeof Fairbanks's exploration.The author's task is formidable, especiallysince she attempts not only to discussfictional images and relate them tohistorical knowledge, but also to use interpretationsand concepts from thesocial sciences. This latter effort, it mightbe briefly noted, is perhaps most effectivelyrealized in her use of "structuresof signification" from the work of anthropologistClifford Geertz. Fairbanks'sbook is partially successful, adding to the"revisioning" of prairie women alreadyunderway, particularly in the hands ofAmerican scholars like Julie Roy Jeffrey,Glenda Riley, Elizabeth Hampsten, andSusan Armitage.The authors chosen by Fairbanks arewomen who have been directly identifiedwith the prairies and sought to depictwomen's experiences there. Interestingly,Canadian women predominate (thirtyfourof sixty-six). The well-known"good" writers are frequently Canadian— established figures like Margaret Laurenceand Gabrielle Roy and relativenewcomers like Sharon Butala, BarbaraSapergia, and Aritha Van Herk — butincluded also are Americans like WillaCather and the now-prominent LouiseErdrich. Most authors, Canadian orAmerican, are obscure, often deservedlyso. For Fairbanks, who seeks to exploreas fully as possible women's versions ofexperience, such writers are crucial. Asa historian, I welcome such examination.The question is, how well done is thetask.Fairbanks's most startling contention islikely her argument that women's responseto the prairies has often beenpositive. While demonstrating that thisawareness is present also in some worksby male novelists, she focuses upon thefemale vision. "Love of the prairie landscape,"she writes, is "a dominant structureof signification" in fiction pennedby prairie women writers. Her analysisof women's response to the land calls tomind Annette Kolodny's The Land BeforeHer: Fantasy and Experience of theAmerican Frontiers, 1630-1860. Bothwriters, for example, explore the ways inwhich the notion of prairie as garden wasused to establish a sense of place forwomen, and Fairbanks, though critical ofKolodny, can be said to take up whereshe ends. She examines in detail howwomen in subsequent decades experiencedthe land. Many positive relationshipsemerged: "The prairie is rich inassociations with home ground, erotic249

BOOKS IN REVIEWexperiences, imagination and creativity;it is a sacred place, sometimes linkedwith psychic healing, a place of onenesswith nature." In another vein, the prairiehas meant opportunity, even liberation,for some women. Here Fairbanks emphasizesthe important role of the city,which, rejected by some, was a welcomehaven for others.Women, then, could embrace theprairies as land and as opportunity. Fairbanks'sevidence, culled largely from acentury of fiction, is irrefutable, but sheovergeneralizes. Moreover, positive portrayaloften came only decades aftersettlement.Her explanation of how "limitlessvastness" became "familiar, friendly, andeven intimate" is intriguing — and provocative.Attitudes shape perceptions, theauthor argues. Woman has been socializedinto expert accommodationist, andher sense of space and relationships givesrise to what Fairbanks describes as afeminine — and positive — version ofNorthrop Frye's "garrison mentality."Unlike man, who needs to conquer orcontrol, she accepts the land on its ownterms. She becomes "'garmented withspace,'" projecting onto the prairie "thepotential to clothe and protect her." Survival,even triumph, is the outcome. Fairbanks'sexplanation has an eco-feministtinge: "A sense of the secrets of life isat the heart of women's optimism. Beliefin renewal and rebirth underlies the survivalinstinct." In this identification ofwomen with nature and discussion of itsimpact, the author overgeneralizes. Incontrast is her awareness that "accommodationism"is a cultural fact of lifenot necessarily limited to women.Central to her exploration is Fairbanks'sheroic effort to relate fictionalimages and historical reality. Debatesabout the nature of reality, historical orotherwise, or the truthfulness of fictioncan be raucous. My own position is thatrelatively accurate, though incomplete,knowledge of the past can be acquiredand fiction may be "true to life." Whatfiction, though, can serve as historicaltruth? A novel or short story may illuminatecontemporary reality; that is, itmay provide insights about the era inwhich it was written. Included in Fairbanks'sstudy, however, are works writtenby a later generation long after thefact.As sources of historical truth, then,Fairbanks's fictional works sometimesneed to be used cautiously. Even so, herdiscussion has value. She provides detailedanalysis of women's experiences interms of "structures of signification"found in the fiction — journey, work,farm or homestead, ordeal and isolation,satisfactions, female relationships. Shefinds, by the way, no national differences,except for a persisting sense of prairie inCanada. Contrasts with historical accountssuggest the limitations of fiction,history, and our current state of knowledge.Her heavy reliance upon Americansources is inevitable, given the literature'smore extensive development. Nevertheless,some Canadian references are ignored.Eliane Leslau Silverman's workon Alberta women is an example. Andwhy, in her discussion of Kate SimpsonHayes, historical example of liberatedwoman and cultural giant (and lover ofNicholas Flood Davin), does Fairbankscite Ken Mitchell's play, Davin: ThePolitician, while omitting C. B. Koester'sMr. Davin, M.P.: A Biography of NicholasFlood Davin, which has the mostaccurate information? It is unnerving,furthermore, to find her describing MariaCampbell's Halfbreed as a novel.Fairbanks's book, though, is a majorattempt to relate fiction and history, andcontributes to our growing awareness ofthe numerous images of prairie women,real or fictional. Her exploration willdoubtless startle, even upset, many liter-250

BOOKS IN REVIEWary scholars. She sometimes challengescommon interpretations of familiar fictionalcharacters and assumptions of conventionalliterary criticism. The result ofher book, I hope, will be additional researchin literature and history onwomen, especially Canadian women —and men. As Fairbanks notes, we needalso to examine anew men's images and"versions of experiences."UNE VOIXONTARIENNEANN LEGER ANDERSONHELENE BRODEUR, Chroniques du Nouvel-Ontario. 3 tomes. Prise de Parole, n.p.Nous SOMMES TÉMOINS ces dernièresannées d'un essor remarquable d'une littératurecanadienne-française qui n'est niquébécoise ni acadienne: celle de l'Ontario.Avec ses Chroniques du Nouvel-Ontario, Hélène Brodeur vient ajoutersa voix à cette expression littéraire croissantequi réclame son dû face à son cousinplus prestigieux. Cette trilogie (LaQuête d'Alexandre, Entre l'aube et lejour, Les Routes incertaines) raconte, defaçon parfois touchante, le peuplementde l'Ontario du Nord par des colonsvenus du Québec et leurs coups dechance et leurs déboires à travers les années.L'auteur a voulu "faire revivre uneépoque révolue de l'histoire de l'Ontario-Nord" en relatant des événements qu'elleprétend être vrais. Au lieu de suivre uneintrigue centrale, l'oeuvre entière nousprésente plutôt des scènes de la vie, desséquences dont le fil conducteur est assurépar certains motifs-clé: l'amour, lefeu, la religion, la politique, la nature etle fait français en Ontario.Le premier tome, dont l'action se dérouledurant les années 1913-16, doncpeu après l'arrivée des premiers colonsdans cette région, se divise en trois parties.La première raconte l'histoired'Alexandre Sellier, jeune Québécois destinéà la prêtrise, qui arrive en Ontariodu Nord à la recherche de son frère, donttoute trace avait disparu à la suite d'unfeu de forêt catastrophique. Esprit insoumis,curieux et courageux, Alex remet enquestion sa vocation religieuse et sescroyances auparavant si solides. Ceci permetà l'auteur de procéder à un réquisitoirede l'hypocrisie, de l'orgueil et del'intolérance qui caractérisaient l'Eglisecatholique. Dans cette première partie,Hélène Brodeur nous fait sentir la tensionqui existait entre Protestants et Catholiques,entre Anglais et Français. Ellecritique vivement les attitudes bigotes etintolérantes qui créent une abîme entreles deux groupes et semble rejeter tout leblâme sur l'Eglise. Le bon sens commundu bûcheron, qui prêche le seul Evangilede la tolérance, ou du médecin quilutte contre le fanatisme et l'orthodoxie,contraste éloquemment avec les idéesétroites et préjugées des ecclésiastiques.La deuxième partie de ce tome nousprésente Rose, Anglaise venue en Ontariopour y vivre avec son frère. Mal servieen amour par son mari, elle tournerases yeux vers le jeune Alex, d'où le dilemmemoral de ce dernier. Troublé parson émoi pour Rose, par sa formationreligieuse et par ses rêves erotiques, ilessaie en vain de refouler ses sentiments.L'inévitable se produit: Rose et Alexconsomment leur amour pendant l'absencedu mari. Le feu de la passion montantedes deux amoureux est suggéré defaçon métaphorique par la chaleur montantede l'été torride et par l'incendie quien résulte. Le feu, leitmotif qui avaitdéclenché toute l'action au début dulivre, la boucle aussi. Le premier tomefinira donc par un feu de forêt désastreuxoù Alex sauvera la vie à sa maîtresse.C'est d'ailleurs leur survie au beaumilieu du sinistre qui le convainc défini-25 1

BOOKS IN REVIEWtivement de se consacrer à la prêtrise etd'établir une mission en Afrique. Mais cequ'il ignore au moment de son départ,c'est que Rose est enceinte de lui.Le deuxième tome fait un saut en avantjusqu'aux années 1930-36, au début dela crise. La caméra est maintenant braquéesur la génération suivante et enparticulier sur Donald, fils de Rose etd'Alex, sur Rose-de-Lima et Germain,enfants du voisin de Rose, et sur Jean-Pierre Debrettigny, fils d'un autre voisin.L'auteur raconte les histoires respectivesde ces amis d'enfance et l'entrecroisementinévitable. Il s'agit surtout de l'amourconstant et inébranlable de Rosede-Limapour Donald, amour qui resteratoujours sans réponse.L'auteur y continue de développer unautre motif qui avait une place non négligeabledans le premier tome: la relationhaine-amour que l'on entretient avecl'Ontario du Nord. On ne cesse de lemaudire à cause des nombreuses épreuvesqu'il inflige: dur labeur, incendiesdévastateurs, froid perçant en hiver, chaleurétouffante et insectes piquants enété. Mais il exerce en même temps unesorte d'envoûtement et l'amour évidentavec lequel l'auteur le décrit trahit unprofond rattachement à ce pays si souventinhospitalier. Dans les deux premierstomes, elle met l'accent sur cettedichotomie : la nature, entité parfois hostile,voire meurtrière, a en même tempsun effet salutaire.Par ailleurs, les histoires de Donald etde Jean-Pierre permettent à l'auteur des'en prendre aux gens ambitieux et orgueilleux.Les deux amis ont chacun uneespèce d'"ange gardien" qui se chargepersonnellement de l'éduquer et de leformer. Mais leur motif est loin d'êtrealtruiste. La tante de Jean-Pierre veutqu'il devienne médecin seulement pourassurer que le nom Debrettigny figure denouveau parmi ceux de cette profession.Parvenue au plus haut degré, elle ne voitque la rentabilité d'une action ou d'uneamitié. Pour Donald, c'est encore pire,car son Pygmalion n'est même pas unparent. Les Gray, parents d'un de sesamis, l'enlèvent pratiquement à ses parentset en font un deuxième fils. Ambitieux,riches et influents, les Gray ontd'autres ambitions pour Donald que cellesque la pauvreté de ses parents pourraitlui offrir, et savent que sa gloireéventuelle rejaillera sur eux.Le troisième volet du triptyque, LesRoutes incertaines, présente au lecteurquelques différences par rapport aux autresen ce qui concerne l'enchaînementdu récit. Entre les tomes I et II, il yavait un saut de quatorze ans, mais avecle troisième, on commence là où on avaitterminé à la fin du tome II, en 1936. Unedeuxième différence tient au passage dutemps. On sautera des étapes (la guerre,les années cinquante) pour terminer versla fin des années soixante. Et, enfin, aulieu de changer de génération, l'auteurlaisse sur scène les mêmes acteurs. Rosede-Limacontinuera de vivre un amournon réciproque pour Donald alors quece dernier, réussissant brillamment unecarrière parfaitement prévue et orchestréepar les Gray, finira par devenir Premierministre du Canada. Jean-Pierre,quant à lui, sera évincé par sa tante à lasuite d'une aventure amoureuse qui ledétourne de ses études. Plus tard danssa vie, il rencontrera Rose-de-Limaaprès une longue période sans l'avoir vueet ensemble ils feront un voyage en Ontariodu Nord après plusieurs annéesd'absence. Ce "retour aux sources"n'aura pas qu'un effet bénéfique sur leuresprit; il provoquera en outre la naissancede l'amour entre eux, confirmantainsi l'influence salutaire de la nature.Enfin, l'auteur boucle la boucle en faisantrevenir sur scène Alexandre Sellier,absent dès après la fin du premier tome,maintenant vieux missionnaire en Afrique.Il y accueille Donald, son fils in-252

BOOKS IN REVIEWsoupçonné, lors d'une visite officielle dece dernier, situation un peu tirée par lescheveux, il faut l'admettre, mais qui nemanque pas de suspense et dont la conclusionsurprendra.Celui qui entreprend d'écrire un roman-fleuves'expose nécessairement à desproblèmes d'ordre structural. Avec troistomes et un total de plus de neuf centspages, il n'est pas toujours facile demaintenir de façon cohérente tous les filsdes diverses histoires et d'en suivre tousles développements. Il n'est donc pas surprenantde constater dans les Chroniquesun air décousu, quelques redites et, parfois,une certaine lourdeur. Ceci est dûen partie à deux procédés narratifs auxquelsHélène Brodeur a souvent recourspar la bouche d'un narrateur omniprésent:la prolepse ( "Jean-Pierre ne croyaitpas si bien dire. Il allait vite s'apercevoirde la distance . . . qui séparait Vald'Argent de Montréal"), et l'analepse:("Rien qu'à évoquer ce souvenir elle serevit..."). Pour nous donner l'informationqu'elle juge nécessaire, son narrateurfait souvent des apartés où il racontel'arrière-fond d'une telle situation, résumantbrièvement les événements qui ymènent. Cependant, ces apartés deviennentparfois trops longs et ne sont pastoujours nécessaires (par exemple, l'histoiredu chemin de fer en Ontario duNord). En fait, il y a d'une part beaucoupde détails que l'auteur aurait pulaisser de côté sans nuire à la trame durécit, et d'autre part des détails non réglés.Il en résulte que le récit s'étend tropet l'auteur n'arrive pas à tout boucler.L'histoire de Germain, par exemple, setermine prématurément, sans conclusionsatisfaisante. De plus, on voit souvent oùl'auteur veut en venir, car ses allusionssont à peine voilées. On sait bien d'avance,par exemple, qu'il y aura un feude forêt dans le premier tome; l'allusionflagrante à la page 53 n'en est qu'unindice parmi d'autres. Ces deux procédésnarratifs trahissent assez manifestementla présence très sentie du narrateur. Noussommes conscients que l'on nous raconteune histoire bel et bien finie, dans unpassé récent. On nous le rappelle constamment,d'où le titre du recueil, doit-onassumer. Il y a en outre ici et là quelquesaccrocs, des invraisemblances et des métaphoreset comparisons un tant soit peubanales. Par exemple, la sauvagesse"énigmatique" qui se laisse prendre estcomme "la bonne terre qui se laisse fouillerpar la charrue."Mises à part ces quelques critiques, onpeut dire qu'Hélène Brodeur nous livreici trois récits fort divertissants, liés lesuns aux autres, certes, mais qui se tiennentindépendamment aussi. Sans prétention,sans grandiloquence, elle traitedu thème éternel de l'amour impossibletout en évoquant un pays trop peu connude la plupart des Canadiens et en décrivantles efforts des Canadiens françaispour s'y établir tout en gardant leur langueet leur culture. C'est là, en effet,dans sa description du beau pays rude del'Ontario du Nord, que son oeuvre brillele plus par sa vigueur et par son lyrisme.INSALATA MISTAMARK BENSONII Veltro: Le Relazioni tra l'Italia e il Canada,gennaio-aprile/maggio-agosto 1985,$40.00.THE CANADA OF FRANGESCO CERLONE'S1764 play Gl'Inglesi in America, о sia ilSelvaggio is planted with palms and cypressesand presided over by a PrinceArensbergh, Lord of the Savages, whomakes his first entrance at the head of acaravan of camels. Despite his Teutonicname, the Prince is black, making him ason of Caliban. Yet, as Piero del Negropoints out, the source of the play is notdirectly The Tempest but Goldoni's25З

BOOKS IN REVIEWBella Selvaggia. The picture of Canadawhich Cerlone's play provides is not unlikethe one that emerges from the pagesof Pietro Chiara's 1768 novel La donnaehe non si trova (the source of whichwas the Italian translation of Williamand Edmund Burke's An Account of theEuropean Settlements in America). Althoughthe novel is set in the period1740-1760, it (like the play) makes noreference to the events of 1759, eventhough they were largely responsible formaking Canada into a topos of the Europeanimagination.Del Negro's article (which coversmuch the same ground as his 1975 and1979 essays listed in the notes) is one ofthe most informative among those in thistwo-volume collection devoted to the historicaland cultural ties between Italyand Canada. The result is something ofan insalata mista; the unevenness derivesa good deal from the goal of the editorsto "promote" a greater awareness of thepresence of Italy in world culture. Thisfervour has been communicated (attimes) too strongly, and exaggeratedstatements are made: Pasquale Janniniclaims the pervasive influence of Futurismoon Québec culture (although hisprincipal source, André Bourassa's Surréalismeet littérature québécoise, providesno support for this assertion) ;Michelangelo Picone's exclamatory prosestates that Canada has been a "fertileterrain" for "the most refined hermeneuticexperiments" in Dante criticism.The variation in quality is evident inthe historical contributions, among whichthe most interesting concern the earliestrelations between the two countries.Thus we find that accounts of the voyagesof Verrazano and Cartier weremade known in Italy by the 1556 publication,in Venice, of Ramusio's collectionof travel accounts, Delle navigationi etviaggi. Five years later a translation appeared(again in Venice) of Thevet'sLes Singularitez ; three years before this,Nicolo Zeno had published his Commentarii,but already history had hypertrophiedinto myth, Zeno's voyage being awell-constructed fake (as Del Negro putsit). By 1625 a political connection hadbeen established through the arm of theVatican known as Propaganda Fide; itis thanks to its archives that records ofthe early relations between the two countrieshave been preserved. Much of theresearch in these archives has been doneby Luca Codignola (who is not, however,represented by an article). Indeed,the historical essays do not go far beyondthe terrain already mapped in the essaysedited by Codignola and published in1978 (Canadiana: as petti della storia edella letteratura canadese) ; 1979 (Canadiana:storia e storiografia canadese) ;and 1983 (Canada: problemi di storiacanadese).Like the essays on history, those oncultural relations vary widely in quality;a number of them have the function ofimparting information to the Italian audience,and do not represent originalresearch. The name of Giacomo (laterJames) Forneri fittingly occurs morethan once in this section, for he introducedthe study of Italian at the Universityof Toronto in 1853. No mention,however, is made of A. A. Nobile, whoselist of subscribers to his various works onItalian culture comprise a who's who ofUpper Canada in the late-nineteenthcentury.The essays on cultural relations inevitablyraise the issue of canon, as Eva-Marie Kröller notes in her article onnineteenth-century English-Canadiantravellers to Italy. Kröller points out thatthe Literary History of Canada includesonly those travel accounts which speak ofCanada, as if affinities with Europe wereirrelevant to Canadian culture. As Kröllerargues, Canadian culture can be considereda product of the dialogue be-254

BOOKS IN REVIEWtween Old World and New. Her extensiveresearch indicates that culturalawareness of Italy in Canada was significantin the nineteenth century, as articlesin The Week (Toronto; 1883-1896) indicate.Abroad, the Canadian traveller(often a woman, unlike her Quebeccounterpart) tended to interpret whatshe saw, as opposed to the Québec traveller,who tended towards an impersonalrecitation of facts. Kröller traces thisattitude to the tradition of Protestantindividualism. By contrast, Québec travelaccounts often repeated details verbatimfrom other sources (which was apparentlynot that uncommon, as James deMule's brilliant parody, The DodgeClub; or, Italy in 185g, indicates).Another nineteenth-century travellerto Italy, Napoléon Bourassa, was concernednot at all with the Italy that wasthere, but with the Italy that was not. AsNovella Novelli points out, modern Italywas for Bourassa merely the decadentremnant of Rome's glory. Similarly,Earle Birney's twentieth-century travelsto Italy were primarily literary. In a delightfulvignette, "Io e l'ltalia," he relatesthat he first encountered Latium inthe person of his boyhood chum, TubbyPasquale. Later he visited Italy underthe aegis of Dante, Petrarca, and Boccacciowhile he was studying Chaucer.Then, at Berkeley on a fellowship, heexplored Cavalcanti, Bruno, Leopardi,zabaglione, and some Sicilian swearwords he learned in San Francisco's LittleItaly. Only in 1958, and then againin 1963, did he set foot in those otherinvisible cities: Rome, Florence, Pisa,Siena. . .At about the same time that Birneywas making his first trip to Italy, thesecond great wave of Italian immigrantswas establishing itself in Canada. One ofthe most interesting results of that translationwas the invention of a CanadianizedItalian (or was it an ItalianizedCanadian?) known as Italiese. GianrenzoClivio provides a small lexicon ofthis language, showing how it differsfrom standard Italian. Thus, basementbecomes "basamento" rather than theItalian "seminterrato" ; carpet becomes"carpetto" and not "tappetto." And Ican remember my uncle saying "checciabesa"for catch basin, though he droppedthe final "a" to make the word conformto his dialect.Taken as an insieme, these two volumesindicate that the relations betweenthe two countries merit more than theambassadorial gush with which they begin.While much original research remainsto be done (as Stelio Cro's discoveryof an unknown letter by Bressaniindicates), we have, nevertheless, comefar from the stereotypes of James S.Woodsworth's Strangers Within OurGates (1909) and the effusiveness ofJohn Murray Gibbon's Canadian Mosaic(1938). It is in this direction of understandingthe heterogeneity of Canadiancultural phenomena that II Veltromoves: "e sua nazion sarà tra feltro efeltro."THEATRE ENCORERICHARD CAVELLROCH CARRIER, L'ours et le kangourou. Stanké,n.p.JEAN DAiGLE, Au septième ciel. Editions duNoroît, $10.95.L'ours et le kangourou is a dialogue(divided into sixteen chapters) between"Roch," the bear, and "Chris," the kangaroo.It has attributes of the novel, thetheatre, and the travel journal. As theytravel about Australia, each of the twocompanions vies with the other in tellingtall tales about his own country and inprovoking his interlocutor with the absenceor presence of the oddities expectedby the "informed" tourist. Roch, after255

BOOKS IN REVIEWfive days in Australia, has not yet seen akangaroo — "Est-ce qu'ils existent vraiment,ces insectes?" Chris spent a wholewinter in Canada without seeing a singleMountie, and lived in daily fear of openinghis door to find a bear staring at him.Roch counters that bears were inventedby the same ministry which invented theR.C.M.P.The two travelling companions teaseeach other about language. Both Australiansand Québécois like to draw outthe pronunciation of their respective language.Chris thinks that natives of themother country (England or France)have to compress their language in orderto keep it within the boundaries of suchsmall territories. Each inevitably comesaround to applying his ironic view of theworld to his own culture. Reproachedwith faulty logic, Roch asks indignantlywhat is logic — he's from Quebec ! "Etrequébécois, c'est pouvoir dire oui et nonà la fois; c'est pouvoir être conservateuret libéral en même temps; c'est pouvoirêtre fédéraliste et séparatiste ensemble.. .."Chris and Roch discuss a dizzying arrayof topics from politics to biology andfrom religion to the "big bang," treatingmost of them with irreverence and humour.Virtually no theme strays far fromtopics of current concern. It is perhapsin the imaginative and light-heartedtreatment of serious topics that fictiontakes hold, rather than in constructionof the plot and narrative of a traditionalnovel. Roch expresses admiration to haverun into the "most famous Australianpoet," H. D. Hope, urinating like anordinary human being in a public men'sroom. In response to Chris's suspicionthat he is making fun of Australianpoetry, Roch protests that the poets ofthe "mother countries" never engage insuch natural functions — "A-t-on déjàvu pisser Shakespeare ou Victor Hugo?"It would be a serious misreading to takethis as sarcasm directed at the "greatwriters" rather than at affected attitudesof "superiority." Perhaps, in a desperateacademic attempt to categorize RochCarrier's dialogic tall story, we shouldsay that it is a fast-moving, humorouscommentary on contemporary attitudestoward "reality," uninhibited by slavishadherence to "truth" or any other sacredcows. It is worth an hour or two of readingtime by anyone with the least degreeof awareness that the colonialist/colonizedmentality affects persons of variousestates, careers, religions, sexual outlooks,and political dispositions.Jean Daigle does not write with thefree-wheeling irreverence and facility ofRoch Carrier, and he never touches directlyon political themes. His theatrehas repeatedly been described as "psychodrama."Daigle's first full-length play,Coup de sang, was published only in1976, although he had been writing sincethe late 1960's. The third play, Le jugementdernier (Théâtre Port Royal, Montreal,1979), was criticized for its unwieldyuse of difficult-to-follow flashbacks.The earnest excavation of theunlovely and unloving past of parents isevocative not only of Chekhov's theatrebut also of Eugene O'Neill's probing intofamily violence and alcoholism in U.S.drama.Between his early dramas and thismost recent "comedy," Daigle has certainlyevolved in his theatrical writing.Au septième ciel, his sixth play, takes usthrough the complications of autumnallove and engagement. The play turnsaround the doubts and desires of twogentlemen of sixty-five, Albert and Edmond,who are engaged to Yvette andRose (fifty-five years young), the proprietorsof a rest home. While the themesof misunderstanding between lovers andthe fears of a "convinced bachelor" (Edmond)upon contemplating marriage forthe first time at a relatively advanced256

BOOKS IN REVIEWage yield the comic situations and reparteewhich we associate with summertheatre in Quebec, there is genuine humourof language and some poetry inDaigle's writing. Albert is a world-wisebachelor who enjoys verbal parry andthrust. He is impatient with the engagementritual — he would prefer to "tastethe wedding cake" before marriage. Inwrathful reaction to the precipitous departureof a faithless companion, Evangeline,a friend of the two fiancées, decidesto reconstruct the French language— "j'utiliserai plus jamais un mot masculin"— and she proceeds to feminizeall masculine words : "Faites-moi la plaisirde retourner dans la jardin, je veuxpas vous voir la bout de la nez seulement"(my italics).There is a good possibility that thesuccess of Michel Tremblay's Les bellessoeurs in 1968, with its scandalous use ofjoual had an impact on the dramaticcareer of the young Jean Daigle. To hiscredit, it should be noted that Daigledid not jump on the bandwagon to tryto capitalize on Tremblay's success.Daigle's characters in fact bring popularlanguage to the stage also, but it is clearlyand realistically based on the spokenFrench of a small provincial town, havinglittle or no connection with the popularlanguage of Montreal or with theliterary and theatrical modishness of"joual" in the late 1960's. Jean Daigleis a craftsman of the theatre who hasbeen working slowly and deliberately fornearly twenty years producing theatrewhich may be viewed and re-viewed withincreasing respect for the human statementthat it makes.CARROL F. COATESTELLINGSROBERT CURRIE, Learning on the Job. Oberon,$11.95.JANE MUNRO, The Trees Just Moved Into aSeason of Other Shapes, Quarry, $8.95.KEN NORRis, In the Spirit of the Times. TheMuses' Company, $6.95.STEVE NOYÉS, Backing Into Heaven. Turnstone,$7.95.LOVING AND WRITING have often been thesubjects of poetry as poets ask not onlywhat it is to love but also what it is towrite "I love." This relation betweenwhat French psychoanalyst Julia Kristevamight call desire and language hasbeen worried over recently in Canadianpoetics. Theorist, novelist, poet RobertKroetsch articulates his awareness of theproblem in a 1981 interview with ShirleyNeuman :I realize that I fall in love by saying I fallin love. But I also know that I then havefallen in love. You know, I have an upsetstomach and can't sleep at night, I writelove letters . . . and all the crazy things alover does.More recently, in her latest book ofpoems, Jane Munro also acknowledgesthe uneasy relation between the wordswe have to speak about love and ourexperience of it when she writes of twolovers who "haven't learned enough yetabout the many kinds of telling, in love."As different as Jane Munro's book isfrom recent books by Robert Currie, KenNorris, and Steve Noyes, at some pointthey each struggle with or in the relationbetween language and loving, whethertheir poems speak of a love for others,for words, or for the ways that our wordsgive us access to our "others." Somepoems tell us of the many kinds of love;others that, as Kristeva writes, "love isspoken, and that is all it is."The poems in Robert Currie's Learningon the Job speak, with humour andinsight, of the different kinds of love a257

BOOKS IN REVIEWman feels for wife ("The Trouble WithMarriage is Getting to Sleep"), children("Thank God it Ends at 10:30"), andfriends ("This Poem Says What itMeans"). There are poems that registerthe anguish of unrequited love ("In theWaiting-Room" ) and of physical desire("Learning on the Job"). "In the Waiting-Room"is a particularly interestingpoem that speaks of waiting as the conditionof desire, absence as the positionof the loving subject :You sit curled behind a magazineeyes moving left to righttongue playing with your lower lipWere this a crowded roomI could stand it and understandwhy you don't notice mebut the room is emptythough I am in it.Also addressing the problem of the positionof the writing lover, "Last Night"speaks of the "learning on the job," thelearning about love that goes on while apoet writes a love poem. It is the poet'suneasiness about writing about love thatproduces some of the most interestinglines :As I woke up this morningI began to dream a poemsaw it forming in the darknessof a night that you had warmedBut haunted by your memoryI couldn't find a wayto force the words on paperwanting more to be with you.Currie's is not always a poetry of absenceof this kind ; but when his poems do confrontthe experience of writing what cannotbe written about love they are poignantand compelling.The poems in Jane Munro's The TreesJust Moved Into a Season of OtherShapes also wrestle with the paradoxthat a poet often writes of not being ableto write. "Sermon on the Mount" speaksof "the sacred and horny romp, / redundantas all get out, treating eachother / that way we can never quitesay." Having said what it says it cannot,with these words the poem ends. ButMunro's poems also attempt anotherkind of telling — by allowing a few carefullyplaced words to produce a multiplicityof meanings. "Birds," the series ofshort poems which opens the book, recallsPhyllis Webb's Naked Poems in itsstark, rhythmic simplicity. Telling, inthese poems, is taken from the speakingvoice and given to the seemingly arbitraryarrangement of words on a page.The final poem of the sequence retells(because the poem of the first part isrepeated in italics) an earlier "story,"pointing out how the same words meandifferently in new contexts :one flew awayfromone flew awaytowhy would a bird depart?a bird will flyfromandtoone flewawaythe bird knewIn its punning and word (bird?) play,this poem tells also of a love for words.Munro's long poem "Creek Bed,"which follows "Birds" in the book, speaksof a difficult love between mother anddaughter — difficult both to experienceand to write about. The creek becomes ametaphor for both the mother and thepoem that is trying to be written:creekblithering over a stuck logbends its restless tongueto the deadfallarguing against its finishOther poems in the collection speak ofthe love sister has for sister ("WomanClothed By the Sun") and of the lovethat occurs (or fails to occur) betweenlovers ("As Windows Shape Light").258

BOOKS IN REVIEWOften there is the recognition that thereare "worlds / we'll never touch / whatwe touch / are the frames / in ourminds" — the words with which westruggle to grasp a world.The speaking voice in Ken Norris's Inthe Spirit of the Times also recognizesthat "there are pages to fill, there is alife to live; / somehow they are connected."Norris's poems suggest that thepoet writes out of a love both for wordsand for the experience which words seemto offer: "I want to say it and I want tostop / saying it." But his poems are balancedprecariously between despair andidealism, between having only words, andhaving all that words seem to make possible.If I can adapt lines from "TheEdge," these poems are "walking thethin line between / cynicism and romance."The final and longest poem ofthe collection, "Poem for Katherine toRead on Her Twentieth Birthday," selfreflexivelyposits the poet writing at anotherprecarious edge — in a presenttense that is at once future and pastbecause, as the poet says, "it gets soconfusing when I try to write about life,Katherine" :iWe all stood on the other side of the glass:Richard and Deirdre, who had to alternatecoming upto the maternity ward because one of themhad to staydownstairswith Nicholas, who was seven weeks oldand who perhapsyou've grown upknowingThe speaker of this poem tells us that heis "wrestling with the spirits of these darktimes / trying to clear a space for you"but what he is also doing is clearing aspace for himself and his words. As thepoem "Reach Me" argues, "I wanted tomake / something beautiful out of mysadness and my sense / of the personallytragic." Along with the romanticizedpoetic "I" comes the sense that it is onlyin words that "I" speak; "what we reallyknow is inconsistency and moments /without cues."Steve Noyes's Backing Into Heaven isamong the most flamboyantly "selfcentredof the four books. Al Purdywrites on the cover, "he flows, he dances,he's alive, and accomplishes all three atonce." But just who is the "he" of thepoems? At one moment "he" is a loverwriting in the absence of a beloved:"Walking a loss / strung from my / head/ . . . stand as I / do now / where youhave gone." At other times "he" is parodyingthe "I"-as-Canadian poet:I wanted to write aboutthe subliminal landscape"the inconceivable white of Canada"you know the sort of thinghoweverdue to poor poetic planningthe flight's at nightand I have to dream it backwardsfrom the nothing.These poems recall that the telling is inand about words, not "life" : "I will startimmediately / from nothing and forget /all movies books last words" he writes in"Learning to Die"; but of course it isthe "movies books last words" that arethe poem. Noyes is a poet for whom signifiersoften have a playful relation tosignifieds. "Julie / Or Ten Feet" speaksof a woman "going off the road / and inthe river, / right between a rock and tree/ ten feet apart either / would havestopped her." As the poem continues, thespeaking voice realizes that he and hiswife "are sitting / about ten feet apart."He asks, playfully, "Were you close toher?" The humour in this poem is notcaused by Julie's tragically comic death,but by the words which tell more thanher story. The words, not the life, interestboth poet and reader. Similarly,the poem "Four Dollars" also suggeststhat meaning is always contextual :259

BOOKS IN REVIEWfour dollarsmean this to mea pack of cigarettesthree coffeeone poor studenttalking talking talkingAgain the words offer the occasion of thepoem.As varied in voice, style, and subjectas four books of poetry obviously shouldbe, each of these books offers examplesof the many kinds of telling, in love.Some poems read easily because they arewritten with and in many voices; othersask more of us; many of the most provocativepoems tell their stories with anuncanny awareness that it is the tellingthat matters. Norris writes that "whatmay save us is our love." Perhaps it isnot only the loving but also the writingthat makes all the difference.SUSAN RUDY DORSCHTCOMME UN VENTFRANCOISDESNOYERS, Derrière le silence.Triptyque, $8.00.PATRICK COPPENS, Enfants d'Hermès. Triptyque,$8.00.DANIEL GUENETTE, Empiècements. Triptyque,$8.00.JEAN FOREST, Des Fleurs pour Harlequin.Triptyque, $8.00.THESE FOUR COLLECTIONS push the expressivepower of language to its limitsand carry the reader to the frontiers ofthe ineffable and the inexpressible. Eachpoet bids us enter the hermetic universeof his unique vision of the world. Eachone, in his own way, transforms — ordeforms — the French language in orderto give us a glimpse of that universe.The title of Desnoyers' collection revealshis sense of the inexpressibility ofhis poetic experience. The idea of silencehaunts the poet, and he dwells obsessivelyon the difficulties of interpersonal communication.This is the most lyrical ofthe four collections, the poet expressingas much by the melodic rhythms of hisphrasings as through words. His chantsexplore the great metaphysical themes,like love, absence, and death, which havealways haunted poets. In each poem, thepoetic speaker addresses his beloved andtries to inspire in her a response to hisemotional urgings. Desnoyers reveals aRomantic's sensitivity to external Nature,and the latter provides the objective correlativeto his feelings and thoughts. "Etje t'ai aimé / comme un vent cherchantrefuge / au verre parfumé des roses.""La terre est une excroissance du silence."The poet is aware of the mysteriousmessage which the cosmos is tryingto communicate to the lovers. "Et j'aisenti brumeuse la beauté du murmure /que nous accordions aux plantes et auxarbres." "Ne refuse pas d'écouter cesarbres . . . j'ai appris le langage deséclairs." Desnoyers does not flaunt nationalism,but his hibernal landscape ofsnowy mountains and fir trees is an evocationof the Québec countryside whichis all the more eloquent for being discreet.Like Mallarmé, Desnoyers is seeking akind of Orphic vision of the universe. Ashis editor points out, the poet is movedby "le désir gravidique de mettre à découvertla face obscure du monde." Heachieves mastery over the world by humblymaking himself totally open to theother. "La conscience . . . naît ainsi sur lemode d'une connaissance élémentaire quiconsiste en l'attention du voir et de l'entendreles plus purs."Patrick Coppens combines the artforms of drawing and poetry in a synestheticwhole. Twelve individuals eachprovide the subject for pictorial sketches(by Mino Bonan) and accompanyingverbal ones (including the irregular sonnet,"Laurent"). The collection impressesthe reader as something of a post-Surrealist joke. The tone is one of mock-260

BOOKS IN REVIEWery, directed toward the characters, thereader, and the work itself. What thesefictional personages have in common isthat each is an outcast, a révolté, a seekerof the unknown, and an incarnation ofthe anguish of the human condition."Mal du siècle, mal de vivre. Mal detous les siècles."Empiècements, as its title suggests, ispoetry based on the verbal decompositionand reconstruction of reality. A modernUlysses, Daniel Guénette sets off on aquest for unknown meaning. One way ofaccomplishing his mission is in the lovingexchange with another person: "un flanccontre le mien / se dévoilant fit sourdrele monde / langages se liant découvrantau-delà." The poet, however, often has afeeling of discouraged isolation, anawareness of the impossibility of communicationand comprehension. He ishaunted by a sense of sterility: "je demeure,celui qui ne sait et n'arrive àrien, / seul." The poet's Odyssey ends infailure and frustration: "ne pouvantpresque tracer une ligne droite de paroles/ trancher en deux quelque objetdu monde / en lire quoi que ce soit /cause sans effet." He can at best give apiecemeal suggestion, miraculous butfragmentary, of truth and being: "Tels,ces mots / placés un peu de travers / enretenant d'autres qu'ils taisent / sous unphrasé coulant de roches."While in the three works already discussed,language is explored as a possiblemeans of giving voice to the poet's worldview,in Des Fleurs pour Harlequin itbecomes the poet's major preoccupation.Forest's poems, though beautiful in themselvesas verbal structures, constitute atthe same time a meta-linguistic artpoétique. Forest makes clear repeatedlythat the language of poetry is notthe rational instrument of expressionemployed, for example, by literarycritics, politicians, and other "preachers."The poet thus rejects any conceptionof a poésie engagée which would befor him a contradiction in terms. Hisonly fatherland or motherland is languageand the realm beyond to which itpoints: "POÉSIE quand on ne reconnaîtplus le pays / les modulations de laMère / et qu'on avance seul, en unecontrée de mots, / hérissé, tendu versAUTRE CHOSE." He also distinguishespoetry from imaginative literature, likenovels and movies. For him, poetry is amystical evocation of an essential realitywhich lies just beyond the reach of humanlanguage: "Le poème récite l'insistancede ce qui sous les fracas des fanfarestente de rejoindre Dieu. Il aspire àl'impossible silence, jamais accordé. Toutest encore à dire." Rimbaud is Forest'sideal of the poet, who is an inspiredprophet, a visionary. The poet attemptsto distil into fragmentary verbal formshis contact with the infinite. The poembecomes a deconstruction of reality andwords in order to liberate true being:"Le sujet ne s'articule jamais que depuisles décombres dont il naît, et qui sur luis'entassent." Poetry is for Forest a totalexperience which takes hold of both themind and body of the poet and his readers:"Que le sens de l'écriture réside /dans sa chair / elle-même / Que lire estun acte de chair à chair / à prendre aumot à mot." The acts of writing andreading constitute breaks in the surfaceof visible reality and create an openinginto the transcendent.LOYALISTSJAMES P. GILROYJOHN & MONICA LADELL, Inheritance: Ontario'sCentury Farms Past and Present.Dundurn Press, $16.95.NEIL MACKINNON, This Unfriendly Soil: TheLoyalist Experience in Nova Scotia 1783-1791. McGill-Queen's Univ. Press, $27.50.THELADELL HUSBAND AND WIFE teampresent a tribute to Ontario's farming261

BOOKS IN REVIEWcommunity in their story of forty-twocentury farms both past and present. Tobe designated a century farm a propertymust have been in possession of the samefamily for at least one hundred years;many can boast a history of family ownershipsince before Confederation, whilesome can go back further to the beginningsof settlement. When Upper Canadawas founded by Loyalist settlers in1791 a mere handful of 10,000 souls wasliving in that vast area. Originally fromthe American colonies, the Loyalists hadmigrated from Quebec as they wantedBritish institutions, and disliked the systemof government and land tenure inexistence there. Most of the families interviewedare of Anglo-Saxon background,while at least a quarter cantrace a Loyalist ancestry.The oral history the Ladells have transcribedmakes for interesting reading, forthese families have known triumph andfailure, and have handed their storydown from generation to generation;century farm families of six generationsare common, while a few go back eightgenerations or more. This book emphasizesthe continuity of those with tenaciousties to the land and stresses thereality of inevitable change, for it allowsthe families to bring their story up-todatewith present problems and concerns.Loss of productive land because of risingpopulation, encroaching urbanization,and pollution, all pose a threat; youngpeople leave the farms for the city, andcentury farms pass out of the control ofthe original families. While presenting nostatistical evidence, the authors claimthat each year an increasing number ofcentury farms go under. My complaintwith Inheritance is that the backgroundchapters, which seek to set the context,do not integrate smoothly into the "interview"sections at the end of each chapter:more care should have been takenin organizing the format, even thoughthe book is intended as a popular andnot a scholarly work.Neil Mackinnon has drawn upon thelatest research in his scholarly study ofthe Loyalist experience in Nova Scotia.He shows clearly that the influx of 20,000refugees in a single year was a muchmore complex experience than standardLoyalist hagiography would have us believe.This work complements WalterStewart's recent popular history whichemphasizes the bitter in-fighting amongthe Loyalists. En masse they were a diversegroup of different ethnic, social,and religious backgrounds, who hadcome from every corner of the UnitedStates; the only thing that gave thema semblance of unity was loyalty to theCrown; they are far removed from thegenteel martyrs of Loyalist mythology.As the author reminds us: "One cantake the notion of a typical Loyalist attitudeonly so far, for there was no typicalLoyalist."They were a microcosm of the prerevolutionaryworld they had left. Quiterightly the author notes the class conflictsamong them: "With their sense ofclass, status and privilege, and their contemptfor the lower classes . . . they werefar closer to the oligarchy in Halifaxthan the common refugee." He also notestheir uneasy relationship with nativeNova Scotians, who not only profiteeredat the expense of the newcomers, butwere far from being as antagonistic totheir American neighbours in the NewEngland states as many of the Loyalistswould have liked. He details the privationsand frustrations of the Loyalists ina harsh new environment, and theirproblems with Governor Parr and theauthorities with respect to the provisionof emergency British aid and land settlement.Britain was seen as "their reluctantbenefactor" and there was a good dealof souring in the imperial tie.262

BOOKS IN REVIEWBeyond noting the black slave elementamong the Loyalists, Mackinnon onlyseems to hint at their ethnic diversity,instead of giving this serious question theattention it merits. The thoughtfulreader might well wonder if the extensiverecords of the Loyalist Claims Commissioncan throw any light on the ethnicdiversity of the Loyalists in Nova Scotia.Most interested readers will find theNote on Sources quite inadequate, andwould prefer a more detailed bibliography;otherwise the book is well documentedwith adequate footnotes and isattractively produced.STILL LIFESCLIFFORD G. HOLLANDGiLEAN DOUGLAS, Kodachromes at Midday.Sono Nis, $6.95.ANNE CAMPBELL, Death is an Anxious Mother.Thistledown, $8.95.joy KOGAWA, Woman in the Woods. Mosaic,$8.95·GILEAN DOUGLAS IN Kodachromes atMidday celebrates love and nature,speaks of man's transience, and his confrontationwith death, in traditionalrhyme and metre. These poems recallthe rhythm and diction of Walter de laMare, John Masefield, and English Romanticpoets. While there is a certainpleasure in the sound of these poems,one does not have a new sense of languageas Douglas's poems are interwovenwith such clichés as "fragrant hourswhich our love was bright in," and "thelaughing stream." There is too much of"the calm where a heart may rest."These poems are snapshots of experience,not deep explorations of loneliness, fear,and passion expressed in an individuallanguage. However, what separatesDouglas's poetry from a sentimental traditionalpoetry is the interplay of soundpatterns, and her use of hypnoticrhythms that give the poetry genuinelyrical qualities:What shall I say of autumnThat I have never said?With ardent maples burningBeside our marriage bedAnd golden poplars shiningUpon your russet head,I shall not speak of autumnBut kiss your mouth instead.In Anne Campbell's Death is an AnxiousMother there is a sense of contemporaryidiom, the rougher texture ofeveryday speech. These poems are arrangedinto phases of a cycle beginningwith memories of the speaker's childhood,moving through changing states oflove, and ending in self-affirmation, expressedin the freedom of the prairie.Sometimes her images are too stereotyped,as when she describes isolation inmarriage: "two good people / always /ships in the night / passing." However,in a goodbye poem to her husband,"Terse Note," she uses a leaner line, andcreates a fine contrapuntal effect by juxtaposingpolite surface reactions withpowerful underlying feelings of separation.While Campbell's language has an informalquality of speech, it also possessesa sense of ritual as she tries to make thereader apprehend the sculptural integrityof her experience in "Living Room" :Little altarsI build all aroundplace first one platecandle or glasson my mantlesill or shelfintroduce an otherand another then shiftthem aroundshape spaceIn this poem Campbell becomes a shapingspirit as she expresses the relationshipof things in her life and creates thepoem's translucent landscape.263

BOOKS IN REVIEWJoy Kogawa's Woman in the Woodscontains simple, powerful poetry that explorespolitical, psychological, and naturalwarfare. It is the almost inaudibleand nearly invisible presences that concernher:Faint as in a dreamis the voice that callsfrom the bellyof the wall.Her synthetic vision emphasizes the effectsof exploiters: Egyptian Vultures,social climbing tarantulas, Nebuchadnezzar,and the cruel researcher. Kogawawrites of the victimizer and the victim:sometimes it is man who is the victim ofthe "insects" within his head, while othertimes it is man, the killer, who destroys acommunity of wildlife creatures to makeway for a "future shopping cemetery."Kogawa tries to break down the rigiddichotomy of man and nature by changingthe natural order so that one sees theatmosphere as dense or blood comingfrom a stone.Kogawa's language is more excitingthan Douglas's or Campbell's because shedraws on a wider range of resources. In"Old Woman in Housekeeping Room"she uses syntax, sound patterns, and symbolsto illustrate the tenuous condition ofpeople in their worlds:Feeble star raysleave the surface of her slow turninghoping to find out there in the nightsomeone that needsher needing light.But stars die, she knowseventually the spinning endslights sputter across uninhabited moonsand people who once were neededno longer are.Kogawa's voice, like Campbell's, is colloquial,yet she creates a world that isanimated with myth and dream, a mixtureof grotesque fairytales and nightmarishrealities. In one of the strongestpoems of the book, "Minerals from264Stone," she evokes the process of thepoet's search for truth by using sculpturalimagery along with mythical andpsychological elements :For many yearsandrogynous with truthI molded fact and fantasyand where they metmade the crossroads home.Through the paradoxes of the speaker'sevolution she has learned to build herhouse in shadows and gained strengthand independence so that she can "eatminerals / straight from stone."Kogawa not only is concerned withmoments of intense and austere consciousness,but also is aware of the processesof nature, of "how the blossomsare falling." A minor weakness in thiscollection is that there are not more ofthese moments to throw into relief thedarker landscapes. But Woman in theWoods is a strong book where Kogawapresents the world not in snapshots, butthrough her own special time-lapse poetics.She captures the changing conditionsof both violence and beauty, anduses the complex lens of her language tofocus on the nearly invisible features ofour physical and spiritual topographies.LAURENCE HUTCHMANPARODY & LEGACYLINDA HUTCHEON, A Theory of Parody.Methuen, $12.95.MAX BRAiTHWAiTE, All The Way Home. Mc-Clelland & Stewart, $19.95.IAN DENNIS, Bagdad: A Romance. Macmillan,$17-95-NOEL HUDSON, Mobile Homes. Polestar Press,$9-95-IN A Theory of Parody, Linda Hutcheondescribes parody as a strikingly contemporarygenre that gives a postmodernworld access to the legacy of the pastwhile encouraging ironic distance from

BOOKS IN REVIEWand therefore reformulation of that past.To differentiate it from the closely alliedforms of satire and irony, Hutcheon emphasizesthat parody foregrounds differenceover repetition and aims toward theintramural rather than the extramural.Throughout the six chapters (whichrange from definitions of parody, to itspragmatic range, to the central paradoxof parody, to parody's shared codes, tothe parodie text's relation to the world),Hutcheon concentrates on parody's reclamationof the past "with difference."While somewhat conservative, parodyallows the present room of its own.Although problems in using sharedcontemporary cultural codes sometimesforce parody closer to perversion than tosubversion, Hutcheon, I think correctly,claims parody as a postmodern genre parexcellence. Because it is self-reflexive andoperates with dependent meaning, likeother postmodern forms it contradictsessentialism. And it obliges a triple readingcompetence — linguistic, rhetorical,and ideological. Hutcheon's most importantargument, however, is that parodyde-marginalizes literature and theory byconnecting art with the world. By usingsatire (which always observes and commentson the world), by combining popularand elite cultures, by accepting theauthority of the past while insisting onart's right to transgress, and by encouragingthe sharing of reading codes, parodybrings into play many current debates onthe status of the subject, on the notionof reference, and on concepts of objectivityand closure.As this too-condensed summary suggests,A Theory of Parody is an ambitiousstudy. It is particularly valuable as aprovocative response to current aestheticrealities. And it is filled with a widerangingsample of examples from the visualarts, from architecture, from music,and from literature and cinema. Hutcheon'sincorporation of various currenttheories (for example, feminist theory)and her references to Canadian literatureas well as other world literatures areof considerable political importance. Ifat times the rapid listing of illustrationsconfuses a reader already struggling tofollow the on-going argument, quibblingabout excessive illustration detracts fromthe importance of using a thoroughlyinterdisciplinary perspective. To illuminatecontemporary life, as this book undertakesto do, to show how cultural,artistic, social, and ideological codes mustbe shared by creator and respondent(Hutcheon analyzes form and semiotics,creation as well as response), to illuminatea playful genre that moves anywherefrom anger to mocking fun, muchpostmodern expression needs to be investigated.Hutcheon's writing would certainlybenefit from a less highly condensed style.In a work this difficult, the reader needsmore direction, more summary, and moredescription. I also think that a more discursivestyle would help demonstrateparody's idiosyncracies. As it stands,Hutcheon leans heavily toward usingparody synonymously with the term"postmodern," undercutting parody's distinctiveness.As well, some of the theoreticallanguage needs fuller explanation,not because the terms are jargon, butbecause they have been used so oftenthey need reinterpretation from Hutcheon'sown point of view ("ideological";"historicize" ; "validation"). All thisaside, Hutcheon's refusal to be caught upin either/or thinking and her consequentemphasis on paradox are of crucial politicalimportance. By breaking down divisionsbetween élite and popular cultures,between tradition and innovation, evenamong disciplines, she aligns herself withpostmodern movements that re-situateart within the everyday world.Hutcheon's investigation of the ways inwhich the present uses and transforms265

BOOKS IN REVIEWthe legacies of the past, suggest variousconnections with three recent fictions.The least satisfying of them is MaxBraithwaite's All the Way Home. Thisnovel nostalgically contrasts a westernCanadian past with a present somewhatambivalently associated with easternCanada and a much wealthier westernCanada. At 65, Hugh Windmar, a successful,unmarried Toronto playwright,returns to his Saskatchewan home toshare holidays with his parents and fivesiblings (a sixth brother has died).Through conversations among familymembers, and through the artificial deviceof extended tape recordings of thevoice of William Henry, the father, recallinghis past, and the voice of Martha,the mother, recalling hers (both are beinginterviewed by one of their children),the reader is given considerable detailabout the difficulties Canadian farmersfaced in starting farms during the Depression.The anguish of two world warsis also present in these parental voices.At the same time, from his quite rootlessperspective, Hugh learns about thestrength, playfulness, daring, and imaginationof parents he has learned to thinkof as dull. His slight transformation —the only one in the novel — allows himto reformulate his past so that it nolonger restrictively hangs about his neck.But the lesson is muted for the reader.Throughout, excessive stereotyping (theinarticulate, silent father; the nurturing,generous, virtuous mother; the asexualdaughter with three academic doctorates ;the loud, blustering farmer-brother, withhis self-conscious use of bad grammar)belittles Hugh's struggle (indeed, he tooseems a stereotype of the westerner'sopinion of the easterner: effete, cold,and exaggeratedly intellectual) and alienatesthe reader from the conflictdramatized. Although Braithwaite carefullytouches base with contemporarydiscussions of subjects like feminism, andacknowledges the importance of economicchanges in western Canada, thenovel fails to dramatize enough the dialoguebetween past and present, betweenold and new selves. In playing off pastagainst present, Braithwaite allows nostalgiato win.Ian Dennis's novel uses the past moreeffectively. In the fantasy, Bagdad (PartOne of The Prince of Stars in the Cavernof Time), he parodies The ArabianNights, focusing particularly on tales andtheir telling. Situated in a country laidout in a map at the beginning of thenovel — such names as "Trackless Waste"and "The Further East" alert the readerto Dennis's parodie aims and remind usthat the orient is a western construction— we are, in the stories to follow, introducedto a whacky political group, "TheRipe Fruit Party," whose main drink issherbert and whose favourite saying is:"It is as it is." The stories are connected,naturally, by a search, in this case for"that which is within." Having set up astructure and some characters, Dennisproceeds with the fun. The adventuresinclude the hanging of the ModerateMan (see current policy in the Mid-East) , stories of the Burned Man and thePurple Man, the story of the origins ofthe leader of the Ripe Fruit Party, whois notable for believing that "[LJife islong, art short," the story of Alladin andthe Magic Warehouse, a witty modernizationof "Alladin's Lamp," and so onthrough various oriental tales in whichappear such out-of-place figures as civilservants. It concludes with the story ofThe Never-Harvested Field, which selfreferentiallyemphasizes anticipation overperformance.Indeed, throughout, Dennis has funwith current literary theory, particularlyas it applies to narrative. Ironic remarkslike "many a word has been spoken withno signifying about it," self-evident oneslike "the story begins, proceeds and then266

BOOKS IN REVIEWends," and naïve questions like "Couldn'twe just have the beginnings of stories?"combine to create a playful text that fulfilssome of Hutcheon's requirements forparody. She suggests that "parody can,inadvertently perhaps, serve anotheruseful function today: it can call intoquestion the temptation toward themonlithic [sic] in modern theory." AlthoughDennis's novel periodically overstepsitself, wallowing in silliness andlosing the reader in a series of confusingreferences, on the whole it is an effectiveexample of intertextuality (The ArabianNights in particular), of genre parody(the current fascination with fantasy),and of satire (literary theory) that createssome dialogue between the past andthe present.Finally, the nine stories that make upNoel Hudson's Mobile Homes demonstratestory-telling at its best. Each storyinvestigates novelty as it attempts to fititself into past structures. Hudson hasdeveloped a number of authentic voicesto narrate the various stories, and hasused the effective metaphor of "mobilehomes" to comment on the vagaries ofcontemporary life. From the first story,whose narrator works in a mobile homefactory and believes that "work is on theway out, the future is leisure time,"through a story of the west where Rooter,the buffalo, rather than roaming, "buffafloats,"to a trailer family who covertheir walls with American flags, baldeagles, and crossed muskets, these storiesare bizarre, vivid, witty, and often moving.They are stories that counteract nostalgicviews of the past, stories that flirtwith many of the forms Hutcheon sees asclose to parody — "burlesque, travesty,pastiche, plagiarism, quotation and allusion."While the word "homes" suggeststhat the stories recognize a stable past,the word "mobile" implies revolutionarypotential. And, indeed, each story establishesan idiosyncratic spatial and temporalbalance. Marble bird baths, iguana,and vacuum cleaner salesmen residequite naturally together, in homes thatare sometimes "squeezed to fit, a housesqueezed into a Velveeta cheese box," inlandscapes that hover between "classicJurassic" and outer space. Noel Hudsonhas succeeded in making his out-of-thewaycharacters speak for contemporarylife while, at the same time, remindinghis readers of past legacies.APPASSIONATALORNA IRVINEFERDINAND ECKHARDT, Music from Within: aBiography of the Composer S. C. Eckhardt-Gramatté. Univ. of Manitoba Press, $20.00.PICK AS YOUR HEROINE a musician ofextraordinary talent, fiercely independent,almost untameable, "outwardly decisiveand self-assured, inwardly insecure."Match her in marriage first witha young expressionist artist suffering fromlung disease and, after his early death,with an art historian who enters her lifeas the painter's posthumous cataloguerand promoter and who, after exerting astabilizing influence on her for over 40years, becomes her own posthumouscataloguer and promoter. Choose as localesMoscow, Whiteway (a communalsettlement along Tolstoyan principles inEngland), Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and, forthe last 20 years, Winnipeg. Weave insuch varied themes as the woman ascomposer, the uneasy partnership of musicianand painter, the struggle for recognition,survival under the Hitler regime,and adjustment to life in Canada. Introducehistorical personages from Leo Tolstoyand Tsar Nicholas II to ArturSchnabel, Marc Chagall, Leopold Stokowski,Glenn Gould, and Sir ErnestMacMillan. And spice your narrativewith mystery (who was her father?),267

BOOKS IN REVIEWmelodrama (her mother throws herselfbefore the Tsar's horse to gain supportin her marital-legal battle), and dramaticcoincidence (no sooner has the artisthusbandrevealed "you shall have me foronly one more year" than a telegramannounces "Famous orchestra conductorLeopold Stokowski wants to hear you.. . . Gome immediately").What does all this add up to? A 700-page epic suffering from an improbableplot? A treatise about modern music,feminism, and the artist's place in societyin the guise of a novel? Nothing of thesort; it is the meticulously researchedtrue-to-life story of the musician Sophie-Carmen ("Sonia") Eckhardt-Gramatté,a lady with five residences, four surnames(born Fridman, alias Maurice, marriedto Gramatté then to Eckhardt), threelanguages, two instruments (a virtuosoon the piano and violin who would playthe Appassionato, and the Kreutzer Sonatain the same recital), and one consumingambition, to be a great composer.The fascinating story, from her birth,presumably in Moscow in 1899, to herdeath after an accident while visiting inStuttgart in 1974, is recounted by herdevoted widower with warmth, humour,and compassion. Eckhardt, the formerdirector of the Winnipeg Art Gallery,brings a historian's critical skill to hisexamination of the rich source materialand is objective enough to recognize lessadmirable qualities in her character, suchas a certain lack of tact and modesty.Thus several generous benefactors inBerlin, who encouraged her to succeed asa virtuoso rather than starve as a composer,became estranged from her. Andyet it was precisely her unshakeable beliefin her talent to compose that helpedher to survive decades of insecurity, emotionalturmoil, and shortlived successes.The story does have a happy ending, forinner peace, domestic comfort, and handsomerecognition came during her 20years in Canada. One cannot help rememberingin this context that femalecomposers have always been an acceptedpart of the Canadian cultural fabric,from Emma Lajeunesse, Susie Harrison,and Gena Branscombe through JeanCoulthard, Barbara Pentland, and VioletArcher to Norma Beecroft, MichelineCoulombe Saint-Marcoux, and AlexinaLouie.An art historian is not a music criticand Eckhardt wisely limits the discussionof his wife's compositions to the circumstancesof their creation and their receptionby actual or potential performers.He also quotes some of Sonia's selfassessmentsas a composer. Often her insightsare beautifully lucid:In the end I would rather trust the laws ofnature than the man-made ones. The workwhich constantly has to solve new problemscreates a new form. It is the task whichproduces the form, not man. The humanmind has to obey the task and not viceversa.Written in "the late 1930's" after she hadbegun honing her compositional techniqueunder Max Trapp, the same letterincludes another passage worth framing:I shall never write again as genuinely andas nicely as I did before, because now Iam too aware. ... I never wrote immaturelyor childishly but I was a child at heart andmy compositions were free of affectation. . . .I was a poet in music but now I am aknowledgeable composer. . . . Now I simplyput one note after another, while before,oh before, my heart would weep. I couldhear the weeping and play it.If the book does little to analyzeEckhardt-Gramatté's music and to placeit in the context of twentieth-centurystyles, it does demonstrate throughout itspages the sad problem of so many contemporarycomposers, to have to spendtoo much time and energy in self-promotion.Why is it so difficult for newworks, even the finest ones, to assume a268

BOOKS IN REVIEWperformance life on their own momentum?Why did the 1929-30 United Statesperformances under Stokowski and Stocknot induce a dozen German orchestrasto play Sonia's music? Ideally, new worksought to become known by havingpleased score-exploring performers andunderstanding audiences, rather than by"marketing techniques." Too often thequestion "Who will do something tomake my music known?" becomes anobsession; egocentricity and bitternessare likely to result. In April 1942 Soniawrites :Until now, I was so naive as to believe thatone could go directly to a musician and themusic, good music, would speak for itself.But now I set aside that foolish misunderstandingonce and for all. You can onlyreach musicians the long way, eitherthrough extortion or through giving personaladvantage. But not just through themusic.One must not forget that each new compositioncompetes against a hundred contemporaryand a thousand established orrediscovered ones and that score-readingor comprehension after a single listeningopportunity is often extremely difficult.Fortunately there are enlightened performerswho do examine new scores andperform the ones they like, and since1942 national music centres have takenover many of the promotional and quasipublishingfunctions while internationaljuries for festivals or competitions andbroadcasting organizations provide ameasure of objective expert evaluation.A subject deserves either no biographyat all or at least two, one expressing thatperson's or an intimate's view of life"from within" and one, or more, providingsociety's view of the subject. AlthoughFerdinand Eckhardt goes someway to combining both approaches,there is a challenge for a musician andpsychologist to explore further along severalpaths. Obviously a critical guide tothe compositions is needed. And threecircumstances that must have had a profoundeffect on the shaping of Sonia'sgrowth as human being and artist deserveelucidation : her fatherless upbringing,her lack of schoolmates, and the delayof expert instruction or supervisionin composition until her middle thirties.Were these disadvantages turned intoassets, did they promote individualitywhile retarding self-control? One mightalso probe for an explanation why onlya minuscule part of her works are forvoice. Could this have something to dowith the fact she was never allowed tomature completely in the use of any onelanguage? English was her first and lastlanguage, French the language of herchildhood and conversation with hermother, but German, her daily environmentfor over 40 years, she had taken uponly as a teenager.The design of the book, with its boldprint and black leaves separating chapters,is very attractive. In addition to ashort list of works and recordings and anindex, there are six reproductions ofWalter Gramatté's pictures of his wife,30 photos from her childhood to heryears in Canada, and specimen pages ofher handwriting. Errors are few, butthree deserve mention: the cellist is EdwardBisha, not Edmund Bishe; Sir ErnestMacMillan's wife was Lady Elsie,not Louise; and Sonia's Berlin addressfor over 12 years was Neue Winterfeldtstrasse,not Wintersfeldt, an error repeatedseveral times. The book originallywas written in German, with all quotationsfrom letters, diaries, and other notesleft in the languages they were written in.The author's own translation into Englishwas then edited and condensed byGerald Bowler of the University of Manitobaand the Canadian Nazarene College.The condensation achieves a good balance;if there is one regret about the269

BOOKS IN REVIEWediting, it is that the original languageof quoted excerpts is not indicated. Itwould be interesting to know which lettersor, since she sometimes switchedfrom one language to another in midstream,which passages were written bySonia in English and which were translatedfrom her French or German.The last chapter is an "Epilogue : TheSearch for Sonia's Father" which shedsmore speculation than light on the mysteryof the composer's father. The originof my acquaintance with the composeris my private "Sonia mystery" and alsoone that will never be solved. It is certainenough that my conscious introductionto her and Ferdinand took place in themid-1960's when they dropped in at theCBC music library in Toronto (my placeof work at the time) and she placed herselfon top of my desk, unleashing a torrentof information about her music. Itwas only some time later that we discoveredthat we had lived in the same districtof Berlin for over 12 years, half ofthat time a mere 150 metres apart, althoughfrom my parents' apartment totheirs one would have walked a Z-shapedroute. I often played in "the little parkwhere we would sit on a bench on hotsummer evenings," I often boarded thesubway train there, and I crossed theNeue Winterfeldtstrasse a stone's throwfrom their residence some 3,000 timeson my way to or from school. Is it possiblethat I did not become aware of the"little woman with her assertive manner,determined voice and rather accentuatedmovements" walking with the tall manwith the friendly face ? Curiously enough,we left Berlin at the same time : on June1, 1939, the Eckhardts went to Vienna;11 days later I went to London. Neighbourswithout knowing it, we would finallymeet in far-away Canada 25 yearslater.270HELMUT KALLMANNPOLITICS& PARADISEMARIE JAKOBER, Sandinista: A Novel ofNicaragua. New Star Books, $8.95.INA SEEMINGLY IRRELEVANT episode,Jadine, the author surrogate of Sandinista,describes her brother's suicide inKerry Heights, Pennsylvania:What you could do was walk out onto Mc-Kinley bridge at three a.m. and feel thecold that came from the water and thesteel mills and the remorseless eyes of carsthat came from nowhere and passed intonothing; what you could not do was standthere and look at it all and say fuck youand walk into the river. You couldn't dothat and expect a decent burial.Eryn's death, lodged firmly in Jadine'ssubconscious, becomes a recurring motifin the novel, warning the reader to lookfor patterns beyond the narrative. However,the more immediate relevance ofthe suicide becomes evident, severalpages later, when we are told that Sandino,the leader of the Nicaraguan rebels,was shot and buried under the runwaysof the Las Mercedes airport. Both areheretics, with one essential difference:one refuses to accept while the other decidesto change. And the desire tochange, to resist in the face of insuperableodds, becomes the subject matter ofSandinista.Set in Managua, Marie Jakober's noveltraces the relentless onslaught of the Sandinistasagainst the desperate and ruthlessSomoza regime of the 1970's. Whatseems at first like the suicidal defiance ofa band of scattered rebels soon becomes apeople's movement, drawing its strengthfrom the shantytowns, the barrios, theclergy, and even the new rich. Like somany political novels of this century,Sandinista, too, portrays the "terriblebeauty" of a revolutionary movement.

BOOKS IN REVIEWThe ring of verisimilitude that characterizesthe work is implicit in the titleitself. A novel that calls itself Sandinistais, willy-nilly, committed to a referentialmode. In fact, it is the abundance of information,the meticulous attention todetail, combined with a compelling sequentiality,that contribute so much tothe force of the novel. As the narrativefocus moves from one end of the socialladder to the other, the reader glimpsesthe dismal poverty of the barrios, the barbarismof the National Guard, the flamboyantwealth of Milan Valdez, thededication of Father Pepe, the agony ofthe mothers of Hamelin, the total commitmentof the rebels — all of whichcontribute to the Weltanschauung of thenovel.The multiplicity of the novel is heldtogether by its linearity, which in turnfalls back on causality. In a work thatfocuses so heavily on the October offensiveof 1977, causality is perhaps as inevitableas it is necessary. But both theauthor and the reader are aware that thehistorical reality runs counter to the causalityof the novel. Even if the text affirmsthe precarious power of the Somoza dictatorshipand describes the gradual disintegrationof Daniel and his friends, thereader never forgets that Somoza's daysare numbered. And the novel succeedsnot in spite of this duality but becauseof it.As the reader becomes increasingly responsiveto this and other deliberate gapsin the referential mode, he also becomesaware of the margins of the text. Whatthe novel leaves partially explored nowinvites attention. Eryn's suicide and Jadine'spresence in the novel, for instance,now acquire significance. Jadine, the expatriateNicaraguan from the States on avisit to Managua, enlists as a volunteer inFather Pepe's clinic. Significantly, she isgiven the task of writing letters to thewestern world describing the suffering ofthe country. Even as Jadine attempts todo so in purely métonymie language, sherecognizes the futility of her endeavour.Language, she discovers, obeys its ownrules and obscures or subverts the realityshe so painstakingly tries to convey.It is no surprise, then, that the textwhich admits its own limitations oftenresorts to paradox. The city of Managua,for example, is "greening with weeds"and contains "streets of shacks and streetsof riches and streets of weeds." Daniel'smemory of Pilar is "like a song, like awound." The characters, too, are often abundle of contradictions. Colonel Davilo,the chief of the National Guard, secretlyadmires the single-mindedness of theSandinistas. Valerian, whose idealismtriggers the imagination of the rebels,carries the secret guilt of all the lives lostunder his direction.Paradox thus establishes the dichotomybetween pretence and reality, thereby reiteratingthat the neat categorizationbetween good and evil in the novel is,after all, no more than a ploy. Like theIntercontinental Hotel which looks likea Mayan pyramid, designed by "somebodywho had never seen a real one,"the political reality of the novel becomesvaguely inadequate. The armed resistancenever loses its hold on the reader,but what the novel appears to de-emphasizebecomes, for the reader, a centre offocus.In its meditative and digressive momentsthe novel explores its dominantconcern: the quest for identity. All themajor characters in the novel, regardlessof age, class, or ideological commitment,are caught in the same desire to seek inthe midst of turmoil a sense of identity.When Daniel sings "of the fields and theshanties, of women who made clay potsand men who made shoes" or when Jadinewonders "how the earth that youcould sleep on without even a blanketcould ever hurt you," one remembers271

BOOKS IN REVIEWEryn and his gesture of negation in a"homeless" world.In symbolic terms, this preoccupationwith identity is mirrored in two houses:one, owned by Valdez, represents everythingmoney can buy; and the other,owned by Lidia, serves as a hideout forthe Sandinistas. Both houses are describedin terms that suggest, either ostentatiouslyor obliquely, an earthly paradise. In thefinal analysis, both prove futile. Valdez'smansion is opulent, but maintained by abrute power that creates an atmospherein which one hears "Chopin wanderingbewildered in the palm trees." Lidia'shome is a place of mutuality and passionatelove, but is watched over by a cynicalEduardo and is totally defenceless againstthe wrath of the National Guard. Inboth cases, the metaphor of paradise iscreated, tested and finally dissolved.Sandinista offers no comforting solutions.At best, it stresses the urgency ofthe quest. What is certain, however, isthat for the author of the tendentiousnovel The Mind Gods, this work marksa new phase, a welcome change ofdirection.C. KANAGANAYAKAMCOLUMNS OF DARKGEORGE FALUDY, Selected Poems: 1933-1980,ed. & trans. Robin Skelton. McClelland &Stewart, $12.95.IN I933, WHEN GEORGE FALUDY wastwenty-three years old, "The Ballad ofGeorge Faludy's Only Love" appeared onthe front page of the Sunday supplementof Budapest's leading liberal newspaper.It marked, we are told in a brief biographicalnote, his initial literary success.One can see why the poem would haveappeal. It is very much a clever youngman's somewhat cynical view of love.There is the assumption of a worldwearypose as this young man, who isidentified by the initials GF, living inVienna, "that desolate city," has his firstpassionate encounter with a girl calledNatasha "in the grey room of a pension."Natasha murmured at dawn, as they laytogether,"Well, now, you are not a virgin either!"Very shortly GF ran out of money;even on red-letter days his shirt collars weredirty,but she, a student of medicine,shrugged off all those who asked questionsabout him,washed his shirts, and brushed his coat,and listened to everything he went onabout.In bed they sometimes discussed Chekhov,her each small breast like an orange cut inhalf.Eventually they come to a parting of theways. GF, showing not the slightest emotion,sees her off at the railway station."On the way home he bought chestnutsand forgot her."Two other women, Metta and Fritzie,serve his needs for awhile, then areabandoned and quickly forgotten. Thefourth woman he meets, Eva Scherff, ensnareshim, but she is "cold, capricious,and wholly mean." She tortures andteases him, and withholds "her dearbody, tight-sheathed in its silken dress, /which every other idiot could possess."But it is this woman, a typical belle damesans merci, whom he can never forget,"never, never, never."All kinds of echoes in this poem remindus of the fin de siècle poets of England,France, and Austria. One can imagineBeardsley illustrating it, though Beardsley'sline was perhaps a bit too elegant.Faludy's poems of the years 1933 to 1935all have the aura of decadence aboutthem. Even the titles of many of thesepoems, "To Celia, My Faithless Love"and "Danse Macabre," for example, remindus of the melodies we first heardin the 1890's, although now somewhat272

BOOKS IN REVIEWcoarser, more astringent than thosesounded by earlier poets who sang totheir Celias:I came upon her on a day of summerwhen the sweating cheeks of the golden sunhung like a greasy bum above the water.The blue sky held no clouds at all, not one.I had not played the violin betweena woman's thighs so long that when wetouchedhot honey filled our laps and rapture rushedupon us; as the night began to thickenI broke branches from a lilac bushand little tremblings blessed our naked skin.So the attitudes of the fin de siècleare now expressed in the modern poeticidiom that developed in the 1920's and1930's. But within this context the characteristicvoice of George Faludy clearlyemerges. I use the English version of hisfirst name. What the voice of GyörgyFaludy sounds like I am unfortunatelyunable to say. Faludy is a poet who makesme wish that I knew Hungarian, buteven in translation the personal, uniquesignature of the artist is manifest. There'sno mistaking it. I made the test of comparingthe work of the various translatorswho have contributed to this volume.For though Robin Skelton is responsible,"in collaboration with theauthor," for the majority of the translationsin the Selected Poems, there arealso translations by no fewer than tenothers, and in all the translations it isclearly the same poet whose voice wehear. It is a strong voice, tough and colloquial.The voice is most characteristicwhen it speaks in long poems where thelines are flexible and sinewy, the imagesprecisely observed, and experience rendereddirectly. In the best and mostmemorable Faludy poems everything alwayshappens NOW, before our eyes, evenwhen events long past are recalled andbrooded upon, as in the marvellous "ToMy Father" (1971), or in "Vienna,1930" where he recalls, in 1956, the citywhere he had lived as a student and desperatelywanted to become a publishedpoet. In one of his most searing poems,"The Execution of Imre Nagy" (1958),he renders powerfully, only two yearsafter the event, the last moment of thedoomed leader of the Hungarian uprisingin 1956:The end. He guessed it would be hardbut by now it made no difference— the door opened : cursing,the goons jumped on him with iron bars,crushed his shouldersand broke his armsand then placed a leather strapunder his chin and tied it around his headso that standing under the gallowshe wouldn't be able to say Magyarorszag,and they kicked him along the corridorand he stumbled, half blindwithout his pince-nez, then pityinglyhe looked around the courtyardbut couldn't make out the hangman'sfrightened face, nor Kâdârwho stood there cowering, drunk,flanked by two Russian officers.By the time Faludy writes of ImreNagy's death, he had himself experiencedsome of the special hells that thewretched ideologues of our century havebeen so prolific in creating. It is one ofFaludy's great achievements that he hasborne witness to the degradations of ourtime and has maintained his own moralintegrity. His poetry is a kind of spiritualautobiography, but it transcends themerely personal. Faludy's fate is sharedby millions of others and by speaking ofwhat he has witnessed and of what hehas suffered, he gives them a voice also.When Faludy was writing his earlypoems and creating the youthful, somewhatcynical persona of young GF, Europewas already burning. Hitler, Mussolini,and Stalin were strutting on thestage and clerico-fascist secondary actorslike Dolfuss in Austria, Horthy in Hungary,and Franco in Spain were alreadyplaying supporting roles in the unfoldingtragedy. How all-consuming the firewould become was still, in the early27З

BOOKS IN REVIEW1930's, quite unthinkable. Certainly, wehave no inkling in the early poems translatedhere of the conflagration that wasto consume Europe barely a decade later.It is only in a brief biographical sketchat the end of this volume that we are toldthat Faludy was "passionately opposed toNicholas Horthy's regime in Hungary becauseof its fascist sympathies," and that"in 1933 [he] began to express his viewsin a series of poems which he describedas 'free' translations of the Frenchmedieval poet François Villon. Whilesome of these poems were derived fromVillon, a good many of them wereFaludy's own creations." It is a pity thatwe don't have at least some of these textsin this volume. By the end of the 1930's,at any rate, barely forestalling imprisonment,Faludy had fled from Hungary toFrance and after the fall of France foundhimself a refugee in Morocco.The poems of the period 1940-41 reveala personality very different from theGF who first appeared in the poems of1933 and 1934. Gone is the assumptionof the easy cynicism of a man of theworld. In the North African poems asophisticated Central European encountersan alien civilization:Death swarms here.And if you're young, you're his specialdarling:he enters the bed at climax,he takes the next chair at meals.Yet everything I used to love at homeis altered here, become so muchirrelevant window-dressing. Boring. Fake.And what, back there, disgusted me — thisvicious, barbarous country —is more like final truth.In "Promenade at Dusk" and in"Death of a Chleuch Dancer" there areviolent confrontations; in the love poems("Alba One," "On the Tower of theKasbah," for instance), the sensuality ofthe early poems is still there, but withoutthe affectation and without the cleverposing. The sensuality is raw now:We're closing in,two ruthless duellists, and from heelto thighyou spread yourself in challenge: well,can Inail shut the curious lips of your shell— and win?The moon attends in the garden, throughthe palms,flushing our pillow with its coppery light.Grapple me, clutch my neck with bothhands, tight:trumpet our love's defiance to the night.You're whimpering now, as I begin to bitethe parched and wispy dark beneath yourarm.We follow Faludy as he moves fromNorth Africa to the United States andreturns finally to Hungary after the endof the war, only to come quickly intoconflict with the brutal Stalinist regimeof the immediate post-war era. "I had adream of a free country, / but woke to aSoviet colony."Our sadist quisling with the headof an ostrich egg has gothis eye on me. He wants me dead.Although Faludy wasn't killed, he wasimprisoned in 1950 and remained inprison until 1953 when, after Stalin'sdeath, he was released. Some of the mostinteresting poems in the collection, writtenin various prisons, record the experience.They are distinguished by a clarityof perception and a precision of expression.They are never self-pitying, andthough they do of course deal with theappalling conditions of prison life, themain interest of these poems is in theircontemplative, reflective nature. Shut inby prison walls, made anonymous ("Allprisoners are the same; / a body is just abody"), the mind turns to contemplatethe human condition. This involves arecalling and necessary re-ordering of thepast ("Prison Letter to a Grande Dameof Yore," "Solitary Confinement") and274

BOOKS IN REVIEWan effort to discern a pattern, perhapseven some meaning in what must oftenseem an arbitrary, cruelly indifferentworld ("Soliloquy on Life and Death,""Western Australia").The arbitrariness of existence is underlinedwhen Faludy, together with his wifeand son, leaves Hungary once more andfinds refuge in London, only to watch hiswife die of cancer in 1963. This, too, isrecorded, characteristically in a numberof love poems, and these are among themost moving poems Faludy has written.Like the prison poems, these poems arewithout self-pity. No false sentiment invadesthe text, and like the prison poemsthey both record and reflect upon thenature of existence :There is no mercy. If I leaptafter you I'd be denied.No voice echoes my lament.None stir upon the other side.Life turns to dust, the world's one talean empty shell without the snail.At last, if the poems can be used asevidence, Faludy finds a safe haven inCanada. In 1970, at the age of sixty, hesettles in Toronto. The storms and agoniesof a representative Central Europeanlife in the first and middle decades of thetwentieth century are now mercifully inthe past. He has left us a record of themin powerful poems of experience transformedand made permanent in thesmithy of the imagination.From 1966 onwards philosophical contemplation,though never absent fromFaludy's poetry, becomes more central,and Faludy seems increasingly to haveused the sonnet as the form most suitablefor condensing the essence of experience.At the same time, the young Faludy,lover of women and of the world, andthe Faludy outraged by the venality ofhuman behaviour, is still there, lookingover the shoulder of the old poet who, atthe age of seventy, pays his respect toPetronius whom he has worshipped forfifty years because he was able to create"gaiety, radiance, beauty, / although heknew the columns of the dark / werealready blocking gates and doors."LILLY & WILLIEHENRY KREISELHEATHER ROBERTSON, Lily: A Rhapsody inRed. James Lorimer, $24.95.Lily: A Rhapsody in Red is the secondvolume in Heather Robertson's trilogy"The King Years." Like the first, Willie:A Romance (1983), it is an imaginative,daring, and frequently hilarious blend ofhistorical fact and flamboyant fiction.Basing her narratives on meticulous historicalresearch, Robertson employs thetechniques of the political satirist and thenovelist to recreate a time of social andpolitical turmoil. In so doing, Robertsonexplores not only the issues and events ofCanadian history during the modern era,but also the issues which have come topreoccupy many writers and literarytheorists in our "postmodernist" age. Incorporatinghistorical documents within afictional narrative, inventing private livesfor public figures, intertwining the livesof actual historical people with those offictitious characters, Robertson exploresthe problematical relations between factand fiction, writing and reality.The temporal framework for "TheKing Years" is provided by the publicrecord of events in Canadian history duringthe period of William Lyon MackenzieKing's political career. Willie: A Romancecovers the period 1914 to 1918,the years of the Great War and of King'spolitical apprenticeship. Lily: A Rhapsodyin Red covers the years 1919 toJ935) Ле period during which Kingemerged as the dominant force in Canadianpolitics. Robertson approaches thepublic record from the private side to275

BOOKS IN REVIEWproduce a satirical exposé of hypocrisyand corruption in our political systemand reveal the inadequacy of our politicalculture in the face of the profound socialand economic dislocations of the post-First World War era. At the centre of thepolitical structure sits the enigmatic figureof Wm. L. M. King. As she didin Willie, in which King is a major actorin the plot, in Lily, Robertson presentsKing mainly through his own words. Althoughhe plays little part in the actionof Lily, King's presence is always felt.Our awareness of his central role is maintainedby excerpts from his diaries (writtenas private journals, now part of thepublic record) which are inserted at intervalsthroughout the text.Both Willie and Lily have large castsof characters, "real" and fictional. InLily we meet, in addition to King, suchactual historical personages as Nellie Mc-Glung, Vincent Massey, Norman Bethune,and Edward, Prince of Wales. Weencounter an obnoxious young GordonSinclair, and an even less appealingHarry Houdini. The fictional charactersinclude a mysterious man named Esselweinwho appears throughout the storyin a variety of guises — Communist Partyorganizer, RGMP officer, Nazi — and theCoolican family: Jack, whose career encompassesprofessional hockey, goldmining,stock market manipulation,bootlegging, aviation, and the CanadianSenate, among other things; Christina,alias "Mr. Legion," a madwoman whocures the insane, sometime medium toKing, and prophet of apocalypse; andLily, sister of Jack, daughter of Christina,professional photographer, and secretwife of Willie King.Lily is the major protagonist in bothnovels: her voice, her perception andinterpretation of the dizzying welter ofcharacters and events bring coherence tothe story. The title Lily: A Rhapsody inRed alludes to Lily's somewhat irregularinvolvement with the Communist Partyof Canada. In the first part of the novel,"Way Up North," the activities of theparty, which include a successful butshort-lived revolution in Kirkland Lake,are treated farcically; in the second section,"Way Out West," as the Depressiondeepens, the humour blackens. A secondaryplot emerges in this second part ofthe book. Basing her reconstruction ofcharacter and event as always on historicaldocumentation — in this case newspaperaccounts and transcripts of twosensational Edmonton trials — Robertsonrecounts the tale of the downfall of theBrownlee government in Alberta. It is asordid story of abuse of power, seduction,and exploitation; leavened by Robertson'ssatiric wit, it affords opportunityfor telling remarks on the rights, orrather the lack of rights, accordedwomen under Canadian law during the1930's.Through Lily, who is an artist figure,Robertson explores the potential of artboth to illuminate and to distort reality.As a photographer, Lily knows that apicture can lie; she is highly skilled inthe techniques of photographic misrepresentation.As a writer, she consciouslyavoids the temptation to follow the narrativepath of least resistance. She is suspiciousof the devices we employ to helpourselves see more clearly. Reflecting onthe bookishness of the men in her life,and on their dependence upon eyeglassesto enhance their vision, Lily "saw howirrevocably [her] life had been shaped bymen who looked at life obliquely, througha lens, in the pool of the printed page:too careful, or afraid, to look it in theeye." Lily herself looks at life through acamera's lens and uses the medium oflanguage in her attempts to make senseof it all. But at least she is aware of thepotential of both lens and language todeflect our gaze from reality, and shestruggles to face experience directly.276

BOOKS IN REVIEWAbove all, Lily has an eye for the absurd.Her voice gives the novel its remarkableenergy, and makes reading it avastly entertaining experience, even asthe story/history raises profoundly disturbingissues. Lily: A Rhapsody in Redends, characteristically, on a note of blackhumour, as Lily prepares to leave forGermany as a member of King's entourage:"Everyone is going to Berlinthese days. It's the 'in' thing to visit Hitler,like visiting the Matterhorn." Wemay anticipate that the third and finalvolume of "The King Years" will be asamusing, as absorbing, and as disquietingas the first two.MEDIA WOMENLINDA LAMONT-STEWARTSUSAN CREAN, Newsworthy: The Lives ofMedia Women. Stoddart, $24.95.THOSE WHO REGULARLY view BarbaraFrum hosting Canada's most prestigiouscurrent affairs program and note themany crisply professional women reportingthe national news may be forgivenfor believing that Canadian women journalistshave achieved equality in the newsmedia. Susan Crean's purpose in writingNewsworthy: The Lives of Media Womenis to ask whether women are more thana highly visible minority in the mediabusiness and to examine the history ofwomen in Canadian journalism.A media woman herself, havingworked in newspapers, magazines, andcurrent affairs television, Crean is a wellplacedobserver. Her interviews withmore than one hundred of her colleaguesrepresent the experience of women in allbranches of journalism. Each chapterhighlights the personal style and careerhistory of a handful of successful womenin a specific field — newspaper columnists,radio broadcasters, or televisionnewsreaders, for example — who thendiscuss their lives and their work. Crean'sstyle is chatty and colloquial, giving thereader plenty of background colour andbackroom gossip. Not surprisingly, shewrites as a journalist rather than scholar.As a result, the book resembles a seriesof magazine articles which is given continuityby Crean's middle-of-the-roadfeminist perspective.Although Crean claims that her researchhas given her "a sense of the centuryold history of women journalists inCanada," she demonstrates a typicaljournalist's concentration on the presentand the living. While her chapter on thefirst women journalists introduces thebest known turn-of-the-century figures —Sara Jeannette Duncan, Kit Coleman,Gaetane de Montreuil, and Cora Hind— it ignores the less-famous and perhapsless-brilliant women who nevertheless establishedjournalism as a respectable professionfor women during the 1910's and1920's. Repeated references to Cora Hindmay pay tribute to an early pioneer, butthey fail to document in depth how aCanadian tradition of women in journalismdeveloped.Crean is more successful in tracingwomen's contribution to the media sinceWorld War II. Through the recollectionsof present-day journalists such as ElizabethGray, she shows how, for three generations,media women have nurturedtheir successors' careers. Moreover, as increasingnumbers of women gained afoothold in Canadian media they beganto influence what would be consideredworthy of public attention. At the sametime, a female presence became an essentialstatus symbol for commercial radiostations and for current affairs televisionprograms eager to prove their broadmindednessand to enlarge their audiences.In tracing women's infiltrationinto all branches of Canadian media,277

BOOKS IN REVIEWCrean provides an alternative guide torecent Canadian cultural history.It is hardly remarkable that mostmedia women built their careers in traditionallyfemale, lower status departmentssuch as the society column or daytimebroadcasting. In common withmany feminists, Grean is ambivalentabout this female ghetto in journalism.On one hand she reserves her highestpraise for women who made it in thetraditionally male mainstream as "hardnews" gatherers, political interviewers,and foreign correspondents. Yet, on theother hand, Crean recognizes that womencould create a more innovative and controversialstyle of journalism in the women'ssection because there they were lessclosely scrutinized by powerful and conservativeeditors or producers.In the final analysis Newsworthy ispredominantly a collection of female successstories. Naturally, headliners such asBarbara Frum and Jan Tennant are"newsworthy" in a way that obscure assistantproducers and behind-the-scenesresearchers are not. Nevertheless, Crean'sconcentration on the vocal and the visiblefew weakens her assertion thatwomen have not achieved the authoritythey deserve in the media world. Whileshe does point out the difficulties thesewomen have surmounted — discrimination,sexual harassment, absence of maternityleave, and limits to advancement— her subjects are not ordinary womendoing typical media jobs. Crean's centralargument is that the high profile of a fewCanadian women journalists obscures thelow status of the many. Yet her bookmay prove most popular with readerspursuing a backstage look at some famousnames. Ironically, it is through thisinterest in the media star system that themyth of the influence of media women inCanada is perpetuated.278MARJ ORY LANGCIRCLE GAMESARiTHA VAN HERK, No Fixed Address. Mc-Clelland & Stewart, $19.95.MARY BURNS, Suburbs of the Arctic Circle.Penumbra, $9.95.H. R. PERCY, A Model Lover. Stoddart, $12.95.IN ATWOOD'S POEM "The Circle Game,"children are mechanically engaged in acircular dance about which Atwood issuesthe following warning: "we mightmistake this / tranced moving for joy /but there is no joy in it." In the threebooks discussed here a similar circlegame is enacted; under the guise ofchild's play the fertile imagination fromwhich stories are born is thwarted. Theresult is as disturbing as the deadeningdance: there are no stories adequate tothe situations of individuals presented inthese books.No Fixed Address follows the bizarrelife of Arachne, a definite non-yuppywho rebels against stereotypical definitionsof women both in her work (as busdriver and then as travelling salesperson )and in her interpersonal relations (mostpointedly in her insatiable desire for casualsex). It is one of Arachne's sexualpartners, the eighty-year-old Josef, whogives Arachne a copper plate on whichhe has shaped figures, "imprisoned inmotion," caught in a "relentless andcomically sad" "circular dance." Arachnedoes not ask what the "grotesque" figuresmean; her response is instead to laughout loud.The implications of this dance do notaffect Arachne; her "main difficulty liesin keeping herself amused" and not inquestioning from whence that amusementcomes. Nevertheless, it at first appearsthat she may have escaped the stultifyingrhythm of the dance by virtue ofher refusal to be circumscribed and fixedby the story (her memories are "erasedand erased") or by place.But No Fixed Address is a difficult

BOOKS IN REVIEWbook to pin down. Its two endings point,on the one hand, to a "roadless world";on the other, to the statement: "therewill be no end to this road." There iseither an endless road or no road at all.Similarly, Arachne appropriates her freedomin the personal gesture of sheddingher underwear (underwear in this novelis a metaphor for the repression ofwomen) while at the same time underminingthis gesture in her public professionas underwear salesperson, thus perpetuatingthe system she attempts toundo. Contradictions like these add depthto the text but they also boggle any decisiveinterpretation. In the end thestructure strains and, despite the entertainingand engaging style, the image ofwomen presented between the lines is tooclose to the pathetic copper figures forcomfort: relentless and comically sad.In contrast to the baffling movement ofArachne, the characters in Mary Burns'scollection of short stories Suburbs of theArctic Circle are very much rooted inplace, and their sense of self comes fromthis sense of place. There is an oppositionset up between the people in the smallnorthern town where these stories are forthe most part situated and those who areon the "Outside." This dichotomy alonecreates an understanding of self (in reactionto what it is not) that is muchmore firmly grounded than anything wesee in No Fixed Address.Burns provides a sensitive portrayal ofthat compelling small-town curiosity becauseshe couples it with the equally insistentdesire not to know, the desire notto tell a story. In the title story the cluesto a crime are slowly unravelled in anattempt to piece together the truth. Butas the story progresses it becomes clearthat in fact no one really wants to hearwhat happened. This same idea is repeatedagain and again, most notably in"The Men on My Window." Knowingthe story signals an involvement, andconsequently a responsibility, that manycharacters wish to avoid. The desire notto tell the story is approached from adifferent angle in "Collected Bear Stories."Here telling the story causes theintensity of the actual event — confrontationwith a bear — to fade. The narrator,"afraid to lose it [the reality of theexperience] all together [я'с]," stops tellingthe story.Burns, however, does keep telling thestory and she does so surprisingly wellgiven the limitations of her always simpleand unpretentious style. The movementof the first story, which traces theslow collapsing inward of one small town,parallels the structure of the collection asa whole: each story moves closer to avery concrete centre, the arctic circle,that is reached in the final story. Theattempted experimentation ("A JointCommunique," for example) is not successfuland the unvaried tone becomes abit tiresome but the insights into isolation,place, and story are worth making.H. R. Percy's The Model Lover fallssomewhere between Van Herk's oppositionto that which fixes (the story andplace) and Burns's opposition to thatwhich distorts (the story). Percy's characterstry to make art work for them, tomake art not only adequate to their experiencebut also to surpass it, to articulatean inarticulate silence, all that "twoshynesses could not say." Given the ambitiousnessof this aim it is not surprisingthat the attempt repeatedly ends in failure.In fact, seven of the eighteen storiesthat are collected here deal explicitlywith art (music, architecture, and sculpture)and in each story the desired "art"object is either flawed, destroyed, or incomplete.In "Afterglow," one of the experimental(and less successful) stories, Percywrites somewhat presumptuously: "Forwhat was being reduced to ashes therewas not merely the erotic dream [a279

BOOKS IN REVIEWcarved nude that a boy had made] butthe soul of the artist he knew he shouldhave been." This statement points notonly to the destroyed art object but alsoto the connection between art andlove/eros which it made explicit whenPercy states that "art and love both"must attempt the impossible. This relationshipis neatly conveyed in the titlewhich suggests both an ideal (model)lover, and one who loves toy models (althoughin this book they are elevated toan art form) ; both are meanings whichmodulate and shape the telling of thesotry. But again neither the toy modelnor the ideal lover are ever realized.In each text characters are, in one wayor another, arrested in the relentlessdance, a dance which the story (imagination)is in no position to challenge ordisplace. In general, Van Herk's andBurns's characters react negatively tohearing the story while Percy's charactersunsuccessfully tell the story (or createthe work of art). If the prisoning rhythmis to be broken it can probably only be inthe activity of telling, in listening to whatis told, and in the acceptance of responsibilitythat an informed telling demands.Nevertheless, Arachne's response is stilltempting: laughter and irreverence.FOUR POETSBARBARA LECKIEGERALD HILL, Heartwood. Thistledown, $7.95.MARK FRUTKiN, The Alchemy of Clouds. Fiddlehead:Goose Lane, $6.95.PAT JASPER, Recycling. Fiddlehead: GooseLane, $7.95.MAGGIE HELwiG, Tongues of Men and Angels.Oberon, $9.95.IN Heartwood, GERALD HILL'S first collectionof poems, the influence of the landthe poet grew up in is subtle but pervasive.The poems communicate a senseof spaciousness and restlessness. Theytend to focus on things moving andfree — jets, clouds, balloons, and birdseagles, hawks, pelicans, budgies — andthey express their predominant moodthrough phrases like "I floated," "Isoared," "my arms float." In the openingpoem, "A Boy's Time, How He MarksIt," a boy digging in the dirt fantasizesabout flying with the Golden Hawks, anair force aerobatic team. If his face ispressed against the earth, it is only to"sight / along a runway" he's constructed;what he wants is "to be / abovethe earth." In his imagination, he "flies /like a white hand reaching / for theblue." If there's a lot of digging in theground going on in these poems, it's ofa pretty superficial nature — childrenplaying, people gardening; as with theboy, the longing is to be "above theearth" and, quite clearly, free of it. In"Anecdote of Sadness and Flight," a humorousand oddly poignant lyric, Dave'sbudgie alludes to its having "broke /through the silver door / high over Nelson."Dave himself was apparently makingplans to leave Nelson but, as the birdobserves, "I broke free / and beat you toit." In "Anecdote of the Eagle," thespeaker is plucked gently from his canoeby an eagle and carried high above theland to see as "an eagle sees." As in somany of his other poems, Hill lets hisimagination soar freely. What he offers isflight in the process as well as theproduct.The restless unifying impulse in Heartwoodis expressed in various intricatelyconnected ways. Like the imagination,memory offers ascent and freedom fromthe land. In "The Grid Roads," peoplereminiscing become hawks: "For a momentour bodies lighten / and the birchfalls away." There are pleasant memoriesof distant places, love in Cape Cod inone poem, lovers in another, paintingeach other's bodies under "the rusting /280

BOOKS IN REVIEWfronds of palm trees." Love itself offersfreedom. In "Bob Tells Phoebe about herSkin," the speaker declares "I am wing"and describes how his pleasure is to"skim / over" his love's body; in makinglove to her he traces "loops and slow /currents in the coloured air."Though the desire for freedom fromthe land is strong in Heartwood, the prevailingmood is light. Hill's humour isuniquely whimsical in nature. The openingline of "Anecdote of Sadness andFlight" is typical : "This is your budgiespeaking, Dave." "Pelican Air" offers adelightful series of glimpses into a pelican-centreduniverse. There is some gentleirony in "If Lafleur Never PlaysAgain," one of two good hockey poemsin the collection. Nearing the end of hisbrilliant career, Lafleur declares "I donot fear injury. My hair is famous fromMoscow to Nanaimo. / I'm thirty-three."In "Labour Day, Unemployed," theirony is sharper. In search of work, thespeaker finds himself having to deal witha priggish Manpower official who alsohappens to be a former schoolmate of hislittle sister. The man wonders disapprovinglyat the life the speaker has led:You've been there so far away?Doing all these other things?Why not remain still, in this heatand rise in the normal manner upwardstowards the hot sky, the hot jobsas I have done.Perhaps "Labour Day, Unemployed" offersthe key to the collection as a whole.Poems like "The Cyclone Season" and"Heartwood" express some apprehensionabout the harshness of the prairie environment;however, it may not be theprairie itself as much as the prevailingethic of its inhabitants which has sentthe poet soaring, rising in his own way asopposed to the "normal manner."Appropriately in a collection of poemswhich take us up into the air as theseoften do, the language throughout is lightand tough. The imagery is imaginativeand often pleasantly surprising. A youngwoman turning twenty-one muses on hersituation: "my skin is where the goldencats lick." The images also suggest clearlyenough that the poet knows his ownworld well; in the prairie winter night,"puck sounds hang / like chunks in theair." Though there are spots in thesepoems where the humour falters or thelanguage becomes obscure, this is a goodcollection. The poems are innovativewithout being pretentious and they workwell together.The Alchemy of Clouds is a small bookoffering Mark Frutkin's second collectionof poems. Exotic in both its setting andlanguage, it reveals in the poet a romanticvision of the world and his art. In"Exile," he expresses his concern that athome his poetic sensibility grows duller,more stagnant; he has come to see hisfamiliar world "more like a mountain /than a stream, / more like a stone." Hisresponse is self-imposed exile. He sets outinto the larger world with the intentionof "learning how to walk the highway /joining the braided voices of men." Mostof his poems are descriptive and focus onsuch faraway places as Paris, India, andAfrica. They have a marked Eastern feelabout them; the imagery is as sensuousas the places described while the tone isformal and contained. As well, the poemsare rich in their colours and wide in theirexpanse, yet economical in their language.This tension between extravaganceand restraint marks the best ofFrutkin's work:Evening song.Sun setting in the throat of a bird.Orange warbling.Pure water in the glass turns dark.Everything turns dark.Night blooms.Frutkin's view of Appollinaire's poetry,"brilliant tight poems / like a smallwindow," seems to suggest his own ideal.281

BOOKS IN REVIEWHis idea is to capture the mystery of anintense moment and reveal it as succinctlyas possible. When he is successful,the poems are strong, as can be seen in"Indian Miniatures," "River of Dreams,"or the delightful lyric, "Duchamp's Hat."Sometimes, though, a softness in the languageand a slight straining for the profoundbecomes apparent. One is a littleuncomfortable with lines likenever shall I know every treeon these hillsnever shall I learn preciselyhow we are woven from this forest.Nonetheless, the strong poems in thebook more than offset the weak, and thelast section, in particular, is worth specialmention. Here, in a small group of verygood poems, Frutkin's subject is theFrench poet Appollinaire. Poems like"What Appollinaire's Friends Said AboutHim," "Bells," and "Bracelets" retain thevirtues of poems in the first sections,economy, intensity, and perceptiveness ;as well, they are stronger for the delicateirony present, more restrained, and betterunified. Though there are many othergood poems in The Alchemy of Clouds,this small section alone makes this collectionworth reading.After Heartwood and The Alchemy ofClouds, Pat Jasper's first collection ofpoems lands us rather abruptly back ina more familiar world. Less exotic in itssetting and moods, Recycling is concernedwith the "small close spaces" ofthe family — with domestic relationships,crises, and patterns — and with comingto terms with time. These poems do notoffer ways of escape from the day-to-dayworld but the view that there is no escape.It there are refuges, they offer onlybrief respite (though they are no less importantfor that) : a hiding place "beneathan old wooden bridge," a "hotbath," a "year's supply of Neil SimonMovies." The book is autobiographicalin its feel, focusing on a woman's memoriesof childhood and of her havingchildren of her own. Domestic crises aretriggered by such things as alcoholism,juvenile delinqency, shell shock, politicalactivism, mental breakdown, and a smallboy's broken arm. As well, the poet isconcerned with the power of time bothto destroy and to heal.All of the poems in Recycling are interestingand many are quite strong.Where the collection seems a little weakis in some of the poems furthest from thepresent; too often these lapse into littlemore than a recounting of events. Thelanguage becomes too prosey and thepoems go a little flat. The reader's responseis more to the crisis involved thanthe way in which it is conveyed. Perhapsin dealing with these early memories, thepoet has unconsciously given away herhaving already come to terms with them.This seems to be suggested by some ofthe poems set in the present. These dealwith the speaker's feelings in the presenttoward events of the past and the membersof her family involved. What may beclearly seen is a truce — undeclared butpromising nonetheless — with the membersof her family and with life itself. Allof these poems in the last section arestrong but two are outstanding, "To MyDaughter, Ironing On Christmas Eve"and "Late Afternoon in Ghincoteague"in which the speaker and her agingalcoholic father go crab-fishing together.Having learned about the problems ofraising a family, she is wryly content withsmall talk to "skirt the edges of deeperwater." Having learned as well about theneed for refuges, she understands that hisdrinking helps make him "numb enoughto face the night ahead" and she reachesto "help him up." In the end, the readeris left with a woman much wiser for herexperience and willingness to settle forsmall victories.The structure of this book has been282

BOOKS IN REVIEWgiven special attention; each of the foursections focuses on a different period inthe speaker's life. As well, the concludinglines in the last two poems provide afeeling of her life coming full circle andaffirm the book's note of wary optimism.Here the poet portrays herself as somethingof a girl again and even after allshe has gone through, one happier thanshe was first time around. There isalso an underlying ironic note sustainedthroughout in the poet's frequent referenceto her activism in the idealistic1960's. In the end she is content withthese smaller victories in a smaller theatre.Maggie Helwig's The Tongues of Menand Angels is a startling and demandingbook. It is thoroughly fascinating in itsunusual subject matter and flawless in itsexecution. The poet is particularly adeptat making use of imagery, pace, and shortand broken lines for dramatic effect. Intwo series of connected poems, her subjectsare John Dee (astrologer to QueenElizabeth) and Johannes Kepler, bothsixteenth-century scientists who devotedthemselves to searching the heavens, Deeto know God and Kepler to destroy Himthrough mathematics and then to resurrectHim through music. What MaggieHelwig focuses on is the intensity of thequest and the peril of penetrating toonear truth and too far beyond the limitsof other men's knowledge. As well, she isconcerned with the terrible price men arewilling to pay — and do pay — in pursuitof their heavenly and earthly desires.In "Dr. Dee & the Angels" the dramais unfaltering. In a series of short lyricsinterspersed with dramatic interludes, thelearned Dr. Dee possesses a crystal whichenables him to make contact with theheavenly spirits. Through his skryer,Edward Kelley, "crystal of the crystal,"Dee becomes increasingly caught up withthe angels, working his way ever nearer"the secret / of all secret names." However,it is not the Doctor's quest that isat the focal point of these poems but thetrials of his wife Jane. Watchful as wellas beautiful, she is apprehensive from thebeginning about her husband's dealingsboth with the spirits and the "darkfaced"skryer who makes them accessible.External events help build thedrama. Dee and his small entourage facepoverty, hunger, political impediments,many hard journeys by sea and land;they travel through the winter to Grakow,later to the castle of the "half-mad Emperorin Prague," then from city to cityfleeing a warrant for their arrest issuedby Rome. However, the main source ofthe mounting intensity in the poems andof the cause of the problems with theangels is the dark side of the skryer'snature. Unlike Dee, whose powerful desireis to know the heavens, the equallypassionate Kelley is hungry for things ofthis world — gold and the Doctor'sgolden-haired wife. Her despair for herchildren's welfare and her loneliness withher husband "afloat with the angels"growing ever stronger, Jane is alwaysaware of the skryer watching her, his"deep eyes around her like / a pair ofhungry dogs." Kelley's hatred of his ownwife Joan (whom the angels have commandedhim to marry) and her awarenessof his feelings add to the tension.The poems reach their dramatic climaxwhen Kelley reveals the dreadful natureof what he claims is God's command tothe four of them. This leads to a suddenexplosion of tension in two brilliantlyconceived scenes of violent action in thefourth-to-last and last lyrics in the sequence;in between, the nightmarishopening vision in the "Prologue" of Dr.Dee trapped inside his own crystal ismade comprehensible."The Dream of Joh. Kepler" is a dramaticmonologue and, if it is lessdramatic than "Dr. Dee & the Angels,"it is more moving because of the reader's283

BOOKS IN REVIEWgreater intimacy with the central figure.As Dee's has done, Kepler's work, eventuallyleads him to Prague. If he faresbetter than Dee under Rudolf II andrises to become the "famous Doctor," heis well aware of his humble origins as the"prince of mud" and of the murky natureof his early education. His embitteredmother, accused later in her life ofwitchcraft, was his first teacher. Shepassed on to her son her dark knowledge,part of which was "how to hurt withnumbers" and prophesied that one dayhe would "wear a magic crown." Perhapsironically, perhaps because of thislegacy, Kepler becomes the "ImperialMathematician." If Dee's ambition is toreach God to know his secrets, Kepler's(inspired by Copernicus) is to "clean theuniverse," to attain to "God in a calculation"— in effect to destroy him and"bear His crown." However ambitiousand relentless he is in his quest, he is notmalicious in his motivation and he beginsto have doubts about his work as hecomes to see how it deprives life of itsvalue and purpose: "Be / is a word withoutmeaning." His "new astronomy"leaves him with a hollow sense of victoryand "alone. / A winter king / beneath ashattered throne."Taking us deep into Kepler's mind,this poem gives us a different perspectiveon themes presented as well in "Dr. Dee& the Angels," the brilliance and relentlessnessof these early men of science aswell as their isolation and doubts. Thesepoems ultimately concern their efforts tosave their souls. Both sequences in thisbook are hauntingly beautiful. As well,they are slightly unnerving. There seemsto be something of the skryer about MaggieHelwig herself. Her gaze seems formidablypenetrating and her language asterse and high-pitched as might be expectedof someone communicating forbiddenvisions.RANDALL MAGGSELSEWHEREThe Dictionary of Imaginary Places appearedfirst in ig8o; in an expanded paperback format,edited by Alberto Manguel and GianniGuadalupi (Lester & Orpen Dennys, $19.95),it takes its readers on another charmed voyageinto the spaces of the fanciful and the unknown(though not, as it happens, far intoscience fiction). The book is easy to use, indictionary format. Places from Laputa andXanadu to the Land of the Kosekins findspace here — and the new edition adds some150 or so new entries, drawn from the worksof Atwood, Findley, Guy Gavriel Kay, Eco,Hoffman, and others. The editors treat theworld of the imagination with seriousness —the book is full of maps, diagrams, and cogentsummaries of the social habits of the denizensof imaginary worlds — but also with wit.There is enough of the contemporary travelguide about the book to read it as satire aswell. For many reasons, then, it's a browser'sdelight. Coincidentally, Viking Penguin haspublished a hardbound, colour-illustrated Encyclopediaof Things That Never Were, ed.Michael Page and Robert Ingpen ($24.95).This book also offers adventures, but they're ofa more impressionistic sort, and the book'sformat is harder to use. The editors cast theirnet over a smaller territory (no Canadianshere, and no detailed maps) ; Australian inorigin, the book does offer a few South Pacificreferences. While paying reference to Maorimyth, however, it offers no glimpse of nativeAmerican myth; while listing Brobdingnagand Lilliput, it leaves out Oz. The colour designs,moreover, are moody, romantic, andEurocentric: the heroes are predominantlywhite, the forces of the Otherworlds dark.The procedure of explanation is more narrativethan descriptive; the editors retell stories.They seek, too, to categorize "Things" — bymeans of the natural territory in which theThings live: the Cosmos, the Ground, theWater and Air, the Night, the Wonderland,and one territory called Magic and Scienceand Invention. Inevitably, the borderlandsblur. But the Encyclopedia tells us of goblinsand beasts; the Dictionary takes us elsewhereand nowhere. Miraculously, the two bookscomplement each other.w.N.284

uKimns лкк nuitsTHE STORY OF ANAFFINITY: LAMPMAN'S"THE FROGS" ANDTENNYSON'S "THELOTOS-EATERS"WHEN DUNCAN CAMPBELL SCOTT praisedRoberts's verse for speaking to "the Canadianreader . . . attuned to Tennyson. . . [and] Keats," 1 he could just as wellhave been referring to Lampman. Bothof these English poets had a particularlyimportant influence upon Lampman inwriting "The Frogs" (1887). However,even at this relatively early point in hiscareer, the young Canadian was no servileimitator of either Tennyson orKeats. Lampman was (to use HaroldBloom's term) a "strong" 2enough talentto organically assimilate his British mentors'work for his own artistic purposes.Such a creative use of Lampman's mastersis very well described by L. R. Earlyin discussing the influence of Keats upon"The Frogs":In "The Frogs" Lampman makes Keatsnot so much his model as his resource.While this poem strongly evokes the Englishpoet's work, its echoes are more thana mere reflection of Lampman's taste: theyform a meaningful pattern of allusion. 3Lampman in "The Frogs" likewise systematicallyand elaborately weaves a"meaningful pattern of allusion" to Tennyson's"The Lotos-Eaters." 4That patternis compounded from multiple echoeswhich perhaps by design are singly notobvious enough to make "The Frogs"seem derivative. However, Lampman'sreiterated hints do gradually catch theattention of the reader "attuned to Tennyson."Such a reader becomes aware onreflection that Lampman in "The Frogs"has established a highly significant systemof reference to "The Lotos-Eaters."Lampman begins creating his "patternof allusion" to "The Lotos-Eaters" in thefirst sonnet of "The Frogs" with repeatedif unobtrusive cross-references to Tennyson'spiece. Thus, the Canadian poet describeshis frogs in 1.3 as "Flutists oflands where beauty had no change," in1.5 as "Sweet murmurers of everlastingrest," and in 1.13 as "Ever at rest beneathlife's change and stir." 5Lampmanin these lines stresses precisely the twoattributes of lotos-land that appeal mostto Odysseus's weary mariners: immutabilityand ease. That Lampman intendshis reiterated mention of those two qualitiesto bring Tennyson's lotos-land specificallyto mind is indicated by theCanadian poet's statement in 11.7-8 thatfor the frogs, the sun is "But ever sunkenhalf-way toward the west." This ofcourse recalls lotos-land where "it seemedalways afternoon," 6where "The charmedsunset linger'd low adown / In the redWest" ("The Lotos-Eaters," 11.19-20).Less obviously, Lampman's description ofthe frogs in 11.1-2 as "Breathers of wisdomwon without a quest, / Quaint uncouthdreamers" verbally echoes 1.6 of"The Lotos-Eaters" : "Breathing like onethat hath a weary dream" [italics mine].In Sonnet 1 of "The Frogs," Lampmanthus rather subtly establishes a "patternof allusion" to "The Lotos-Eaters."As a result, Lampman's reader should bealerted to notice how Sonnets 2-4 of"The Frogs" recall Tennyson's poem inemphasizing three of its most prominentsymbolic motifs. These are water imagery,vegetation, and the cyclicalrhythms of nature. Sonnets 2-4 of "TheFrogs" likewise resemble "The Lotos-Eaters" with their ambiance of a magical285

OPINIONS & NOTESenchantment, in which dream and realitymerge. The third sonnet of "The Frogs"is particularly reminiscent of Tennyson'spoem with its water imagery and its atmosphereof enchanted reverie:All the day long, wherever pools might beAmong the golden meadows, where the airStood in a dream, as it were moored thereFor ever in a noon-tide reverie,Or where the birds made riot of their gleeIn the still woods, and the hot sun shonedown,Crossed with warm lucent shadows on thebrownLeaf-paven pools, that bubbled dreamily,Or far away in whispering river meadsAnd watery marshes where the broodingnoon,Full with the wonder of its own sweet boon,Nestled and slept among the noiseless reeds,Ye sat and murmured, motionless as they,With eyes that dreamed beyond the nightand day.The landscape of Sonnet 3 provides asdoes Tennyson's lotos-land an appropriatesetting for a twofold regression. Thisinvolves ( 1 ) man's reabsorption into primalnature, his return to her most primitivelevels of existence as represented byvegetation and water, and ( 2 ), in Freudianterms, a retreat to prenatal ease,security and bliss. The outcome of sucha dual reversion (intimated throughLampman's frogs as evolutionally primitivecreatures floating embryo-like inwater) 7 is presented by Sonnet 5 of "TheFrogs" in terms strikingly reminiscent of"The Lotos-Eaters" :And slowly as we heard you, day by day,The stillness of enchanted reveriesBound brain and spirit and half-closèd eyes,In some divine sweet wonder-dream astray;To us no sorrow or upreared dismayNor any discord came, but evermoreThe voices of mankind, the outer roar,Grew strange and murmurous, faint and faraway.Morning and noon and midnightexquisitely,Rapt with your voices, this alone we knew,Cities might change and fall, and menmight die,Secure were we, content to dream with youThat change and pain are shadows faintand fleet,And dreams are real, and life is only sweet.Like the drug-induced "music" (11.46and 50) which lulls Tennyson's lotoseaters,the hypnotically enchanting songof the frogs produced for Lampman ablissful sense of release from the negativitiesof human existence. In this regard,Lampman follows Tennyson in emphasizingas particular "sorrowfs]" ofman's lot disturbance, strife or "discord,""change," and mortality. To escape suchwoes through regression is paradoxicallyseen by both Lampman and Ulysses's errantcrewmen as part of an elevation toa "divine" transcendence ("The Lotos-Eaters," 11.153-55). This last congruenceis underlined by the parallel between1.11 of Lampman's Sonnet 5 and1.161 of "The Lotos-Eaters." Just as theCanadian poet seemed in his "divine .. .dream" to have escaped a world in which"Cities might.. . fall," so the lotos-eatersbelieve that, like the Olympian gods,they are above such human tragedies as"flaming towns." The various correspondencesjust detailed between "The Lotos-Eaters" and Sonnet 5 of "The Frogs"are underscored by the way 11.6-8 of thelatter echo (using in two cases identicalwordings italicized below) 11.31 -34 ofTennyson's piece:but evermoreThe voices of mankind, the outer roar,Grew strange and murmurous, faint andfar away.to him the gushing of the waveFar far away did seem to mourn and raveOn alien shores; and if his fellow spake,His voice was thin, as voices from thegrave;Lampman's repeated allusions to "TheLotos-Eaters" throughout "The Frogs"point to the importance for the latter of286

OPINIONS & NOTESthe central thematic antithesis of Tennyson'spoem. That opposition is establishedby the Laureate through the antiphonalsemi-choruses of his lotos-eaters. Theodd-numbered advocate an easeful selfindulgencein the pleasures of a druginducedstate of dreamy enchantment.This entails the twofold regression discussedabove, a reversion which produces( ι ) an empathetic identification withnature bringing an acute appreciation ofher manifold beauties, (2) a blissful feelingof release from suffering, stress, andupheaval, and (3) a withdrawal frompractical, social, and ethical engagement.The lotos-eaters try to justify this lastretreat in their even-numbered semichoruses.They maintain the "toil" necessaryto "war with evil," to "settle orderonce again" ("The Lotos-Eaters," 11.60,94, and 127) is not just painfully fatiguing,but likewise futile and meaningless.However, those very arguments suggestan ideal contrary to the mariners'withdrawal from moral and social commitment.This is the characteristicallyVictorian ethic of "manly" dedication tostrenuous goal-directed effort involvingthe moral responsibility to set the worldright.Both the viewpoint of the lotos-eatersthemselves and Tennyson's antitheticalethos were deeply meaningful to Lampman.Each accorded with different aspectsof his complex (and perhaps selfcontradictory)poetic personality. 8Theoutlook voiced by Ulysses' truant sailorswas consonant with several facets ofLampman's artistic psyche that were expressedin "The Frogs." The most importantof these was the Keatsian sensibilityequally attuned to the painfulnegativities of life and to a sensuous/spiritual appreciation of nature's beauties.In this connection, "Ode to aNightingale" could have provided forLampman when writing "The Frogs" anumber of links between his own inspirationand "The Lotos-Eaters." Just asKeats is rapt by the nightingale's song,so Lampman was enchanted by the hypnoticthrilling of his frogs and the lotoseatersare charmed by a drug-induced"music." Moreover, Keats in his stanzas4 and 5 undergoes the same twofold regressionto nature's lower levels (suggestedagain by vegetation) and to prenatalbliss as do Lampman and Ulysses'truant mariners. Like both, Keats attainsan empathy with nature that involves anenhanced appreciation of her beauties.Like both again, the Romantic poetseems to transcend time and to achievea divine status as he ecstatically identifieswith his "immortal Bird" (1.61). Lastly,"Ode to a Nightingale" recalls both"The Frogs" and "The Lotos-Eaters" inthat its author (if indeed only temporarily)escapes the woes of humanity. Inthis regard, Keats emphasizes the same"weariness . .. fever, and . .. fret" (1.23),the same mutability and mortality, as doLampman and Tennyson.The outlook of Tennyson's lotos-eaterswould have struck responsive chords notonly with Lampman the Keatsian, butalso with two other sides of his poeticpersonality important for "The Frogs."These are the world-weary Arnoldianand the fin-de-siècle aesthete (the lattercombining the refined hedonism of Paterwith an aesthetic/mystical idealism).Both strains in the creator of "TheFrogs" are expressed in that piece inways recalling the viewpoint of Ulysses'wayward shipmates. Thus, Lampman inhis Arnoldian role seeks refreshmentafter the stresses of civilization throughretreat to nature, while Lampman theaesthete eschews worldly concerns infavour of an entranced contemplation ofbeauty. However, although the attitudesof the lotos-eaters variously accordedwith Lampman's sensibility, their outlookwould likewise have conflicted with hispronounced vein of Victorian moral287

OPINIONS & NOTESearnestness. 9Such a trait may have madeLampman in writing "The Frogs" bothsensitive and in part sympathetic to theethic of strenuous engagement impliedby the lotos-eaters' even-numbered semichoruses.Regarded in those moral terms,the point of view of Ulysses' sailors andits close counterpart in "The Frogs" constitutea shirking of responsibility andmanly exertion in effete self-indulgence.Furthermore, when set against the pressingexigencies connected with moralcommitment, the bliss of lotos-land mightseem illusory.That such considerations may form anironic subtext in "The Frogs" has recentlybeen indicated at some length byD. M. R. Bentley in his article "WatchfulDream and Sweet Unrest. . ." (Partи, pp. 6-8). To Bentley's arguments, Iwould add two further suggestions of therelevance of Tennyson's Victorian ethosto "The Frogs." Both are significantlyprovided by features of Lampman's sonnetsthat recall "The Lotos-Eaters."These are ( ι ) the Canadian poet's usethroughout "The Frogs" of the pasttense, and (2) his employment of "we"in Sonnets 2 and 5 when referring tothose poems' speakers. The former followsTennyson's practice in the stanzasintroducing his lotos-eaters' "ChoricSong," while the latter parallels the mariners'choruses themselves.By using the past tense, both Tennysonand Lampman prime their audiences foran ethical awareness in two ways. Theseare first by distancing the reader fromthe seductive immediacy of a powerfulenchantment, and secondly by intimatingsuch a "dream" was merely a temporaryescape from painful realities. Lampman'semployment of "we" further points towardsTennyson's Victorian ethosthrough suggesting Sonnets 2 and 5 of"The Frogs" present a collective outlook.This has in the context of "The Frogs"as influenced by "The Lotos-Eaters" twoparallel associations: with the chorusesof Ulysses' mariners as advocating a dualregression, and with the chorus of Lampman'sfrogs as primitive "embryonic"amphibians. Such a double linking withreversion of the "we" of Sonnets 2 and 5would render ironically significant Lampman'sabandonment after Sonnet 1 ofthe pronoun "I." Its absence would intimatethe poet's lapse from the consciousand responsible human individuality inwhich one faces life's painful problemsand moral duties. A partial "fall" fromthat mental state, which is the psychicvehicle of Tennyson's Victorian ethic, issuggested in Sonnet 5. The "we" of thepoem are immersed in "enchanted reveries,"which bind "brain and spirit andhalf-closèd eyes" (11.2-3, italics mine).Lampman in the last phrase could bepunningly referring not only to the organof sight, but also to the pronoun "I" asindicating a sense of personal identity.The "we" of Sonnet 5 may have thuspartially lost the individuality which is aprerequisite for adult ethical consciousness.Lampman's elaborate but unobtrusive"pattern of allusion" to "The Lotos-Eaters" may represent a compromise betweenconflicting feelings in the Canadianpoet. On the one hand, Lampmanas both a connoisseur of verse and thechild of a provincial Victorian culturewould doubtless have cherished a gooddeal of enthusiasm and reverence forTennyson. He would probably haveshared the belief of many contemporariesthat the Laureate was at once a greatmodern master and a worthy scion of agreat and venerable tradition (suggestedin "The Lotos-Eaters" by that poem'sHomeric paternity). More specifically,Lampman would have found expressedwith lyric genius in "The Lotos-Eaters"an in some ways kindred sensibility. Forall of these reasons, Lampman wouldgladly have availed himself of Tenny-288

OPINIONS & NOTESson's masterwork as both a "model" anda "resource." The Canadian poet wouldhave done so all the more readily forbeing self-consciously a literary novice asyet unsure of his own direction and powers.In this regard, Lampman could havegained from following Tennyson a senseof support and orientation allaying the"anxiety of creative uncertainty" thathaunts many beginning artists.However, Lampman may well havesimultaneously been inspired with a twofold"anxiety of influence" 10by Tennyson.In this connection, Lampman couldhave felt overshadowed ( ι ) as a juniortyro by an already revered master and( 2 ) as the provincial artist of a relativelyuncultivated recent colony 11by a literary"institution" of the great mother country.Such a double insecurity respectingTennyson could have moved Lampmanin "The Frogs" to assert both a personaland national literary identity. He mayindirectly affirm the first by keeping theLaureate's influence from being in anyparticular instance too obvious. Lampmanlikewise suggests a nationalistic literaryconsciousness in "The Frogs" bytranslating his expression of interestsshared with Tennyson from a Classicaland Mediterranean to a Canadian setting.Through these tactics, Lampmanwas able in "The Frogs" to use the Laureateas a "resource" while maintaininghis independence as an "individual talent"and as a Canadian writer.567891011Lotos-Eaters" was one of Lampman's"points of departure" in writing "TheFrogs." See Bentley, "Watchful Dreamsand Sweet Unrest: An Essay on the Visionof Archibald Lampman," Part II, Studiesin Canadian Literature, 7, no. 1 (1982),p. 7. While Bentley does not pursue thispoint, he concludes as does the presentstudy that Lampman is aware in "TheFrogs" of the "deficiencies" as well as the"attractions" of "escapism" (Bentley, p.16).Quotations from "The Frogs" are uniformwith the text in Douglas Lochhead, ed.,The Poems of Archibald Lampman (Toronto:University of Toronto Press, 1974),pp. 7-10.Quotations from "The Lotos-Eaters" areuniform with the text in Poems of Tennyson,i82g-i868 (London: Oxford UniversityPress, 1929), pp. 91-95.Such symbolism becomes more apparent inview of Lampman's characterization of naturein Sonnets 1 and 2 in maternal terms.Early delineates such an artistic characterthroughout his study. See especially Early,pp. 29-39.Such a strain in Lampman's poetic characterfound particularly powerful expressionin "The Story of an Affinity" (1893-94). It is perhaps significant for the presentstudy that (as Early notes, p. 121) Lampmanrelates his protagonist's strenuousquest for personal development to thehomeward journey of Odysseus.For this critical term, see Bloom, op. cit.That Lampman as a young man had strongnegative feelings about Canada as a culturalenvironment is indicated in his descriptionof his initial response to Roberts'sOrion and Other Poems. See Early, p. 5.JOHN OWERNOTES1Duncan Campbell Scott, "A Decade of CanadianPoetry," in Lorraine McMullen, ed.,Twentieth Century Essays on ConfederationLiterature (Ottawa: Tecumseh Press,1976), p. in.2See Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence(London: Oxford University Press,>973)> Ρ- 2ΐ.3L. R. Early, Archibald Lampman (Boston:Twayne, 1986), p. 63.* D. M. R. Bentley has noted that "The289

OPINIONS & NOTESON THE VERGE**** LUCY MAUD MONTGOMERY, Anne . . .La Maison aux pignons verts, trans. Henri-Dominique Paratte, Ruth Macdonald, andDavid Macdonald. Ragweed Press, $12.95.Among the funniest movies I have seen areJohn Wayne westerns dubbed into French, inwhich a torrent of eloquence squeezes its waypast the hero's terse and barely moving lips.No such inconsistencies afflict the Frenchtranslation of Anne of Green Gables, publishedin the wake of the CBC/PBS televisionproduction and apparently the first completetranslation into French, although the book hasappeared in more than forty languages sinceit was first published. Anne's richly texturedlanguage translates well into French; her favouritephrases like "a kindred spirit" and "abosom-friend" are rendered smoothly into"une amie de coeur" and "une âme soeur," asis her "I am in the depths of despair," whichbecomes "Je suis en proie du désespoir le plustotal." It is only when Anne's retorts hingeon one barbed word, or when she elicits responsefrom taciturn Matthew that the effectcannot be reproduced as well. Anne's verdicton Mrs. Peter Blewett — "She looks exactlylike a ... gimlet" appears as "Elle ressemble... à une queue de cochon pour percer destrous," and Matthew's embarrassed "Well,now, I dunno" becomes a rather more garrulous"Eh, bien, disons, euh, j'sais pas." Buton the whole, this is an accomplished translation,well worth "à ranger dans sa bibliothèqueà côté du Grand Meaulnes et du PetitPrince."E.-M.K.*** VICTOR HOWARD with MAC REYNOLDS,The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion. $8.95;Lionel Groulx, The Iron Wedge. $8.95. CarletonLibrary Series: Oxford Univ. Press. Thesimultaneous publication of these two minorclassics of Canadian socio-political history emphasizesthe polarities of Canadian attitudes.The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion shows theCanadian left of the 1930's in its heroic andunself-critical extremity, and Lionel Groulx'sL'Appel de la Race (which translator MichelGaulin, using Groulx's original title, calls TheIron Wedge) displays some of the least pleasantaspects of right-wing Québécois nationalism.The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion tellswhat is at the same time an admirable and apathetic story. Howard gives full and propercredit to the courage and idealism of the menwho went to Spain and fought in the InternationalBrigades, but he does not emphasizehow much they were unknowingly manipulatedin the interests of Stalinist foreign policy,nor does he acknowledge sufficiently thatthe Brigades were not the only units in whichforeign volunteers fought for the Republic.Many people fought, like Orwell, for thePOUM or for the anarchists, and probablyhad a better idea of the realities of the situationthan the International Brigaders. Still,within its limitations it is a good narrative ofa small current of Canadian history too muchneglected. The Abbé Groulx was a man totallylacking in fictional gifts who attempted toincorporate a highly racist doctrine into anovel. He handles human relations with thesentimental crudity of a Victorian writer offormula fiction, and his message — that theFrench culture in Canada can only be sustainedif there is no mingling of races — todayseems appalling, and would probably so appearto the most enthusiastic Péquiste. Wehave, one hopes, advanced a little beyond suchcrude thinking.G.w.*** CAROL SHLOSS, Invisible Light: Photographyand the American Writer 184.0-1Q40.Oxford Univ. Press, $37.50. Photography,initially celebrated as a medium of absoluteversimilitude, was soon discovered to be assubject to manipulation as other forms of art.Some of Barnardo's photographs of destituteVictorian children for instance were revealedto be artificial studio creations, as was the"newsphoto" of Emperor Maximillian's executionin Mexico. Carol Shloss explores thesocial and political responsibilities of documentaryphotography, and links her observationsto perspectival complexities in nineteenthand twentieth-century literature. Morespecifically, she focuses on Nathaniel Hawthorneand the daguerrotype, the collaborationbetween Henry James and Alvin LangdonCoburn (photographer of the frontispieces inthe New York edition of James' works), naturalismin Theodore Dreiser, Alfred Stieglitz,and Jacob Riis, John Dos Passos's experimentsin verbal montage and the Soviet cinema,phenomenology and social reportage in JamesAgee and Walker Evans as well as John Steinbeckand Dorothea Lange, Norman Mailerand combat photography by Margaret Bourke-White and Robert Capa. Influenced by JohnBerger, Shloss considers the photographer aspotentially in collusion with those in poweragainst the dispossessed. Even if the photographer'sgoal is ostentatiously benevolent as insocial documentation, his intrusion and aestheticdistance may violate his object's initia-290

OPINIONS & NOTEStive and self-respect. In contrast, scrupulousattention to the potentially exploitative natureof their work distinguishes James Agee andWalker Evans's work on Southern sharecroppersin Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, abook which has also been named as one of thesources for Alice Munro's self-reflexive realism.As Shloss's bibliography indicates, herconclusions are supported by extensive scholarship;however, Invisible Light absorbs impressiveamounts of criticism while remainingadmirably fluent and generally accessible. Agood selection of photographs is included.E.-M. K.ANYONE writing or teaching about Canada'sIndians must read Bruce G. Trigger's Nativesand Newcomers: Canada's "Heroic Age" Reconsidered(McGill-Queen's, $35.00). Trigger'sambitious aim is to write into Canadianhistory (from European discovery to 1663) thepeoples who were almost invisible in what wewere taught in Grade 8 and again in History200. The book is crucial for its putting Canadiannatives at the centre of its study of theintricate relationships among economic, religious,political, and military movements, andfor the sheer density of its information, materialhitherto obscured and ignored. Nativesand Newcomers is particularly attractive tostudents of literature, because Trigger continuallysees history as a literary enterprise, subjectto narrative considerations, and shaped bythe fashions, ideologies and fictional conventionsof its time.Douglas Cole's Captured Heritage: TheScramble for Northwest Coast Artifacts(Douglas & Mclntyre, $24.95) is much narrowerin scope, but the novelty of its approachis gratifying. For example, the fury a readersenses at these magnificently talented tribes beingdeprived of their own cultural artefacts,and of Canada's being dependent on the U.S.and Europe for a knowledge of its own aestheticbackground, is repeatedly curbed byCole's judicious claims that museologists savedsomething that otherwise would be lost entirely,and that the international awareness of,and contact with Canadian ethnology is agreat benefit to the country and potentially toits Indian people.The artefacts preserved have obviously beenvital to Bill Reid, the artist and environmentalistwhose career has been synonymous withthe revival of Northwest Coast Indian art.In Bill Reid: Beyond the Essential Form(Univ. of British Columbia Press, $12.95),Karen Duffek comments carefully on the copiesand adaptations of earlier pieces whichmade Reid an artist; her notes on theessential tension between copyist and innovator,between high realism and Haida stylizationcreate an illuminating context withinwhich to evaluate Reid's work. In the sameseries is Marjorie Halpin's Jack Shadbolt andthe Coastal Indian Image (Univ. of BritishColumbia Press, $12.95), a nequally interestingand colourful introduction to a companionartist who makes still more innovative use ofIndian motifs. The work of neither Reid norShadbolt appears in Ralph T. Coe's Lost andFound Traditions: Native American Art 1Q65-'985 (Univ. of Washington Press, $45.00),a lavish tribute to contemporary Indian artfound outside museums, but the author's extensivecomments on the possibility of a newnative art (including many Canadian examples)are nicely complementary. At the core ofthe discussion, Сое points out, is the very conceptof tradition itself. "The Anglo world insistson viewing tradition as an entity, as abody of information that is almost tactile. . . .The Indian view is that tradition, like time,cannot be measured. It exists within everything,a sort of wholeness or allness that mantouches, or establishes contact with."These are books originating to accompanymuseum exhibitions where texts go well beyondtheir value as catalogue notes. In theBoth titles are availablein film and video formats.Purchase price:16mm $455.00VHS $ 80.00U-Matic $100.00IRVING LAYTON:AN INTRODUCTIONA candid portrait of poet IrvingLayton as writer, teacher and privateindividual. The film affordsglimpses of Layton s intense approachto life and the close connectionPetween his life and art.A classroom adaptation of Poet:Irving Layton Observed.27 minutes 27 secondsA TALL MANEXECUTES A JIGBY IRVING LAYTONIrving Layton reads and explainsthe poem widely considered tobe his masterpiece. In this fascinating"conversation," Laytontalks of how he transforms fleetingexperiences into art. An extremelyvaluable film for literaturestudies.25 minutes 58 secondsNationalFilm Boardof CanadaOfficenational du filmdu Canada291

OPINIONS & NOTESsame category is Robert Stacey's Western Sunlight:C. W. Jefferys on the Canadian Prairies( Mendel Art Gallery, n.p. ), a catalogue whosereproductions are disappointing, but whose50-page well-documented biography extends toa history of prairie painting, particularly enrichedby the author's sensitivity to musicaland literary analogies. Much less thorough isGeorge Moppett's Robert Newton Hurley: ANotebook (Mendel Art Gallery, n.p.)> a nintroductionto one of Jefferys' important successors.Hurley is the key figure in the developmentof the iconography of the grain elevator;Moppett illuminates Hurley's attention togeometry and shadow, with sensitive analyticalcomments attached to several of the reproductions.Prairie art of a different form is recoveredin William James: Selected Photographs1доо-1дзб (Mendel Art Gallery, n.p.)— indeed, the catalogue contains a short essayby Grant Arnold considering the problem ofconflicting aesthetic and social contexts forinterpreting photographic images: are thesephotographs art? Nonetheless, I found theseworks of one of Saskatchewan's most importantphotographers, which this book introducedto me, give great pleasure both for theiraesthetics and for their social information.Especially impressive are sweeping panoramasreproduced in foldout, a difficult format whichseems especially fitted to prairiescapes. Manyof James's photographs, perhaps surprisingly,depict the lumbering industry, also subject forWilmer Gold's Logging As It Was: A PictorialHistory of Logging on Vancouver Island(Sono Nis, $34.95), which has some ploddingwriting, and some confused oral histories, butsome excellent, often blown-up, photographs,especially those, such as chokermen settingchokers, which give visual definition to thepeculiarly specialized language of this industry.Another version, more contemporary, of thewesternmost province is Donald Blake's TwoPolitical Worlds: Parties and Voting in BritishColumbia (UBC Press, $19.95) whose particularobservations are more fascinating thanits blandly generalized conclusions. Blake'sbook reveals surprising ambiguities in Federaland Provincial political behaviour, showing,for example, how class lines are followed inprovincial voting but not in federal. TwoPolitical Worlds gives fascinating detail aboutBritish Columbia as a state of mind, but itsmajor contribution is its differentiation of thesubject of federal-provincial domains of influence(or perception of same) from the subjectof provincial or regional alienation. Itredefines alienation in the Canadian context,emphasizing it as a positive political influence.L.R.Robert Prévost explains that in glancingthrough a Montreal telephone directory, hecounted 4,612 entries for the name Tremblay,most of them affixed to male first nameswhereas the "demoiselles . . . ont immolé leuridentité sur Vautel du conjugo." In his Québécoisesd'hier et d'aujourd'hui: Profils de 375femmes hors du commun (Stanké, $14.95)Prévost sets out to fill that gap by presenting,in alphabetical order, a pot-pourri of biographicalsketches. The result is less a usefulhandbook than a series of often quirky ortantalizingly uninformative entries rangingfrom Marie-Anne Boucher-Martineau, the oldestknown Québéboise, to Annette-EglantineCoderre, who earned a doctorate at 87, toSuzanne Blais-Grenier, sometime Minister ofEnvironment Canada, to Marie-Claire Biais,author of the first "roman québécois publié enChine." Intriguing however are the numerousentries on women associated with the 1837Rebellion: when the Theatre Passe Muraillecollective researched their play 1837, theylargely had to invent the role of women, asno pertinent materials could be found. A moremethodical kind of handbook is Antoine Gaborieau'sA l'Ecoute des Franco-Manitobains(Editions des Plaines, n.p.), a glossary ofManitoba French compiled with the intentionof teaching "une gamme plus étendue d'usages,de communiquer dans les conditions lesplus diverses." Besides archaisms and dialectwords, Gaborieau lists a staggering number ofanglicisms. Although he speaks of Franco-Manitobans as overwhelmed by a strongEnglish-speaking majority, however, he alsosuggests that a sentence like "la sloche danslaquelle on est stoqué" brings to life "lesimages d'un vécu, . . . les fibres profondes d'unpassé." Similarly concerned with preservingthe Franco-Manitoban heritage is Chapeaubas: Réminiscences de la vie théâtrale et musicaledu Manitoba français (Editions du Blé,$15.00), with contributions by Marius Benoist,Martial Caron, Pauline Boutai, and RolandMahé. Profusely illustrated, this third volumeof Les Cahiers d'histoire de la Société historiquede Saint-Boniface is a lively contributionto the study of regional culture. Anotherpocket of French-Canadian culture, theFranco-Albertans of the Peace River country,dominates the stories in Jean Pariseau's Lescontes de mon patelin (Editions des Plaines,n.p.), which, together with sometimes Rabelai-292

OPINIONS & NOTESsian illustrations, presents an often delightfulchronicle of life among the pioneers.E.-M.K.Entries on Callaghan and Vanderhaeghe featurein Gale's Contemporary Literary Criticism,vol. 41 ($90.00) ; the series surveys andexcerpts critical literature. More overtly bibliographicis John Bell's Canuck Comics (MatrixBooks, $12.95), abook containing lively historiesof the publishing of English- andFrench-language comic books in Canada, togetherwith a preliminary listing of titles, aprice guide, and an introductory essay byHarlan Ellison. In another bibliography, RobertGeorges and Stephen Stern have assembledAmerican and Canadian Immigrant andEthnic Folklore (Garland, $91.00), an annotatedguide to critical commentary, fuller onAmerican than Canadian sources because of"limited access" to Canadian materials. Thefifth edition of Holman's excellent A Handbookto Literature, newly compiled by W.Harmon (Collier Macmillan, $21.50), extendsits coverage to some of the terms ofcontemporary critical theory. In a differentkind of reassessment, C. Peter Ripley's TheBlack Abolitionist Papers, vol. II (Canada,1830-1865), (Univ. of North Carolina,$35.00), is a valuable contribution to blackhistory in Canada. Primarily an edited collectionof essays, letters, editorials, and speechesfrom various sources — all on the subject ofblack survival, educational and social opportunitiesin Canada, and the cause of abolition— the book also historically surveys the emergenceof black Canadian communities. Windsor,especially — with the journalism of Henryand Mary Bibb, James T. Holly, and MaryAnn Shadd Cary — achieved special prominence.The appearance of a book such as thisis long overdue, but it only begins to redressone of the several imbalances of our currentnotion of cultural history. One further collectionof interest assembles the proceedings of a1984 conference sponsored and published bythe Science Council of Canada, which addressesthe role of the social sciences both inshaping and in describing public policy:Social Science in Canada: Stagnation or Regeneration?;of particular interest are threetalks about the future, agendas for organization,and reflections of the disciplinary potentialfor taking control or for lapsing into irrelevance.W.N.*** А. в. MCKiixop, Contours of CanadianThought. Univ. of Toronto Press, $12.95. AsA. B. McKillop (who is also the author ofA Disciplined Intelligence: Critical Inquiryand Canadian Thought in the Victorian Eraand the editor of A Critical Spirit: TheThought of William Dawson Lesueur) pointsout in the essays, lectures, and prefaces collectedin Contours of Canadian Thought,intellectual history as a discipline has developedwith some difficulty in Canada becausescholarly concern with the country's colonialpast seemed an admission of its dependenceand imitativeness, hence of its cultural inferiority.But, McKillop argues, "there is thenecessity to view Canada's long-held 'colonial'status as a constitutional phenomenon ratherthan a source of intellectual shame" and "todelineate neither to condemn — nor to celebrate— the contours of that past." In admirablylucid prose, these essays outline the pioneeringwork already accomplished by CarlBerger, Ramsay Cook, Richard Allen, MichielHorn, William Westfall, Allan Smith,S. E. D. Shortt, and Douglas Owram, chartingthe enormous — and fascinating — territorystill to be covered, and presenting a numberof exemplary studies demonstrating thedefinition and method of the field. There ismuch of interest here to the literary historianas well, for McKillop includes such works asEli Mandel's Contexts of Canadian CriticismOut-of-PrintCANADIANA BOOKSandPAMPHLETSHURONIA-CAN ADIANABOOKSBOX 685ALLISTON, ONTARIO LOM 1A0Catalogues free on request29З

OPINIONS & NOTESand D. G. Jones's Butterfly on Rock in hisanalyses, explores contemporary literature aspart of the general intellectual climate, andstudies periodicals like the Canadian Forumas barometers of cultural change. Drawing onS. F. Wise's seminal essay "Sermon Literatureand Canadian Intellectual History," McKillopalso speaks of the study of rhetoric as an important,but greatly neglected, field. In acountry where much literary criticism, bothin English and in French, has been dominatedby clergymen, such a study promises valuableresults. E.-M. к.** The Forty-Ninth and Other Parallels:Contemporary Canadian Perspectives, ed. DavidStaines. Univ. of Massachusetts Press,$10.50. The aim of this anthology is to presentthe similarities and differences betweenCanadians and Americans; it is written byCanadians, but published under the auspicesof a group of New England institutions callingthemselves the Five Colleges. Perhaps it willhelp to enlighten a few academically inclinedAmericans about what makes Canada a distinctpolitical and cultural community. ForCanadians it is largely old hat, with twoformer Liberal cabinet ministers lustily blowingtheir own political trumpets, a formerParti Québécois minister making the expectedjustifications of Bill 101, and Walter Stewartpredictably but eloquently destroying the argumentsof those who try to present journalismas a profession with high ideals rather thanas a worthy trade. Bob Rae writes interestinglyon the reasons why socialist parties thriveabove but not below the forty-ninth parallel.The only piece relating to arts of any kind isa sound essay by Robert Kroetsch on thenameless protagonist as a significant and distinctivefigure in Canadian fiction.G.w.* JOHN FRASER, Telling Tales. Collins,$19.95. There are some judgments that writersdrag down on themselves, as John Fraserdoes in these insubstantial recollections of Canadiancelebrities. Fraser is known for oneinformative book, The Chinese, which wasmostly read for its interesting content — anearly look at post-Cultural Revolution China— by people who had little idea of style, andwhich for this reason was a best-seller. Thatsuccess led Fraser to believe he was a realwriter, who could take his place in the literaryheritage, and he begins Telling Tales by comparinghimself to John Aubrey of the BriefLives. It is true enough that Aubrey at timesdid drop into anecdotal banality, but he didnot write in quite the same vein of selfcomplacenttriviality as Fraser does, namedroppinghis way indiscriminately among thefamous and the fatuous. Still, one could passover Aubrey if Fraser did not later on coylyassure us: "Hazlitt is my inspiration and Orwellmy guide." Hazlitt who said — andproved it — "I never wrote a line that lickedthe dust?" Orwell, that uncompromising manwho called for "prose like a window pane" ?Fraser's writing may not lick the dust, but itlicks less palatable surfaces in its sometimesshameless flattery of pretentious nonentities.And where, in all this immature gossip, arethe window panes of Orwellian decency andlight?LAST PAGEG.W.OLD AGE, writes John Blight in Holiday seasonnets (UQP, Α$ΐ4-95), recalling the presenceof a young woman, provides "a safe fencewithin which, yesterday, we viewed the garden."It seems a phrase distanced from thepresent by literary convention as well as bytime, by attitude and by presumption. ThePenguin Book of Australian Women Poetse($12.95), d· Susan Hampton and KateLlewellyn, is full of poems resistant to justsuch conventions. A collection of works by 89women, from aboriginal and convict songs tocontemporary lyrics, the book is politicalthroughout, objecting to the marginalizing offemale roles and the transformation of womeninto things. "I'm not a fucking painting / thatneeds to be told what it looks like," writes GigRyan; and elsewhere: "His cubist drawingsare lying everywhere / between the drippingvirgin and his male despair, / that suffers,seeing nothing. . . ." The aboriginal lamentsof Kath Walker and Charmaine Papertalk-Green: these, too, are political. And whileJudith Rodriguez dances motherhood in"Eskimo occasion," Jennifer Maiden moresolemnly intones the intricate dances of promiseand trust: "No / one but I can see, andyou have come / here, and here is nothingyou can mourn. It / isn't to the gates that Iescort you, but / it isn't to escape that youhave come." Such perspectives are not thesole voice of Australian poetry. In Poetry NewZealand, vol. 6, ed. Elizabeth Coffin (JohnMclndoe, $10.50), Kerrin Sharpe writes of"The Nature of Appearances" — of livingwhere the "air is crazy / with butterflies," and294

OPINIONS & NOTESof leaving nevertheless to read the "Conservationist"hawk as "compassionate." Publicimages shape the limits of identity. But publicimages can also be resisted.Angels of Fire, ed. Sylvia Paskin et al. —subtitled "an anthology of radical poetry inthe '80s" (Chatto/Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,$21.95) —defines "radical" in relatedterms. It's perhaps a sign of the current stateof British poetry (and cultural politics) thatthe predominant voices of protest are those ofracial and ethnic minorities: of John Agard,for example, or Valerie Bloom, or GraceNichols — though Bloom and Nichols appearin a section entitles "Heretic women." Thepoet taken as a model for the book (despitethese contexts?) is Rimbaud; there's an oddhint here of resistance as a romantic attitude.But the poems — not always in discontinuousor vernacular forms — attend more readily tothe cynicism of isms and ologies. "We havehandled butterflies with tongs and said: 'Thisis nothing but fragments'," writes Alan Jackson,trying to purge himself of irony in orderto reaffirm the future.Canada, too, shares in these perspectives.Paula Burnett's meticulously edited The PenguinBook of Caribbean Verse in English($12.95) —vj'iui notes and a substantial introduction— tells of slavery and imitation andthe resistance to various kinds of emotionallandlord. Among the poets collected are severalwith Canadian connections, includingJudy Miles and Dionne Brand. Elsewhere, theMuses' Company (of Ste-Anne de Bellevue,Quebec) has issued Mohammed S. Togane'sstriking collection of The Bottle and the Bushman,reiterating the diversity of contemporaryCanadian literature. The African backgroundto these poems is neither exoticism nor simplesetting; it's a political frame: "A Short Lessonin Comparative Languages" illustrateswith wry amusement how bland a culturalpresumption can be, especially when it meetsthe language of political experience.Some attempts to recover earlier writersstem in part from the issues that engenderrereading. Ruth Gilbert's Collected Poems(Brick Row, NZ$16.95) reintroduces a postwarpoet who could still see beauty in thename of sandalwood, and Pan in suburbia.Ursula BethelPs prewar poems come togetherin Collected Poems (Oxford, NZ$19.95), affirminga still more confident faith in Christiangrace and the salve of nature. Such a conservativetrust in place, speech, and observationhas not disappeared from contemporarypoetry — witness Andrew Taylor's Travelling(UQP, Α$ΐ4·95): "This is the weather /dolphins come, weaving / their intermittentprint / between our world and theirs / thenvanishing, a dark and leaping / language,going somewhere, leaving / us here, pointing,wondering, alert." Such uncertainty is notnecessarily debilitating, nor unaccompanied bywit, and still other works — Chris Wallace-Crabbe's The Amorous Cannibal (Oxford,£4.50)—take up the theme of travel (ofpotential alienation, potential discovery) withwry voice and passionate understatement. BillManhire, in Zoetropes (Allen & Unwin,NZ$9.95), writes of "The poor ... as passionateas charity, surviving in everything theyspend." But the travels are as often forays intosystem in search of meaning as they are simpleobservations of activity. Cornells Vleeskens'The Day the River (UQP, A$g.9s) effectivelyreconstructs convict history; Michael Jackson'sGoing On (John Mclndoe, NZ$9.95) balancesrecollections of a lost New Zealand againstobservations of a surviving Europe; MichaelHarlow's Vlaminck's Tie (Auckland,NZ$13.00) imagines its way past Freud andJung into musical process and polemic force.The Samoan poet Albert Wendt's Shaman ofVisions (Oxford, NZ$11.50) also visits Europebriefly — but to perceive the failure ofconventional modes of representation: in"Montmartre," the poetic persona sings "Polynesiansongs / with a Tahitian trio / whohaven't stepped out / of Gauguin's paintings."The new world, in some sense, is a way ofretrieving an older one, as Wendt's title poemexplains, rejecting the limits of Europeanmyth-making: "Shaman of Visions, in wordsis the silence / before Taga Waalagi createdthe dawn of solitude. / We measure ourselvesagainst our words. / . . . / shaman of Visions,/ we'll not live under / the dark side of Plutoafraid / of evening as much as death. / shamanof Visions, when we die disperse / everyparticle of our dust into the dawn / whichgave birth to the first word."For Maori writer Keri Hulme, Lost Posses-lssions (Victoria University Press, NZ$8.95)less sanguine about the possibility of retrieval.Her long poem/short story — the generic ambivalenceis part of the resistance to receivedlimits — tells in note-form of a man's incarceration.What does limitation do? the storyasks: it denies a sense of time, it changes attitudestoward silence and paper, or constrainsthe logic of understanding — all of which acquireanother reverberation through the bureaucraticpaper that provides the story's closingframe. Here a nameless bureaucrat's words295

OPINIONS & NOTEStake over as the speaker's words disappear,providing a laconic "reason" for the (temporary)preservation of this "manuscript":"Finder didn't want it." The resistance of conventionalstructures to alternative words,alternative systems of value, underlies thearticulateness of the will to protest. VivienneJoseph's A Desirable Property (John Mclndoe,$8.95) probes the fictions of safety and orderthat structure fairy tales, but realizes thatwomen repeatedly live with "Another Prince,Another Story," and with violence and loss.Cilia McQueen's anti gravity (John Mclndoe,NZ$8.95) asserts the poet's role as anarchistin an uncivil world: a world where fall-outand gravity are the norm, and where thetrapeze artist and the wilful wit of the vegetablegarden are hints of an alternative possibility.Grace Nichols' The Fat Black Woman'sPoems (Academic Press, $6.95), finally,resists a whole range of exclusive terms("fat," "black," "exile"), turning discriminationon its ear: "I have crossed an ocean /I have lost my tongue / from the root of theold one / a new one has sprung." Whoeverthinks this rhyme is easy has not been listening.W.N.296