Proquest Dissertations
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u Ottawa l.'Univcrsite canndicnnc Ciinadn's university FACULTE DES ETUDES SUPERIEURES '™ FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND ET POSTOCTORALES U Ottawa POSDOCTORAL STUDIES L'Univcrsitft canadienne Canada's university Andrew Belyea TOTEWDriXTHfsElXuTHOR'orfHESfs" Ph.D. (English Literature) GRADE/DEGREE Department of English TACuIWfcaiTblPART^ Honouring Mystery: The Evolutionary Fiction of Wayland Drew TITRE DE LA THESE / TITLE OF THESIS Cynthia Sugars EXAMINATEURS (EXAMINATRiCES) DE LA THESE / THESIS EXAMINERS Janice Fiamengo John Moss Gerald Lynch John Wadland Gary W. Slater Le Doyen de la Faculte des etudes superieures et postdoctorales / Dean of the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Honouring Mystery: The Evolutionary Fiction of Wayland Drew by Andy Belyea Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Ottawa in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Supervised by Professor Cynthia Sugars Department of English University of Ottawa Ottawa, Ontario © 2007 Andy Belyea All Rights Reserved Library and Bibliotheque et 1*1 Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-49330-4 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-49330-4 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par Plntemet, prefer, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform, et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. Canada ii ABSTRACT As the environmental crisis worsens, the time has never been more ripe for a scholarly reclamation of Ontario writer and environmental activist Wayland Drew (1932-1998), known only marginally by Canadian literary scholars for two novels: The Wabeno Feast (1973) and Halfway Man (1989). In addition to these works, Drew published a trilogy, The Erthring Cycle (1984-86), which explores environmental holocaust, and several ecological essays, travelogues, and other nonfictional works. Forming a unique genre of "evolutionary fiction" rooted in the sciences of ecology and evolution and in his intimate knowledge of traditional aboriginal land practices, Drew stands alone in the Canadian literary tradition for making the global environmental crisis the central focus of his writing. His fictional and nonfictional oeuvre launches an unremitting critique of the anthropocentric discourses of humanism and reductivist science, as well as the current debates about cultural identity politics, in the interest of highlighting the "mystery" of evolutionary and cosmological history and our responsibility, as the now-dominant species, to pursue homeostatic living in order to protect the planet for the future of all biotic life. Moreover, Drew recognizes the irony that our species is driven by instincts that, if left unchecked, ultimately may lead to biospheric ruin: human curiosity and an urge for "progress," for instance, must be restrained if we are to safeguard the future of the planet. Drew argues with a voice unique in the tradition of Canadian Literature that humans must embrace their evolutionary inconsequentiality, and nurture their connections with other lifeforms (via a philosophy of "mutual aid"), as part of a broader survival strategy. His sustained argument is that not only Western nations but all of the Earth's denizens need to undertake a radical epistemological shift if we are to survive. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To Professor Cynthia Sugars at the University of Ottawa, whose extensive knowledge of Canadian literature and postcolonial theory, willingness to venture into ecological and evolutionary domains, and attention to critical detail throughout this project, I offer my greatest thanks; I hope that you share in my enthusiasm when I say that the journey was very much worth the effort. I am also grateful to the English Department at the University of Ottawa and my dissertation committee for allowing me to stretch the borders of literary scholarship to explore the newly emerging fields of ecocriticism and Literary Darwinism, whose advocates elsewhere have at times experienced no small amount of resistance for trying to begin bridging the two worlds of the Humanities and Sciences. My gracious thanks to the support of the Canadian Forces and my colleagues at the Royal Military College of Canada, who provided both the opportunity and inspiration for my pursuit of graduate studies. Their common desire to extend the range of academic influences that Canada's young men and women Officer Cadets receive speaks well to the leadership of tomorrow. To Wayland, whose passion for environmental change, belief in human benevolence, hope for the future, and cosmological reflections have been infectious, thank you from the interstices of language, where reality, you taught me, is so often found. To Gwen, and the rest of the Drew family, I am indebted for your insights and for discussing what I know are still in many ways very sensitive memories. Finally, I would like to thank, in advance, anyone who should be curious enough to pluck this dissertation from a shadowy shelf or cyberspatial circuit; I hope it contributes to the debate now facing our species about choosing limitation and a responsibility to posterity. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv COVER PAGE vi PREFACE - Because We Can vii-xiii I. Chapter 1: A Manifesto for Mystery: Wayland Drew, Ecocriticism, and Literary Darwinism 1 Part I - Stepping Into Drew's Shoes: A Brief Literary Biography 8 Part II - The Politics of Reception: Drew Who? 17 Part III - Rights and Choices: Re-membering Ourselves 23 II. Chapter 2: A Metaphysics of Mystery: Making Humanism Posthumous in the Age of Evolution 46 Part I - I Think I Am (Here), I AM Here: Challenging Humanism 49 and Reductivist Science Part II - Think Big, Think Back: The Postmodern Subject and 59 Resituating Cultural/Identity Politics Part III - Posthuman Homo Sapiens: Marveling in Our Existential 75 Obscurity III. Chapter 3: The Wabeno Feast: Cultural Politics for Dinner; Madness for Dessert 89 Part I - Re-"Placing" Cultural Politics: Transcending Race and 93 Authenticity Part II - De-mystifying the Ecological Noble Savage 102 Part III - MacKay Goes Mad; Malcolmson Acquiesces 109 Part IV- The Sane Scientist?: Miro Balch and Mutual Aid 124 V IV. Chapter 4: Halfway Man: Going All the Way with Nature 135 Part I - Drew's Magic Realism: Nature as Construct, Nature as 142 Reality Part II - Ecoterrorism or Adaptation?: Placing an Ecological Ethics 155 Part III - Getting Schooled: The Function of Evolutionary Literacy 161 at the Present Time V. Chapter 5: The Erthring Cycle: The Power of Choice 173 Part I - Synopsis: Living With(in) Gaia 177 Part II - Science Fiction, Science Fact: Entropy, Chaos, and Anarchy 186 Part III - The Epicurean Alternative: Xtaplacia 198 VI. Conclusion - Evolutionary Atavism, Literary Darwinism 209 BIBLIOGRAPHY 214 APPENDIX A - Wayland Drew: Interview with a Mythmaker A1-A25 As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications. Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, 1859 Watching those poignant images of sea and forest and taiga recur again and again, he wondered at the threads and pulses that linked all of life. How easy it would be to yield to these. To listen only to the messages from the cells, and to allow oneself to be wrapped gently in the nucleic strands of instinct.. Life is short, too short to be anything but beautiful. Wayland Drew, The Erthring Cycle, 1986 vii Preface: Because We Can The sixth great extinction spasm of geological time is upon us, grace of mankind.... If there is danger in the human trajectory, it is not so much in the survival of our own species as in the fulfillment of the ultimate irony of organic evolution: that in the instant of achieving self-understanding through the mind of man, life has doomed its most beautiful creations. And thus humanity closes its door to the past. (Wilson, The Diversity of Life 343-44) We are, despite all our great technological advances, still very much a simple biological phenomenon. Despite our grandiose ideas and our lofty self-conceits, we are still humble animals, subject to all the basic laws of animal behavior. Long before our populations reach the levels envisaged above [10 billion by 2050] we shall have broken so many of the rules that govern our biological nature that we will have collapsed as a dominant species.