A Literary Critical Review of the Personal Correspondence of Margaret Laurence and Margaret Atwood

Home , Al Purdy, A Jest of God, Cormorant Books, Kildare Dobbs, Margaret Laurence, The Diviners

PERSONAL LETTERS: VEHICLES FOR TRUTH? A LITERARY CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE OF MARGARET LAURENCE AND MARGARET ATWOOD

ROSE MARY CRAIG

Integrated Studies Project

submitted to Dr. Carolyn Redl

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts – Integrated Studies

Athabasca, Alberta

April, 2012

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ...... 3

Essay ...... 4

Endnotes ...... 62

Reading List ...... 63

Abstract

This paper examines Margaret Laurence’s and Margaret Atwood’s personal correspondence through literary theory, particularly autobiographical critical theory, and explores issues such as truth, subjectivity, and the self. With regards to the self, I also examine Laurence’s and Atwood’s letters through a feminist lens.

The voices of the two writers ate th centre of this paper have contributed significantly to the body of work by Canadian writers, especially female Canadian writers. Laurence and Atwood in 1939 were contemporaries in the literary field from the 1960’s until Laurence’s death in the mid‐1980’s. Laurence was primarily a novelist and short story writer and Atwood was and still is a novelist, poet, and short story writer. Laurence’s early writing took place in Africa where she started to write with a sense of sympathy to women and their lives. In her subsequent series of five novels, referred to as the Manawaka cycle as they wered set in an around the fictional Manitoba town of Manawaka, the main protagonists are all women. Atwood’s novels also feature the female protagonist and perspective. They are women who are often strong, sometimes flawed, and usually struggling within a patriarchal setting. This essay examines the fiction writing and personal letters of these two writers for verisimilitude to the reality of their lives.

Laurence’s later novels are set in rural Manitoba and Atwood’s mainly in urban centres in Ontario. However, the bringing together of these two novelists is not as much about geography as it is about identity. Laurence and Atwood have contributed greatly to the Canadian canon of literature by revealing and defining national identity through their protagonists’ ‘small’ personal stories while simultaneously presenting ‘large’ universal themes of family, women, working, and relationships. This lends an intimate feel to the two writers’ novels and causes readers and critics alike to posit that Laurence and Atwood inject their true thoughts and their true selves into their fictional works; that their novels are autobiographical or, minimally, semi‐autobiographical in nature. Are the authors’ fictional works repositories for autobiographical truth; truth about the authors’ lives, feelings, and views? In addition to fiction, both authors extensive oeuvres include poems, essays, reviews, and, in Laurence’s case, a memoir. Both writers were also copious letter writers. They maintained personal correspondence with a myriad of friends, family members, colleagues, other writers, and each other. Julie Rak, author of Auto/biography in Canada: Critical Direction, suggests that personal letters fall under the non‐fiction genre of literature; “Non‐fiction includes autobiography and life writing: diaries, letters or personal narratives” (1). Is this where we will find Laurence’s and Atwood’s true identity; in their non‐ fiction writings, and in particular, their personal letters? Are personal letters vehicles for truth?

The voices of the two writers at the centre of this paper have contributed significantly to the body of work by Canadian writers, especially female Canadian writers. Margaret Laurence was born in

1926, Margaret Atwood in 1939 and, despite the slight age difference, were contemporaries in the literary field from the 1960’s until Laurence’s death in the mid‐1980’s. Laurence was primarily a novelist and short story writer and Atwood was and still is a novelist, poet, and short story writer. Laurence’s early writing took place in Africa where she started to write with a sense of sympathy to women and their lives. In her subsequent series of five novels, referred to as the Manawaka cycle as they were set in and around the fictional Manitoba town of Manawaka, the main protagonists are all women. Atwood’s novels also feature the female protagonist and perspective. They are women who are often strong, sometimes flawed, and usually struggling within a patriarchal setting. This essay examines the fiction writing and personal letters of these two writers for verisimilitude to the reality of their lives.

Laurence’s later novels are set in rural Manitoba and Atwood’s mainly in urban centres in

Ontario. However, the bringing together of these two novelists is not as much about geography as it is about identity. Laurence and Atwood have contributed greatly to the Canadian canon of literature by revealing and defining national identity through their protagonists’ ‘small’ personal stories while simultaneously presenting ‘large’ universal themes of family, women, working, and relationships. This lends an intimate feel to the two writers’ novels and causes readers and critics alike to posit that

Laurence and Atwood inject their true thoughts and their true selves into their fictional works; that their novels are autobiographical or, minimally, semi‐autobiographical in nature. Are the authors’ fictional works repositories for autobiographical truth; truth about the authors’ lives, feelings, and views? In addition to fiction, both authors extensive oeuvres include poems, essays, reviews, and, in Laurence’s case, a memoir. Both writers were also copious letter writers. They maintained personal correspondence with a myriad of friends, family members, colleagues, other writers, and each other.

Julie Rak, author of Auto/biography in Canada: Critical Direction, suggests that personal letters fall under

the non‐fiction genre of literature; “Non‐fiction includes autobiography and life writing: diaries, letters or personal narratives” (1). Is this where we will find Laurence’s and Atwood’s true identity; in their non‐ fiction writings, and in particular, their personal letters? Are personal letters vehicles for truth?

In her book, Autobiography, the New Critical Idiom, Linda Anderson posits that “. . . any writing may be judged to be autobiographical depending on how one reads it” (1). With regards to Laurence and Atwood, gauging authors’ and readers’ subjectivity is, of course, subjective. Once acquainted with an author’s life story, a reader easily recognizes elements of that story as it is mirrored in an author’s writings. An author’s life story, considered to contain their true identity, is often gleaned from secondary non‐fiction sources such as chronologies, biographies and interviews. However, as Atwood says in an interview with Geoff Hancock in 1986;

Interviews are an art form in themselves. As such, they’re fictional and arranged. The illusion that what you’re getting is the straight truth from the writer, and accurate in every detail, is false. Let’s just state at the beginning that interviews as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, are suspect. They’re fictions” Ingersoll Waltzing Again 90).

If secondary sources such as interviews are unreliable, perhaps primary sources such as personal letters are more tenable. As literary texts, Laurence’s and Atwood’s personal correspondence can be examined using literary theory, which allows for systematic examination and analysis. As a subset of literary theory, autobiographical criticism considers issues such as truth, subjectivity, and the self and is useful in considering Laurence’s and Atwood’s views on personal issues such as relationships, working, and writing. Julie Rak agrees: “Auto/biography theory and criticism considers ‘representation of identity in non‐fiction’” (1). The letters will be analyzed for the presence of the same feminine voice found in the fiction using theories purported by feminists such as by Gayle Greene and Marjanne Goozé: the former for her insight on the myth and reality of women’s lives in the 1960’s and 1970’s, and the latter for her work on defining the self in feminist autobiography.

Laurence and Atwood met for the first time in 1966. They were both in Ottawa attending the

Governor General’s Awards ceremony. Laurence was the recipient of the Literary Award for Fiction for her novel A Jest of God and Atwood received the Governor General’s Award for Poetry for The Circle

Game. Atwood recalls her nervousness regarding the award ceremony and meeting Laurence:

At first I thought the announcement was an error or a joke. When it turned out to be true, delight set in – and then panic. My wardrobe consisted of tweed skirts, cardigans and gray Hush Puppies, all appropriater fo female graduate students but hardly suitable for the proposed formal dinner. What would I wear? Worse, what would I say to Margaret Laurence? I had studied the inside jacket flap [of A Jest for God] and had decided that nobody except Simone de Beauvoir would have such power to reduce me to quaking jelly. I was in awe of her talent, but also I was afraid of her hairdo. My two Harvard roommates took me hand. They did not know what the Governor General award was, but they did not want me to disgrace them. They went at meg with bi rollers and some hair‐set and lent me a dress. (Atwood Writing with Intent 52).

As a nod to the glamour of the evening’s event and venue, and at the insistence of her roommates,

Atwood was wearing contact lenses, a recent purchase as a supplement (or replacement in the eyes of her roommates) for her usual eye glasses. “I’d been adjusting to new contact lenses, and they were adamant about these: onto my eyes they must go on the gala evening; no tortoiseshell horn‐rims allowed” (52). At one point in the evening Atwood, who was still not used to wearing her contact lenses, headed to the ladies room to try and retrieve a lens that had slipped in behind one eyeball, causing tears to stream down her face:

The ceremony and then the dinner went on longer than I had expected, and at the end of the first course I began to weep. It was the lenses: I had not yet developed the knack of removing them without a mirror. As soon as the presentation was concluded, I rushed to the washroom like Cinderella fleeing the ball. Who should be in there but Margaret Laurence? She was in black and gold but otherwise not at all as anticipated. Instead, she was warm, friendly and sympathetic. Also, she was more of a dithering nervous wreck that I was (52).

Coincidently, Laurence had also slipped away to the ‘washroom’. In her memoirs entitled Dance on the

Earth, Laurence fondly recalls that same event;

The winner of the Governor General’s award for poetry in English that year was Margaret Atwood, for The Circle Game. I met her for the first time that day, in what was euphemistically called the Ladies’ Powder Room at Government House. She told me she had been slightly

nervous about meeting me. Me! I was forty‐one and Margaret was all of twenty‐eight. “Honey,” I said, “I’m nervous meeting everybody. Do we have to curtsy or what?” (Laurence 187).

At the time of this event in 1966, Laurence was already a recognized Canadian writer. Although she had not received any awards for her works before A Jest of God, she had written several short story collections while living with her husband in Africa; A Tree for Poverty (1954), The Tomorrow‐Tamer

(1963), The Prophet’s Camel Bell (1963), and a novel, This Side Jordan (1960). She also had written the novel The Stone Angel (1964). The first draft had been written upon her return to Canada in 1962 and completed while living in England in 1963.

Although she received the Governor General’s Award that evening for A Jest of God, it was her previous novel The Stonet Angel tha had established Laurence as one of Canada’s premier writers;

“Laurence’s reputation in Canada was established with her portrait of one of the most remarkable figures in Canadian literature, Hagar Shipley, in The Stone Angel (1964), and confirmed when she won the Governor General’s Award for fiction for her next novel, A Jest of God, in 1966” (Wainwright ii). The

Stone Angel and A Jest of God were, respectively, the first two novels in a series of five books which would become known as the “Manawaka cycle of fiction” (ii) – novels all set in the fictional Manitoba town of Manawaka ‐ along with the novels The Fire Dwellers (1969), A Bird in the House (1970) and The

Diviners (1974), thus cementing Laurence’s position as a key figure in Canadian literature.

Laurence was born in 1926 in Neepawa, Manitoba to father Robert Wemyss, a lawyer, and mother Verna Simpson. Verna’s sister, Margaret Simpson, was an English teacher who came to live with

Laurence and her father shortly after Verna’s death in 1930. Eventually Simpson married Laurence’s father, thus becoming her step‐mother. It was Margaret Simpson, whom Laurence called Mum (and also referred to as Marg), that Laurence credits the beginning of her literary career; “One day I confessed to

Mum that I really wasn’t interested in the violin; in fact I hated it, I wanted to quit. All I was interested in was writing. She accepted it. Writing was what she could help me with the most and, over many years,

she did” (Laurence, Dance 67). In 1935, Laurence’s father died, leaving Marg, Laurence, and baby brother Robert. Though struggling with finances since her husband’s death, Marg insisted that Laurence receive a university education. Laurence was admitted to, and received a scholarship for, United College, an affiliate of the University of Manitoba. She explains,

United College . . . had a long tradition of liberal arts and the kind of social conscience closely associated, in the prairies, with the Methodist, Presbyterian and, ultimately with the United Church of Canada, in which I myself was brought up. I had a very privileged education. Although the library was absurdly small and unsophisticated by today’s standards, classes were also small, and we got to know our teachers personally (91).

It was at United College that Laurence met Adele Wiseman, who also became an author and a life‐long friend. They corresponded for more than forty years.

Laurence graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature in 1947 and married

Jack Laurence in 1948. As a road and bridge engineer, Jack did contract work in various locations around the world. They lived in Somaliland (present day Somali) and the Gold Coast (present day Ghana) from

1950 to 1957. It was in Africa that Laurence began writing in earnest. Between 1950 and 1952, while in

Somaliland, she wrote A Tree for Poverty, a translation of two Somali oral literatures into poetry form.

Years later, the journals she kept while living in Somaliland were the basis of her non‐fiction short story collection entitled The Prophet’s Camel Bell. Between 1952 and 1957, while living in Ghana, Laurence had two children, Jocelyn and David, and wrote another short story collection, The Tomorrow‐Tamer and Other Stories. Later, Laurence reflected that she was lucky to have begun her writing career in

Africa: “I was fortunate in going to Africa when I did – in my early twenties – because for some years I was so fascinated by the African scene that I was prevented from writing an autobiographical first novel”

(Laurence Heart of a Stranger 2). Laurence had found prairie life stifling and felt that she needed more time and distance before she “would have to stop writing about Africa and get back to my own people, my own place of belonging” (3). But while in Africa, “my view of the prairie town from which I had come

was still too prejudiced and distorted by closeness. I had to get farther away from it before I could begin to see it” (2).

It was in Africa that Laurence started to notice ‘women’. In a letter to Wiseman, shortly after her arrival in Somaliland, Laurence described the local Somali women:

I wish you could see some of the people here, Adele. The degree of physical beauty among the young Somalis is absolutely incredible. If you search Mayfair and the Champs Elysees and Fifth Avenue, you won’t see women any more beautiful than some of the Somali girls I’ve seen. I never noticed beauty in women much before, having always concentrated my attention on the male sex, but it is impossible not to admire these girls (Lennox Wiseman 56 15‐Jun‐51). i

Laurence’s admiration for the Somalian women was also grounded in reality and sympathy for their hard life. “They don’t get much opportunity of dressing up, these country women, for their lives are 99% hard work … they work far harder than the men, and grow old and embittered and shrewishe by the tim they’re thirty” (68 9‐Nov‐51). The observations on the lives of women in Africa led Laurence to view women in Canada through a new perspective. Her focus had indeed shifted to women, their lives and their plight. Consequently, Laurence’s protagonists, especially in her Manawaka series, were all women.

After their first meeting, the friendship between Laurence and Atwood continued. In late 1970, both were living in England, Atwood in London and Laurence in Buckinghamshire, thirty miles outside of

London. Shortly before Christmas that year, Laurence invited Atwood and her husband to come to her home, Elm Cottage, for the weekend. “I tried to phone you, but could not get through – operator finally said ‘That number is a booth at Earls’ Court Exhibition’ – another example of our terrible British phone service, no doubt, but I thought it would amuse you. Could you and your husband come out one weekend?” (Atwood MS COLL Box 160 9‐Dec‐70). Atwood responded with; “Many thanks for your letter.

I’m afraid we do [sic] live in a phone booth at Earl’s Court; I’ve long suspected it” (Box 160 10‐Dec‐70).

Although Laurence’s and Atwood’s letters over the years certainly took serious tracts with discussions on writing, Canadian writers, and feminism, the humour that accompanied their first meeting remained evident through most of their subsequent personal correspondence to each other.

Atwood was still a PhD student at Harvard University when she received the Governor General’s

Award in 1966. In the years that followed, Atwood received many more awards. Her novel The

Handmaid’s Tale won both the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987 and the Governor General’s Award in

1985. In 1996,n Atwood wo the Giller Prize, the Booker Prize and the Governor General’s Award for her novel Alias Grace. In 2000, Atwood received the prestigious Booker Award for Fiction for her novel Blind

Assassin. In 2003 she again won the Governor General’s Award for her novel Oryx and Crake. Atwood’s oeuvre, however, is much more extensive than even these many accolades suggest. She is the author of thirteen novels, twenty poetry collections, ten short story collections, ten non‐fiction books, and countless other items such as essays, critiques, articles, reviews, and scripts. She has even written comic books and edited five anthologies.

Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa, one of three children, to Margaret Killam, a nutritionist, and Carl Atwood, an entomologist/biologist. Because of her father’s research, the family travelled to the backwoods of Ontario and Quebec for months at a time. While on the road, Atwood and her siblings were home schooled by their parents. Atwood did not attend school full‐time until she was thirteen years old, in grade eight:

I was born in the Ottawa General Hospital right after the Grey Cup Football Game in 1939. Six months later I was backpacked into the Quebec bush. I grew up in and out of the bush, in and out of Ottawa, Sault Ste. Marie, and Toronto. I did not attend a full year of school until I was in grade eight. This was a definite advantage . . . My parents were great readers. They didn’t encourage me toe becom a writer, exactly, but they gave me a more important kind of support; that is, they expected me to make use of my intelligence and abilities, and they did not pressure me into getting married (Ingersoll, Waltzing Again 38).

Atwood’s formal education continued at Leaside High School in Toronto, where at age sixteen she decided to become a writer. She achieved her Honour’s Bachelor degree in English Literature from

University of Toronto in 1961 and her MA from Radcliffe in 1962. Atwood began her PhD at Harvard

University in 1962 but never completed it. She eventually left Harvard to work in Toronto at a marketing research company and began work on a novel (that, to date, has not been published). Atwood married

James Polk in 1968 but divorced five years later. Soon after, she partnered with fellow writer Graeme

Gibson, with whom she is still lives. They have one daughter, Jess.

Besides her novels and poetry, there are arguably three things that secured Atwood’s prominent position as an outstanding author in Canadian literature: her founding association with the Toronto publisher, House of Anansi, her non‐fiction work Survival: Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, that put Atwood on the proverbial map of Canadian literary criticism, and her early‐emerging feminist voice found in many of her works.

House of Anansi was founded in 1967y “b writers Dennis Lee and David Godfrey. Anansi started as a small press with a mandate to publish only Canadian writers, and quickly gained attention for publishing significant authors such as Atwood, Matt Cohen, Michael Ondaatje, and Erin Mouré, as well as George Grant and Northrop Frye” (http://www.houseofanansi.com/aboutAnansi.aspx). Anansi approached Atwood early in 1967, with an offer to reprint The Circle Game. In a letter to friend Peter

Miller, Atwood asks “Could you give me some good advice? I’ve been approached by a private publisher in Toronto – a new one, called the House of Ananse [sic]; as far as I know they’re only done one book so far. They want to do a reprint of Circle Game [sic]. I’ve asked for financial details. They think in terms of a run of 1,000. What do you think?” (Atwood MS COLL Box 92 25‐Apr‐67). Atwood ultimately signed with Anansid an in the ensuing years, they have reprinted her poetry collections The Circle Game and

Power Politics. In addition to Survival, Anansi has also published her two other literary books of criticism,

Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth and Moving Targets: Writing with Intent, and a collection of her essays entitled Second Words: Selected Critical; Prose 1960‐1982.

Survival shifted Atwood’s career in an unexpected direction. She intended it to be an “easy‐to‐ use guide to Canadian literature, largely for the benefit of students and of those teachers in high schools, community colleges and universities who suddenly find themselves teaching a subject they

have never studied: Canlit” (Atwood Survival 11). One of her goals was to identify Canadian literature by answering the question “What’s Canadian about Canadian literature?” (14).

It attempts one simple thing. It outlines a number of key patterns which I hope will function like the field markings in bird‐books: pthey will hel you distinguish this species from all others. Canadian literature from the other literatures with which it is often compared to. These key patterns, taken together, constitute the shape of Canadian literature insofar as it is Canadian literature, and that shape is also a reflection of a national habit of mind (13).

Atwood admits Survival became “a cross between a personal statement, which most books are, and a political manifesto, which most books also are, if only by default” (13). In an effort to identify Canadian literature, Survival is possibly Atwood’s search for her own authorial identity within Canada. As Canadian poet Al Purdy suggests in a letter to Laurence, Atwood has not only defined national literature by presenting identifiable Canadian markers in Survival but has also set the critical stage for her own works:

Yeah, read Atwood’s Survival, I think it’s admirable. Creating a lot of arguments too, which is good. Best part of book is impression here’s a sharp mind that read & thought & decided – One doesn’t have to agree with her all the time – Anyway, what such a book does is tend to create a critical climate for one’s own work – Any poems or fiction Atwood writes now is liable to be measured with her own yardstick. She is, in some ways, saying: this is how poems & Fiction should be written ‐ (Lennox Purdy 258 12‐Dec‐72).

Laurence and Wiseman discussed Survival in their letters to each other. Wiseman said to

Laurence, “Also read Survival [sic], which Joy was kind enough to send me. It was fun to read, an interesting thesis engagingly developed. I’m a little wary of seeing these observations rigidified and codified as ‘tradition,’ though, something the book seems to imply. We’re still a bit too young in this country, I hope, for the ‘this is how we write, & these are the patterns to look for’ approach to be rammed down the intellectual gullets of our kids (Lennox Wiseman 327 6‐Dec ‐72). The ‘Joy’ to whom

Wiseman is referring is Joy Kogawa, fellow Canadian author and poet and with whom she enjoyed a life‐ long friendship. Kogawa and Wiseman shared a writer’s kinship of telling the story of ‘others’. Kogawa wrote from the Japanese Canadian perspective and Wiseman from the Jewish Canadian viewpoint. The

fact that it was Kogawa who had forwarded a copy of Survival to Wiseman relayed the importance of reading it.

Laurence’s response to Wiseman was: “I read Survival – I think it’s brilliant, but I do hope teachers, especially, realize that this is only one way of perceiving our literature – there are valid other ways (330 18‐Dec‐72). What Laurence actually wrote to Atwood about Survival was:

By now you will have my letter, full of astound, re: SURVIVAL. As I said therein, how profoundly glad I am that I had written this novel of mine (The Diviners) befored I rea yr book – which is not to say that such books are dangerous to the writer, but only that if the shock of recognition occurs, better it should occur when the book is shaped. Of course, after a time span, one would not be at all threatened by any analysis, but if one read it when writing . . hm . . I wonder. Which is to say only that yr analysis really struck me, probably because it seemed to me the first attempt, EVER, to state why Can writing is not the same as Amer or Eng. I could see, finishing the book, your worry that (a) teachers might think – Aha! This is Everythingd We Nee To Know About Can Writing; and (writers might think – Have I A Suitable Victim, Human of Animal, And If Not, What In Hell Is The Matter With Me? But worry not, these are chances we have to take. No real writer ever is affected by outer comment, and possibly no real teacher is, too. But the book is good, provocative and (I think) true (Atwood MS COLL Box 160 3‐Nov‐73).

House of Anansi and the publishing of Survival did indeed put Atwood in the Canadian literary map but it was the early emergence of her feminist voice in her writing that assured her staying there.

As noted on the Athabasca University Centre for Language and Literature website:

The feminist voice of Margaret Atwood is clearly heard in her earlier novels beginning with The Edible Woman (1969), Surfacing (1972), and Lady Oracle (1976). It retains its strength in Life before Man (1979) and Bodily Harm (1981). In her dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), she depicts an American society dominated by a fundamentalist dictatorship. In her retrospective narrative, Cat’s Eye (1988), she explores a childhood of cruelty, abuse and betrayal among young women. A similar theme is further explored in The Robber Bride (1993) (Athabasca University http://www.athabascau.ca/cll/writers/english/writers/matwood/matwood.php ).

Atwood’s protagonists, especially in the novels listed above, are all female and are often exactly the victims that she identified in Survival. They are the ‘lesser’ in power relationships and struggle to find their voice and their way out.

After their first meeting, the friendship between Laurence and Atwood, two writers, appropriately continued in writing – through their personal letters. Both Laurence and Atwood were

prolific letter writers to colleagues, friends, family, to other writers, and to each other. The bulk of both authors’ letters can be found in special collections and archives in various university libraries, along with their manuscripts, business correspondence, essays, articles and other literary materials. The Margaret

Laurence Fonds are housed ine th Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections Library at York

University. York University website notes:

York University is the proud custodian of the Margaret Laurence archives, which consists of manuscripts, research notes, short story drafts, children’s stories, speeches and addresses, poetry and reviews, translations and other creative material created and accumulated by Laurence throughout her career. The archives also include Laurence’s correspondence with her family, friends, other writers, artists, publishers, scholars, media organization and readers” (York University website http://deantiquate.blog.yorku.ca/2011/07/18/margaretlaurence2011/).

The Margaret Atwood collection is located at University of Toronto and specifically housed in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library.

The Margaret Atwood Papers consist of material related to the literary output of Margaret Atwood. The bulk of the collection consists of holograph drafts and typescripts of Atwood's published work ‐including poetry, short stories, novels, dramatic works, and nonfiction ‐ as well as galleys and page proofs. The papers also include correspondence; largely editorial and some personal letters are included” (University of Toronto website http://fisher.library.utoronto.ca/resources/manuscript‐collections/margaret‐atwood‐papers ).

The letters are considered by the respective universities to be an important part of each author’s oeuvre but are they, as suggested earlier by Rak, literary works? If so, are they subject to the same scrutiny as other works? Theories in general are “principles or methods on which a subject of study is based, as distinguished from its practice” (Barber 1504). Literary theory “proposes solutions to problems which arise in the reading and study of literature” (Bonnycastle 10). Solutions come in the form of criticism (critical theory framework) and the asking of fundamental questions such as what is literature? What defines a literary text? What is the usefulness of theories and theoretical analysis?

Included in literary theory is autobiography theory. Rak, in her book, Auto/biography in Canada:

Critical Directions defines autobiography theory and criticism as “terms that have been coined to

describe the representation of identity in non‐fiction” (1). Autobiography includes life‐writing such as personal correspondence, letters, diaries, journals, blogs, personal essays and prose. Identity and non‐ fiction beg questions of truth, subjectivity and the self. Can letters and other personal correspondence be considered non‐fiction texts, with the connotation of being a more truthful genre than fiction? “Non‐ fiction letters comprise life writing and their expectation that their readers will read the letters as such:

Life writing and letters in which we might find an autobiographical voice” (Kadar 6). Do letters reveal a

‘truer’ identity than in an author’s novels? Does subjectivity consider not only the author’s bias but that of the reader and their response? Methodologies and theories, with their constructs, are designed to influence or at least set the direction of a ‘reading’ of a text. As readers, are we influenced by such constructs? For example, does beingy a twent ‐first century female reader or researcher with feminist leanings influence the interpretation of Laurence’s and Atwood’s personal situations in the 1960’s and

1970’,s as described in their personal letters? “In Britain, feminist and materialist studies of auto/biography that include the self‐reflexive (reflecting one's own self, having an image or reflection of one's self ) positions of the researcher are an important part of cultural studies methodology . . . (Rak

10). Because, “After all, I am a particular kind of white reading woman in the ‘West’, interpreting the texts, or self‐constructions of others” (Kadar 3). Does at feminis leaning bias a reader any more than the reader who grew up in Manitoba on the prairies like Laurence, or a city dweller in Toronto who lives next door to Atwood? Rak contends,

Add to these original life‐writing genres the fictionalized equivalents, including self‐reflexive metafiction, and life writing becomes both the ‘original genre’ and a critical comment on it, and therefore the self‐in‐the‐writing (12).

Interestingly, both Laurence and Atwood wrote metafiction in at least two of their respective novels.

Metafiction is “fiction that discusses or describes other fiction” (dictionary.com). In Laurence’s The

Diviners, the protagonist Morag Gunn is a fiction writer who talks about her writing and how it

fluctuates with her own life’s ups and downs. In Atwood’s novel Lady Oracle, Joan is a novelist who pretends to write serious books but secretly, and very successfully, writes romance novels.

Given Rak’s broad definition, letters can be considered narratives and “personal narrative[s] [are] as a lens into history and the contemporary world” (3). I am interested in what Laurence and Atwood were personally concerned with and writing in their letters to others in the 1960’s and 1970’s. How their letters as well as their novels are read is also pertinent to establishing the truth.

As a subset of literary theory, feminist theory and criticism “is an attempt to describe and interpret (and reinterpret) women’s experience as described in various kinds of literature . . .” (Cuddon

315). In his book In Search of Authority, Stephen Bonnycastle suggests that there are “several questions that can be applied to almost any work of literature to investigate how a work presents the masculine and feminine aspects of experience” (192). The most important general question to consider is one of perspective: from whose point of view is this story written? “Whose experience is rendered most fully and faithfully?”(194). In Laurence’s and Atwood’s novels, the female perspective is the dominant lens.

All five of Laurence’s Manawaka books are from the point of view of the female characters. The same is true for most of Atwood’s novels.

In fact, Atwood was often criticized for not getting the male view quite right. She relays a discussion she had with a male colleague on how a man would shave off a long beard. Atwood had showed him her manuscript Bodily Harm “because I wanted to just have a read on the details – the accuracy of the details – and he caught me in one major mistake, which a man would never have made.

He said you cannot shave a beard off with an electric razor. You have to use a straight razor. An electric razor will just get all clogged up if you’re trying to shave long hairs with it” (Ingersoll Waltzing Again 83).

With regards to the application of theories, feminist literary criticism seems especially appropriate for the ‘reinterpretation’ of decades‐old letters in which Laurence and Atwood address hot‐ button Women’s Lib issues of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Feminist literary criticism is literary criticism (art of

analysis and interpretation of works of literature, Cuddon 196) informed by feminist theory (an attempt to describe and interpret/reinterpret woman’s experience as depicted in various kinds of literature,

Cuddon 315). In their letters, Laurence and Atwood describe their relationships with their husbands

(including marriages and divorces) and the difficulties with being working mothers, and specifically, women writers.

Betty Friedan’s book, The Feminine Mystique, published in 1963, became the blueprint for the second wave of feminism. “Betty Freidan, the feminist crusader and author of The Feminist Mystique, ignited the contemporary women’s movement in 1963” (The New York Times 5‐Feb‐06). As a review in

1963 in The New York Times suggests, “The core of her thesis is that women’s problem today is not sexual but a problem of identity. Our culture does not permit women to accept or gratify their basic need to grow and fulfill their potentialities as human beings, a need which is not solely denied by their sexual role” (The New York Times 7‐Apr‐63). The first wave of feminism occurred at the turn of the twentieth century and “its goals were rights‐based. First‐wave feminism demanded basic equality for women, including the right to vote and obtain an education . . . to reform family and property law . . . and better working conditions for women (National Post Feminism’s Second‐Wave Hangover 14‐Mar‐

11). The second‐wave, in the 1960’s and 1970’s, “allied itself with other political movements: civil rights, environmentalism and socialism.e Th personal became the political, seeking the ‘liberation’ of women from oppression, discrimination and the strictures of family” (National Post 14‐Mar‐11). In the 1960’s,

Laurence and Atwood were female writers in Canada, winning awards for their prose and poetry, respectively, witnessing the changes in society, and becoming the voice of women in Canada through their literature. Laurence’s and Atwood’s letters reveal the ways in which their contributions to the movement reveal the truth of their identities.

‐‐ THE LETTERS ‐‐ ‐‐

Living in the future as we do, it is difficult to remember or image life before instant communication methods such as email, texts, and blogs. However, in the mid to late twentieth century, besides telephones, letters were the main form of communication. Laurence and Atwood were prolific letter writers. The true legacy of their letters lies in the historical context of their lives and the society they were living in at the time. As readers, we get a glimpse into their personal lives and develop an image of the letter writer. The letters speak for themselves.

Laurence often referred to her close family and friends as her tribe. As she lived away from

Canada for more than twenty years, she corresponded with her tribe via personal letters. In 1962, when she was already living alone with her children in London, Laurence referred to her tribe as her ‘home’. “I do not feel homesick – this is one emotion I have never felt in my life. But there are a few (very few) people I would like to see and talk with – maybe this is a type of homesickness, after all – the only kind of home I seem to value anyway, those half dozen people who are members of my tribe” (Lennox

Wiseman 151 25‐Nov‐62). In a letter to Wiseman in 1965, Laurence said, “I have this feeling which I’ve had for many years that I tell lies all the time except when I am speaking with the few members of my tribe whom I trust absolutely” (193 24‐Jan‐65). Tribe, with its connotations of belonging, home, and trust was where Laurence felt she could be herself, where she could share her most personal feelings.

However, even tribe occasionally had its limits with Laurence:

I’ve tried over three or so years to become a little less isolated here, and have not succeeded. Of course, this is partly because I always want things on my own terms – I want to be able to make contact with members of my tribe while at the same time preserving privacy, and this ist a bi tricky (200 17‐Aug‐67).

The tribe she is referring to in the above letter is her writers’ tribe. While in London, Laurence tried to get out and meet other writers living in London. Although there were logistic reasons for her difficulty in getting out more – single Mom, young children, no babysitter, lack of money – she was also admittedly

reticent; “I have this terrific feeling that I should force myself to go alone into a pub, but I don’t know if I will ever overcome my Canadian inhibitions sufficiently” (152 25‐Nov‐62).

Laurence first used the term tribe with regards to other writers when describing The Writers’

Union of Canada. “’Writers are a tribe,’” said Margaret Laurence, and the early Union was a gathering of her tribe” (The Writers’ Union of Canada website http://www.writersunion.ca/au_history.asp).

As per the Writers’ Union website, the Union was formed in response to an Ontario Royal

Commission of the state of the book trade where “not a single writer or writers’ organization was asked to testify” (Writers’ Union website). Canadian author Farley Mowat organized several other Canadian writers including June Callwood, Graeme Gibson and Atwood. After some initial planning sessions, “. . . eighty writers attended a conference in June 1973 . . . in Toronto, where the outline of the new writers’ organization took form. Margaret Laurence, newly returned to Canada and widely recognized as

Canada’s most prominent novelist, agreed to serve as interim chair” (Writers’ Union website). Three years later, Laurence was no longer chair but continued in her role as strong supporter. In a letter to

French Canadian writer and friend Gabrielle Roy, Laurence touted the benefits of the union: “There is this growing sense of true community among the Anglophone writers in Canada, over the past couple of years, owing mainly to the Writers’ Union” (Laurence Fonds Box 17 23‐Mar‐76). Laurence expressed an initial hesitation in writing to Roy, an author whom Laurence greatly admired. “It is strange that we should hesitate to approach other writers – I had the same sense of diffidence before I wrote to you. But we are, after all, members of the same tribe, all of us” (Box 17 23‐Mar‐76). Laurence and Roy corresponded for approximately seven years, until Roy’s death in 1983.

Laurence actually had two tribes. Her ‘home’ tribe was only a few people; family and those she regarded as family – Wiseman and Al Purdy. Her other tribe was professional and included her fellow

Canadian writers Don Bailey, Margaret Atwood, Al Purdy, Gabrielle Roy, Adele Wiseman, and many

others. In a letter to writer Don Bailey, Laurence states the comforting essence of belonging to a tribe of writers in that other writers understand the challenges and joys of the writing life; “I need to talk to you,

Don, and maybe you need to talk to me. We will. Thatt is wha tribe means.” (Wainwright 16 13‐Mar‐72).

The only crossovers between home tribe and professional tribe were Wiseman and Purdy.

Laurence was a prolific letter writer. In her collection of essays and personal prose entitled

Heart of a Stranger, Laurence discusses her letter writing in a chapter called “Living Dangerously . . . By

Mail”: “I am an inveterate letter writer. I must write thousands every year, and sometimes I get the feeling that my typewriter, in the letter‐writing context , is not so much a typewriter as a kind of radio transmitter through which I send out messages and moans to friends, or my arguments and appeals to publishers” (198). She wrote often to numerous people; friends, colleagues and authors. In a letter to

Atwood in February 1973, we get an ideas Laurence asks “Could you let Graeme [Atwood’s partner] read this letter, as in a sense it is to you both, but as I still have 20 letters to write (having writ 45 in last two weeks, getting caught up on months of neglect, I just don’t want to repeat myself to Graeme now .. hope he’ll understand” (Atwood MS COLL Box 160 18‐Feb‐73).

Some correspondences lasted decades, such as that with her old friend Wiseman. After attending the same university in Manitoba as young women, Laurence and Wiseman were rarely again in the same country at the same time. Laurence lived away from Canada for more than twenty years, often in places where telephone communication was unavailable or prohibitively expensive. From late

1947 to late 1986 (only weeks before Laurence’s death in January 1987), Laurence and Wiseman wrote to each other faithfully. As Laurence told Wiseman, “I don’t know how I could manage in life, if it weren’t for these conversations with absent friends” (Lennox Wiseman 172 17‐Jan‐64). And, “Back to the pleasures of letter writing! I’m sure that we will not be able entirely to avoid the temptation of the phone . . . add to the pleasure of receiving the mail (after all, what is more pleasant, when the mail

arrives, than seeing a letter from a friend??) and restore us to the civilized living of a bygone age” (366

20‐Jan‐81).

Laurence and Wiseman ‘lived’ by their letters to each other. Laurence would often beg for letters, “Please write soon” (53 2‐May‐51,) and for news from home; “What are the job prospects? How is everyone at home? Who is there now? TELL US ALL!” (53 1‐Dec‐52). Although Laurence often noted that Wiseman was “the only person to whom I can really blow off steam about my work (118 6‐May‐60), she sometimes worried about the off‐putting tone of her letters to Wiseman and the “puerile outpourings” (108 14‐May‐59). Laurence even went so far as to avoid writing to Wiseman for extended periods. As Laurence says to Wiseman one day; “I will tell you why you haven’t heard from us for so long. About a month ago I had a long letter all written to you, but I burned it because it was so gloomy. I thought I would wait until I could write a little more cheerfully” (110 10‐Sep‐59). And later; “This is the third letter I have begun in answer your last one. The others I tore up, as they were so permeated with pessimism of a personal nature that it did not seem well‐omened to send them” (131 29‐Mar‐61).

Wiseman was also cognizant of tone of her own letters to Laurence and very eloquently addressed this issue; “I’ve often had the same feeling about a letter I’ve written when in an emotional state, the fear of being disloyal, the fear of giving oneself away, the fear of exposing what’s private (145 20‐Aug‐62).

Not all of Laurence’s letters were gloomy. Gabrielle Roy eloquently told Laurence why her letters were wonderful: “Your lovely letter, like the preceding ones, pleased me greatly. What I particularly enjoy in your letter writing is that it reveals you in your most natural self, in your daily behaviour, one might say” (Socken 30 15‐Nov‐76). Laurence wrote to Roy about mundane things; the swallows in her yard and the river by her house: “I am trying to discover the name of more wildflowers this summer. I have a lot of wildflower and weed books, and I try to identify a few more each day”

(Laurence Fonds Box 17 6‐Aug‐76). It is in Laurence’s letters to Roy, through the description of her daily routine, that we catch a glimpse of the natural, the more at ease Laurence. As Roy explains;

Your second letter also appealed to me, this time I think of all those homey, lovely details about your daily life at the cottage, your birthday celebrated there by your children – how lovely of them, and how young you are still – with all those remarkable books behind you ‐; also because of your link with the river which you make me feel very strongly, in your book as well as in your letter (Socken 23 28‐Sep‐76).

Laurence also discussed serious topics with Roy such as politics, writing, and the need to translate

Canadian books into English and French. In a letter to Roy, just after the Québec election in which

Premier René Lévesque and the Parti Québécois had come into power, Laurence expresses concern for the widening gap between English and French Canada. Her solution was to acknowledge the importance of both languages and cultures through books.

Also, I believe that translations of books, from English into French, and from French into English, is one area which can help. I know that some of the younger Quebec writers aren’t anxious to have their books translated, but one can hope they may change their minds, ultimately. I believe that, national considerations notwithstanding, writers should be as widely read as possible. When I think that without translations, to speak realistically, I would have been deprived of your work, and of the work of so many others, it doesn’t bear thinking” (Laurence Fonds Box 17 17‐ Feb‐77).

The political is simultaneously personal and universal. Though Laurence’s viewpoint may be biased towards her personal love of reading and certainly her professional writer’s view as a stakeholder in the situation, her suggestion is a valid one. Reading different perspectives offered by different authors, through their books, could perhaps build communication bridges between two very different cultures at odds with each other.

Through their letters, we are privy to some of the difficulties women encountered in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Laurence and Atwood were working mothers ‐ and working mothers in a profession that was usually associated with men ‐ at a time when being a working mother was not a societally acceptable choice. Laurence confesses in her memoir Dance on the Earth that the early years of marriage and parenthood were difficult. “I was so uncertain by then about my triple role as wife, mother, and writer” (128). Her separation from Jack Laurence in 1962 proved to be very difficult. “It was

a wrenching time for both of us. Our families – my aunts, jack’s brothers and sisters – were understandably hostile towards me. I, a woman and mother, was the one who insisted that I had to do my own work at the price of my marriage” (128). However, Laurence did find support in in what may seem an unlikely source, her mother‐in‐law, Elsie Fry Laurence. Elsie had tried her hand at writing but, as a member of an older generation, Elsie’s choices had been extremely limited. Laurence describes Elsie life as a writer:

Elsie Fry Laurence, who wanted to have children and to write, could not. She did what all Canadian women writers at that time, and most now, have done: raise the kids, do the housework, be a wife, try to be an understanding comrade if possible, and do your writing in short spaces of spare time, usually early in the morning or late at night. Almost all the Canadian women writers of my generation, and indeed of a generation younger, have married and borne children (130).

Laurence had joyful motherhood stories to share also. In a letter to Wiseman, she shared stories of what she referred to as ‘kids’ activities:

The kids are wonderful, which is to say they are so full of energy they’d be unbearable if they had any more. Jocelyn is entertaining as usual. The other day she came in with a picture she had cut form a magazine – it was a sylph‐like glamour girl. ‘I’ve got something Mummy would like to be’ she cried, ‘wouldn’t you like to be SLIM like this girl? You’d better keep it as your diet picture!’ David goes like a bomb all day long. He crawls very fast, too fast, and is on the verge of walking. He is a terror, and has a terrible temper and an equally large amount of charm (Lennox Wiseman 93 10‐Jul‐56).

Laurence shared her worries about her children with Wiseman, whether it was daughter Jocelyn’s love life as she got older or son David; “David as individualistic as ever – life will be very hard on him, I fear and know” (108 13‐May‐59). In one letter, Wiseman laments how little time she has for her writing, her husband, and just about everything since the birth of her baby. Laurence knowingly responds with:

But of course you are right re: kids – when mine were little, I sometimes resented things like housework and ironing (both of which bore me) but I never resented the kids. Even now, if Dave is ill (as he is at the moment) I find it hard to write, because then one always sees which really has priority, and that is the kids, of course (328 18‐Dec‐72).

Atwood did share stories about her daughter Jess but less so than Laurence. In a letter to friend

Eleanor Bender at Stephens College, Atwood wrote; “After leaving Stephens, Jess came out all over in

bright red spots which caused some anxious moments in Boston. Trotted round to the doctors again & was told it was a non‐specific gastro‐intestinal infection. It did in fact clear up after several days”

(Atwood MS COLL Box 2 10‐Jan‐78). In the same year, after submitting poetry to the publication Field:

Contemporary Poetry and Poetics, the editor had this comment on her recent submission; “Margaret, your baby is changing your poetry!” (Box 2 20‐Aug‐78). The birth of Atwood’s baby may or may not have changed her poetry but it affected her writing habits. As Atwood tells author Joyce Carol Oates, “My working habits have changed over the years, according to the circumstances of my life. Since the birth of my daughter, I’ve had to cut down the procrastination. I still try to spend the afternoons writing”

(Ingersoll Waltzing Again 49).

Occasionally, Atwood’s letters took a more intimate tone. She spoke briefly albeit fondly about her parents in one letter. A friend of Atwood’s came to visit her while she was staying at her parents’ house in Toronto in spring of 1967. Atwood wrote to her friend Roy saying, “It was great to see you in

Toronto – hope you weren’t too appalled by my parents. I like them a lot but they exist in a little glass case. Sat. nite father put on his Scottish Country Dancing kilt, just new so he is very proud of it, and went hopping about the living room to Scottish country dancing music – in and out a line of books, supposed to represent the other people” (Atwood MS COLL Box 92 15‐Mar‐67).

Laurence’s and Atwood’s letters could also be gossipy, containing little tidbits of news about friends. In a letter to a unnamed friend, Atwood relays news about another friend: “No Doug isn’t officially married – tho his divorce has come throo, her’s hasn’t; but to the North Hatley community they are Mr. & Mrs. They’ll do it legally when they can. (Don’t tell, as the news might seep & cause complications) (Box 92 17‐Jan‐67). Atwood also offers news of her own impending wedding to her first husband, Jim: “Yes, Jim has all the necessary defences, & a few moret tha most members of the human race have never even heard of. So he is fully equipped to handle me, mostly by giving me enough rope to hang myself. We’ve been through so many Horrible Things together I figure we have a good survival

chance” (Box 92 17‐Jan‐67). In a letter to fellow poet Al Purdy in 1967, Atwood writes with humour;

“Dear Regional Representative Alpurd, Getting married, probably, probably in June, probably in

Montana, to Jim‐from‐Montana famed in song & story, after 5 years of equivocation” (Box 92 7‐Jan‐67).

Occasionally, both Laurence and Atwood discussed other writers they knew, even sharing gossipy news and opinions. Laurence, in a letter to Wiseman, discusses Canadian author Mordecai

Richler’s new novel in rather uncomplimentary terms;

I read Mordecai Richler’s book ‘Son of a Lesser Hero (terrible title). Gosh, Adele, you’ve been keeping something from us all these years – why didn’t you tell us Jews were such stinkers? Seriously, I thought the picture he gave of the Jewish community was appalling. Everyone in the book was a first‐class heel. It made me feel like vomiting. Also, there were no real problems, if you know what I mean. One felt they were all contrived and one didn’t care how it all worked out anyway. I kept thinking of your book and of the penetrating and yet deeply sympathetic analysis of the Jewish community you’ve done. You have something that, more than anything, Richler seems to lack, and without which no writer can ever be great and maybe not even good, and that quality is love and compassion. Beside it, R’s novel seems like a pack of cheap tricks” (Lennox Wiseman 92 10‐Jul‐56).

Atwood had similar comments on Richler which she relayed to Laurence; “Mordecai R. is shooting off his mouth again re: awful mediocre Canadian writers & how they are coddled. I wonder if he includes himself ever, even in thought” (Atwood MS COLL Box 160 26‐Mar‐73). Laurence replies to

Atwood with;

I’m really fed up with Mordecai’s moaning eabout th awfulness of Can writing. Maybe we need a devil’s advocate, but it would be nice if he admitted that a sizeable number of good books do come out of Can each year now. You know Peggy, I do not believe he reads Can books – I really don’t. I would like to know how many Can novels and books of poetry he had read in the past year – I bet it would be about two. Trouble is, at this point, he’s made a side‐profession of knocking Canada, and it’s become a habit. Guess it wouldn’t annoy me hso muc if he weren’t a good writer! (Atwood MS COLL Box 92 12‐Apr‐73).

Laurence saw Richler on a semi‐regular basis when they were both living in England in the 1960’s and early 1970’s: “Mordecai Richler and his wife came over last evening for dinner . . . although M seemed pretty untalkative in the presence of people he doesn’t know well. I think he was half sloshed by the time he got here, so maybe that was the trouble” (Lennox Wiseman 167 20‐Sep‐63).

In a letter to Purdy, Laurence offered her opinion of Canadian author Farley Mowat. “Farley sounds in good form. I think you know that when I first met him, I thought he was a slob, but now, over the years, have changed my mind and find I really like him, altho still somewhat on guard with him”

(Lennox Purdy 219 20‐Apr‐71).

Laurence lived outside of Canada for twenty years in various places in Africa and in England and wrote letters from wherever she lived or travelled to. Laurence’s first letters to Wiseman were written as Laurence and her husbandt lef England and made their way to Africa for Jack’s engineering contract job – across Europe, the Mediterranean and finally, Somaliland. The letters had descriptive passages of

Rotterdam, Delft, Gibraltar and Somaliland:

We were stranded in Rotterdam for 5 days! We got to know that ugly little port town a whole lot better than we wanted! Prices were high, & we had the devil of a time finding a restaurant where we could eat a meal at less than 9 shillings (each!). For our evening meal, we would buy rolls & cheese & fruit, which we smuggled guiltily into our unfortunately high ‐class hotel, planning always to say loudly, ‘nice pottery we bought today,’ or some such thing, à la tourisme, if one of the hotel staff glanced too suspiciously at our round little brown paper parcel! (Lennox Wiseman 43 27‐Dec‐50).

In addition to the humorous aspect, the detail of prices and food items makes the paragraph come alive.

We can envision Jack and Margaret sneaking into their hotel room, appearing nervous and probably collapsing with relief and laughter once they safely entered their room. Delft is also beautifully described:

One day we went to Delft, the little town famous for Vermeer and Delft blue pottery. It is a small town with rambling cobbled streets and high square houses. The ‘singel’ runs through the centre of town, and in the market place is the town cathedral, the same church that Vermeer painted (44 27‐Dec‐50).

A few weeks later, when describing their house is Sheikh, Somaliland, Laurence writes:

The mountains are speckled with trees growing along the gorges, and our house is situated at the end of the settlement where we can look out and see the whole valley and the hills. Our front door is like a picture‐frame, eand th picture contains the soft line of hills; the red sand of the valley and the blue‐green rocks; the green flat‐topped trees; a flock of tiny white sheep, grazing a few feet from the house, and tended by a brown‐robed Somali woman with a scarlet headscarf (49). 12‐Feb‐51

These were not just letters to a friend. They are letters from a writer to another writer. Laurence may not have been aware that she was honing her writing skills in her letters but she was certainly cognizant that her current unique situation (unemployed in Somaliland, her husband often gone for many hours or days at a time and having servants to do her housework) allowed her many uninterrupted hours of writing. “Sometimes I feel guilty about my good fortune in having so much time to write … but on the other hand, it’s only for a year … it won’t last forever! I spend most of each day at my typewriter, either writing notes on what’s been happening, or the things I’ve seen of Somali life” (67 9‐Nov‐51).

In 1981, as older women and established authors, Wiseman and Laurence discuss the legacy of their letters and of what future use they might be. As Wiseman said to Laurence:

In my determination to begin to write letters again, I had forgotten that one of the reasons one had let the habit slip in these days of swift contact, was to spare busy friends the boredom of having to skim much semi‐legible script, which turns out not to be saying much anyway. Also, if one were only a letter writer of the scintillating kind, whose epistles were guaranteed to be Woolfed [sic]down by the hungry Canlit essayists of the future, with some shocks of pleasure, it would allay perhaps the uneasiness of knowing this is scheduled for the 1981 file marked ‘Writer Friends’. Margaret, do you realize the one now had to address at least one level of one’s letter to the ‘unknown reader?’ (363 10‐Jan‐81).

Laurence’s responded with:

About the ‘Future Reader’ bit .. isn’t it peculiar? I’m damned if I will be inhibited, but of course we do know we have the option, as we have always done, of saying ‘Please Eat This Or Flush Down Toilet’ with letters we do not want preserved. I don’t really think future critics and scholars are going to Woolf [sic] these letters down, but they’ll sure as hell be disappointed if they want to, eh? (369 27‐Jan‐81).

The bulk of Laurence’s private papers, including personal and business correspondence, essays, news articles and letters to Laurence from fans, other writers, publishers, teachers, critics and many others can be found in the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections, Scott Library, at York

University in Toronto. Laurence struck a deal with York University in early 1981 for the sale of her papers. She describes the deal to Wiseman:

I’m enclosing the Contract (Draft) with York. The actual contract arrived today, and I have signed it and will return it tomorrow. Their terms are $40,000, to be paid in instalments of $8,000 over five years, beginning in January 1982 (371 27‐Jan‐81).

To accompany the contract, Laurence also drew up a comprehensive list of conditions regarding the collection which took into consideration future access; by Laurence, her heirs, the writers of the letters to her, and their heirs:

Future papers, comprising business correspondence, personal letters from other writers, letters from readers, desk calendars, shall be included in the York University collection with no further payment and shall be deposited there from time to time. Any such papers left in my effects at the time of my death shall also be added to the York collection, with no further payment. Both before and after the sale of these papers, I will have access to them. I agree not to remove such papers from York University, but may make notes of copy portions for purposes of memoirs, etc. (372 27‐Jan‐81).

Most of Laurence’s manuscripts had been sold years earlier to McMaster University in Hamilton,

Ontario. As she explains: “Note – I do not include future manuscripts of my own work, as I think these should be sold separately. Actually, McMaster has all my previous manuscripts of novels, at least the ones that are still in existence – I threw away some in Vancouver & England, before I knew better!!”

(372 27‐Jan‐81). Purdy’s response to Laurence’s sale was mostly comments on the list of conditions.

“Interesting conditions for York. When I sold (over eleven years ago), I was too stupid to include all those conditions. Or ignorant, which I prefer” (Lennox Purdy 368 26‐Jul‐80). Purdy sold his collection to the University of Saskatchewan Special Collections Library in 1966. “In 1966 the University of

Saskatchewan was fortunate enough to acquire a collection of Al Purdy's work through literary agent

Laurie Hill. It comprises a significant part of his early work and includes: manuscripts; drafts; journal publications; monographs; articles and reviews of his work; volumes of other poets work; personal correspondence and poems from the likes of Margaret Atwood, Milton Acorn, Earle Birney and Irving

Layton; photos; vinyl cuts; and audio recordings” (U of Saskatchewan Library).

The personal papers that Laurence, Atwood, Wiseman, and Purdy have sold to various institutions are considered archival materials. In their book, Working in Women’s Archives: Researching

Women’s Private Literature and Archival Documents, editors Helen Buss (active member of the Writer’s

Union of Canada – as was Laurence and is Atwood) and Marlene Kadar (York professor with expertise in life writing), provide insights into what is necessary to consider when working in archives.

Although archives are often “paper repositories of letters, diaries and newspaper clippings”, it should not be considered a neutral space (Buss 3). Yet literary critics tend to regard the archive as a neutral zone, untouched by the questions of selection, evaluation and subjectivity that they apply to their own more self‐conscious interpretative activities (7).

Both Laurence’s and Atwood’s archives are in public custodial institutions and offer relatively easy access, limited only by work‐around issues such as hours of operation, copyright rules, and some restrictions as set by the author or author’s family. ii

As suggested by Buss, it is important to remember that archives are not a neutral zone.

Laurence and Atwood made decisions on what to sell and submit and, once submitted, either the author herself or her family have placed further restrictions on what can be accessed. And finally, the institutions that purchased them have placed further restrictions on access, viewing and copying. In addition, as a reader or researcher accessing the collections, it is important to be cognizant of one’s own vetting process. A researcher’s bias may determine inclusion issues such as: is this one page worth the

$.30 charged for copying; is it content of that letter really important; or does a letter like “thanks for the birthday present” address any pre‐selected themes and biases of personal correspondence?

Searching for evidence of autobiographical truth in fiction suggests the intertwining of art and life. Do art and life intertwine in Laurence’s and Atwood’s writings? Laurence addresses this issue with

Atwood: “I could be accused (and no doubt will be) of dealing with topical themes – Women; Metis;

New pioneers; etc. all rubbish – I’m not dealing with topical themes at all; I’m dealing with things close to my own psyche and heart, that is all”(Atwood MS COLL Box 160 18‐Feb‐73).

Sometimes the intertwining of art and life results in what seems to be autobiographical elements in an author’s writing. Laurence’s collection of short stories in her fiction book, A Bird in the

House, is often referred to as autobiographical by reviewers and critics. Lorna Irvine in her book Critical

Spaces states: “Laurence claimed these stories as the most autobiographical of the series. They transport us into a household of women dominated by a patriarchal grandfather modeled after

Laurence’s own, a man she claimed to have disliked as a child, but as she matured, to have learned to respect and even love” (Irvine 13). In her memoirs, Laurence says this too. “On January 13, 1935, our father, Robert Wemyss died of pneumonia. I have written about this in a story call ‘A Bird in the House.’

The story is fiction, but in that particular story, fiction follows facts pretty closely” (Laurence Dance 55).

In the chapter entitled “A Bird in the House”, from which the book took its title, protagonist Vanessa is ten years old, approximately the same age as Laurence was when her father died. Young Vanessa’s father is a doctor, a professional in a small town, much like Laurence’s father who was a lawyer in

Neepawa. Vanessa’s father became ill and “that winter my father died of pneumonia, after less than a week’s illness” (Laurence Bird in the House 113).

Laurence’s grandmother died just one year after her father. Her grandfather was a fearsome figure; stern, rigid, and seemingly devoid of any tender emotions. However, Laurence was privy to another side of her grandfather upon her grandmother’s death:

In May 1936, grandmother Simpson died. She had been ill and my mother had been looking after her at the Big House. I went over one day after school. As I reached the veranda, my grandfather came out. He said, “Peggy, she’s dead.” I couldn’t take it in for a moment. What shocked me terribly was that grandfather Simpson was crying. I had never seen him cry before. I don’t think I had believed it possible (Laurence Dance 62).

Like Laurence, Vanessa is informed of her grandmother’s death by her grandfather:

One afternoon when I arrived at the Brick House, Grandfather Connor was standing out on the porch. He stood there by himself, his yellowish‐white hair plumed by a wind which he seemed not to notice, his bony and still handsome face not averted at all from the winter. He looked at me as I plodded up the path and the front steps. “Vanessa, you grandmother’s dead,” he said. Then, as I gazed at him, unable to take in the significance of what he had said, he did a horrifying thing. He gathered me into the relentless grip of his arms. He bent low over me, and sobbed against the cold of my skin (Laurence Bird in the House 73).

Laurence’s Big House became Vanessa’s Brick House. Laurence’s grandfather cried in front of Vanessa.

In her memoirs, Laurence’s reaction to seeing her grandfather cry is one of disbelief suggesting detachment, both physically and emotionally. The scene described in A Bird in the House has a much more intimate and intense feel to it. Vanessa is horrified, a very strong emotion. Vanessa’s grandfather physically holds her while sobbing. The’ relentless grip’ is frightening. The physical and emotional reaction, indeed the whole situation, is inescapable

With regards to her novel The Stone Angel, Laurence feared the reaction of her family and others who may see themselves in the book. Laurence hedged her bets though. In a letter to Wiseman expressing her concerns, she also offered an explanation that only another writer, and an old friend, could understand.

This whole novel is something that goes so far back, with me, and is such a wrenching up of my background, that it is difficult for me to honest enough. IF it ever gets published, a lot of people will be mortally wounded and offended, and I feel really sorry about that, but I don’t know what to do about it. However, so many people can never realize that one creates characters – or they are, rather, given to you – and that they are not copied from individual persons etc. (Lennox Wiseman 136 5‐Sep‐61).

Laurence explains that there is a distance between an author and her characters – books take on a life of their own that is separate from the author’s. The writer’s craft is Laurence’s escape clause.

More than ten years later, Laurence had similar concerns about reactions to her novel, The

Diviners. However, this time, Laurence’s main anxiety was Wiseman’s reception of the book. In a letter to Wiseman, Laurence writes:

Adele, I’m in trouble and I have to let you know about it. I dunno know what to do. The thing is, people are going to call this novel highly autobiographical, and in some ways it is, altho the main character’s background pretty different from my own (altho Scots and in the same bloody town for heaven’s sake!). But odd things are happening. The main character’s best friend, coming into this last chapter for the first time, talks awfully like you, I regret to say. I mean, she does and she doesn’t. She isn’t you, I need hardly say –but any fool who knows both of us would never believe I didn’t base the character on you. ADELE, I’M SORRY!!! I NEVER MEANT TO! Well, I don’t really know what do to, Adele. I know I have to go on and write it the way it wants to be written, but it bothers me (319 13‐Jan‐72).

Laurence is seeking forgiveness from her old friend, not permission. The book will be written despite

Laurence’s concerns. Wiseman, always the voice of reason, responds with, “So you’re going to put me in a book! Ha ha! I guess I’m just one of those people; sculptors itch to sculpt me; painters to paint me; musicians to orchestrate me . . . so what else is new? You don’t need comforting, girl; you’re working.

Just do your job well” (320 31‐Jan‐72). Wiseman, as an old friend, and an author, understands.

Laurence’s worries about what may be interpreted as autobiographical elementse in Th Diviners

– worried enough that she seeks forgiveness from Wiseman in advance – come to fruition. However, worry turns to anger when Laurence is interviewed:

Had a horrific experience this week. I had agreed, probably foolishly, for Saturday Night [magazine] to do an article on me. Her name eis Valeri Miner‐Johnson . . . and I talked with her for a couple of hours. She is quite a nice young woman, and I didn’t actually dislike her, but I just felt I was not getting through to her. She read THE DIVINERS in page proof, from M&S, and had obviously made up her mind about the angle the article was going to take … MARGARET LAURENCE WRITES TOTALLY AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL HA HA KIDDIES IT’S ALL HERE. I tried to explain the basic nature of fiction, at least my kind of fiction. I also said it was all in the novel. .i.e. the nature of fiction, but I guess she missed those parts. I told her, obviously, that a character like Morag, just as with Stacey and even Rachel, is both me and not me … but NOT me in the external sense at all. She is herself, ofe course. Sh represents many of my stances towards life, yes. Some of the material are based on or drawn from my own experience but a great deal is not (342 25‐Jan‐74).

Morag, in the novel The Stone Angel, also ‘lived’ where Laurence once had. Morag moved from her rural Manitoba town to urban Winnipeg to attend university (like Laurence actually did) and lived in a boarding house; “Her boardinghouse [sic] is away to hell and gone, North Winnipeg, half a mile beyond the end of the Selkirk Avenue streetcar line” (Laurence The Diviners 174). In a letter one to fellow author and friend Don Bailey who lives in Winnipeg, Laurence reminisced with him one cold

February:

“When I was in third year university, I had a boarding house in the North End, about a mile past the end of the Selkirk Avenue streetcar line. Whenever I had a tdate tha winter, and the guy discovered where I lived, and in those days it was considered necessary for a man to pick up the girl and take her home later, I rarely had a date with the same boy twice”(Wainwright 17 18‐ Feb‐73).

Morag had the same one‐date experience:

She discovers, not greatly to her surprise, that the location of her boardinghouse does little to enhance her popularity. Once a boy finds out that she lives half‐a‐mile from the end of the streetcar line and he has to flounder back out again taking her home and with for the next street car in the midst of a semi‐blizzard or the icy stillness that sometimes puts frost straight into the bloodstream – he usually never asks her out again” (Laurence The Diviners 187).

Despite Laurence’s protestations, this is an example of the use of a true albeit small autobiographical detail inserted directly into her novel.

Morag also had Laurence’s river. Morag was a writer and lived by the river not far from the town of Manawaka. This was very similar to Laurence’s own life. Laurence lived outside of the town of

Lakefield in what she referred to as a ‘shack’ by the Otonabee River. “Morag walked out across the grass and looked at the river. The waters flowed from north to south, and the current was visible, but now a south wind was blowing, ruffling the water in the opposite direction, eso that th river, as so often here, seemed to be flowing both ways” (Laurence The Diviners 453). Laurence admits in a letter to Roy that the Morag’s and Laurence’s river are one and the same: “The [Otonabee] river is the same as I described it in THE DIVINERS [sic] ‐‐ I wrote most of the novel here and the river just seemed naturally to flow through the book. It’s lovely to come back in the spring and find everything the same” (Laurence Fonds

Box 17 6‐Jun‐76). It is not surprising that readers and reviewers find elements of The Diviners autobiographical.

Atwood’s novel, Cat’s Eye, has always been considered autobiographical. This novel features the life‐long effects of childhood relationships. In a letter to Canadian author and friend Marian Engel,

Atwood relays news of her eight‐year‐old daughter, Jess, and her circle of friends. “So, Jess has two friends and three is a bad number ‐ ‐ they are always fighting over who is to be the third person out that day” (Atwood MS COLL Box 160 30‐May‐84). The three‐girls‐one‐girl‐out relationship is the crux of Cat’s

Eye. The protagonist, eight‐year‐old Elaine, is often ostracized by her playmates.

Grace and Carol are standing among the apple trees, just where I left them. But they don’t look the same. They don’t look at all like the pictures of them I’ve carried around in my head for the past four months, shifting pictures in which only a few features stand out. They don’t come running over, but stop what they’re doing and stare, as if we’re new people, as if I’ve never lived her. A third girl is with them. I look at her, empty of premonition. I’ve never seen her before (Atwood Cat’s Eye 34).

As stated earlier, Atwood, her siblings, and her mother spent many years in the backwoods of

Ontario and Quebec assisting Atwood’s father in his entomological field work. In Cat’s Eye, Elaine describes working with her biologist father in the woods:

Our father walks into the forest, carrying his axe, a packsack, and a large wooden box with a leather shoulder strap. He looks up, from tree to tree to tree, considering. Then he spreads a tarpaulin out on the ground, underneath the chosen tree, wrapping it around the trunk. He opens the wooden box, which is filled with racks of small bottles. He hits the tree trunk with the back of his axe. The tree shakes; leaves and twigs and caterpillars patter down, bouncing off his grey felt hat, hitting the tarpaulin. Stephen and I crouch, picking up the caterpillars, which are blue‐striped, and velvety and cool, like the muzzles of dogs. We put them into the collecting bottles filled with pale alcohol. We watch them twist and sink (Atwood Cat’s Eye 22).

Eventually, Atwood’s father left the woods and taught Zoology at University of Toronto. Elaine’s father in Cat’s Eye does the same: “On Saturdays we get into the car mwith hi and drive down to the place where he works. It is actually the Zoology building (Atwood Cat’s Eye 34).

Laurence and Atwood were divorced working mothers in the 1960’s in an era where other women were mainly married, stay‐at‐home moms. At that time, the second wave of feminism, referred to as Women’s Lib, was making the promise that women could get out of the kitchen, into the boardroom. They did not have to get married, nor have children, if they did not want to. It was all about choice. In early January 1971, Laurence wrote a letter to Atwood thanking her for forwarding the

“Women’s Lib publication” (Atwood MS COLL Box 160 Jan‐71).

I guess I really do not have an ambiguous attitude to Women’s Lib ‐ ‐ basically, I am in great agreement. I thought ‘The Politics of Housework’ was great! I recognized all the arguments from way back, of course. Except in my case, I was too naïve and uncertain (yeh, even at 34) to do much more than argue sporadically or resent silently. I suppose I do find it emotionally trying to read the Women’s Lib stuff, not because I disagree with most of it, but because in many ways I wish so profoundly that such a general movement had existed let’s say 15 years ago. I feel as tho

[sic] I have in fact fought every single one of those issues, but alone and therefore not effectually from the point of view of relationships (Box 160 Jan‐71).

Laurence goes on to write about her relationships with and without men.

The only solution for me, therefore, was to take doff an to learn to accept the fact that at 44 now, and considering the men of my generation, and also considering that my own work is of overwhelming importance to me, there’s no way of having a partnership on the only terms I could now bear. Odd, I remember figuring it all out in 1962, and when I got to England, thinking ‘the only relationship I could possibly now maintain would be a relationship of equals’. It seems almost spooky to see the same things now being written about and yelled out loud (Box 160 Jan‐ 71).

On a humorous note, Laurence’s second post script in this same letter addresses the issue of orgasms that was mentioned in the publication that Atwood had forwarded to her; “PS.2. All that nonsense about vaginal orgasms seems trivial to me. If you come you come. Who needs charts? Let it be. Maybe it should just be accepted as your portion of grace, or part of it” (Box 160 Jan‐71). Atwood begins her response letter to Laurence addressing the vaginal orgasm issue:

There’s a lot in yr letter I’d like to talk about ‐ ‐ the vagina orgasm is important, not because of the charts or lying there wondering which part of yr body is reacting, etc., leave that to the scientists, but because it knocks the props out from under the whole Freudian superstructure. I think Freud is right most of the time about men, but he sure is way off base on women. He was making a construct ‐ ‐ based on vaginal orgasm ‐ ‐ which made men, or the Magic Penis, necessary for women. You see where that leaves lesbians (freaks, abnormal, unsatisfied, having to rely on carrots etc.). It also made life very tough for women who were so constructed ‐ ‐ or had men so constructed ‐ ‐ that if more than the Magic Penis was required ‐ ‐ they were told they had Penis Envy & wanted to be men, & if they could get over that they would automatically have a Rich Full Sexual Life. It’s not the orgasms per se that matter ‐ ‐ it’s the use (as a weapon against women) it’s been put to. Wipe out your identity & have Vaginal Orgasms, etc. I’ve had a bit of contact with the Freudian school of psychology as applied to women and wow (Box 160 Jan‐71).

Atwood’s issues of power relationships have genesis in personal experience, her astute authorial observations, and the social climate of the 1960’s and 1970’s, as illustrated in her quote above. In The

Paris Review, Atwood discusses her thoughts on power relationships:

Love relationships between men and women do involve power structures because men in this society have different kinds of, and more, power than women do. The problem for a woman in a relationship is how to maintain her integrity, her own personal power while also in a relationship with a man. Being in love with somebody is an experience that breaks down ego

barriers. The positive part of that is a feeling of “cosmic consciousness,” and the negative pole is a feeling of loss of self. You’re losing who you are; you’re surrendering—the fortress has fallen. But is it possible to have an equal exchange in a society in which things aren’t entirely equal (Paris Review).

For Atwood, the loss of self and identity is the crux of the balance, or imbalance, in a power relationship.

In Atwood’s book, The Edible Woman, protagonist Marian is “a young woman whose sane, structured, consumer‐oriented world becomes less sane and structured as the focus of her identity undergoes a strange shift” (Atwood back cover). Marian becomes so consumed by her situation, especially her engagement to a man who only proposed to her because he was the last bachelor in his crowd of buddies, that she cannot consume anything any longer and stops eating. Marian had no power in her relationship with her fiancé, with her friends, or at work. She eventually makes a cake in the shape of her fiancé, and when she breaks off the engagement, regaining her personal power, she is able to eat again and devours the cake.

Laurence confides in Atwood about the men in her life since her divorce from Jack. Laurence feels that men don’t really know how to relate to her. Her apparent dichotomous life, as a working writer and a mother, baffles men.

Have noticed v. sharply in those [the past ten years] years, however, that after I’d had a couple of books published, my relationships with men always fell into 1 of 2 categories . . .(I mean men of my age) . . .those who saw me as a woman and would rather not know about my writing, and those who accepted me as a writer and equal (mostly writers, these guys) but kind of a quasi‐ male figure or sort of neuter, and who would cringe slightly if I mentioned, e.g., my children (Box 160 Jan‐71).

Atwood had similar feelings and experiences with men:

As for my so‐called generation ‐ ‐ most of them were raging male chauvinists of the most blood‐ curdling description, though I guess they had enough flexibility to change a little. But the world is still full of them, and some of the worst are some of the youngest who haven’t fought it through yet. The male writer is still around too ‐ ‐ both the ‘male writers’ of my generation had trouble with me at first, didn’t know whether to shake my hand or grab my ass, but they’re okay now (160 18‐Jan‐71).

The biggest surprise for Laurence regarding the Women’s Lib movement was the resentment she felt from other women. Laurence felt that she had fought the good feminist fight all on her own, years ago.

Despite that, inclusivity and solidarity from younger women was not forthcoming:

You know, I think a lot of girls in Women’s Lib nowadays do tend to resent women like myself, who have to some extent or other made their own professional lives, as this is like saying ‘I’ll make it for myself, never mind about the rest’ but of course when I set about my own mini‐ revolution, I didn’t know there were so many others who felt the same way (Atwood MS COLL Box 160 Jan‐71).

Atwood’s acknowledges this lack of solidarity and responds with:

Yes, I think Movement women do tend to resent those who’ve done it alone ‐ ‐ it’s like being a negro millionaire, you’ve made it within the system and in a way you’re a refutation of their feeling that We All Have To Pull Together (Box 160 Jan‐71).

Interestingly, Laurence avoided reading Friedan’s very popular book, The Feminine Mystique:

I remember refusing to read The Feminine Mystique some years ago, because tI though the novel which was brewing might be kind of related, and I thought that reading a whole lot of stuff which might agree but was doing it from the journalistic angle, not fiction (which tries to approach by being, not talking) might screw me up. I feel kind of choked with this damn novel, but to do it only on one level ‐ ‐ well, one might as well not bother (Box 160 Jan‐71).

Laurence felt that the way she wrote novels required an approach different from Freidan’s. Laurence had already been witness to and had experienced, “The whole colonial situation, of course (i.e. women as black) I not unnaturally figured out years ago when living in Africa, helped somewhat by the French psychologist Mennoni, whose book ‘Prospero & Caliban: The Psychology of Colonization’ for a time was my bible (Box 160 Jan‐71). In addition, Laurence talks about trying to write The Diviners:

Didn’t mean to go on like this, but all this is so damn relevant to what I’m praying for to be able to write, but of course the character is not myself, although also is myself, and the dilemma is slightly different. (Like Stacy in The Fire‐Dwellers is both me and not me). But how to listen enough to be able to set down people and not theories? Real dilemmas (and god knows they are real) and not diatribes? That is one reason I probably won’t read all the articles in the Women’s Lib thing. I only want to rely on the sight of my eyes (Box 160 Jan‐71).

Atwood responded with:

Yes I can see why you wouldn’t want to get too deep into the women’s lib theory part of it; but I feel that just writing the truth is in a way a better contribution anyway; as encountering real‐life men & their attitudes is more convincing than reading theories about it (Box 160 Jan‐71).

Greene, in her book, Changing the Story: Feminist Fiction and the Tradition explains that

“Women’s situation in the early 1960’s was characterized by dizzying discrepancies between ideology and actuality. The reality was that more women worked, more women were educated, yet the ideology instructed them to find fulfillment as housewives – and the ideology was used to deprive them of good jobs and equal pay. Torn between myth and reality” (49).

An early review of Laurence’s The Diviners claims that “Laurence is unforgettable because she is one of us” (56). Comments on The Fire‐Dwellers includes, “Mrs. Laurence realizes that there are millions of other Staceys, sorting dirty laundry and wiping dripping noses. Laurence says, ‘I didn’t realize how widespread some of these feelings are’ ” (56). Laurence told the truth. It was Laurence’s inherent understanding, ideology aside, of the reality of women’s lives that endeared her to readers.

It was at that same Governor General’s award ceremony in 1966 where Laurence had met

Atwood, that she also met Canadian poet Al Purdy for the first time. Laurence had been corresponding with Purdy but had never met him in person; “It was good to have a chance to know you a little. I’m always slightly uncertain about meeting someone with whom I get along well in letters, because some people are different in print, but you talk just the way I thought you would” (Lennox Purdy 27 6‐Jun‐67).

Laurence and Purdy maintained a regular correspondence for twenty years, until Laurence’s death in

1987. Laurence often commented that it was only Wiseman and Purdy to whom she could confide her deepest feelings, especially about her writing. She trusted them: “If it turns out to be an unpublished or unpublishable novel, I’ll let you see the typescript one day. I’m treading so damn warily that I do not intend to mention it to anyone except you and Adele, would be glad if you did not, either (220 30‐Apr‐

71). Laurence trusted Purdy and Wiseman. She knew that, as fellow authors, they understood the difficulties of the writing life.

Purdy was a Canadian poet who had won the Governor General’s Award in 1965 for his collection of poetry, The Cariboo Horses. Laurence and Purdy seemed unlikely chums. Purdy was older, without formal education, a poet, married, and had rarely left Canada except for an occasional holiday.

Laurence was younger; university educated, a novelist, divorced and had lived outside Canada for almost twenty years. However,

Beneath these ostensible differences . . . were origins, interests, and allegiances that were to draw Purdy and Laurence together. They were members of the same generation and came from small Scots‐Irish Canadian towns. Both had been raised in the inter‐war years and had experienced directly the effects of the Great Depression of the 1930’s and lived through the Second World War. This gave them a common cultural vocabulary (Lennox Purdy xiii).

Most importantly, they were fellow Canadian writers who helped each other;

Purdy was the first male writer that Laurence came to know well and the perspective he offered – at once Canadian, masculine, and writerly – was one she admired. In a voice that she recognized as authentically Canadian, Purdy, spoke trenchantly and often poetically from another perspective that was most important to her: language and the work that flowed from it. Language, in fact, was the cornerstone of their friendship (xvii).

To date, Atwood has not written an autobiography or memoir. Laurence did write a memoir; a final draft completed before her death in 1987 and posthumously edited and published by her daughter,

Jocelyn Laurence. The terms autobiography and memoir are often used interchangeably but are they truly interchangeable? The Dictionary of Literary Terms & Literary Theory makes no distinction between autobiography and memoir. In the aforementioned dictionary, under the entries ‘memoir’, ‘diary’ and

‘journal’, no definitions are offered and readers are asked to refer to ‘autobiography’, which contains the following broad definition: “An account of a person’s life by him‐ or herself” (Cuddon, 63). The

Oxford Canadian Dictionary does offer distinct and different definitions for autobiography and memoir.

Autobiography is defined as, “a personal account of one’s own life, especially for publication” (Barber

85). Memoir is defined as, “an autobiography or a written account of one’s memory of certain events or people (905). These definitions differentiate mainly in the perspective offered by the author. In autobiography, the author is writing his/her life story and the emphasis is on the author. In memoir, the

author has a narrower focus and is writing a personal account of particular events or people and the events or the people are the main attraction.

Laurence refers to her last book as a memoir: Dance on the Earth, A Memoir:

I decided to write my memoirs, even though people usually wait until they are somewhat older. That didn’t work out either. After hundreds of handwritten pages, I had got myself to the age of eighteen. I was bored. Furthermore, I knew that I didn’t want to write the entire story of my life, for numerous reasons, one of them beingt tha it is mine and from the start I recognized that there were areas I wasn’t prepared even to try to set down. I wanted to write more about my feelings about mothers and about my own life views (7).

Laurence’s focus in her memoirs is a mother‐centered celebration: “But this book is about my mothers and about myself as a mother and writer” (8). The mothers are; Laurence’s birth mother, Verna Jean

Simpson, her mother’s sister, Margaret Simpson, who became her step‐mother, and her mother‐in‐law,

Elsie Fry Laurence. By talking about her children and her own experiences as a mother, Laurence is the fourth mother of the memoir.

Both Laurence’s and Atwood’s mothers were named Margaret. Early in their correspondence to each other, Atwood signs off as Peggy Atwood Polk (Polk was her first husband Jim’s last name). Atwood suggests, “Let’s call me Peggy to avoid confusion, which was what was done at home – my mother’s name also being Margaret” (Atwood MS COLL Box 92 10‐Dec‐70). Atwood’s practical solution was perfect to Laurence, who has strong feelings about mothers and namesakes; “Am pleased to call you xxxxxxxxxxx Peggy, (typing errors are because of personal feelings about that name – sorry). I was called

Peggy for yea many years until refused to answer to it; my mother was Margaret (ie my stepmother), so they called me Peggy to avoid confusion. In later years, I demanded to be called Margaret, and have now been so‐called, but with much difficulty. So the names mean many things to me, maybe we will discuss, some time” (Box 92 14‐Dec‐70).

Wiseman had always referred to Laurence as Peg or Peggy in her letters and Laurence herself always signed off as Peg, until 22‐Jan‐61: “P.S.1. Did I tell you – I’ve changed my name to Margaret? Not

because of the novel but because it did give me an opportunity to take the plunge, which I’ve wanted to do for years. I’ve always detested my name, and only and Jack and on other very close friend now call me ‘Peg,’ which I don’t mind so much – it was Peggy I hated, so I have killed her off (I hope)” (Lennox

Wiseman 129 22‐Jan‐61). However, ‘Peg’ continued for two more years until Laurence started signing off as ‘Margaret’ on 17‐Aug‐63; “Can you bear to think of me as Margaret‐ this is becoming compulsive with me. It was nothing to do with my writing – it’s something further back, at least I think so” (165 17‐

Aug‐63). From that date forward, it was ‘Dear Margaret’ and ‘Love, Margaret’ between Wiseman and

Laurence.

Exposing issues of truth, misrepresentation and misunderstanding in writing were important to both Laurence and Atwood. In 1976, Laurence’s book The Diviners came under attack in a local

(Peterborough, Ontario area) high school in a campaign spearheaded by “a local school trustee who is a fundamentalist” (Socken 8). It was considered “obscene because it contained some so‐called four‐letter words and a few sex scenes – the first essential to the narrative line and the revelation of character” (8).

When, as part of a previously schedule panel discussion, Laurence was asked about the controversy, she replied with, “The writer’s first, and perhaps only, responsibility is to be true to her or his own characters, human individuals that the writer cares about very deeply” (Laurence, Dance 215). Although

Laurence did not publicly put up a fight at that time, she did confide in her friends. In a letter to

Wiseman:

In the Examiner today, the school trustee James Telford once again held forth. I am beginning to be scared of the man, not personally but in a wider way. He is, as I told you, a member of the Pentecostal Church. Today, in an interview he said . . . only true Christians should be allowed to choose the books on school courses. He has notd rea either The Diviners or [Alice Munroe’s] Lives of Girls and women and doesn’t intend to, because you don’t have to wade in the muck to know what it’s all about. The terrible thing is that this guy is sincere; he believes himself to be a good man – he tdoesn’t bea his wife or his kids. . neither did Hermann Goering. It goes far beyond the question of my book and Alice’s. Among other aspects, it is the racial/religious one that scares me the most. It’s all very upsetting (Lennox Wiseman 351 13‐Mar‐76).

Laurence also related this story to Roy:

THE DIVINERS is coming under fire in my own community here, I am sorry to say. It was on the Grade 13 high school course, and a parent complained that it was ‘obscene’ because it contains some so‐called four‐letter words and a few sex scenes – the first are essential to the idiom of particular characters, and the second essential to the narrative line and the revelation of the character. A local trustee, who is a fundamentalist, has got into the act and stated in the Peterborough Examiner that only ‘true’ Christians have the right to choose materials for English courses (this would, I suspect, exclude not only those of the Jewish faith, but also Roman Catholics, Anglicans, etc, etc!). He admits that he reads only the Bible (I can’t quarrel with his reading of that – it is a book I frequently read myself). He has not read THE DIVINERS, because ‘one does not have to wade in the muck to know what it is all about’. . . I cannot help feeling hurt at having my work so vastly misunderstood (Laurence Fonds Box 17 15‐Feb‐76).

Nine years later, when not only The Diviners was attacked again but this time her other novels A Jest of

God and The Stone Angel too, Laurence responded publicly, “In 1985, unlike nine years earlier, I decided that it was no longer appropriate for me to maintain a dignified silence. I spent three months doing interviews on radio and TV, with newspapers and magazines, and writing articles on the whole subject”

(Laurence Dance 215). Her position was vindicated and her books returned to high school shelves and curriculums. However, the subject forever remained painful to Laurence.

In a letter to the editor of MacLean’s magazine in December 1980, Atwood expressed her anger at being misquoted and misrepresented by columnist Barbara Amiel; “I have been grossly misrepresented by your columnist Barbara Amiel. It’s not the first time, but for once I’m making a fuss”

(Atwood MS COLL Box 160 9‐Dec‐80). In her letter, Atwood derides Amiel’s attitude and the inaccuracy of the article:

Maybe Ms. Amiel thinks ‘free speech’ means that anyone even remotely associated with a person or cause she dislikes deserves to be made to look as foolish as she can make him even if the process requires misrepresentation by omission. My own position seems to be to be fairly simple and easily grasped: I do not think it would be perceived as ‘hysterical’ except by someone whose, ahem, ‘mindset’ resembles a permanent wave. PS: Please do not alter this letter without checking with the author, 363‐2569” (Atwood MS COLL Box 160 9‐Dec‐80).

Laurence also tangled with Amiel. Laurence wrote a letter to the editor of MacLean’s magazine regarding an article by Amiel, entitled “How Churches go Astray” (Maclean’s/February 14, 1983).

Laurence’s opening line in her letter was, “Well, well. So now Barbara Amiel has taken it upon herself to

imply that she is even more infallible than the Pope” (Laurence Fonds Box 17 10‐Feb‐83). iii The article was not about Laurence at all but subjects near and dear to her: Christianity and the bible. Amiel article describes a priesthood recruitment campaign bill board that depicts the crucifixion of Jesus with the tag‐ line, “Dare to Be a Priest Like Me” (Box 17 14‐Feb‐83) and likens it to the Roman Catholic Church embracing Marxism:

In fact, it may be time for all good men, Christian or otherwise, to take the offensive against those elements in churches of all denominations that have crossed the line separating legitimate critics of society from enemies of the state. Churchmen are leading the fight to destroy – not improve – the system of values and beliefs upon which Western liberal democracy is founded, and substitute for it a morally bankrupt form of Marxism (Box 17 Maclean’s 14‐Feb‐83 issue).

Laurence had torn Amiel’s article from the magazine and marked it up with a pen. She underlined what she considered especially egregious comments and scribbled sharp‐pointed exclamation and question marks in the margins.

In her letter to the editors of MacLean’s, Laurence suggests that the Catholic bishops were

“following not Marxist doctrine but the words of Jesus” (Laurence Fonds Box 17 10‐Feb‐83). Laurence quotes several New Testament Gospel of Matthew lines such as, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matthew 25: 39) and “Verily, I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew, 25: 40) (Box 17 10‐Feb‐83). Laurence’s best volley was saved for last, “Or does Ms. Amiel think that these ideas, also, should be made heresy?” (Box

17 10‐Feb‐83).

Laurence and Atwood were often fodder for newspaper columnists. In 1972, several Canadian writers, including Laurence and Atwood, talked about forming a Writers’ Union. Laurence asked

Atwood, “Also, anything re: the Writers’ Union?” (Atwood MS COLL Box 160 25‐Oct‐72). Atwood responded with, “The Writers’ Union is on the verge of happening. We have talked with a number of people, all favourable, and hope to have an initial meeting in early December. You will be getting the

literature on that as soon as there is some” (Box 160 21‐Nov‐72). In early 1973, book editor and columnist Kildare Dobbs published a scathing article in The Toronto Star about the fledgling union:

On the initiative of Margaret Atwood and Graham Gibson, a group of between 20 and 30 writers was recently brought together in Toronto to discuss the formation of a Canadian writers’ union. According to my informants, the original idea was to form a union of about 100 writers, presumably writers the founders approved of. The constitution is now being drafted by novelists Marian Engel and Austin Clarke. Val Clery, editor of Books in Canada, was told (jocularly, one hopes) that he had not been invited to the meetings because his ‘nationalism’ was suspect.’ A Montreal writer who attended found the stress on nationalism ideology disquieting. There may be good reasons why the initial meetings should have been conducted so secretively, but I can’t think what they should be. When seed money is being provided by the Canada Council and the Ontario Council for the Arts, anything that looks like domination by a small clique should be avoided (Box 160 30‐Jan‐73).

Atwood’s response was knife‐like: swift and precise. In a letter to the Editor, in sharp point form, she wrote:

i) No money was provide by the Canada Council ii) The only Montrealer writer to attend was Clark Balise from whom I received permission so quote that he was pleased by the ‘non‐Ontario emphasis and receptivity to all voices. iii) Domination by a small clique? Hardly. Writers were present from the East Coast, Quebec, the West and the West Coast. iv) Marian Engel and Austin Clarke are not drafting a constitution by are members of a committee doing so. v) There was nothing ‘secretive’ about the meeting. But it would have been foolish for anyone to have made public statements on behalf of an organization which did not (and does not yet) exist. Our idea – and by ‘our’ I mean those who really did take the initiative, including Margaret Laurence and Farley Mowat – was to bring together a number of prose writers – fiction primarily – to see whether they wanted an organization, if so what kind, and then turn the thing over to a large group of people. This has been done. vi) Val Clery wasn’t invited, quite simply, because he isn’t a writer of books (160 30‐Jan‐73).

In conclusion, Atwood writes: “It isn’t difficult for a newspaper person such as Kildare Dobbs to check his facts. Next time, let him do so, instead of presenting us with a lot of misinformed tittle‐tattle and slanted literary gossip” (Box 160 30‐Jan‐73).

In March 1973, Atwood reported on the Writers’ Union progress in a letter to Laurence:

“Writers’ Union is underway; for various reasons they want to try for a conference end of May. You’ll be hearing about this formally if they can get the money to do it but thought I’d alert you first in case 44

there’s a chance you might make it” (Box 160 26‐Mar‐73). That initial conference took place in June

1973.

Both Laurence and Atwood had engaged in battles with Dobbs over the years. As Laurence wrote to Wiseman, “I enclose Kildare Dobbs’ review of my novel. At first I wondered why it was so vitriolic, and also so relatively loaded with smart cracks, but I learned that he spent a year or so in East

Africa, so I guess he knows all about the soul of Africa” (Lennox Wiseman 136 5‐Sep‐61). Ten years later,

Dobbs was still writing negative columns about Laurence, this time about her short story collection, A

Bird in the House. Kildare Dobbs “. . . did a bit on it in Sat. Nite, in which he (rather condescendingly) said it was like a novel with the boring bits left out (this was after 5 paragraphs wof saying ho much he hated memoires of childhood; when he got down to the book and said it really wasn’t so terrible after all, one felt it was somewhat too late, but let it pass)” (Box 160 Jan‐71). Atwood’s response, “Kildare

Dobbs is . . . well . .t . le us be charitable” (Box 160 Jan‐71).

Columnist Paul Mason had a by‐line in The Lakefield Chronicle, the local newspaper in the town where Laurence lived in from 1970 until her death in 1987. On 27 June 1984, Mason, in his column entitled “The Mason Line,” wrote a ‘hoax’ piece about a supposed new Laurence novel, Singing Fire:

The first thing to say about Margaret Laurence’s latest novel, Singing Fire, is that it is brilliant . . . it should also be noted that Fire has a special significance for Lakefield residents. The novel is set in an Ontario village so transparently like our own that Ms. Laurence stuns with her audacity. Not only has she appropriated the geography of Lakefield, she has also borrowed its very streets and public buildings; and additionally – several Lakefield personalities are clearly recognizable among her characters, and two recent local scandals have been skilfully woven into the fabric of a compelling narrative.

Readers who objected to the celebration of Unnatural Sexual Practices in The Diviners will be relieved to learn that Singing Fire has only six, brief steamy passages. They are found on pages 6‐9, 22‐23, 42‐49, 106‐111, 152‐154 and 206‐253, and can be skipped over, if the reader is so inclined, without doing violence to the story’s flow.

But it is, surely, Ms. Laurence’s implicit view of her home town that will generate most controversy in this area. And, indeed, the issue raises an interesting ethical question: to what degree, if at all, has the writer an obligation to disguise the sources of her inspiration? It is certainly easy to get a laugh out of misrepresenting well‐known figures, but this does not 45

necessarily justify the attempt. I have to say that I was particularly distressed by Ms. Laurence’s depiction of a prominent politician as a drunken, illiterate, vainglorious lout – a man utterly devoid of personal integrity. I confess that I laughed at the portrayal – but my laughter had a hollow sound, and I subsequently felt a profound sense of shame (Laurence Fonds Box 6 27‐Jun‐ 84).

Unfortunately, many readers actually believed that Laurence had written a new novel. Laurence’s first response was a letter to her lawyer, written the day after the column was published:

I am outraged by this guy’s column. I have never met him and I hope I never do. The whole thing is so malicious and nasty. Needless to say there is not a single word of truth in it. It is extremely damaging to me, because (as I am discovering) some people in my village are taking it seriously, probably because of his quasi‐literary style. This puts me in a very difficult situation. I have to live here .. imagine how it makes me feel, to have some people here thinking that I am the sort of writer that would write a novel like that. Our local library has been having numerous enquiries about my ‘new novel’ (Box 6 28‐Jun‐84).

Laurence’s second letter was addressed to the Editor of The Lakefield Chronicle and was printed on the

Letters to the Editor page:

Dear Sir: I have just read The Mason Line in the June 27 issue of The Chronicle and learned to my astonishment that I have written another novel, presumably in my sleep or in a state of hypnosis. I have also today received several enquiries that confirmed my worst fears that some people might take Mr. Mason’s scurrilous hokum seriously.

I would like to assure everyone in this village that when and if I do publish a new novel, they will not be in it. I write fiction, and my characters are the people who inhabit my imagination.

The last defense of the practical joker, when accused of making mischief is usuallyw to say ‘A c’mon, can’t you take a joke?’ Whether or not this would be Mr. Mason’s defence, I have no way of knowing, but although it is well past our Victoria Days celebration, and although I am not a talented actress like Rita Smith, I nonetheless find myself saying ,e in th words of the great Queen, ‘we are not amused.’ Sincerely, Margaret Laurence (Box 6 5‐Jul‐84).

Laurence also wrote letters to her local MP, Bill Domm, her publisher, Jack McClelland, and several local friends, (all of whom wrote their own letters to the Editor). She also wrote a second letter to the editor of the Chronicle, and a further personal letter to the editor, Roger Gillespie, “not for publication . . . but because I feel it is important to have these things down in print, for future reference if necessary, and obviously a phone call does not accomplish the same thing” (Laurence Fonds Box 6 29‐Jun‐84).

Apparently, Mason had telephoned with an apology, but that was not enough for Laurence; “I would like to make it quite clear that a phoned apology from Paul Mason is totally unacceptable to me. That kind of 46

private apology might let him off the hook but would in no way do anything to repair the damage that he has done to my good name and reputation in this community. What would be acceptable to me is a public and serious apology from him in The Chronicle” (Box 6n 29‐Ju ‐84).Consequently, Mason printed an apology in his column:

This is, for a change, a serious column. I must begin with an apology. A genuine apology. I hear that last week’s hoax review of an imaginary novel has caused Margaret Laurence some distress. I am deeply sorry to have caused that distress. Regular readers of this column – a group from which I exclude Ms. Laurence – will know that it deals chiefly in nonsense, and has never laid claim to dealing in anything else(Box 6 29‐Jun‐84) .

Mason goes on to highlight some of his other hoax columns that announced famous news anchors leaving their posts, a local citizen was a KBG agent, and that unicorns dance in the shadows in Lakefield:

Given this background, I had frankly not expected that any regular reader of the column would believe the review for longer than it took to eread th third paragraph. I have admired Margaret Laurence’s work for many years. I have given copies of THE STONE ANGEL as gifts. I have tangled publicly with Renaissance candidates over THE DIVINERS. Ms. Laurence will not be the subject of future columns (Box 6 5‐Jul‐84).

As a supplement to the public apology in The Chronicle, Mason also wrote a personal letter and apology to Laurence; “I recognise, however, in your case I crossed a line – and left too few clues for the casual reader that the thing was indeed in jest. I apologise, again, for that serious error in judgement.

Most of all, I should like to assure you that I have not for dark and disturbed reasons conceived a desire to besmirch your reputation; on the contrary, I have admired and enjoyed your work for many years”

(Box 6 2‐Jul‐84).

Atwood has also had her share of correcting columnists. In 1982, columnist Alan Stewart of

Canada’s national newspaper The Globe and Mail, critiqued an article written by Atwood that had appeared in the Globe’s magazine insert Fanfare. Atwood’s article was entitled “Writing the Male

Character” (Atwood Second Words 412) in which she discusses ‐ mostly defends – how she treats or apparently mistreats male characters in her novels.

For the female novelist, it means that certain men will find it objectionable if she depicts men behaving the way they do behave a lot of the time. Not enough that she may avoid making them rapists and murders, child molesters . . . domineering or immoral, though I’m sure we all agree that such men do exist. Even if she makes them sensitive and kind she’s open to the charge of having them depicted as weak (Atwood Second Words 420).

Alan Stewart’s response to this was to vilify Atwood in his column and suggest that she hates men.

Atwood insisted that Stewart “took my remark entirely out of context” (Atwood MS COLL Box 124 27‐

Aug‐82). In an open letter to Alan Stewart, addressed to the Globe and Mail Editors on 27 Aug 82,

Atwood, with sarcasm and wit, responds to Stewart’s recent inaccurate column:

You also got it wrong about who tells what to whom. It’s true that men, I’m told, are likely to leave it at “I got lucky” when talking with other men, but, as I pointed out, that’s a far cry from what they say to their women friends. I should add also, in defence of both sexes, that except perhaps among boys and girls of high school age it is not physical sexual details that concern the conversationalists, at least in my experience, it’s the emotional intricacies. Since you, respected sir, have never been present at a woman‐to‐woman or even a man‐to‐man conversation, I can only assume that the mindless, breathless, gossipy tone you ascribe to women in your hypothetical speeches is your own projection. Sort of like the man‐hating, fire‐breathing, Margaret Atwood you’ve cooked up for the titillation of your readers. (And no, my male characters are no worse than my female ones. On the whole, they come out better, but a knee‐ jerk reader who expects women to be awful wouldn’t notice that. Can you look me in the eye, really, and tell me that Dr. Minnow is a wimp?) (Box 124 27 Aug 82).

Her final comment in a postscript is, “P.S.: My definition of a wimp male or female is someone who is afraid of things that aren’t intrinsically fearsome. Slugs on the cabbages. Mice. “Margaret Atwood”. Why waste it on me? Try the hydrogen bomb?” (Box 124 27 Aug 82).

As contemporaries, and as female Canadian writers in the 1970’s and 1980’s, Laurence and

Atwood were occasionally asked to review each other’s books. Atwood’s response to such a request from MacLean’s Magazine, was to ask Laurence for permission:

MacLean’s have asked me if I would do a piece on you. I said Yes provided you were willing, & also explained that I consider you a ‘personal’ friend & thus would be unlikely to say anything horrid, but they thought that was fine. I also think that if we do agree I’d do it – and I’d want to do it mostly about Writer, not personal stuff, as I have personal stuff in media – it would be good if it could be held until publication of the book. Let me know your thoughts & don’t hesitate to say no (Box 124 26‐Mar‐73).

Mallinson, in her book Margaret Atwood and her Poetry, states a case for writers to review or critique each other’s work:

Criticism by contemporaries has two immediately useful functions: by drawing attention to a work, it helps ensure that the text remains available; and by perceptive commentary, it can attract and guide potential readers. There is a third contribution, of less importance to the writer and the general reader: the analysis of a work in one literary context or another, in an attempt to locate it in a tradition” (Mallinson 8).

This argument is similar in tone to the earlier discussion on Laurence’s desire for French Canadian authors to agree to English translations of their books. The self‐serving attitude is tempered with a valid argument that the more readers that are attracted to a book, the greater dissemination of different perspectives, greater the benefit to both authors and readers, and the more contributions to the growing Canadian canon of literature.

In a letter from Laurence to Atwood commenting on Canadian author Barry Callaghan’s scathing review of Atwood’s book Survival, Laurence says, “ps. So glad that Survival was attacked by B. Callaghan

– oh god, if ever he approved of one’s book, one would think it must be bad. He’s a schmuck – guess I should try to feel sorry for him rather than detesting him” (Atwood MS COLL Box 160 18‐Feb‐73).

The emphasis on analyzing content in Laurence’s and Atwood’s letters – versus an emphasis on structure – seems appropriate. As per Lorna Irvine, author of Critical Spaces: Margaret Laurence and

Janet Frame:

From the mid 1950’s to the early 1970’s, critics emphasized the narrative content, most frequently elucidating themes and images. As the 1970’s progressed, critics also paid attend to nationalism, structuralism, and narrative theory, gradually adding feminist perspectives to the mix. The most recent critics have looked at such political concerns such as ethnicity and race and have investigated each writer’s attitude toward imperialism (Irvine xi).

The content of the letters expressed the views of the authors. The manifestation of those views – the structure of the letters ‐ is secondary to content. Mostly, especially in the early days of both Laurence’s and Atwood’s correspondence to others, the structure was informal. They were just letters from one

friend to another. Even after Laurence’s, Wiseman’s and Purdy’s discussion on the legacy of their personal letters, the structure, tone and frequency of their letters did not alter. Even if the authors’ letter‐writing was an unconscious or conscious honing of their writing skills, there was no adherence to any discernible structure.

After The Diviners, Laurence did not write another fiction novel. In a note found dated 17 April

1983, Laurence described her perfect writing conditions:

We lived in Elmcot [Elm Cottage in England] for 10 years, from 1963‐1973 and I did more of my own work in that time than I ever did, whilst bringing up my kids as well. The conditions were ideal, I see now. I was living away from a metropolis; my real and constant responsibilities and joys were only two. . the kids and the work. Hardly any appeals for my time, etc, were otherwise made. I wrote a lot of books in those 10 years (Laurence Fonds Box 14 17‐Apr‐83).

However, Laurence also experienced a lot of self‐doubt in those early years with regards to her writing.

In mid‐1952, Laurence was depressed about her novel that eventually becomes The Stone Angel and declared, “I have abandoned the old lady novel” (Lennox Wiseman 142 5‐Aug‐62). The Stone Angel was the first ‘Canadian ‘novel she was attempting to write. Laurence was back from Africa and living in

Vancouver, near her family:

I feel intensely depressed about it, needless to say, especially as I wonder if I can write anything about this country. I can see now why I found it easier to write stories etc set in Africa – it is a kind of screen, an evasion, so that one need never make oneself vulnerable. Also, when I write about people here, my old inhibitions come up all over again. Maybe I could do something with stories set here if I weren’t living here (142 5‐Aug‐62).

She, of course, went on to complete A Stone Angel, the first book in the now‐famous Manawaka series.

As depressed as she often was while writing, she was often even more ill and depressed after she completed a novel. In 1968, when she finished her first draft of The Fire‐Dwellers, she told Wiseman,

“Post‐novel depression, mainly, but complicated by physical symptoms of an unusually bizarre nature. I always get ill after finishing a book but this time I really out‐did myself. I got flu (or something) about 4 weeks ago, just after finishing first draft” (240 16‐Apr‐68).

New situations also unnerved Laurence. In 1969, when she took a job at University of Toronto as writer‐in‐residence at Massey College, she confessed her doubts to Wiseman, “I’m beginning to get colder and colder feet re: the U of T job. What will I be able to say to young writers?” (295 26‐Apr‐69). In the interval between Laurence finishing The Fire‐Dwellers and before she began The Diviners, doubts also consumed her, “If I don’t get myself back to writing soon, I will probably be in a mental hospital ere long. I wish I found it easier to begin. I wish the whole thing were easier! Why didn’t I take up some other profession? PLEASE WRITE SOON!” (311 6‐Oct‐70).

But it was her depression after she finished The Diviners, the last book in the Manawaka series and what eventually turned out to be her last novel ever that devastated her. She knew instinctively that an era in her writing had come to an end.

Actually, for me this is a bit worse than the usual withdrawal symptoms at the end of a book, because in fact this is the end of a 12‐year involvement with Manawaka and its inhabitants, as the wheel comes full circle in this novel, it will be the last of those . . . there will, if this one is published, be 5 books concerning the town and its people. Little did I think, when writing The Stone Angel, that it would all work out like this. So I feel a bit odd, and empty, as though part of my inner dwelling place has now been removed from me. I don’t know where to go now – that is why I’ve always said this would likely be my last novel. I have been preparing myself mentally for this day, but now that it is here, I guess I’m not really prepared for it after all (Lennox Purdy 270 3‐Feb‐73).

In November 1986, less than two months before Laurence committed suicide in early January

1987, she wrote final letters to Wiseman and Atwood. In a handwritten letter to Atwood in early

November 1986, Laurence wrote with humour and obvious affection. “Thanks for the flowers – you will all be amused to know that the card informed me that they were from ‘Peggy, Graeme, and Jeff.’! Tell

Jess that I don’t consider this an arm‐breaking matter!” (Atwood MS COLL Box 160 13‐Nov‐86). Laurence was happy that her children were settling down and tells Atwood that daughter Jocelyn and her long‐ time boyfriend were getting married; “I am so happy that Jocelyn + Gary are getting married (Nov 29) – they are so right for one another” (Box 160 13‐Nov‐86). Laurence also mentions her son David, “David,

(my son) + his wife Soña are now settled in the apartment at the back of my house, having moved here

from San Francisco to be with during this (frankly) very hard time. How amazing and marvellous of them.

I am greatly blessed in my children – and their mates. And in my friends and ‘the tribe’” (Box 160 13‐

Nov‐86).

Laurence then turns to business and discusses her memoirs. “I managed to get my so‐called memoirs into 3rd draft – they still need a lot of work, + I’m not sure I can manage any more. Anyway, I’m glad I did them. Really, they’re sort of a memoir of my 3 mothers (my birth mother, my stepmother, my mother‐in‐law) and myself as mother/writer” (Box 160 13‐Nov‐86).

Laurence also mentions her memoirs in her last letter to Wiseman. The reader infers from the opening line of her letter to Wiseman that they had just spoken on the telephone the night before.

However, Laurence felt she needed to apologize for the apparent gloomy conversation and immediately wrote to Wiseman the next morning:

Old friend, sister, colleague … please forgive me for the fairly miserable trip I put on you last evening, talking about my memoirs. I fluctuate in my feelings towards the manuscript. Sometimes I do feel it should be published, with much editing, and sometimes I feel the hell with it . . . it shouldn’t be published. Mostly I feel that it should be, but also that I really should be able to do more editing, and more importantly, more adding of anecdotes, myself, and I just do not think I can (Lennox Wiseman 406 12‐Nov‐86).

Laurence’s illness had left her physically debilitated for most of the fall of 1986. In fact, she could not even type on her typewriter as the effort was too exhausting. Her typed letter to Adele was the first effort in many weeks. “This is the first time I have typed anything in weeks! Am writing rather than phoning, for reasons that will be obvious to you. I’ve always done this, when I wanted very much to say something clearly, not bibble‐babbling!’ (your phrase!)” (407 12‐Nov‐86). In retrospect, we can see that

Laurence is saying goodbye nto Wisema and she wanted it to be in a more positive tone than her phone call the evening before. As one of her final acts to an old friend, Laurence sticks to what she does best – write.

In fall of 1986, Laurence was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. On January 9, 1987, she committed suicide. There has been much speculation as to why Laurence would chose suicide. It may have been her experience with her step‐mother’s death in 1957 that influenced her decision.

After a long and painful illness, my mother died in September. I spent the 3 weeks before her death, in Victoria. I think that was the most ghastly period I’ve ever lived through. She got weaker & weaker & the pain made it necessary for her to have morphine all the time. One evening when Robert & I went to see her, she had slipped into irrationality. I hope I never have to do anything as difficult again, Adele, as to talk to her about people who had been dead for 20 years, as though they were alive & might enter the room at any moment. I think I knew then that I’d never see her again – not her real self. The next day she was unconscious and never regained consciousness. But she lived another week. If I ever have to suffer like that, I hope I’ll be able to take it with such strength of spirit as she did, all though that year of illness (103 1‐ Dec‐57).

Death was a topic that Laurence discussed in her letters over the years. “My god, I hope I have a painless death – it’ll kill me if I don’t!” (330 18‐Dec‐72). She discussed death in her novels. In three out of five of the Manawaka novels, there was death by fire; “This has to be the most repeated death in fiction ‐ it is told in The Fire‐Dwellers, A Bird in the House, and again in this novel. Wonder why it haunts me so much?” (329 18‐Dec‐72). Laurence even discussed suicide with Purdy in 1967 after the death‐by‐ suicide of novelist Sylvia Plath.

Sylvia Plath seems to have been about a hundred percent conscious the whole way. The novel is a good novel, as such, but one feels that it is almost entirely autobiographical – what is amazing is the retention of humour . . because she can see the ludicrous aspect of her dilemma . . . the suicide theme goes through everything, though, doesn’t it? When I think of somebody like Sylvia Plath, I only have one basic reaction – she knew all this, and a hell of a lot more; if only she could have decided to survive, despite everything. But there it is (Lennox Purdy 15 7 Apr 67).

Laurence was simultaneously annoyed and understanding about Plath’s decision to commit suicide:

“What is truly grim is that someone who could see so much and who could and did love, could also want so much to die. This is what bugs me about her” (15 7‐Apr‐67). Laurence continued with:

I don’t think I ever felt that there would be some sudden revelation. Or that everything would tchange, bu I think I used to feel that one day I would achieve a kind of calm and would at last possess wisdom and would stop being afraid. As you say, it doesn’t happen, and after a while you see that you’ve got the only self you’re ever going tor have, fo life. I suppose if you realize that, and it really isn’t bearable to you, then you do what Sylvia Plath did (21 27‐Apr‐67).

Prophetically however, or maybe a case of just knowing herself, Laurence’s last word on the subject to

Purdy of Plath and suicide was, “But I think in the end I will act selfishly” (63 23‐Oct‐67).

With regards to viewing Laurence’s and Atwood’s letters with a feminist lens, perhaps ethe on area that both authors’ reservations are lifted and where we see the ‘true’ selves is in their letters to each other regarding Women’s Lib. The letters, as explained earlier, are written to each other at the height of the Women’s Lib Movement in early 1971. Those letters discuss women, men, relationships, and children, resentment of younger feminists, being alone, and even orgasms. What they both agree on is that they know other women feel as they do. “I think what womens lib does do even for us who may not join or take active part is give a sense of moral support. What a relief to discover there are those who think maybe you were right” (Atwood MS COLL Box 160 18‐Jan‐71).

Can the supposed autobiographical elements in letters be analyzed for relevance to author and art? Laurence’s Manawaka ‘family’ was real to her. She likened finishing the Manawaka series to leaving home:

It’s the last of the Manawaka fiction, if one can call it that without sounding pretentious, and so I feel kind of relief at having brought the wheel full circle, as it were, and also kind of loneliness, as I have lived with all those people for a long time, about 12 years or more, and will miss them. Guess they will still be there, in me, tho, like one’s childhood home or anything else one has loved but has to leave and move on (Box 160 18‐Feb‐73).

Laurence never wrote another novel eafter Th Diviners in 1974. Laurence herself blurs the lines between her fiction works and her own life history in a letter to Atwood:

Fiction as History. History as Fiction. Ambiguity is everywhere. But mainly, I get this sense of a continuum – even in our chaos, there still seems to be to be a very real way in which the past is always the present, and the present is always both the past and the future. Like my beloved river, it all flows both ways (Box 160 18‐Feb‐73).

That beloved river is the Otonabee River, right outside her ‘shack’ where she wrote The Diviners. She describes this river to Roy: “I’m out at my summer cottage, which is about 20 miles away from Lakefield, on the same river, the Otonabee. The river is the same as I described it in THE DIVINERS ‐‐ I wrote most

of the novel here and the river just seemed naturally to flow through the book. It’s lovely to come back in the spring and find everything the same” (Laurence Fonds Box 17 6‐Jun‐76). Though the river and the shack were her physical home and her mental home – where she found the peace and presence of mind to write ‐ they were also her figurative home, one she shared with her other family – her Manawaka family.

Unfortunately, where the shack once brought comfort, it eventually served only as a reminder to her inability to write. “I sold my cottage this spring. Not because of financial need, but because it was getting to be a bit much of a responsibility to have 2 places, and also because it had, I came to see, served its purpose in the 10 years I had it. I could not write there, now, because I think in my mind the river at that place was too much connected with the writing of The Diviners. The same river flows through this village, and is only half a block from my house, so I can see it any time, but from a different viewpoint. This seemed the right thing to do. I still have not found my way into the novel I want to write.

I think it will come, but when? Patience is difficult for me, and I am fed up with making false starts at it.

This often depresses me, as does, greatly more so, the state of the world (Laurence Fonds Box 17 25‐

Sep‐80). Laurence left home again, in hopes that the change of scenery would serve her well, as it always had.

Lennox posits on the importance of letter writing for Laurence; “Above all, their correspondence is a testament to what Wiseman and Laurence learned over the time – that female friendship would help sustain their commitment to writing” (3). Laurence succinctly tells us why writing letters is important. In a particularly bad period in her life when Laurence felt she could not write she sent a long letter to her old confidant Wiseman. “I see now the reason for writing not phoning was to say all this on paper, partly for you and partly for myself” (Lennox Wiseman 354 20‐Jan‐79). Perhaps it was the mere act of writing, her comfortable and preferred method of communication; maybe it was seeing her

troubles written in black and white; more probably, just confiding in her oldest friend – writing letters helped lift Laurence’s spirits.

Certainly, Laurence’s and Atwood’s personal letters have autobiographical aspects. Written in their own voices about the things that interested them, they contain details on their daily life, their thoughts on writing, and personal tidbits, including gossip. Their letters were contemplative. Atwood advises Marian Engel that, “the literary impulse gets mesmerized by the sunsets” (Atwood MS COLL Box

160 25‐May‐84). In an early letter to Laurence, Atwood contemplates having children but, “‘the kids’ thing is v. tangled. I’d like to have some but keep feeling there are things I have to do ‘first’(assumption behind that is I guess that they’d short circuit my head so much I won’t be able to do anything ‘after’)”

(Box 160 18‐Jan‐71). On how to write the endings of novels, Atwood, in a letter to a friend only identified as Percy, contemplates “Obviously one can work out personal solutions or semi‐solutions; social ones are much more difficult not only to bring about but to imagine” (Atwood MS COLL Box 2 2‐

Aug‐73). “I dunno about novelists having to write by an act of will – I think it is both an act of will and an act of faith. I always feel that the Will part comes in mainly by taking the pen in hand every day. But once I get into the thing, it isn’t will but something else which is operating” (Lennox Purdy 261 30 Dec

72).

Both Laurence and Atwood had moments of doubt about their work and could be self‐ deprecating. Atwood, on submitting The Edible Woman to her publisher said, “You will rejoice to know that it has a plot and some characters, both of which elements were lacking in previous novel” (Atwood

MS COLL Box 92 25‐Oct‐65). After winning the Governor General’s award for poetry, Atwood’s response to praise was, “as for my status as ‘one of Canada’s coming young poets’ – well, I can’t really sing a cantata in praise of myself” (Box 92n 6‐Ja ‐67).

If Atwood’s doubts were self‐deprecating –with its relatively softer connotations of a kinder gentler disapproval of one’s efforts – Laurence could often be found in full self‐flagellation mode.

Laurence would often and readily find fault with her writing and with herself. “The pessimism on part was owing to my persistent feelings of doubt about the novel which I had begun” (Laurence Wiseman

131 29‐Mar‐61). Anxiety and depression haunted Laurence when she was writing and when she wasn’t.

“For my own work, that is, to try to write a novel, I feel anxious, worried and depressed” (Laurence

Fonds Box 17 1‐Dec‐79).

Laurence also drank, which certainly could have fuelled her depressions and doubts: “I guess I hit the bottle pretty hard, & I swear that’s the only way I got through those weeks” (Lennox Wiseman

103 1‐Dec‐57). In another letter to Wiseman Laurence says, “I am relieved to hear that you don’t think of lavender as being quite ‘me.’ It makes me wonder what scent is ‘me’: could it be the coarse reek of cheap red wine? That, plus the odour of frying meatballs (my domestic side), plus Chanel #5 (my eternally optimistic nature)” (163 17‐Aug‐63). Humour aside, Laurence was living in London at the time, without Jack, low on funds and cheap red wine was the only kind she could afford to buy. “Cost of living is HIGH” (152 25‐Nov‐62).

In 1967, when Laurence confessed to her depression about starting a new novel, Purdy recommended “a long quiet drunk with a friend, someone who you can talk to, would be a good idea . . . anyway, I recommend a drunk – that or twenty‐four hours fucking” (Lennox Purdy 36 8‐Jul‐67). Laurence responded with “By the way, thanks for advice re: how to recover from inner crisis upon beginning a novel. The long quiet drunk with friends proved possible. Twenty‐four hours fucking, alas, is slightly more difficult to arrange” (40 26‐Jul‐67). Laurence had a sense of humour about drinking, “I read in

Maclean’s the other day that a wine‐drinker has a life‐expectancy of TEN years more than a spirits drinker! How about that? The news made my day” (198 5‐Apr‐65).

Unfortunately, the drinking did catch up with her physically. In 1974, Laurence was diagnosed with diabetes. As part of her treatment, her doctor advised some life style changes. ‘Altho I accept my heavy‐drinking days are over, there is NO WAY I’m going to quit having 1 or 2 drinks before dinner. I aim

to tell my doctor this. If he is willing to give me some kind of medication to cope with the realities of the situation, fine. If not, well, then maybe I’ll live a few years less – hell, I don’t want to see 80 anyway

(Lennox Purdy 320 12‐Jun‐74). Sadly, Laurence got her wish – she did not live to eighty but died at age sixty. In the fall of 1986, Laurence received the news that she had cancer. “Turns out I have cancer of kidney and one lung, too far advanced for treatment except palliative. Prognosis is about 6 months, although they can’t say definitely, one way or another, of course . . .” (Wainwright 87 8‐Sep‐86). Despite her prognosis, Laurence continued with her life writing that fall. She finished the third draft of her memoirs and wrote letters to her friends and family.

Life writing is a catch‐all term used to describe the recordings or writings of the self, through letters, diaries, autobiographies, memoirs, journals and more. Through their letter writing, Laurence and

Atwood expressed their thoughts and voiced their concerns about their families, their children, their careers, and larger issues such as Women’s Lib and the Writers’ Union. Their letters illustrated a female, middle class, Canadian writers’ experience in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The letters were first‐hand stories and accounts with detailed personal insights of their lives and their relationships with society, history, public life. Did we find the truth?

The truth was certainly very important to the ‘public’ Laurence and Atwood. They were quick to point out the inaccuracies, misunderstandings, and misrepresentations about their professional work that had been perpetrated by journalists such as Amiel, Dobbs, Stewart and Mason. As we saw, both

Laurence and Atwood wrote scathing letters to editors of the various newspapers and magazines that employed the journalists. Laurence and Atwood were very concerned with the truth about their professional – public – reputations. But did we get to the truth of the private Laurence and Atwood through their personal letters?

Laurence’s and Atwood’s letters are full of thoughts, comments, opinions, worries, humour and observations about their own lives. We saw how they worried about their children, their families, their

lack of money, and their divorces. They also expressed doubts about their writing capabilities, even after they were both very successful and established writers. Laurence and Atwood also talked about their decisions to be working mothers and how, considering the era (the 1960’s and 1970’s), it was frowned upon by not only their immediate families, but wider society. To a large extent, Laurence’s and Atwood’s personal journeys reflected the mores of the larger society they inhabited. Their personal was also the universal; to women, mothers, Canadians, and other writers. It was a familiar story to readers and therefore rang with truth.

Did literary theory and/or feminist literary criticism help us locate the truth? For Linda

Anderson, in her book, Autobiography, the New Critical Idiom, truth lies in the nature of the Self and authorial intention. Of the author, she notes that “she explores the ideological assumptions about the nature of the self that underlie autobiographical writing” (iii). The letters, as autobiographical writing, did reveal Laurence’s and Atwood’s inner selves. Early in their careers, their personal letters were just that – personal – and we can assume unrestrained in expressing their true views and thoughts. It was later in their careers when letters became part of their writing legacy did they consider their voice in their letters. As Laurence said to Wiseman,” About the ‘Future Reader’ bit.. isn’t it peculiar? I’m damned if I will be inhibited” (Lennox Wiseman 369 27‐Jan‐81).

In addition to her personal letters, Laurence left us her memoirs entitled Dance on the Earth.

Her daughter Jocelyn, editor of the memoirs which were published posthumously, says, “Of all her books, Dance on the Earth is, for obvious reasons, the one most literally written in her own voice”

(Laurence Dance xiv). Laurence initially tried to write her whole lifet story, bu “after hundreds of handwritten pages, I had got myself to the age of eighteen. I was bored” (7). Laurence eventually realized that not only was writing her whole life story not feasible, she did not even want to write it.

According to William Zinsser, in his book entitled On Writing Well, “To write a good memoir you must become the editor of your own life, imposing on an untidy sprawl of half‐remembered events, a

narrative shape and an organizing idea. Memoir is the art of inventing the truth” (136). It can be a question of editing; of what to leave in, what to leave out. Laurence herself alludes to this: “I knew I didn’t want to write the entire story of my life, for numerous reasons, one of them being that it is mine and from the start I recognized that there were areas I wasn’t prepared even to set down” (Laurence

Dance 7). Perhaps we may not have been told the whole story, but the whole truth is not necessarily the only path to credibility.

According to Isabel Duran, who offers insight into autobiographical writing and truth in The

Literary Encyclopedia, “telling the truth or not telling it, and how much, is a lesser problem than the one of shifting perspectives, for you see your life differently at different stages” (Duran 3). Laurence wrote the first draft of her memoirs in 1984 when she was fifty‐eight years old and healthy. It was then that she tried writing her whole life story. Two years later, Laurence was sixty and gravely ill, and the focus of the third and final draft of Laurence’s memoir had become sentimental: “I wanted to write more about my feelings about mothers and about my own life views” (7). Laurence’s memoir is an “autobiographical reconfiguring of a life; a question of rewriting a narrative along different interpretive lines” (162). The lens and view had shifted even in the two intervening years it took to complete the memoirs. She was dying and this affected how she wrote her memoirs; “I know now, as I did not know when I wrote the first draft of these memories, that my own dance of life has not much longer to last” (Laurence Dance

222). Perhaps Marjanne Goozé, in her article “The Definitions of the Self and Form in Feminist

Autobiography Theory” is correct when she says, “The task of autobiography then lies in ‘reconstructing the unity of a life across time’” (Goozé 412). Perhaps then, there is truth across the time‐life continuum.

A life may make sense if examined later, when all the facts are in. The remodeling of one’s life, that seems to be the by‐product of the process of writing one’s autobiography, is the truth according to ‘us’.

Catherine Brosman in her article The State of Letters claims that “Autobiography is the story of an attempt to reconcile one’s life with one’s self and is not, therefore, meant to be taken as historically

accurate but as metaphorically authentic” (105). Brosman continues with, “Self‐portraits are not thus the more or less faithful copy of a self‐object, but the living trace of the action constituted by the search for the self. I am my search for myself” (106). While searching for ourselves, we retrace our steps, reflect and then, with all our hindsight and current perspective, we write the end‐product – our autobiography.

What of Atwood and her life writing? Atwood has to date not written an autobiography or memoir. Were we able to piece together a true version of Atwood through her letters? We did learn that some of Atwood’s elements from her own life do appear, to some extent, in her novels. However as

Mallinson suggests, “All of these are some of the markers of her life, though not its substance”

(Mallinson 2). Perhaps the autobiographical details in her fiction and non‐fiction; her novels and personal letters, are “self‐dramatization, not self‐revelation” (Mallinson 2). Like Laurence, we get bits and pieces, but not the whole story; perhaps what remains, however, is true.

With truth is often self and subjectivity. The ‘self’ belongs to the authors. How they presented themselves in their letters and possibly in their other works. How they lived their daily lives and how their work sustained them.

The subjectivity is ours – the readers. Once we are aware of an author’s background; biographical details such as education, where they lived, when they lived, can we really approach a work objectively? We can make personal letters fit a genre – life‐writing and autobiography – backfill the details and analyze with literary theories such as autobiographical or feminist criticism. What we end up with is perhaps not the whole truth but their truth.

Endnotes:

i All spelling, grammar, abbreviations, italics, punctuation, capitalization, parentheses, and other grammatical items found in Laurence’s and Atwood’s letters are their own and have not been altered. ii Laurence’s archives – referred in‐house to Fonds ‐ are housed at York University in the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections section of Scott Library. One does not need to be a York University student to access the collection however those interested in viewing the collection must join the Special Collections section. This is free and requires two pieces of photo ID, signing an adhering‐to‐copyright‐ rules document and obeying in‐house rules such as security procedures, retrieval times, and quiet study. Clara Thomas, for whom the archives section of York University’s Scott Library is named after, was a professor at York University, a literary critic, and eventually, a friend of Laurence’s. As Lorna Irvine points out in her book Critical Spaces: Margaret Laurence and Janet Frame, “Some series writers have the good fortune to attract critics willing to devote part of their own careers to the sole investigation of their work. One mark of Laurence’s . . . importance is just such attention” (Irvine 23). Thomas published a critical essay for the “1967 volume of Canadian Literature entitled ‘Happily Ever After’ which situates the ‘new’ writing of Margaret Laurence into context with that of earlier Canadian women writers such as Parr Traill, Duncan and Moodie” (Irvine 24). Thomas follows Laurence’s career and writes critical essays and books and in 1970 is “most eloquent in her discussion of the two published Manawaka novels. She understood almost immediately that Laurence’s fame would result from the Manawaka world because of the almost perfect balance there between writer and subject, experience and art” (Irvine 25). Atwood’s archives are housed at University of Toronto’s Thomas Fisher Rare Book library which also has similar membership rules: a two‐year renewable membership is free and is open to anyone, `including those outside the university community; requires appropriate photo ID, but has slightly more stringent albeit not insurmountable security, copyright, printing, and access rules than does York University. With some archival collections, the families have donated or sold an author’s papers and have pre‐selected what was donated. Sometimes, they only submit newspaper clippings or manuscripts: “Many families, attributing a higher value to printed texts than to notes or correspondence, save only a writer’s books and clippings” (Buss 12). Sometimes, the families recognize value but do not want personal correspondence or papers to be viewed by others and do not submit them. With other archival submissions, it is the authors themselves during their lifetimes who have submitted their personal papers, manuscripts and other materials – often for money. With Laurence and Atwood, both scenarios exist. Both sold their personal papers and manuscripts and newspaper clippings to the respective archives for much needed money at certain junctures in their careers. In the case of the Margaret Laurence Fonds, daughter Jocelyn is power of attorney and currently has some personal papers unavailable. Atwood has restricted access on some of her personal papers also. Some boxes in the Atwood collection, containing personal items, cannot be viewed and/or copied until the year 2035. Atwood does allow some exceptions to viewing restricted materials if it is for academic research or if the writer of the personal letter has died (and follows the general collection rules of copyright, printing etc). Permission must be sought in advance but is often granted. iii Please note that the discrepancy of the dates is that the Monday 14‐Feb‐83 issue of MacLean’s would have been available the week before on Monday 7‐Feb‐83, thus Laurence’s letter dated Thursday 10‐ Feb‐83.

READING LIST:

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Atwood, Margaret. Cat’s Eye.

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Atwood, Margaret. Survival: Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature. Toronto: House of Anansi, 1974.

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Laurence, Margaret. The Diviners Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1974.

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