A aim?~Mism7y @flcchnmUi@ by Robert Bothwell Bothwell Bives readers a new overall understanding of Ontario’s past and relationship to the rest of Canadain this refreshing. concise account of the events and issues that influenced the . rt7~0dff0@rJauscd ala D,isax7~0~ people and politrcs of the province. :.- Ga.nadiam Ek3drbs @ffahe W@u(lh n 5’/.” x 8”. 994 pages I by W. Scotter The Exploration of George 16 b&w rllustratronsand 3 maps photographs by HBlle Flygare Canada’s Arctic 513.95 Paper A superb field guide, this book by Daniel Francis SP4.95 cloth contains exquisite colour photo- You’ll never take the North for graphs and enlightening descrip- granted againafter reading thus tions of 998 species of flowers, eyeopening account of the both common and rare, that are exploratory journeys to the seen in the national and provincial upper edges of this continent and A master of ceremonies can make mountain parks. Visitors to the through the elusive Northwest any event a terrific success with mountains, hikers, and nature Passage. FrancIs’s fascinating this stepby-step guide to what to lovers will find it easy to use (it’s chronicle of the men who trav- do before, during, and after the organized by flower colour). elled to the Arctic, therr various occasion. Convenient end-of- durable (with a strong, rainproof methods and mauves. their chapter checklists ensure that all cover), and informative (it even tremendous hardships and rare those things which need doing tells how animals and humans use Successes, is based on the dianes are taken care of. the plants). and letters of the explorers 5” x 7”. 96 pages 5%” x a”, i76 pa5e~ themselves. 59.95 hardcover 970 colour illustrations, 1 map 5%” x 8”. 924 pages 519.95 durabound 17 b&w rlluStratronsand P maoS $99.95 cloth 516.95 cloth by Ann Budge A new, expanded edition of a cookbook originally published for the CanadianOrienteering Federa- tion, this is a collection of over 450 highly nutritious, economical, and easy-to-prepare recipes for foods that active people need to be healthy. 6” x 9”. 304 pages 514.95 cerlox bound

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%a T5H 9W7 Toll free I-BOO-661-6464 5 Each ts GIS Fatura. Notas and commsnts on 15 years al rsviawlng Canadlan books I 11 A Star In ths East. Wayne Johnston is ths winner ol Ihe W.H. SmilhlBOoks In Canada Fkst Novel Award 15 To Be hrgsttsn. A short story by Nsrman Lavins 24 Oar life and Tlmas. Some not-so-solemn gleanings Iran Books b Canada thmugh the yaars. By Barbara Wads Gose 21 Than and Bow. Three adltors al Books in Canada, past and pmsant. mllact on tha lssaas that marked tbslr tanura 30 Photo Synlhasts. A gallery ol photographs by Paul Omnsteln 35 As for Them and Their Houses. One man’s adventures la the publlshlng jungle. Sy Al Purdy 39 A life of Fasslan. Ellzabatb Smart (1913-1986) showed a pmdlglaus capscIty for law anb pain. By John Goddard 40 Crttlcal Aotlcaa. Srlef rswiws ol recant Gctlon. non-GetIon. and paab~ I EWIEWS 47 Away Ram Homo: Canadlan YJrHorsIn ExaGe Fheas. edited by Klldam Dobbs 48 Basldonl Allon, by Clark Blalse; Anathar Country: VJrGtngs by and Abmd Hoary Kretsal. edited by Shlriey Neuman; The Ught In tbo Ptaaaa. by Elizabeth Spencsr 49 Mlchots LBndsbsrg’s Guide ta ChGdran’s Banks 51 Tha Vntorans’ Years. by Barry Bmadloot: Fragmants of YJar: Gbxlas fmm Sundvan al WarId War II. by Joyce tllbbert: Tba Sky’s No Umil, by Aaymsnd Munm 52 Paatr~ list& Salsctod Poams 19631995 and Escspa lram ths Glua Faetary: A Uamalr of a Paranormal Tamnts ChIldhand In UIa LateFsdlos, by Joe Row lblalt 52 HantInS Humans: Ths Alsl1 01the Modern MaGIpIe iA”rdarar, by Elllot Laytan 54 Tbo ~~rontraslBta!~ tillsn: PamsIr& Fhatagnpha. CrGtcal Essays, edGad by J.R. (tlm) Struthers

6 Flsld Ustss 57 Mars 9 EagGsh, Oar Eagllsh. by Bob Glaskbam 58 Racammendad 56 Itiervls~~with Sandra Glrdsdll, by Nancy Russell 58 Bewlvod 57 canwtl no. 111

Fraalanw v&r Bstlhgu Bohranr and ailist Jay Belmars recently awed to Taronta fmm Callhvnla and Calgary raspeatlvely. Gab Glachbarn, our autharlty an EngllSh usage. sits wmcled. Gylsla Ll. Brwn has studled at (ii unlversltles. Claka Brarmscamba Is a freelance wdtsr with a spa&l lntemst In blalogy. Haward EaGsl. whose drawings appear throughout tha Issue. will pabllsh his latasl Benny Gwperman dstscllva nawl Gds fall. Caq Pagan Is a poet and crlllc. Gay FGlp, whose short flctlon Is ta bs publlshed by Gaemlca EdGlans. Gvas In Verdun, 011s. . Gasrgo GaG’s accsant 01 hls crass-Canada train loumay Is la ba publlshed by Mathuen. John Goddard, winner ol a NatIonal Mqazlna Award lor hla Basks In Canada pmllla al Edith Iglauar. Ilws In Montreal. Cyril Grasnland Is tislGng pmfsssarol wlmlnalogy at tha Unlwrslty of Tamn- ts. Jshn Grcnwmd antbusts buildlags and bask ravlews. Glek Jawbssn. who created our cswr. Is one hall of the Tomnta dsslgn taam. Jacsbsan Famandez, CoGectlsnsof short stmles by Norman laskta will appear In Wesl Germany and Norway In 1988 and 1987. laalsa langa, who has mad manuscripts far Harlequin. vmrks lor Scarborough Human SewIces. Ann LttkGs, now ta Wlnnlpeg. cowred kxal palal= for the IGngslon WMg-.%i&d. Gay &Lamn is the aulhsr 01 Canadians B&lad Enemy LJnas 1995V945 (Unlwa@ al British Calumbla Press). Frank Glaalsy edlts the Ottawa lltsrary msgazlne Nssw Mashas& SparGaG Wllla is a HaGlax post. Fxtrlcla Morlsy. on ssbbstlcal Iran Con- wldla UnlvwaGy. rrrillpublish a blagnphy of Wllllam Kumlek this lall. Paul Gmnstaln, Books/n Canada’s most-amplayed cwer photographer, caatrlbulad many of ths wrlrrltersportralts for thla Issaa. 1.0. Guan. a hmner manqar ol adnrd Unlvarstty press. Is a lmalanca crlGc. AnnsG Rkkanan vrrltsp for The AtkJnsonJan The post Al Pardy, who Mntly returned ta Amellasbar9h. Oat.. fmm Florlda. has given up CIgara but nti bsar. John Gsavaa ts ranovmed far hls phatagraphy al writers. Barbara Wads Goss, chmalcler 01 our dubious achlewments. Is a Tomnlo frealanca wrl$r. Rancy Rasssll’s M.A. th=la at Carleton Unlverslly Is on contemporary Weslern wmen witera. Jasaa Shsmtaa edits the Ilbrary magazine whll. Grant Shllllng Is s Vanwwer Iraelance Joamsllst. diary Plnsllo SmGh sweya children’s books lmm hsr home In St. Mary. Ont. Cy?tlStmm has laughl Eumpean hlstsry at Columbia Unlwsily. Paul Slamm Is s fmelanea criGe and bookseller. Allan Walss’s l&x la Canadfan G/M slwlac f&70-l&33 Is to ba publlshed this fall by ECW Press. Tha qastatlons an pagas 30-32 am taken fmm Intervtewa or pmlles by DOUG FcthsrbIG and VJ@moGmdy, raspsctlvely farmer cslumnlsl and former msnaglng edllar al Rooks In Caaada and by Geott Han&t, edllor of CanMa~ Rcllon Afa&wM.

EDITOR 0 Michael Smith MANAGING EDITOR 0 Fraser SuthBrlBfld GENERAL MANAGER and ADVERTISING MANAGER.0 SUSGII TrGBr CIRCULATIDN MANAGER 0 Susan Alhoshl ASSOCIATE ADVERTISING MANAGER 0 Beth Bruder CONSULTANTS 0 Robert FBrR?lly0 Jack Jensen 0 Mary Lu Toms CONTRIBUTING EDITORS 0 ElGGflDrWachtel West Coast) 0 K.G. Pmbelt (Pralrles) 0 Shirley Knight Morrls 0 Paul Wllson 0 Ray FlI Ip (Quebec) 0 Terry Goldle (East Coast) Ml3 WB5T mds of tbe Pdnce of tksetwdwstorles cxMsTBm starstbroagb the col- ran& in setting from RNowlby wful and exotic world Nuklgck Montreal DwfdCarcoran af the medieval East. to Paris, Geneva, Meddd Dramatic historical fie s17.95 dotb nd .Seltzbw& detail the iion in the s+yleof pabllw dislocatio” of poshwrRU”JP~=d lames Mick”ez Cana- w?S ABIDAILS da’s hiitcny co”les vivii- the naive failure of PART k”wicans to under- ~tolifei”thiis!mPi”l or version and Lt?adRlmJpea” so*etx sagaofthemenand Diver&” cwnen who eettled Bri- $9.95 paper THBPOOT kdltb T”’ tish Cohunbii and DOCFOR id&q “$,of,“’ flnlnded vancnuver.Ex- #I llAWEST~~ITHE Lifetbne Relkf for WART COOUlNG Yo”r A&i”g &et te”sivelYdthi lane Au&en’s famaus Rc= Glenn Copelo”& 6lst “&I isof6cll novel MmrdrreklPC&. Q&k and lbsty D.P.L endorsal by the Van- lane Iialtwn, the k!z? Of 9f,Ilnlng In Recipes fo* HeaRby Phiup s”lRb A complete goide to couver Centennial hemine, is a spirited Llvlns Philip Smith, bestseW2 Aano Li”dw ciuebythelzo”S”iti Commiaion. and outspoken wvh1.3 author of 7% lkasww podiahist for the Bb $24.95 cloth 9311whwc adventuw at rh;~c$;~ sBBkorJ:lVMMMBRwho Jws and 61e Canadi tbePiuka”di”Lo”do” Built Home Oil. presenk dia” cancer society. Back Institute. WritI maketiadeli&ful both a” adventwe stow Food writer Anne Lbxl- for laymen. it in- BAGDAD lU”lPulmughtbeearly imdabosinesdshdyac sayprovides over 200 dudes vablable blfor l%eFunfeofStarsh nbleteenth-ce”toly I&d he details the develop deliciouslow%, hi& ma6o” on the aoeto tlwhee~ of Tbne: of manners and nunals. ment of Ontzdiok mines, of the foot, the heal $19.95 cl& 6bg ~~gtg- I”” Demlr mbdng towns, mini ment of commonsfof IanDe”“iSmakesa companiessuch as lnco dietary guldelibles.lo- proble”Is, clake”% remarkable debut with and Falco”brid@, and cludes16pa6esofc~3~ feet, choosingfoobw zzszp- tbe people who made our photo@aphs,line and foot care for thl thi&W8W;i~i=Y. . Od9wdlY P&wle.d tbeiribrtones. dawin&s, nubient anaT$ etblete. Thmwnd md One 6%~ years a@, Mavis I6ustratedwith”IaPs eesofeac.hrecipe,and~ Iuusbated with over NI@I& Full of “~stery GalhI ht cdedio” and 94 pages black-and- diet tips. l6ub-ated ’ line dmwings and de&hb%l homow of short storiu is now white PhotcwPhs $14.96 Paper $14.95 paper tbe story foUowsthe ava9able bl paperbaa 893.95 cloth _~__ _.__~ . . ..~..-~. -~ ~~_~.~:-.__. .---.-.-.- --

Notes and comments on 15 years of revlewlng Canadfan books, and the life of the magazine to come

Assunx rH6 occasion, this is boa. a when I could have done without seem scrappy, self-conscious, and historic and a pivotal issue of Books Books in Canada. They were the defensive as they answer the mm- In Canada. This month - with an times when its reviewers gave a cou- plaints of the book trade, most of expanded format and a number of pie of my book8 lousy notices”; which now seem parochial and shrill. special featurea - we celebrate our Harry Bruce: Y don’t love Books in In the past, some booksellers have 15tb anniversary oe reviewing Cam- Cm&a the way I love ;ny cat, but I even argued that Canadian books dim books. But perhaps equally do like it”), did remind us of the were better left unreviewed, because signiticmt, after 1s years of free singular, not always comfortable critic&m might deter customers. distribution in book stores (apart position that the magazine has held As one might expect, the book fmm a small but loyal group of among the country’s writers and trade still tends to be wary of subscribers), for the first time the publishers throughout its history. criticism. But in the intervening years magazine now is available only by The fmt issue of Booh in Canada, Books in GWada has gained the sup subscription or for sale on the news- dated May, 1971, featured a fmnt- port of a number of independent stands. As a result. as Rick page review by Dave Godfrey of book stores, many of whom now will Jacobson’s cover illustration Mordecai Richler’s St. Urbuin’s be offering it for sale. We an dramatically suggests, we find Horseman under the unchamcter- especially happy to boast that the ourselires simultaneously looking i&ally bland heading, “A Major magazine will be sold in 197 Classics over our shoulder at part accom- Canadian Novel.” Inside were a pm- and W.H. Smith stores, which plishments and looking forward to a fti of Robertson Davies and reviews together form the country’s largest new chapter in the life of the by Hugh Gamer, David Hehvig, bookselling chain. In addition. W.H. magwine. Alden Nowkin. and Al Purdy. among Smith bss genemusly agreed to span- In the offices of Book in Canada C&IS. The introductory issue had sor our annual fti novel cmltcst (the the approaching deadline has pm- been published with a 3250 grant winner of which is a~omccd in this voked an even more frantic burst OF fmm the Ontario govemment and a issue), which now is known as the activity than usual. As the editors few dollars chipped in by the as-yet W.H. SmiWBooks in Canada Pint scrambled to assemble addltional unpaid staff. As Val Clay, the Novel Award. material for this buinper anniversary founding editor, said at the time, Beaided coverage of our fmt novel issue, the circulation and business “It’s not going to be something that’s award, the contents of this month’s staffs vme similarly busy gathering, go? to make a fortune for my of issue are a blend of the old and the for promotional purposes, commmts new. Some of the name4 that a* on the magazine from membus of Clery, a freelance writer, had re- peared in the fust BOO&Sin Canada the cultural community - in par- cently reported in a survey prepared are present again - Pwdy. Clery, tic&r, fmm Canadian writers &I for the .publishing industry that and his successor Douglas Marshall, diverse as Margaret Atwood and Canadian newxpape.rsand magazine4 who served as editor fmm 1973 until David Suzuki, .Pierre Berton and seldom reviewed Canadian books. late in 1980. On the other band Northrop Frye, Hugh MacLmnan Book-buyers, he had discova’ed, (though our usual policy is still not to and Dalton Camp. were unduly influenced by publicity publish fiction), we are pleased to Knowing that they have come from in U.S. periodicals, especially the present a special anniversary event - many writers who have been both the Cm&iii edition of 77rn.v. which a new short story about titers and subjects and awasionally the con- paid too much attention to U.S. best- writing by Norman Levine. tributors of articlcr to Books in seks. What was needed. the book Canada% writers repre.w.nt only Canada, perhaps we shouldn’t be half of the equation, of course. Our swpriwd by the open flattery to be primary ellegimce continues to be found in some of these mmmmts. with Canada’s readers. upon whom (Atwood: “Books In Canada is a uni- our own existence necessarily que item dedicated to a once- depends. (It is our mle ILI~presen- unpopular proposition: that tatives of our readers - not as pm- literature pmduced by Camdims is motets - that our early detractors \vc.rtb writing and therefore reading apparently misunderstood.) Atter all, about. It has “ever failed to have the as Walter Stewart said of us recently: courage of its convictions.” Frye: “It publishers agreed. was B national ‘Books In Canada pmvidea easmtial seems to me that Books in Canada book revim of our own. reading for anyone who writes does a heroic job of trying to keep up Judging from the reaction to &ly books, anyone who reads books, and with its subject on alI fmnts, and i&s. what the booksellers and pub- everyone who cares about books in anyone who caws about the fate of lishers hadn’t expected was a this country.” Then he added: “Even books in the country should care magazine t+t dared to point out though it is sometimes, let’s face it, about the fate of the magazine.“) what was wrong with some Cansdim loopy.” Others, however (Jack Batten: books. From today’s vantagepoint, Who cm argue with sentiments “There have been only two rimes Books in Canada’s early editorials like that7 0 rr-lbet-iflgtilt Jack Tormented by alcohol and neglected by the orltlcs, John Thompson wrote poems that rank among the finest this country has seen

o OETTHE end over fret: it was 10. That landscape so imbues had spent so long meticulously working years ago last month that John Thompson’s poems that it’& hard to on his art, and Thompson told Polk that Thompson died in his apartment believe he wasn’t born to that flat, grey next time he would try an international in Sackville, N.B. He had taken a land. His first mlmuscript, Al Ihe Edge publisher. The new poems were in the lethal combination of pills and of the Chopping Then? AreNo Secrets, form of Persian ghazals. which he later alcohol; shortly after, the family got fished out of the slush pile by James explained in the preface to Stik Jack as a living below he+rd him rap on the Polk of Toronto’s House of Anansi series of couplets having “no necessary floor and cry out. Thompson had Press. Polk immediately recogulzed the logical. progressive. narrative, thematic left on the table a handwritten ti voice of * reel poet: (or whatever) connection.” But ghamls and the manuscript of his second 4/rer the rain, dead ’ were not mere “surrealist Rce- and final book of poetry, Stilt sm ml mm (I crow association poems,” wrote Thompson; Jack. Not for his death nlemm; they allowed for a “contmUed imagine- should Thompson be remembered, but tive .omgression” - that wes the “essw~.~ for Stilt Jack. an astonishing and elusive (I hole ogcnr In of poetry.” work that is one of the tiuest collections the ground o/gnu ctmd: Thompson teased Polk about the of poems ever written in this country. manuscript. He said he wo&l send the the wind * poems to the Atlantic Monthly and the Thompson ws born in Manchester, IIIILWu&Id (I n&h1 England. in 1938. His father died in the in thlr hour Ozdown. New Yorker. although apparently he never did. Instead, he would telephone vw and his mother eventually gave him Reviewing the book for Saturdq~ Polk at odd hours of the night to read up to a children’s home. After university Night in December, 1973, Dennis Lee his latest ghazal long-distance. “Jim. and a stint in the British enny, he went wrote that Chopping “f.gururu a whole to the United States to teke his Ph.D. at way oflbeing in the world, of living with listen to this!” Thompson would say. and after reaaing would de”mnd Polk’s Michigan State University. A.J.M. courage when most of the lights have Smith directed his thesis, B series of gone out.” Calling it a “sophisticated suggestions for revision. “You’re the translations fmm the work of Fnmcb return to the rural primitive,” Lee noted editor, what do you went to cut?” Thompson continued to teach at surrealist Rend Char. In 1966 he received that some readers might have trouble Mount Allison (his students admired e teething position in the English tuning in to the book’s resonance, but him despite hi unpredictability) and department of Mount Allison University that Thompson at age 35 was a #‘reel also et the Dorchester Penitentiary, and with his Americau-born wife and diSCOV~.” young daughter moved into a farmhouse James Polk remembers meeting But a series o-f ;ersonal dim&s began in New Brunswick’s Tentramar Marsh Thompson with some pain. The to undermine his stability. Fiist he and country. photogmph he had sent for the book Jebe nmmesen his wife divorced (she retained custody showed a strikingly handsome men, but it could not reveel that Thompson had a of their daughter) and then the fenn- house burned down, taking with it drinking problem that caused disturbing Thompson’s books and manuscripts. swlugs of mood. “The first tbne he cane Word of Thompwn’s death arrived at to Toronto for the book we had a party for hi, just the Anansi staff to Anaosi, and, shortly after. the menuscript of St//t Jack. When Polk read it he wept. welmme him,” Polk says. “He wes quite belligerent. I guess he wes worried about what he thought was a gle”mrous Toronto publllhing firm. John wes very with nothiw but your blind, sow$n?d b~secure and not in his elanent. The per- hMrt. tp didn’t work oqt at all. After, I So begins Stilt Jacks a cryptic revela- thought, this ls terrible, how ere WCgo- tion of despair of such poetic skill that it ing to work with him? But the next tbne enwx.5 the reader es it wounds. Voices we met he wes wonderfol. He was a very of other poets haunt the lines (Yeats, intelligent man with e vest emount of Roethke. Ted Hughes), but the elemen- leamlng. He knew French literature.. he tal bueges and the compassion are knw’ his Engllsh poetry. He wes a Thompson’s own. scholar es well es a poet.” This time Thompson got the reviews Bxcept for a year’s sabbatical in he deserved, if posthumously. “Oboes- Toronto (where he temporarily over- sive,” “troubling,” end “incen- came his dependence on alcohol), descent,” the reviewers said. Yet despite -fbompso” continued to live in the its reception and Thompson’s i”flue”ce marsh country. The paucity of reviews on poets such es D.G. Jones and Phyllis of Chopping disappointed.a poet who Webb, his name is usually left off the _._ __~d-- --_ ~_,~--_I-._-~_1 --.---. -.

lists of sigificunt modern Canadian Comtable, who managed the 1OO.Wool- poets. His isolated life and relatively worth stores in Canada, was a big Star small output have contributed to his advertiser. Yet it wasn’t entirely obscurity. And it may be that Thontp- favotuitism, for Hemingway earlier had son’s uniqueness has made him too dif- served a strenuous six-month apptwt- by Doris Janzen L.ot&xe. In it ficult for the critics to slot neatly. tic&tip on the Kansas City Slar, one of you’ll find every money saving The two books sell slowly but steadily, the best newspapers in the United States. trick of the trade” -~sdoy’s and Polk hopes that Thompson’s repu- After the Connable contract expired Christian tation will grow gradually, like those in May, Hemingway freelanced for the other reclusive poets, Emily Dickinson SW Weekly in Chicago until November, and Gerard Ma&y Hopkins. Becently 1921, when, now married and Europa Xavier Press of St. Francis Xavier bound, he was hired as foreign corres- University published SwRun: iVoles on pondent. But with his wife Hadley preg- John Thompson’s Slilt Jack by Peter nant, Hemingway returned to Toronto Sanger. a line-by-line annotation of the in the fall of 1923. taking an apat’tment poems. at 1599 Bathurst St.. toiling in what When Polk thinks of John Thompson Wyudham Lewis would later call a now. he likes to remember not the dif- “sanctimonious icebox.” That his first ficuk moments. but the conversations son John Hadley Nicauor (making the about poetry over drinks when Thomp- baby technically a Canadian or rather son would proudly pull out from hi British citizen) was born while he wa off jacket a complicated pocket knife or o” a” assignment did not improve hi compass to show off. Those who know temper. He resigned o” Deeember 3 I. Thompson through his poems will hear Some recent books remind us of “Mome-d&-lL-ees means his voice over and over again: Hemingway’s S&-studded years. Peter healthier eating with less Lord. Iord. I’m thinking of you. Griffin’s Along with Youth: Heming- expenditure of money, time, I’m gone. way, the Early Yews (Oxford, 236 energy...” -Fmirie Messenger -CAN taoAN pages, $24.95 cloth) is the first volume of what “promises to become the Herald press. Dept. BC definitive Hemingway biography of this generation.” Promises, promises. The 117KlngSfreetw&t book’s scholarship is sieve-like. Griffin Kitchener, ON N2G 4M5 deduces a youthful copulation from an Phone: (519) 743.9731 unpublished short story when, as is well- yo’ou HILvETo imagine a stampiug, snort- known, Hemingway was about matters ing Arabian stallion being broke” to sexual a notorious bull-shipper. become a plough horse. That was the (Htigway’s sexual partners during his short, unhappy life of Ernest Heming- lifetime probably numbered fewer than way at the Toronto Star under the daily IO; as William Faulkner wittily put it, whip of the managing editor, the mis- “Hemingway’s mistake was that he named Harry Comfort Hindmarsh. The thought he had to marry all of them.“) ittdiinities of being sent to cover one- Moreover, Griffin hilariously tells us alatm fires (not to mention receiving that “For Hemingway’s stay in Toronto jeering letters from Ezra Pound in e.a.rti 197.0. his letters to Charles Fen- rhecompellingsmryoftheicebergrhat addressed to “Tomato, Can”) weti not ton iu the 1950s offer the best source.” hasgrippedtheimagioationofthe palliated even by a transfer to the S@r This three-volume biography un- world. thejourneyltmokthmugh the Week/y to join his buddy Greg Clark. doubtedly will set.a new sludge-standard NonhArlanticandthefis~at~c~t He soon quit a job that was “like being for the academic drudge. ~Fseals. whales, b&s, seabirds and in the German army with a poor corn- A fully satisfying life of Hemingway menitencounteredbe~orethatfateful manda.” The rest is legend. if not has ,yet to be written, but the prolific nightitsunktheTltaulcandhlsmrywas made. history. Jeffrey Myers’s Hemingw~: A Bio- l Hemingway first arrived in Toronto in gmphy (Harper & Row/Fitzhenry & ‘It’saWing, lyricalandloving January, 1920, at the behest of Harriet Whiteside. 644 pages, $40.50 cloth) Connable, an attractive, fur-swathed offers an advance on readability to ~aturalhistowof theArctic.” friend of his mother who’d hired him Carlos Baker’s droning Ernest HeminS- -Mmcouver _ after he’d given a talk about his war way: A Life S&y, hitherto the most wnce. wounds to the Ladies Aid of Petoskey, comprehensive account. Although he Miiigan. As a paid pal to the Con- sometimes registers 6.9 on the Freud ~‘Brownevokes nables’ lame, reclusive son Ralph, Jr. Scale, Myers notes patterns and draws weemhlguti?of (giving him the “right slant on life, intelligent conclusions. :he alar world especially as to his sports and Certainly he does not go so far as to titl&i~8i~*O- pleasures”). Hemingway earned UO a say, as does William White, editor of pence:’ - month and room and board in the Con- Dareline: Toronto. The Camp&e %ank B&y, nable mansion at I53 Lyndhurst Ave. Toronlo Slur D~putches. 1920-1924 ?&sin Canada (Scribner’sKoIlier Macmillan, 478 Besides skating and boxing with Nmvavailablein paperback. Ralph, Jr., Hemingway squired his sister pages, $29.95 cloth), that “Fmm these S12.95atyo”rloral boobstcre Dorothy Connsbk to hockey games, years in Toronto, and reporting for orwitelo: Jauwrarimer&company and through Ralph, Sr., got taken on at Toronto readers as their foreign corres- a 35Bdtat”Street the Star at a penny a word. The elder pondent, came the creative writer and zzzzz lbmnto. Onuuta M5A ttt7

- _. the author of some of the finest short stories and novels of OUTtime.” None- tIMas. White, who previously compiled a useful collation, By-Line: Em&t Hmdng~yu: Selected Articks and D&- patches of Four Decades (Scribner’s), has givr.n us the needed evidence about the author’s early joumaIistic prowc3s. or lack of it. Wuz Hemingway much good as a reporter? Well, yes, he probably deserved his peak weekly wage of $125 (no small amout in the early ’20s) at a tbne when joomalism was of a hIr stapdard than nowadays. the report& sharper and less homogmbwd. the featomwrltIog less sycophantic. The fust of 150 pieces. dated Feb. 14, 1930. was an unsigned sqoib, “Cir- culating PlctuM a New High-Art Idea in Tomnto”; the last (as “John HadIcy” and published atIer he left the newspaper) was another wry fragment, this one about the peril of wearine a Preiborg-bought fedora in hls adoptive city. After tig how he was almost punched for wearing one. the writer says he traded it in for typical Toronto head- gear. “I have one of that kind now. But IknowvcrywellthatifIwertryand wear it lo Europe, somebody wilI waot to take a poke at me.” As a I’envoi it was good enough. The journalistic Hembuway progress_ ed fmm k&e notes on fishing and camping C‘AU there is to a pie is *cop and a half of floor, onehalf teaspoon of salt, one half-cup of lard and cold water. That wlU make pIecrust that wlU bring tears of joy to your camping partner’s eyes”) to shrewd poIkicaI anaIyses and natureAscriptions that anticipate his later evocations of terrain. In Europe he was watchful for Canadiao angles, and a tine portraitist. Report& the Genoa Conference of 1922, be superbly depicts AIeksandr StambooliskI, the BuI&ao farmer-prime mioista: . . . Stamboulbkl sits forward in his ch&,looksartbeeeilingwkhhisbuS- Iike old fan?, and the S8ht fmrm the grca, chandelierglints on bb shiny. blue rerge suit. Occasionallya sIightly less rtolld up~lrlon comeaover his face. k relaacs jus2 lbe least bit, that is tic nearesthe r.vercome3 Lo smiling. when that aprewion conws it mcdns that Stambouliskiis thia~ that while the confereocc at Genoa is going on, back in Bulaada men are farming. Hemingway favoured the Ward (Chinatown) for “adventures in eating,” and nominated Thomas chandler Halibutton as the ooe sreat writer Canada had pmdoccd,’ adding wryly, “I do not belleve his works are widely read.” He also scribbled the occasional bit of free verse for the Slar Week.& such as “I Like Americans” (“They do not hang lady murderers/ They pm them in vaudeville”) and its Rochester. Minnesota, ninety pcrceot of electro-convulsive therapy, Heming- mate. “I Like Canadians”: all infecdons of the body am lofaCed way’s pswhiatrlst was chattily infor”& They let wotnen skmd up In the s,ree,- above Lhe collar.” Forty-one years later an- P:B;I. Bgenl about the famoui cam Hemingway wss admitted to tbc Mayo patient’s regre.ss. Even if they we ~odhmkln& Clinic for treatment of severe depru- One sideeffect of shook treatments is They ore all in a hurry 10 ger home lo sio”. He believed thhar he wan being loss of memory. A writer without =PPer tailed by the F.B.I., which fear his wifi memory is no longer a witer. Having And Iheir radio MS. Mary and friend Aaron Hotchner au& effcctIvely killed the writer in Heming; One irem printed April II,1924 reads buted to cbmnic paranoia. But, BS Jef- way, the clinic discb&ed him. He went grimly today. “According M the Mayo frey My&s chillingly relates, Iiem- home and finished the job. brothers. world-famous surgeons of ingway was right. Even as he prescribed - -IL W-rHEIuAND

One used to have to search for grammatical idiocies In periodicals. Not any more. Nowadays they seem to jump right off the page

w PUBIKATNJN ls celebrating means. IL is never 0 source mys; it is to be meticulously edited, and lalely I one of those round-number ami- always in the plural, wif to reassure us have seen in the New Yorker lapses that vcrsaries that usually inspire some that the reporter has not simply taken would have been Impossibld in the days Sort of Stock-taking. I find them the word of one possibly uomliable per- of Harold Ross. irresistible, althoogh I rec.aJl with son but has checked the information Here is a line that jumped into my glee that the New Yorker marked with d least one other possibly on- peripheral vision from a newspaper item its 25th birthday with a short com- reliable person. It turns a quesdonable I wasn’t, eveo rcadi”g @boor a new mem to the effect that this was pm&c into an insupportable one., and comic strip): “Unlike moSt comics that that ymivcrsary, and it seemed to it seems to have become enlrenched arc geared to adults only, Orson’s Place the editors that things had chang- almost insmntly. is aimed at kids and grown-ups, Davis ed_ &ha a great deal or not at all. “The Ring is dead; long live the says.” I doubt that Ji Davis, the That was about it. (IV be grateful Ring” is an elegant ritual pronounce aator of Garfc?ld actuaUy said any- if someone were to send me the exact mat, but I object to the use of the pm- thing so nonsensical. On the olher hand, “fords.) sent tense in news reports of the death of IheardwithmyownearS(a”dwitba” I am capable of no such self-r&mint. a famous person. not because it is wrong eno~lllous sense of reIieO the following Last fall I observed the conclusion of my (ir isn’t) but because it is a us&s fad. stalement made to an interviewer by the fifth year of tenancy io this Space.. I am Newsworthy people don’t die any more; Toronto police chief: “We don’t ad- not &ally entilled. to any si&lar. self- they become dead. The foollshnes8 is vocate capital punishment for every- indulgence until 1990, but, what the hell, that the Same reporter who will write. 0°C.” I’m nor goI”g to miss this chance. “sources say the dictator has fled the I am still pK?.lIng over this one: I do”? know whether things. in rela- island,” and congratulate himself on ‘Qlebrlfies have been endorsing pm- tion 10 the Subject of thii column, arc do& almost as long as the advent of changing. I mn quite SW that things are &zvision.” Now, if we knew the length not getting better. bur my perception of the advent of television. we would that they are rapidly gelling worse “my know that the products in question are be colourcd by a sensitivity that has Jhorler than that. but do we really care? increased since I began wiring these Just now, I left rhe keyboard for a eOh”mlS. moment and walked past a TV I& and I am sore that yesterday I saw and heard a voice (British, at that) say, heard plus used as a injunction more I’. . . this has not chaoged the minds of times than I did the day before, and I invesrors that the economy is thlok that a decade ago that happened improving.. . .” fl paused long eoowh to ascertain that he was reading from a m dozens. Adverlisers love tl& usage, and script.) It is not necessary to go hunting there is obviously no hope of stamping it for thcac things. It used Lo be. out. I watch many TV newxsts. and If others are slipping, I guess I am. too. I’m sore that at some time I have less the newspapers will adopt spell- rhe slightest indication of whom the made a nasty remark here about people ins before long. information came fmm, will write, who wnfose a~~emafe with alEr~tive, I believe Lhal sources soy is a new “John Smith is dead. He died yet I committed the same error a couple abomination. The use of source to mean today. . _” and so on. instead of “John of columns ago. That. of course, is em- a eaudous blabbermouth is a hoary jour- Smith died today.” barrasslng, bur whaf troubled me even nalistic tradition. I don’t like it. but I’ve That is new. So is the inaeaslng fre- mom was the fact that it was not become inured to lines like “a Source in quency of evtience of editorial slackncas brought Lo my attention until it was -the Prbne Minirtcr’s_... Office says. . . .” in rich magazines. Whatever bizarre mentioned in a letter from B reader in But I don’t know WhD .Tources say’ styled it affected in Lhe past. Time used Australia. Think about Ihal. 0

.-.---l---_-C ~I- --- _ ..~I_~ ._ ..i ...... _ . . . . -2. --.....-- -.--a- .->. ... - -.-- - -

@-%&&!!- 1 The cynical, urbane and elegantly §totiea ofmem&a, chil&ood, ‘What a stod Reason andhagi- of nation come together with euch wit(yceot~yChadwkkiaback oflbet%etiogbeairtyadthe joythat oneashoneself, who andthlstimecaughtupinthe savageqwfnahm% conldhaw writtenalloftbisi’” ~~hxleventsofaweekend - EUe (Parie) fn the COIIU~ A§BIRJx~BIuNGFOMWHE §urQlmq~y~mRIE§ ‘It-IEALUYcAT ~JRIRI$-PL$DAY . . YveS Eeau&mill %nolatedby§heUaP Of his earlier ml&ion THE LOST SALT This is a novel filled with Phillips’ usual ClFTOFBUHYD_@%Sl976)lbecdticsbave Abe&~&,~ch(~cet~ofamjBfon tan~~~~k,oftenseathingsocialmm- Said: copfainpaperbackeditn)YvesBeaecbe merits, his sophistfealed wit, and a radl Of “gefdomhavelseen,~fvritingmaremovingly min’snovelbssbecomesometbfngofapeb entermgcJmmc!?m descriptiveof the Atlanticmast...” l~~gphenomenon,laudedbyQuebeeand g12.95 Pa - Marian Engel. Globemdhil French critics as a masterpiece of story- ‘...mwing,pmverfulandbeautilullyuaRed telling. And now the long-awafted English stoti~ by one of North America’s most tmndatfonofYveaBeauchamtissbaggycat promising writers:’ -Joyce Carol Oates story is here 812.95 pa s11.95 pa MCCLELLAND AND STEWART SIGNATURE SERIES At Bookstores Everywhere Wayne Johnston’s oomfc account of adolescence In Newfoundland is the best first novel of 1985 AYNE ~oa~sro~ of Fredericton p&e celebrates its 10th anniversery, It now has been won by has won the W.H. Smith/Books writers fmm coast to coast. in Canada First Novel Award for In addition to Hill, who writes a paperbacks column for the The Slory of Bobby O’MaIl~. Globe and Mail, the judges for this year’s award were: Nii n published by Oberon Press. Bcnisford, book marketing manager for W.H. Smith: jour- Described by novelist Douglas nelist and author Heather Robertson, who won the 1983 Hill es “lilled with insight and Books in Canada award for Willie: A Romeme; end novelist compessionate understending,‘! end short-story writer W.D. Valgardson, winoa of the 1980 Johnston’s novel, set in New- award. who teaches creative wrltiog at the University of Vb foundland, wes the first choice of toria. two of tbe four judges on the Besides Johoston’s novel. the books on the short list werez II panel. The award, which is beiog A Nesl of Sbzgbtg Bimfs, by Susen Charlotte Haley (Newest co-sponsored for the fmt time by the Press); A Cemin Mr. Takehtuhi, by Aon Ireland (McClelland W&i. Smith chain of book stores, offers & Stewart); Me&r end Maid, by Frank Jones (Irwin a prize of 53,000 for the best fml novel Poblishing); and We/es’ Work. by Robert W&he (Stoddert). published lo English in Canada Turing As the judges’ comments indicate, several were strong runners- the previous celendar yea. up to The Stoty of Bobby O=~Uall~: Johnston, who turns 28 this month, is the fmt writer from the Atlantic pro- Nigel Be&ford: My choice is Wa/ev’ Work, a masterfully vinces to win the award. A gmduate of written, funny, explosive, end accomplished work. I wes Memorial University, he worked briefly reminded of Robertson Davies in some of the sceoes. To those es B newspaperman lo St. John’s before lo publishing or bookselling. there are sceoea that show au turning to \nitlng Kctlon fidl-time in author who knows how thepubllshlog world works. This book 1981. Perhaps fittiogly, es the annual is not, however, only of Interest to people in the book I business. There is some writlog of extraordinary quality. my ; wsyes.mtutstl own favourite being: lMre is a land wbue flowers bloom in winter. where wine still teaa of the grepe, and coKee of Lhe bean. In the morning you walk o”t of your house and pleck C for breakfast the oranr tree Is so platifel that it serves es deceretion in the streets. At the table one poen oil and lemon over fruhly picked salad; the oil is eelowed green and the lamon bar net yet been embalmed in plalc. Everywhere the sue beau down aed reflects its warmth in stone. occasionally In f&es. And because for a time the people there were gralefel for the neteral good, they peinled their houser in hues of rose and gold. and se arranged their world that even the mottopr mre e alebretion. Pam.dl.se was not there, bet pmximete - in books, handwdttee; on walk, haedpeinted; in the lined and lives of poets. And if. befere he died. P men were h&q in his gitks, they wueld cut e boe& from the sacred tree and wind it for hk crow”. Elsewhere the leaves bend low under thdr watery burden. end cats sloech about the gardens shaking the mud from their pews. I foond it hard to believe that this is W&he’s first n&l, es it shows none of the usual pilfalls and traps that fmt authors usuelly fall into. (It also has a list of some of the best book titler I have ever sea. my own favourlte belog Sew Thmugh Nine Innings by Gloria Hymen.) A Certain Mr. Takahasbi is g very tightly plotted, beautl- fuUy written story that jumps backwards and forwards in time as it describes two young girls’ adolescent relationship with a Japanue pianist. With her rich imagery and very real characters, Ann Ireland shows promke. I believe she could become a major Canadian novelist. Master aitd Maid is a fascioetiog novelization of a famous murder end vial that took place in Toronlo lo the early 1900s. It Is extremely well written, giving a wonderful portmit of the Upstairs-Downstairs lifestyle of the time. Jones’s thorough research hes uncovered many lateresting facets of e case that _ -_i_ _ .__ __..~..L_. ______

most people have long forgotten. The book, however. ls far Douglas HUI: These are five intelligent, competently written more than just * f&onaUzed version of an actual murder novels. Good novels. None ls great; “one will find a puma- case. It stands 011 its own as a novel, with believable characters nent place in a reader’s imagination the way the best of the and rewnstmcted dialogue that ls totally credible. I read this previous contest winners (Clark Blake’s Lunar Attractions, book through in s single sitting and, not knowing the result of Joy Kc-gads Obam) have done. But rho% two books were this case, cheered at the end when the wronged Carrie Davies produced by experienced writers fuming in mid-career to the was acquitted. I believe this book would make a wonderful novel. This year’s five candidates are beginners; on the Canadian movie., and hope that some entrepreneur has already evidence all seem capable of signifmt accomplishment in the bought the script. future. The Stoty qf Bobby O’MaSey is set in present-day New- I find little beyond ccmpetence in three of the booksz A Nest foundland and tells the story of an intelligent and impres- of Slnninn Birds. A Certain Mr. Takahlrrhi. and hfa%?r and sionable youngster. It is an extremely funny book with many fioid.?hi first rakes far too long to get through a minor tale, slamtick Incidents that at times strain credibility. Tbe and though the mmancc at the cenhe occasicnally catches fll, there’s too much slack prose. too much tedious explaining. too much weak dialogue. The second is upbeat and breezy, but it’s ‘The Story of Bobby OWalley is psychologically dull (except for glimpses of tension between a rewarding surprise - a thoroughly the two sisters) and the writing is fairly mechanical and can- mercial. The third h fine as fictionalized history, but less enjoyable book, gracefully successful 8s fiction. Cleanly if earnestly written and massively wrltten, lighthearted but deep. researched, it simply doesn’t come alive. - Wales’ Work is the most ambitious of aU the entries. It’s bn- It should take this prize and possible not to respect Walshe’s energy, erudition, and pwzl* walk off with the Leacock as well’ making ski. For me, however, the novel sinks under the weight of its own polished pedantry and self-indulgent clever- charackrs and incidents are often grotesque. The mdii, ness. “Beware novels with footnotes.” the old fella said; he however, is beautifully witten and redeems some of the earlier gives sound advice. This is extremely literary stuff. Self- une~ess. I would look forward to reading Johnston’s next reflexiveness in post-modernist fEdon ls one w; self-regard novel. that becomes mere preciousness is another. There’s t&at and A NeJl ofSinging Birdvis set in the present, in a small Cana- tit in abundance here, and much that’s interest@ and fun, dian university with a titling atmosphere. The range of char- but the novel wastes too much of the reader’s time, ‘and its acters comes from the university. The shortat description of own. tbis book would be to call it a well-written, blgbly stylized The Story of Bobby O’MaUey is a rewarding surprise. I Harlequin romance. It is fun reading butlight on substance. a few in the Canadian canon) and indeed found one, but also discovered a mastery of tone and a supple humomus prose style that makes the whole endeavor a deliiht. The book’s charms are understated and unforced. Comic scenea are truly funny; Jchston has a sure sense of place (the Goulds, NewfoundIand. I’m guessing-just outside St. John’s); the serious moments in the novel are fIlled with bxight and wmpassionate understanding. Bobby O’MaSey is a thomughly enjoyable book. gracefully written, lighthearted but deep, and is my first choice by a substantial marpin. It should take thii prize. and walk off with the Leacock as well. Healher Robertson: I liked ~%~ter and Maid. The story is skilfully told, with plenty of suspense and surprises. Jones has an mcellent ear for speech, from the British inflections of tbc immigrant masses to the hate Toronto drawl of the Maws. The characters are vivid and memorable; Jones’s portrait of the maid, Carrie Davies, is especially evocative. There are occasional slips into reportage. and Jones’s history is a little shaky, but I found the book compelling and moving. Anyone who can call Vincent Massey a “little turd” deserves a prize. In A Certain Mr. Taknhluhl, Ann Ireland had a terrific idea for an erotic novel-North Toronto nymphets meet talented Japanese sybarite, purpose: seduction. Unhappily, Ireland seems as terrified of eroticism as she is of Mr. T&h&l. She has inexplicably chosen to teJl the story from the point of view of the prissy, spinsterish sister, Jean, and it soon dwindles away into another conventional exercise in neurosis. Ireland by Susan Goldenberg has a tendency to deflate the significant and inflate the incon- HBJ $33.25 Hc/Avsilable sequential: she needs more confidence in her style and her “Susan GoldenbergSTRAlLDING,a wonderfully voice. Wales’ Work, by Robert W&he, is a novel for peopk complementary work”. . . Montreal Gazette. addicted to words, puns, etymologies, and ccmcelts. Although constructed like a eonventlonal mystery novel, the book itself is an elaborate can&t. Rather than using words to tell a story, W&he teUs a story about words. Sometimes funny, some- times fascinating, Wales’ Work is often heavy going, and the big scenes seldom come off sufficiently to justi& the effort. A novel aboyt pedantry can easily become pedantic. The Sroty ofBobby 07vfaMey is nmre memoir than ncm1, since it’s almost totaUy h&ii in plot, drama, or rexdution. I a spectacular “Star Wars” am not convinced we need another coming-of-age-In-Canada book, but Il’ayne Johnston has such a sure command of the thriller set in the year 2000 language. and such a marvellous comic touch, that I w&p charmed as long as Bobby O’MdIey played the role of Wise Child. Precocious boys, however, tend to grow up into snotty, smart-ass young men. Wane, O’Malley loses his sent4 Of humour and the book sags into maudlin sentimentality.’ A Iv& sf S.&i@ Binl is yet another nox?l about mdlce 0 ‘Not just once, but many times, Chosen by the I had to quit reading for D Literary Guild. laughing. And yet, as with all the * books I really cherish, behind the humour there is a tremendous sadness and understanding.’ and misery in the grows of academe. As a love story, it’s one long, self-pitying m&n. The characters are shallow, the Best-selling author Richard Rohmer heroine dreary, the end&g contrived. Susan Haley has her creates an all too plausible conflict moments as a novelist, but they’re too few and far between. between the United States and the W.D. Valgnrdsoli: I was lmprased by each and all of the Soviet Union that leads to a frightening books. Actually, 1 found lt difticult to belleve that they were escalation of tension between the first novels. Agab~ and agabt, I had to remind myself that these werenotbooksbyaut.horswbobadaIonglistofcredlts superpowers and a shattering climax. behind them. 519.95 doth h-wii Publtiing Wale+ !Vork I found clever. The point of view and the voice were interesting. 1 found myself caught up in the strangeness of the plot, with the odd cast of cbamcters and their intricate and shifting relationships. Musfer and Maid was well written and the main character was drawn in a way that helped me to understand her. Altbougb the story was based on an actual lncldent, it was re- ctcated well enough that I was mcemed for the heroine and intdgued by the momentary revelation of the scummy under- side of Canadian society, an underside we are eonstandy told doesn’t exist. A Certain Mr. Takahashi I thoroughly enjoyed. 1 felt that theauth~~‘shandllngofplot waspnticularlygoqd. Shesolved difficult problems - how to keep Talcahashi in tbe story. for example, after he hap moved away. Tbc obxssicm of the nar- rator I found bdievable and shamble (this. because the derwlption was dear and well developed). As an academic, I patlcukwly enjoyed A Neal of Singing Birds. The author has an eye and ear for absurdity. There were various jolts of recognition (some funny, some painful). She has a partbxdar ability for drawing cbaractex and for malting the most of social relatiomblps. The Stew of Bobby O’Malley is my choice for the prize. As much as I enjoyed the other hooks, this was the only one that caused me to rush about. saying to friends, “Listen to this,” and then reading them two or three pages of story. Not since I fmt came acmss the stories of W.P. KinseUa have I done this. Who, having read this wonderful book, will ever forget Mrs. Upton-Dow&m Huntl#on-Smltb? For the rest of my Life, Ambrosia will he with me as she lies on the floor in Bobby’s soutalne. Nor will I forget the Teddy-tank and Bob-sled. Not just once, but many limes. I had to quit reading for laughing. And yet, as with all the books I realIy cherish, behind the humour there ir a tremendous sadness and understanding. Whoever you are, Wayne Jobmton, I hope you are already preparing another novel for us. 0 UNE PNAGU8 0% bUlFE km%23 ~llS&3 ffiRl& ee, by Sterling Beagmvs l%Jmaaeti l31m bxmTc4l. The first full behind-thesoenes rE~alrmh&ial?$m& The FM.?my & WhftMd.8 Book al account of the amazing Soong Canadfan Facts & Dates is the first family, whose wealth and power by Marlin Collis singlevolume chronology of dominated Chlna and American For men, women, seniors, teen- Canada from Its prehistoric begin- policy toward Asia In the20th agers, city dwellers or country folk, s to the social, cultural and century. hem at last Is a n~nonsense formulaforfitness, welghtcontrol, and health, which Is remarkably simple, works wonders, and is a lot wntalns over 6,000 “date b date” of fun. entrtes and features a deta Ked i;;;tdex and a separate Index

MW5llUN OF UDBE WEARU lffWskfak3-u nnrl&wif&ixwUt Intmduction by Nancy Mltfcrd IdnSHkGU 6lf@ R&sued to colnclde with an elght- Robsti N. Sellah, RIohard part PBS televlsion series - E.F. Madsen William M. Sullivan, Benson’s exuberant novel that pits Ann Sw/dlsr, and Stavan M. the Impetuous Lucia against Tipton England’s stately hlgh society. Based on a massive five-year study Mepp & Luch, the middle novel of of various Amerfcanoommunltfes, Benson’s slxbook Lucia serleq this bestselling workexplores the sets Lucia in Tilling, an English tradltlons Americans use to make summer resort town, vying for sense of themselves and their soolal leadership against the town’s soclaty and presents one of today% reigning queen, MISS Mapp, a foe of major moral dilemmas: the conflict cunning manipulations. between our fierce InUlvlduallsm and our urgent need for community and commitment.

E?ENY WOMAN’S GUIDE BG% MNGEAWA~LE A hlghl charged international m UGE MW bestse Ker, this major literary work UGNUNES m 5lmffi Ly Lfndr Silv.3 Dranofl weaves a powerful tale of kwe and by Milan Rundam Easy Woman3 Guide To The Law is cruelty that has captured crltlos hanelated frcm ths Czech by aoomprehensivereferenceguldeto here and abroad. Mkhsvl Henry fieim current Canadian law, chock full of Winnerof France’s prestl lous Prlx The most bdlliant book to date by Information and commoneense Goncourtand numerous aey the virtuoso Czech novelist - a beet- advlce on all sorts of legal matters awards, The Lover bdngs the seller In Its hardcover editlon. vrhlch particularly affect women. literary genlusof Marguerite Duras “Often wftw, sometImes renifybrg wsinfy wiifen, &7ou~patmnJwng, II to the fore. andelwaypmfwnd, Kundeta bdngs should be in every rmmanlc f/brat?! fi gemdne wisdom to his now/s.” Ilculady those of young brfdes, allr should beon fbedeskof&?bhuman sen~lcepmfesslonal in Canada.” ‘The last time I walked into a publlc library It was like oing into a cemetery. All those lives. All those ambitions. ahat does It come down to? A few books on a shelf’ By FJorman Levine NTtiEsPRtNoof 1974 1 received ett me. I watched three gulls fly over. They appeared to tly in slow InGtatIo” to tutor. for four days, motion. There were no south. Not e car. not II person. a cless of teachers in their fmel When I saw the estate I didn’t expect eoytblbtg eCwlated to year of training. On a bright be so grand. From the moor it wes almost hidden by trees and morning I set off for an estate in a few granite boulders. And the boulders. made smooth by the West Cornwall. I took the train to centuries, were taller lheo the trees. Peozeoce. Then a green country I swung open a heavy white gme end walked along a pebble bus. It went slowly up e steep drive. Ott either side - behind tall. trimmed green bushes - mad. At the top it levelled out. were thick sub-tropical gardens with flowers who% names I We “we on a” open moor. It “vU didn’t know. Bright pinks, whites, orange, yellow, light and exbilemting. I muld see for miles. dark purples end blues. A gap . . . a low stone walI . . . and A brillleot blue sky. Haunches of behind it a fruit garden. Another stone wall . . . and behind eetth with gone and bracken end scat- that e vegetable garden with e greenhouse. tered granite boulders. The only sign The drive ended at the side of a large house with tell win- that said people were about - a row of dows. A bus (Her&d Education Aulhoriiy on its door) ws wooden telegraph poles, by the road, parked by a used truck that had gardenine tools. A path to the cerrylng a single wire. left of the house. Another to the right. I walked to the Left, I got off the bus, on a plateau, and under a granite arch. And past the arch a sunkeo grass lawn wlked with my beg e.lo”g a rough dirt mad. It brought me still higher onto the shelt&ed on three sides-by bus&, trees, and-the front ok the moor. A cool breeze. A smell of granite house. The wide other side ws open. To the left-the coconuts came from the gorse beside upward doping moor. and the mad across it the bus had taken. White in ftint. and to the tight. tell grass with cempion end foxgloves. Theo a sharp drop of bracken and gorse. Several hundred feet further down the bracken end the gorse levelled out to a patchwork of cuItivated smell green fields with hedgerows for fences and cows around eo isolated farm. The smail ftids wettt right up to steep cliffs. And past the cliffs, to the horizon, was the sea. Lookllg at all tbls, I didn’t notice a tell man with a slick (who must have cottx from the house) weCog towards me. His feet kicked out -slightly ahead and to the side-while he held his head and sltoulders beck. es if to belaoce his walk. It gave him a slightly arrogant presence, eve” when he tiled. Fine features in e longlsh heavy face, a strong jaw, thinning white hair combed back. He wes neatly dressed in grey tlan- nels, e lighlprey tweed jacket. a red checked shirt, a dark blue tie. He looked English end vaguely familiar. He also looked out of place here. But so did the sunken law”. the sub-tropical gardens, the large house. “You a studat?” “No, e tutor.” “You must be the other one:’ It was then that I recognized him. Eric Symes. a singer io musicals. looking much older than the photographs I bed see” in newspapers end megnines. But they belonged to the time he wes well known. When I used to hem him on the radio end on rrnr& “Part those trees. Ha is futthw~along. After you leave your things go to the other side of the house to the kitchen. Meet your students. They arrived earlier. If there is enylhing you went - ask Connie.” We stood looking at the view, in silence, for several minutes. “It’s beautiful. ” I seid . “Yes.” he said. “I have to fit to keep it this way. It’s heels were worn right down. Yes despite his awkwardness and Bronze~&e.” the outward ao~earance the impression I had WBS of someone Hebegentowalk... stiff and aec& using the stick, Hihile with an inner dignity. his feet kicked out. I guess he had a stroke. . . along the top And the awkwardness also seemed to disappear when he of the uass slwe . . . by the sunken lawn . . . towards an took charge. He told two students that their jobs would be to openinp.... - go out every day and bring back dead wood for the fnqlace. “Come and see me,” he called back. “I’ll show you the He picked two others. told them to see Connie in the offum house and the gardens.” She would give them money and a list of food to buy in Pen- zance for the rest of the week. A HALSHCUII later I was in a warm kitchen. by a scrubbed “We have to look after ourselves,” he said. wooden table, having a coffee (a red enamel pot was kept On a sheet of paper he drew columns for the days we would warm on the Aga) looking, from a wide window. at the moor be here. And asked the students to write their names for the sea the sky, and talking with some of the students. specitic jobs. When a taxi drove “II. A thin. tired looking man. of average “Every day two people will prepare lunch and dinner. Two others will wash and clean up. At breakfast we fend for ourseIve& The best cooks will be on the last night when Ibe ‘Take things from life,’ Adolphe tkmi meal wiU he sometIdng special with tic.” said. ‘Bad experience is better TINT ~vm~~o we had supper in the dinbu-mom. Bare timbers across the ceiUng. A bright fii in the large fneplaee. We sat on than no experience. invent as little fmd wooden benchches by wooden tables. While we were hav- ing coffee. Adolphe stood up. “I thought,” he said, “I would as possible. You are inventing say a few words before we begin. the piece the way you use words “Tomorrow morning. at eight, we start to work. I’ll have seven - Peter will have seven. I’ll pass around these two and the way you are telling it’ pieces of paper. They are marked for every half-how of the morning with a tivembute break. Put your name down for . the time you want to come. We will see you io that o&r. We’U height, appeared. He wore a mustard, military cut, overcoat talk, give you assignments ant, when you write them, go over and a black fedora. When he came in, carrying a green canvas them. The rat of tbe time you are free to do what you like. bag, everyone stopped talkii. There is a small library. There are moms to be by yourself - LIPm Adolphe CayIcy;’ be said in a nervo~ voice. though everything in them is faintly damp. There are good He looked uncomfortable. walks. Tkis extmordbwy landscape. And no distractions. No One of the girls said. “Like a coffee?” radio, no t&vision. no newspapers. We are cut off - ” “Thkik you.” He drank some coffee. “Milk and sugar?” “One of the this you need is a good pair of eyes.. I was in “No. Black.” Paris last summer. WaIkblg in a street. When I saw, on the He had a few sips. Then walked over and asked if I WBO the pavement. outside a shop, cages with small animals inside. In other tutor. We shook hands formally. Coming closer he said. one cage were pigeons. They were pecking at the gmb~ on the “Your fti time, isn’t it? Don’t w&y. I have~one this many bottom of their cage . . . sent home of the grains outside. times. They usi& send me to break someone in.” A lone pigeon came tlying along the street. It landed beside the I had heard of Adolphe cayley in much the same way as I cage. It began to peck at the outside grabas. Then at grab18 it had heard of Eric Symes. And in both cases I met them too could reach between the bars. Someone came from the shop, late. Adolpbe Caylc~ w= known because of B short poem he clapped her hands. ‘Vu-t-en. ‘The pigeon tlew away. Those in- had written some 30 years earlier. It was used In an understated side the cage went on pecking at the @ain.” English war fti. I can’t rem&u the lines. But it was how The students were making notes. ordinsrv life. during a war. goes on. And will contbwe to go “Take Udngs from Life,” Adolphe said. “Bad expuicncc is on aft& the War is Over. _ better than no experience. Invent as little as possible. You are He took hi glasses off. He had light grey eyes. And, with inventing the piece the way you use words and the way you are the other band, rubbed them. He put the glasses back on and telling it. Wherever you go you will notice things. asked if I WIU Canadian. He said he had been in Canada as “After Paris I went to a small provincial town. It ~8s part of the Commonwealtll Air TrainbIg scheme. September. AU day Christmas carols were being played on “Did you fly?” loudspeakers in the streets. I got to know a teacher in this pro- “No, i wrote propaganda.” vin*aI town. Her name was Martine. She had taught French in He had a sistu, he said, in Toronto that he visited. a London school and had come back to where she wea born 1 asked if he liked Toronto. because her marriage broke up. Her parents bought her a “It is very clean.” woolshop. And they kept an eye on her. MarUne and I were He keot we&m? the black fedora. I thought he was bald. hati dinner in a restaurant - it was 930 - and there was But l&when hebok it off his short straiti hair was black. notagreyhair~~h~;AndIknewbehsdtobeinhis60s. smiling at us, and poindng to&e oboe. Next morning we were I also assumed be was English. But it was evident he was having a coffee in the woolshop and talkiog about W.H. somethiog eke. When I finally asked him. He said. “I’m not Auden . . . his death W~LI announced. When Martine said. ‘A tboroqghbred. My mother is from F’mnce. When I’m in- young boy, from across the street, was kiUcd last night in a car troduced, if people look surprised. I teU them - like Hitler but accident. He would ahvays wave to me when he went by. I with an e.” He smiled. “Any of your books in print?” won’tseehbnagain.... We can’t talk about him.’ she said Surprised by this dii I said “No.” angrily. ‘But we can talk about W.H. Auden and neither of us “Neither kre mine. So we both know why we are here.” knew him.’ ” The white shirt was frayed at the neck. There was a stain on Adolphe waited for this to sink in. his tie. His brown shoes had the leather split on top. And the “Somerimes when you see som- it will suggest _. __.. _ _~__._____.__ ---~.- - _. _.~__.~_ _... -.-_-- _.

something else. On the train coming down I saw two magpies. I remembered tbe rhyme. Happy 15th Anniversary one for sorrow 7% forhv BOOKS IN CANADA rfm?.¶ for n letter Fmrfor somerhing bemr. and And made up this scene. There is this young family in a train. Congratulations to Mother, father, young daughter. They have just Ietl their older son in a mental hospiral. Mother and father am tense. The Olw Aim young daughter-standing at the window looking at the pass- ins fields - seer two magpies. She calls out excitedly. “ ‘We going to have joy. We going to have joy.’ ” He hesitated. “Of course if you have two magpies in a com&y cemetery. With one bid on a gravestons and the other on the earth beside it - you have other possibilities. “And if you are in this country cemetery. And see a man, a I did, bringing flowers to the grave of his wife. In the next scene you have that man wrrying flowers as he goes courting his new lady friend. “Any questions?” There were none. “To end this evening,” Adcdphe said, “Peter and I will read you sometldng wa have written - so you can sea our creden- Ann Ireland tials.” author ot A CERTAIN MR. TAKAWASWI Adolphe read an amusing account about Ids experiences Short-listed for the Books In Canada with a dating service. “All the wnea they seat were han- dicapped.” 1st Novel Awrd And 1 read a IO-minute story. WINNER OF THE 1985 SEAL FIRST That night, in the goosehouse, I went to bed with the NOVEL AWARD samples of writing my lot had brought with them. I looked for- ward to readiw their work. When I finished. I thought, what SEAL BOOKS First In Flctlon am I doing here.? The writing was amateurish. The prose flat, lifeless, and going all over the place. It was as if they wanted to write and didn’t know what to write about. WE BEOAN at eight next mondng. A student would knock on the door of the goosehouse. It was spartan but clean. I. would have them sit opposite tbe scrubbed wooden table. Someone had put primmses and violets in a glass. I asked them: why did they want to write? And they talked. One student (a heavy handsome woman from Birmingham), the oldest on the course, said she was married with two small children and her husband was unemployed. Another, a small lively girl from a Northern provincial town, said she was having an affair with her husband’s closest friend (“He and bis wife are constantly in snd out of our house”) and things wem getting dift%ult. They also told me that their Teachers Training College was closing at the ad of the year. They were the last course. And none bad jobs to go to when they graduated. “Our tutor has started to write a novel.” “What will you do?” Tbay didn’t know. 1 went over their work. I showed them how to cut “a- necessary words. And not to explain too much. After a few minutes they were able to do the revising themselves. I said their only responsibility - to discover their material. And gave them their fust assignment. ,“Oo outside. Describe something. So I can sea it.” The Iart of the seven to come to the goosehouse was also the yotmgest of the course, Sally. A small cheerful blondegirl with a lovely smile. She had a habit of pushing her long hair away fmm her face. She wasn’t as bad as the others but she still had some way to go. And I told her this. “What does it matter,” she said, “if smnsone is writing without a view of getting published. I get pleasure out of writing. I like doing it. I just want to get better. That’s why I came.” I didn’t understand this. I assumed that everyone who writes

--- ~__ ---_.-.--.. - .~_ i_ ___._- ___ wants to get published. But here was someone realistic enough, that I hadn’t seen before. A light blue sea, in front, to the at so young an age. Ye1 she couldn’t stop. And “either, as I horizon. This immense sky. And, behind, the haunch of the found out, could the others. moor. We walked along the curving side of a small potato Walking to lunch Adolphe caught up with me. field. Then another small field where the grass was high, the . “End of our surgeries for the day,” he said a little out of hedgerows full of campion, brambles, foxgloves, and breath. “I’ve bee” going non-stop. How did yours go?” “rimmsa. We sat by a h&crow. took our shirts off, lay on “Akieht.” I said, without his enthusiasm. And told him ihe grass facing the ;un. - about S& “You know what writers have in common?” Adolphe ark- He smiled. “What makes people interesting is their ed. tion.” I didn’t answer. “A lack of co”tide”ce.” r~ht~mto” MORNINO. It was Sally who came to the Was this true? I didn’t tbbtk so. Not when I’m writing. It’s goosehouse at eight. (The last person yesterday was the first when I finish something that the doubts set in. “There are times,” I said, “when I think the whole business is a eontidenee trick. The last time I walked into a public library it was like going into a cemetery. AU those lives. AU ‘I turned my head towards Sally - those ambitions. What does it come down to? A few books on a shelf.” her eyes were filled with tears.- I I could hear a rooster crowing from the farm. And further, went back to the moor - the car, like towards the cliffs, a working tractor. “What else is U& to do?” Adolphe said. his eyes shut. a toy, was now against the light “YOU married?” green then the dark green - and “Yes.” “I was. For ‘27 years. We were married in a talked as if nothing was happening’ thunderstorm . . . just after the war . . . seems Like yesterday. She now lives with someone in t&vision. She likes cdebrities. People she docan’t know. I have a housekeeper. She canes person the next.) And as it was a watm sunny morning I lug- twice or three times a week. Stays thenight. It’s the best tonic I gested we have the lesson outside. know.” We were sitting, quite near, at right angles. Sally was facing Again we were silent. the gardens. I was facbtg the moor. Close by, the tall gmss and I thought, he makes too much of being a miter. Perhaps I bracken. Then the distances. Areas of water, earth, sky. How did too at one time. But I had learned since not to make too timeless and quiet. I told her that I liked ha descriptions, much of anything. especially the way she described an outcrop of granite.. “As if a “I’m a Little to the le!? - not much,” Adolphe said. “In the giant toothpaste tube had bee” squeezed and the granite came ’30s I was staylw with an uncle in L&don. i went to dances. out in layers, one on top of the other.” For her “ext assign- Sometimes two or three dances a night. I would pick at a ment, I said, I wanted her lo try and trap an emotion. 1 was lobster. at chicken done in something. Then, in the morning, telling her how to go about doing thii when I noticed a flash of walking to my uncle’s house, I saw men sleepbx on park light as the sun caught the wl”dscreen of a cai moving on the benches with newspapers around their feet. I thought some- road across the moor. I turned my head towards Sally - her thine wasn’t rim.” eyes were filled wvith tears. I we”t back to the moor - the ear. Tie sun was-“amt. Like a toy, was now against the lilt green the” the dark green “Isn’t this marvdlous.” Adolphe said. sitting UP, looking at -and talked as if nothing was happening. Sometimes I turned the silent view. I watched the &ado” of a cloud going acro~ my head slightly - she was still cryhag - and continued to the moor. As the cloud moved the Ught grem slowly became talk as I watched a kestrel hover, the” glide. and turn into the dark green. the” light green. Close to the cliffs a small fishing w%td and hover again beating its tings without moving - in boat, its mizzen up. The water white in front and behind. the wind - and not moving - the” still. I cut the half-hour Seagulls low over it and around its sides. short, said I would SW her tomorrow. “I have led a futile life.” Adolphe said. “Perhaps futile is The next to come on the gmss was the married woman, Mrs. not the right word. But it’s days like the days hex . . . they arc Garrens, from Birmingham. I was more upset than I realized nothing in themselves. . . but they help to give stability. I for I told her what happened. always come away, fmm here, feeling refreshed.” “1 was sitting Like this looking at the moor and talkll about After another sllen~c I asked him what happened after his writing. When, for no reason, Sally started to cry.” poem was in that f&n. I turned to look at Mrs. Garrens. There were tears coming “A lot of people came into my Life. They said they wanted to down her cheeks. look after my interests, to pmtnote me. The phone kept ring- “Why are you crying?” ing. I was going out to lunches, to dinners. I put on weight. I She lowered ha head and said quietly. read the poem throughout the cnunttx in tow” halls, in “Because of you.” chutih~. It was taught in schools. I travelled. In the South of I didn’t understand. And must have show! it. For she said. France I took a villa and stocked it with drink and food. For a “You’re on the page.” while I had ao enormous amount of friends. When I saw Adolphe I told hi what happened. He wasn’t “A few years later I wasn’t news anymore. When the money SUrpri%d. ran out I did whateva I could get. Then five years ago the “They are renll”dl “S we are titers.” poetry started again. It started after a woman I loved was killed in a car crash. I kept writing. AU the time waiting for it ADOLPHB WAS taking me on one of hi favourlte walks. We to dry up. But it wouldn’t let go. I sent the poems to the passed four sludents playing croquet on the sunken lawn and I magazines who published me. But that was over Xl years ago. could hear the sound of wood on wood as we went down a There were new editors. They sent than back. Sometimes they rough path between the bracken and the gorse. Then the small came back so fast I don’t think they read them. They just fields. Butterflies were flitting around. &nall light blue ones looked at the name., I was old hat. 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Jerome i3mner _

Harbotwfront Reading: May 13th ACTUAL MIND& POSs’lBLE WORLDS

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, MA 02138

mdlaeval Texia and sludbs. no. 13 ISSN c-77Ea4814-4 XXII. 241 pages The Cursor Mundi is a verse sz5.op history of the world based on scriphue, irony, urgency Bnd hope. telling the story of mankind from creation ta and is a measure of the Doomsday. Volume 3 covers lines lWl3 to 17,032 01 deep involvement of I this 26.000 line poem written by an unknown poel literature In El Salvador. i in northern England in about 1300. _.~ _ __ ._. _~_ _... of the course) so I thought of nothing when Adolphe came up eyes and their heeds wwlf down. The room was silent. I to me with his coffee and casuelly said. welted. “I’m not gettb eoythiog,” I said. “Some are not “When I welk out of the room the lest person telkhu - concentrating.” And welted for as long as I could. Then, that’s the one you select.” quietly, said. “Somethiog is starting.” And welted. “Yes. Minutes later he celled for everybody’s atteotion. Somethinn is stertbut to came throw. . . . I can’t tell if it is a “We have been together for four days cut off from all the man or a woman. .: .” things we are used to. We have got to know each other. And I saw Christopher &ring red in the face. we have got on well. Whet I’m going to do is somethll of en I quickly said. “It’s becoming clear. It’s Christopher.” experiment. I have tried it before. Sometimes it works. Again the mixture of surprise and puzzlement. Except for Somerimes it doesn’t. It depends entirely on us . . . . I’m go- inrr to 90 out of the room. You select someone. Then I come back. And we’ll see what havens.” NEXT MORNING we were outside. (Comte had called a taxi the There war some excitement. Peoole vxre talklo% I listened. night before to t&e us to Peozance statlon at nine.) Adolphc wes in his element. He weot mound in his black fedora and mustard military met seybng, “Everything ends too soon.” ‘Some of the girls were visibly Some of the girls were visibly emotlonel. He gave them hls ad- dress. (Only Mrs. Garreos and Sally asked for mine.) He went emotional. He gave them his off with one girl - when they eeme beck they were holding hands. address. (Only Mrs. Garrens and The taxi came. We were gettiog in when Btic Symes ap- Sally asked for mine.) ,He went peered walkllg as fast as he could. “The phone hap been cut off.” off with one girl - when they came “Why would they do that?” a student esked. back they were holding hands “Because I didn’t pay the bill. I forgot. I forget a lot of things. Could you,” he asked Adolphe, “‘go to Penzaoce post office end put it right?” And Eric Symes gave Adolphe the bill As Adolphe went out it war SeIly whose voice I heard. and a cheque. “It’s kind of you - without the phone -‘I “Let’s pick Sally,” I said. The taxi began to move along the drive. Adolphe wes smil- Another studmt called Adolohe back. ing end waving. . . so were the shulents. “Goodbye,” he He stood lo front of us. - celled. “Goodbye. . . ; Goodbye. . . .” “The brain is a wtor,” he said. “It gives off electric As soon es the taxi turned onto the road Ado& witbdmv waves. We can pick up the& weves if we &ceotrate. Now into his comer, hunched over. We drove in silence and looked close your eyes. And concentrate oo this one person. Put out at the lendscape. everything out of your mind - just concentrate oo thls one Some miles later we were peas& a granite outcrop. It went person. Say that person’s name in your mind. Don’t think of up in horizontal layers. I could hear Adolphe mutterlug to anything else. Just mnceotrate . . . . Ccmcentration is whet himself. “Things have to last, to endure.” About a mile later writing ls all about . . . . Put everything out of your mind. we were driving with the road on top. The moor oo both sides Just think of that one person.” of the med. And further down, to the right, the sea and tbe I looked. They ell had tbek eyes closed and their heads horizon. “Once we’re gone we will be forgotten,” he said. “It down es if in prayer. It was q&t. will be as if we have never lived.” “Someone is not concentrating,” Adolphe said, his eyea Then half-tumlng to me. “Why do we go on?” shut. 1 closed my eyes. “That’s better,” he said. Anothez long Not waiting for a reply. “Because I have to go and see about silence. “It’s gettlting . . . better. Yes. Yes. I’m getliog that telephone. You have to get beck to your wife. And who something.. . it’s coming through . . . it’s becoming knows whet we will have to do tomorrow -” clear . . I it’s Sat&” A few miles further, with St. Just lo the distance, he took Thev mened their eves. And looked sunwised.._ deased. ex- out a folded piece of paper fmm hi coat pocket. “A sen- cited. Adolphe wes &iliog. timental girl. I gave her my address. She gave me this,” He “Shell we do it again?” pessed the paper to me without turning his head. It was a shqrt This time I picked Jimmy - s Scottish boy who wes in poem celled “Vobxmoes” by one of his students. Under the Adolohe’s cless. Jlmmv wes sitting beside his friend title she had written. saFor Adolphe - who made tbiogs hap- cb&topheT. pelh” Ad&he went through the same routine. And when he final- ly said jimmy they v&e again surprised. owmtoE P6Nmcg station the taxi stopped. I got out of the The third time he went out I said we will have Mrs. Gerreos. car with my beg cod went emund to the window where he wes A student said. “You always do the picking. Why don’t ive sitting. He looked different fmm the person on the moor. A pick someone?” shabby elderly’ineo, older then his years, with bags under hir “It doesn’t matter who does the pi&log,” I said celmly, and asked a student to call Adolphc. ~~owthatyauknowmytrieksthenexfoneyou’Ubeableto After Adolphe said Mrs. Garrens the surpr*e wes still there do~~ .vourself.” ~~~~~~~~~ though several looked puzzled and some suspicious. “Yes I ” I said. We had a break to fii up wltb wine or coffee. The stud&s He stared beck at me. It became awkwerd. We didn’t know were around Adolphe. I finally got him alone. “They’re onto how to say goodbye. us.” I said. “They went to pick the natt one.” “The most tenible thing that can happen to a writer is sue- “Leave it to me.” And walked away. cess,” he said in his M voice. Then he started to smile, his “As it is working so well,” Adolphc seid to everyone and face chaoged. “Expect a cbeque in three or four weeks.” He smiled. “I’m golog to ask Peter to go out and we if it will work waved 85 the taxi drove away. with him.” I walked into Penzance station. And the noise. . . of the I went out of the room end came back. Follow@ Adolphe, tnios . . . people moving . . . the dstter lo the small I said. “6veryone concentrate.” And 1.se.w them close their cafe. . . . Even thk advertisements seemed en lntruion. 0

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The Story of the NFFAWU

‘E NA TURAL HISTORY OF WATER by David Donnell kited edition of 175 letterpress copies sewn into paper TS. Signed and numbered by the author. prose poem of \ritty and lyrical entries on water’s place ,e WVI~ of men and things. Available only from the Esher and se&cted rare.@k dealers.

John Rob& Cdmbo Arlonglast... a comprehensive guide book to sited in rhe country associated with writers and in the celebration of their &heir works. Tbii popular reference book, a bmwaer’s delight, described Jalna and Green Gables and St. Urbain Street and 1,200 other literary landmarka in 750 cities, towns and villagea in Canada. Large format, 320 double- columned pl~ges, over 650 i6ustrations, pIus an index d4,600 atria Unique, impmtant, in- merating, and indispenrible! 635.00 cloth HOUNSLOW PRESS Revlewlng 15 years of lltere.ty hisioly calls for solemn reflection. From the ages of Books In Canada, some gleanings suitable to te,e occasion By Barbara Wade Rose

review of Robertson Davies’s Z’ze Man- ticore wea titled “The Merlin of Massey College” - the same title used to head an interview with Mastsr Davies the year W e were dl P utue rdsty h before. those dsys: The first sentence of the fti editorial was, “Books in Neat trick: Plwlancs writer Doug Canada is a ,mdical magaabx..” A Fethsrling wrote a laudatory assessment sentence in tlle.second editorial: of Robert Pulford’s writing style in a ‘Books in Gmada is a biased 1974 issue, comparing him to Samuel magazine.” Johnson and H.L. Men&en in tha same parsggraph. we wets al.50 a little smsRlvs: Mordecai Ricblsr’s dismissal of Neater s(11l: Frequent Sctwdcy Nighr Books in Canada as not up to the contributor Doug Fethcrliog explained standards of the New York to an irate letter-writer in a subsequent Review o/Books invoked the re- isrue why he fdt qualified to write a ply, “Books In chncda is whet it laudatory assessment of Robert is because we know, as obviously Pulford’s writblg style. he doesn’t. that too many Csna- dians twither know nor care who Ybanks; that’s all we ever wanted to he is.” know: A lengthy 1973 Iwiaw by Maritimcs writer Harry Brucs of Ichose Canada by former Newfoundland premier Joey Smallwood was encapsuled in the title “More Thaa You Ever yantcd to Know About Joey.” The copy edltor just ordered in a cass Peadragon House in the October. 1973, of Aspirin: During the fmt year of issue proudly announced “AU MB Top marksmanship: George Wood- Books In Canada Toronto poet bp atolls 0F cw.4D~ - On one purchase cock’s reply to a 1974 letter to the editcu Nichol reviewed bii bisrett’s Nobody Order!” by Michael Sutton begins: ‘Mr. Owns th Earth with a poem. With lines like “print fures a formality/which comes daogerousiy close to/oEQtNtTtvE statement what’s rcdly/fim is to sit around on a night and rap/about theory or someone else’s peoms [sic]/& where hes trying to arrive at.” it avoided both negative comment and punctuation. W ho sap we’re too stuffy7 “coltural Strip-off.” a review You can lsad them to CImLit but you of Or& Cancdicn Comic can’t make them drink: Two pardlsl Books given front-page 1972 reviews of Recrd Cancdicn (edited coverage in the summer of by Robart Pulford. Dave Godfrey, and 1971. was accompanied by an Abraham Rots&in) began: “Here is a illustration of a short-sldhtcd book that is at Least stbnuladng in a very damsel bl distress. ~Play-leggcd btic way” (Willism Kilboum) and Efm_the omwhmg Johnny “Alihough this book about Caaadian books is fmt of all agood idea, it makes depressing reading” (Fraser Sutherland).

Perhaps a driak or two wouldn’t be such B bad Idea: An advertisement by

-..- _ _-.. _ -. ~.~ _ ._.._ _- __-... ~.~.~.._ - . .- .~ . ._.. _ .-I -. ._ Sutton’s letter k like s salvo fmm an .a- tiqoated fowli= piece, bmad, ioac- curate, and bitting home only by luck.” Nobody mods this section aoyway: In the midst of the March, 1976, coo- uibotors illformation one entry readE “lim Christy’s ofle-man expedition to the Upper Amazon was abruptly ter- minated by host#e natives; he now is plaml@ a longitudii tmnsverse of the Americas from AIaska to the Horn on a motorcycle.”

P In-up, pmfile subJect and pusdttt Hyde and ceekt Winner of the Wiia of the Books iit Canada Most Least Hauntill Presence by a Cans- Haunting Presence by a Canadian diao Author Award is thriller-writer Author Award is Malt Cohen, the Anthony Hyde, recipkot of the subject of three cover stories, ioter- largest book advance in Canadian views, ionomerable reviews and the poblishine history (31 million from author of a few protilw himself, in- Peo8uio for .%hc Red Fox) and (aside cluding articles about Margaret from a review of his book) the merest Laurence and Ann H&bet& ghost of a subject in these pages.

one semi-erotic centre-page Eskimo revkw 1% piece of mockery.” drawing, this has turned out to he a duller, more bve&itteo magazine than Owen’s Dog. by Leon Rooke: I had at first thought.” Reviewer I.M. Owen casually mations Leon Rooke io a review of John Met- Number V on the best-seller Ust: Ao calPs Making It: Contemporary Cmm- April, 1980, review of Syljia Fraser’s dtan Stories h January, 1983: “There’s The Emperor’s Virgin (with the no one author I’d want to see excluded characte&tically saucy title, “Where (except maybe Rooke - because I can’t have all deflowms gone?“) got into the stand his style, oat because he’s Amerkan-born).” Author Leon Rooke Wbnt'f The Merlin of lbIi!ssey spirit of thin8s and listed the usual College? Photographer John bibliographical information as: CCC casually mentions I.M. Owen, two Reeves described Robertson LXXXIV pages, 8XIV.XCV cloth months ktert “Frankly, I abominate the Davies in 1980 as “Like Faulkner, (ISBN OLMMX MMMCLXXV 0). It creep’s writing, and, moreover, can’t a ‘good ok Southern boy’ ” prompted a less-than-appwlative letter stand the man himself. My hatred ex- beneath his port& ouhe massa fmm the author herself, who called the tends to his entire family, to the very glowring io his Massey College study. W e’ll take Moore es tbe lona We’re in the erte, not thesdcttca, and shot: Thecoverof the April, 1976; certainly not In mnthematlcs There was issue poitrayed the 1975 Governor no voltm~e fve, number three io 1576. General’s Awards (called the There \wcrc, however, two number ones “Gee-Gecc”) as a racblg form. - lssocd three months apart. Morky CalIa&ao’s A Fine and Private Place was given 7-2 odds Wko says w&z too stuffy (part ID? A end -the prediction: %mc old 19% ccotre-page m&w of Tuktoyaktuk stride but the sentimental Z-3, by Habert T. Sehwane. featumd a favowire; 24 years out of the line-drawing from the bQok that was 811 money.” Bharati Mukherjee’s e@icit rendering of. . . well, two Iwit W#e was listed at 3-1, and Robert in a came doing what Piim Bertoo Kmetszh’s BadIan& at 5-1, was ooce raid being Canadian was all about. tersely dismissed as “Sired by stud subsequent issues printed angry lettti horse but not up to form of ‘69 from irate librarians and one re;lder who winner.” The evelltoal winner - called the drawing “pornographic Brian Moore for The Grwl I’ic- puke.” to&m Colbxtion - wm listed at the bottom of the chart as a loog Tbb man does. t&L who: A sad shot. read& complained in a letter more than a year later that “With the exception of street on which he resides, and even to his goddamn dogs that once were so in- nocent and merry. I loathe him to bls goddamn Socks..” Glossary, meaning to .&ES over: David Weinberger helpfully included a reviewer’s glossary in the October, 1980, hsue. It expIained. among other terms, the real meaning of Lgwwd: “Know-it- all”; LJq? Tone: “Not much happens”; and Bewselkr: “I could have written this book.” Wns il a dark yeu for the book In- dustry, or what? For some dimly rememb&ed aesthetic ieason, every one of the 11 covers from the mmuw.r of 1981 to 1982 was black,

Book of the Moose Club selection: Al Purdy’s account of hi itinerant poetry- reading in a summer, 1980, issue in&d- ed the line, “Afhx reading eight times in three days to audiences near Sudbuy, ant., a large moose appeared at the win- dow whenever I spoke.” Subsequent rs quests were received to book the moose for speaklng tours. He and the moose could exckange atodes: W.P. Kinsclla’s complaint about accommodations for touring authors in the February, 1984, issue: “I have been from repeatedly, broiled on oasion. and harassed.regularly by gargantuan pets and viutious cbil&m. I pave taken slipwvers off t3nniture to use as blankets. I have been housed in a room with an unclosable door, and bad to roll the bed against the door to keep a monstrous dog in the hall. Actually, the dog probably had good reason to harass me, for, juww from the amount of dog hair on the blanket, I was sleepln,~ in his bedroom. Believe me. I earn my reading fees.”

Gototheclnssoftkebead:Atoastto all the punning headlines over the last 15 years, from s review of Ke~p.te’sBum en- titled “Ouiia loud and clear,” s review of Sur and yiolence in the Cunadian Novel called ‘The kltsch ls in but not. the sync,” the apt “Kvetcher in the Rye” for a review of Peter C. Newman’s The Brcqfman Dynasty. and many more. Cheers! cl Then and now Three editors of Books in Canada, past and present, surve the issues that marked their time In ofYIce Vai Ciery (107%1973h OR hE THE essence of cxcite”lent Our fmt two major decisions, if they “eeess8Tily buyers of books either. The invariably llas in the event. And accelerated the publication of Books In fact remains undeniable that only a so, despite my very active Involve Cczr~udu, also bqueathed it some of its public&o” such ar this is. which reviews ment in the cooceptio” and lofan- subsequent problems. PI”%, to bypass a”d advertises a represmtatlw range of cy of Books in Caruxia, I find the dlfficultics of establishing and sus- popular and special-lntereat books, ca” I myself little stlmd by its 15th taining newsstand sales, we chose the encourage a reliable book-buying birthday. I’ll admit just to a option of distriburing the nmga&e fme public. f&son of pleasure when I fbul to customer0 in book stores, while The decision, coincldb~g with this an- each new issue in my mail box, a charging individuals and instifutlons a niverrarv isme. to sell Books in Cunuda seose of satisfaction that the modest subscription fee for regular mall- on newsstands as well as in book stores, magazine is still fidt3ling its ed delivery. Second, to avoid the delay, does not strike me as cmclally impor- primary purpose as a brId&e be frustration, and @ssibIedcfeat of vying tsnt, other tbaa In Impmssiog a more tvieeo writers and readers of to raise normal capital for the project, woservatlve government in Ottawa that l books in Canada. we decided to risk operating on a shoe- the magasbx is struggling to help itself. If I confess that my pleasare rarely string. Newssraad sales and subsalotions L-U- per&s thmugh the readmg of each Bach of the paMets invested $55. the tainly help eonsomer m&es to sor- issue, I must stress that this lapse is due Ontario Arts r3uncil contlib”ted some vlve, but only growth in advertlsl”g sales far less often to disagreunent with my modest seed money: with these funds we helps them to thrive and improve. editorial successors than to reallaatio” managed to publish a” introductory Them is little inilication that pub- thattheyasmucbasIeverwasarethe Issue. A vewer of advert&g, largely Iisbers, aad lo particular Canadian- vlctlms of a” l”dlffere”t Canadian from publishers who were not owned houses. ally Ionaer have the WllI pubIlshl”g industry. ca”adia”-owed, a” e”cooraging l”flw to seriously h&p &m&es; it has bee” No matter that they have estabbed of subscriptions, allowed as to publish eroded by more than a decade of exces- regularity of publication, greatly softiclent issue3 to qualify for federal sive government support. Until they increased chxxdation and eaten&d ad- and further provincial grants. In the realii the vital importance of a mirably the range of books revlew~ early days of the magazhte the grsnts magazine such as Books in Cbnada and advertising support from publlsheih, were not soffzient to pay staff and co”- use it, Book in Canada must remain most lamentably so from CaoadL tributors more than a pittance. We were becalmed, and victimized. owned houses, rwnains as pakry and largely donating our support to a Much as I enjoyed the adventure of spomdlc as ever. publishing industry that rarely bothered lamtchi”g it, I do not envy those who VJhlle the fomxllng of Books in to return the favour. Nor does it eve.” chart its comae at pmsent. Canada was not based on a” assomption “OK Douglas Nlarsiiaii fl97M980~ that the enterprise would ever return a While there was a logirtical reason for normal profit, neither was it bawd on distributing the magazine free through A attoRT BUT graceful enuy’ in Hurtlg-s the expectation that it would contlnoe to book storea. there was a far more hnpor- Camadh Encyclopedia describes Books be as largely depmdeot on public sup- tant ratiota& that is as valid now as it in Cafk7da as ‘k trade ioumal of Caoa- port as it has been since its bll. was tile”: namely, that the prime “lark* dii book publishing.” Trade journal? The need for a Canadian co~tnner for books is among those identifiable as My teeth began to grind when I saw magazine that both reviwed and adver- readers of books, the people who those words. They brought bitter tised books, primarily Canadian books, pauonize book stores. memories of fnrrtrariO”S past flooding emerged from a” extmslve study of Admittedly, some readas of books do back into my mind. Don’t misunder- book promotion that I undertook for listen to radio and watch TV; and again, stand me. The seven or so iovrul year8 the CanadI@ Book Publishers’ Councll radio and TV promotion of certain that I directed the edltorial~f&t&s of in 1970. Responses soggcsted that to a widdy popular books cao transform this magazhte yielded me rewards aphm- large exte”t the book trade and readers listeners and viewers tanpo”ully into ty. But they were also attended by what I in Canada were motivated by magas& book buyers. Govemment support of see as two fundamental failurea on my of that kind from the United States. authors’ tours “my do wonders for Among the reconanendations in “w literary egos, but as a means of pm- of them. report “Promotion and Response” was motb3g the sales of most Caoadia” More gall&g still, the e”cyclopcdii the need to set up such a magazine. books the cost of radio and TV inter- entry is signed by no less a literary light Unlike my other suggestions it dld not tbaa the distinnutied author and’critlc call for dh-ect action by publishers, fawlers of elabdrate book-promo& Cleorge Wood&k. .t?t lu, Oeorge7 As although it did imply that their later sup- stunts have only to observe the pm- MC of our earliest supporters and a” port would be vital. So, a few months tmcted vicissitudes of McClelland & unstinting wntrlbutor over the years, I latar, I and five partners took the loltia- Stewart to undcrsta”d that readers of would have hoped better fmm you. tlve of launching it. c&b&y and gossip columns are not True, you go on to say that Book in

. Canada “publishes extasive reviews of (The Verlical Mrxaic) that stripped the current books, together with interviews toput us out bf business and up book of its pretentions and revealed its with and profiler of authors, and special looking like a bully. But a few libel anecdotal nature. The lack of an orga- columns on paperbacks. children’s noticeslat least we should have had. n&g framework. Porter predicted. books and other topics.” But the along with the odd nuisance suit. It “will prevent Mr. Newman being con- damage had already been done. would have helped our reputation no sidered as a serious analyst of the Cana- Trade journal, indeedl By defmition, end. dian power stmcture.” trade journals reflect the interests of the The c4ose.a we came in my day was a 0 An essay by Tom HedIey that ridi- industry they serve and are addressed covez story in the January, 1980, issue culed, frame by frame. the extmordbwy primarily to the persons who work in bv Ottawa ioumalist Gerard McNeil. thesis projected by Pierre Berton in his that industry. Quill and Quito is a trade The article bmugbt to tight fac& hidden book Hollywood’s Canada: The joumal of Canadian book publishing. from the public in the case of the libel Americanization of our Nadonal Image. And its bnportancc to the trade can be actIon brought @nst Toronto novelist What Berton had fatuously failed to measured by the fact that the entry on Ian Adams by one Leslie Jamep Bennett, grasp, Iiedlcy insisted, is that IioUy- Quill and Q&e in The Canadian En- former member of the RCMP Security wood is a fantasy factory cranking out cy&pedla Is stzqed by that magadne’s Service. Adams’s book, S, Porlmit o/a products that are autbentlc to genres. former editor and currrnt publisher. Spy, had been published by Gage three not to hitorical truth. A few years later Books in Canada9 in sharp contrast, years before., had sold 15,000 copies in Hedley added weight to his argument by was founded as a consumer magazine. It 40 days, and had then been consigned by becoming a scriptwriter, going to Holly- reflects the interests of the general Gage to cold storage with the laonchii wood, and creatIn8 genre fantasies reader, the persons who actually buy of Bennett’s suit. McNeil’s lucid, well- (t%zshdance) of his own. books (or at least borrow them). Persons documented piece showed how the novel And then there was the feature report. v/ho write books, who agent them and again by Stuave., that even ruffled my edit them and publish them and promote pointed q&ions the survival of complacent feathers. We had sent him them and retail them, may all be free soeech in Canada. down into Ontario’s Huron County on a stimulated one way or another by Books l-h; article eventually came to the $49.50 expense account to fmd out why in Canada. But they are not its primary attention of a senior editor at the Tomn- the school board there kept banning audience. to Star, who showed it to the books. We expected a routine tub- Moreover, it is an independent eon- newspaper’s Ubd lawyers. Their opi- thumper about reactionary reddecks and sumer mapazine. Ownership continues nlon, duly relayed to me by the friendly valiant civil libertarians. What we got to be held by a small grooup of in- was an analysis, mitten with cold-eyed dividuals who operate the publication on dangemus~and probably actionabl& We objectivity, that told us who the book- a non-profit basis. In theory a business braced ourselves for our professional banners were, why they thought the way so dependent on advertisbtg revenue and duty and waited with pride for some sort they did, and how they wae able to per- government grants is vulnerable to in- of attack fmm either Bennett or the suade well-meting citizens to go along diit pressure fmm both the private RCMP. Sadly, our mettle was never with their ideas. and the public sectors. In practice, tested. Stuewe’s report outraged many however, such prqsiure runs counter to Ah, well, Books in Canada was prob- authors. Certain anti-censorship forces democratic convention and is easily ably newer bound for glow. The accused Books in Canada of treason. resisted on the rare occasions it is hinted magazbx’s true role in tl;e peacable They demanded and got equal space to at. , litemry kingdom is merely to ruffle a few rebut his report. But in the end reason- ‘I explabted all this many dmea during feathers when they need to be ruffled. able persons saw that Stuewe had my tenure as editor. I explabwd’it in And we did that often e”oU8h to satisfy achieved a sign&ant breakthrough in conversations and letters. in speeches my honow and the somewhat limited the great censorship debate.. He had and editorials and applications for appetites for inconoclasm evinced by my penetrated the rhetorical sound atd fury grants. But no matter bow often the co-owners. I cite three examplea from to show us what made the enemy tick. points were made, otherwise intelligent the dozens I could pick: Such journalism is what consumer and well-informed persons continued to 0 A toughabided review cssay by Paul magadnes are all about. seetbemaga?%easeitheranorganof stuewe on cultllral nationalism that the publishing industry or a0 butrument made a devastating case against the Michael Smith fl9iW )I of government cultural policy. “Canadian” editions of Time and Will Books in Canada ever solve this Reader’s Digest. It was written long THOUGH MY NAME has appeared on the identity crisis? Will Canada? before Bill C-58 WBP introduced. at a masthead for only half of Book-s in My other great failure ~oncemed the point when most other national CuMdu’s 15 years (I signed on Bs asso- number of libel suits saved on us. The magazines lnd given up the fght and ciate editor in January, 1979). some- number was zero. I could not help feel- cUmbed into bed with ?ime under the timcs I fed BI if I had been present at the ing then, and fed even more strongly blanket of the Magazine Association of creation. Not that I suffered any of the now. that such a dearth of litigation was Canada. It was illustrated, by the way, headaches that must have attended the I embarrassin for any sdf-respecting tith a wicked caricature of Henry R. magazine’s bii - in fact, I didn’t national review of books. We mu!1 have Lute by the late David Anne&y. know any of the people involved until been doing something wrong. 0 A review of Peter C. Newman’s The much later. But at least I was in the Admittedly, we labowed und$ the Canadian Establivhment: The Great neigbbourhood. .handicap of b&g wsentiaUy unsuable. Dynasties by sociologist John Porter At the time the magazine was For one thing, almost every word that founded, in the spring of 1971. I was appears in the magadne could be working for the Globe and Mail, defended on the grounds of fair corn- assignEd to report on the plight of mem. For another, there wa* manifestly Canada’s publishem. The mUural na- no money to be had in damages from tionalism that had begun in the late our hand-to-mouth operation. The most 1980s was at its peak. (Canadian content

._. -- ..-... ..__...... _-..- - _- .-... -.~-. ._ 2-e .-.-. --_. -.__-~ _i.~ ._._ _ ‘..-l._..~._ ..___.i_._. __ ._ .~.,-__l.-..~_~i_~..---~~--.. in television and the ownership of Caua- Quebec - though this one a Comer- dii periodicals werp two other current vative) hss been pondering methods to issues.) As things turned out, meny of ensure the survival of the publishing CominginIvfay the problems the publishers faced then trade. And only a few months ago inpqxrback continue 10 plague lhcm now. McClelland & Sewart, srill in trouble I fnst heard plans for a national book despite continuing pmtinclal aid, finally Y!heMam review at a meeting in Ottawa between was sold to a private lnveriror. f&I=mmW’ then secretery of state G&ard Pellctier In the genteel world of Canadian aad the publishers, who were desperate publishing, some values never seem to Sir John Thompson, Iy seeking a solution to domination of change. Fifteen yeam ago. Matt Cohen, Prime- the trade by U.S.-owned fms. Val who had published novels wltb M&M- EB. Waite Clery, soon to become the magazine’s land & Stewart and House of Anansi. firsr editor, had prepared a brief that was mnsidered one of the imporiant ‘An al.WJlutely first,- revealed that Canadian waders, when emerging writers of what was to become rate biography they bought books, were motivated the Atwood generation. Several months “M$XF.XF.EW mainly by Time magazlne, which (as one. ago, in a pmmotion of Canadian wlitcrs mighr expect) paid most of its a&ntion under Ihe age of 43, Cohen wes named to U.S. best-sellers. Clery aad the pub- one of the 10 bat fiction writers of the cloth $37.50 lishers proposed a Canadian book po&Atwood generation. Some genem- Paper $X95 review magazfne to counter both 3Tme’r tion. Cohen is 43. Margaret Atwood, unwelcome influence and the neglect of one of the judges for the promotion, is Canadian books by Canada’s ow” 46. peliodicals. But things ore different today. If Ihe I next encountered the fled* climate seems much the smne, the megazine when its founders visited the numbers have increased. In 1971 Ontario- . . . . . Roy+_ _$wnission. . . .on Book. vcsdgatio~~into ir.S. do&nation of the there was hardly my competition. To- trade. Then in May, 1971, whm Books day such other Canadian-owned houses in Cumdu’s Inaugural issue appeared, I as Macmillan, SLoddart. end Lester & lntervlewed Clery aad a couple of Orpen Deunys rival McClelland & publishm and v.mte a short arride Stewart with dozens of Canadian titles about it for the G/&e. of their own. Perhaps the small, nation- It didn’t seem aa auspicious start. My alistic, “literary” houses have de&led, report survived only the fust edition of in stridency if not in quantity, but lhel the paper - the one that wes shipped populist enthusiasm has been taken up out to the hlnterlan~ - before it was by the regional publishers, particularly yanked by Clark Davey, the man&g in the Prabies. VOICES OF DELlWRANCE editor, on grounds thsl I was insanely In addition, though foreign-owned hterviwwithQudxcand~di~Write,% giving free publlclty to a potential com- publishers still claim a large part of the byDmuldSmith,trmlatibyLamyShc.uldim petitor to the G/o&e’s book pages. And Canadian market. sweml are no longer sume of the publishers immediately satisfied simply to import titles fmm Rx&en of the most fascinating complained that the new magaslne’s lhelr parent firms. With such writers as talent&ommodemQuebecand advertising rates were too high. Timothy Pladley, Peter Newman, and Acadia d_iscWlanguage, politics, There’s “o question, es so much Audrey Thomas publishii under its ~ovmnment atmltion-ntt~, that many imprint. Pm Canada. for instance, personal biography, and the of Canada’s publishers were ln tmuble. now competes directly with the domestic creative pnxess in interviews Cultural natIonal& had been outraged houses. similarly, the U.S.-owned Rsn- which explore the range and by the sales of Ryenon Press (publisher dom House recent& hlmd Ed Carson, vitality the imaginative work of Allcc Munro aad Al Purdy, among formerly. publisher al Stoddart, ‘of others) and the textbook division of specifically to develop 4 new line of now coming out of Quebec and W.J. Gage Ltd. to U.S.-owed fms. Cane&n books. Acadia. Included are Michel Then in April, amid rumours of yet For culhual nationallsts, the justlcc of Tremblay, Anne H&e& Yves another sell-out, the Ontario govern- some of this activity remabu smatter Th&iault, Jacques Fermn, An- ment had dmmatlcally provided a loan for debate. Nevertheless, its most impor- of close to %I-million to help save tant single effect has been a wide variety tonine Maillet, and nine others. McClelland & stcwatt. “A deIight, and essential reading Plus w change. Fifteen when Books in That \‘ras IS y- ago. Yel not many &an in~ted in French weeks ago some cultural natiomdlsts a single issue to sll the books that . . . x AlbertoManguel, were again outraged when anolher had been published in the p&us Books in Canada publishi house, Prentic+Hall (not a month (even mom for playful attention Canadian publlshll house, but a to government publications on sexual $14.95 paperback, U.S.-owned subsidiary), w acquired hygiene). Not any more. Today, an with photographs by a U.S. wnglomemte. Under the avemgz issue of the magezlae &es looming shadow of free trade with the reviews of as many as 50 Canadian United States, another comnumicatlons books - clue to 500 a. year. But even AlvANs PREqs minister (another communications with the best of intentions, we can’f minister from culturally-conscious begin to review them all. 0 In the four years that Paul Orenstein’s work has appeared In Books b Canada, he has photographed many of the country’s foremost writers. In these pages, some recent portraits of the artists

Leonard Cohen Ilees York. 19.94

“When you sac someone who’s vary beautIM. w who’s datomad, R’s the sama blasting. It’s ‘Massed art Thou. Kbfg of lha Unhms, who varied the appearen~e of this creature. . . . ’ ” Graeme Gibson Toronto. 1983 I_ -. ..^_

process. It becsnws a pmduct when the book Is fin/shed. To answsr that old chestnut, Wim do you IYMR fofl I IY&E for the bank. ” Mavk Gallan?

“My ambition was p&y a way OF Me. Amazing& enough, I achieved I reasonably early. I wanted to wGe and be absolutely Free and Independent. ” a novel by Andreas Schroeder More than one thousand miles from thesea, on theoutskirts of Manybones, Saskatchewan, Tom Sukanen is building a ship to deliver him from the Prairie Dust Bowl. “...the movingstoryofan authentic prophet...” fNorrhmp Frye) ‘A brilliant saga of thedust-bedwilled thirties on the prairies; a powerful portraitofan irascible, heroic man, palt prophetic genius, partdamaged outcast, and his impossible, magnificent dream.” (Margaret Laurence) “...quite simply, magical.” G7mothy Find& $19.95/ISBN: 0-385-25038-X

§BKxvKIw§ ux-w.DRE~ Exploding the Myths of Divorce by Glynnis Walker, author ofthe bestselling Second We, Second Best ‘IA wonderful, powerful book that explodes the many myths of divorce... a very child-oriented book.” (David Levy, President, National Cotincil for Children% Rights) ‘The words contained in Solomon’s Children should be posted on all the divorce court walls and halls in this nation.” Wan L&G%& baxudve Director Fathers fbr Equal Rights oiAmericaJ $19.95/ISBN: O-385-25039-8

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.-.. ~~ .._...... ~_,._.._ .,... ~_. ~- . . . . - .- ._-- ...... _ .~ ._,~._. . .-- What compels a poet to hide among a beautiful editor’s underthlnas? It’s oat-t of one man’s adventures In the jungle of Ckdlan’publlshing By Al Purdy E HAVE PIUYED to them, cursed Seymour Street to have 500 mpies thology; then a small chapbook, them, implored them, danmed printed, alrho@ only a hundred or Pnwsed on Sand, appeared in 1955. them, and - very rarely, and so were inflicted on the public. But 1 That year also ~mfvase play, A were probably lying - have was ecstaric. enrirely unaware of Gatherbzg oj Days, was prodoced by n raid we loved them. And my litcmy incompetence. Ihe CBC. And this dry msrliog little somdmes in deep despair we A few years later. when the book’s man. dressed all io black with pinea have said something to this ef- price bad risen somnvhst at Cam- nez dangling, who talked like ao ill- fecr: “I wonder if they are diana dealers by reason of less at-ease missionary to ao wen more humanI” Bur necessary, yes, shameful later publieatioos, I went uocomfortable heatha - this man the middle man between writer back to Clarke & Stuart. I imended was v benefactor. and reader, and extracting al to buy up alI remaining copies, sell My next book was anorher small I least a pound of flesh from them for exorbimot prices, and live chapbook, Emu. Remember. with both. OUL my life on the proceeds: raising the Universiry of New Brunswick I was my own fti publisher io rutabagas and chickpeas on some (Fred CogweU was in.strumentd in Vancouver in 1944. I was still a off&ore Gland with a mild climate this, but 1 diin’t mat him until a few member of the RCAP, my rank less and dancing girls. Alas, my years later), and tben back to Ryer- than that of a civilian, cootribuling rreacherous prinrers had needed son io 1959 for a larger chapbook, poems lo U.S. magazioes with titles shelf space, and tbmwo them au in- The crvrfe So Lange lo Leme (title like The Lyric WmI and Dr@wind to the garb= a few days earlier. courtesy of Chaocer). John Colom- (the latter with wallpaper covers) bo WBO so editor at Ryerson then, and homebrew magazines like Lhe THERE WAS A musty theological at- and used to treat me to hamburgen Canadian Forum and Canadian mosphere in Lome Pierce’s offEe at at Queen Street restaurants. I was Poetry Muwzino. bob-nobbii with Ryersoo Press, Toronto, when I ma nearly ahvays broke at the time sod the Vaocouver Poetry Society and it- biro in the 1950s. Not surprisingly, very gratcfld. cbii to get into print. My book was for the commercial publisher's alta By the time that second Ryenon book called The Enchanted Echo, 64 ‘ego was “The United Church was publisbed. we had begun to build a pages of less-than-mediocre drivel. Publishiog House.” Pica had wit- house on Roblio Lake near Amelias- with mouldy grey or decayed green ten to me in Vancouver in 1954, ask- burgh, Ont. My wife and I thed went 10 card covers. It cost me $200 at ing for poems. Two were included in Momreal to ger jobs sod money with Clarke & Stuart publishers on a Pierce-Carman-Rhodenizer an- which to fti it. Milton Acorn, a Maritimes poet then living in Montreal. came with me in 1960 when I returned to Roblin Lake. Milton was M WC- carpenter, and helped me with the installation of permanent rafters io the living room. while we dmok homemade wild grape wine. There rafters were somewhat askew. and I had 10 reinstal them later. with the help of a spirit level instead of alcohol. Acorn bad also publishal bis fast book himself. When he had another manuscript ready, he was too shy to seed it 10 a publiier, so I bundled it tog&k myself, and senr it along with a covering letter to Ryason Press. But Lome Pierce didn’l believe there WBP any such person as Milton Acorn (who . admittedly is a rather improbable specimen) - he tboughr Acorn WBI~ a pseudonym of mine, and that I was try- ing to sneak soother manuscript past his pincenaed eagle eyes. He was much an- nopd. Milton was then required to mail a photograph of himself to Pierce as proof of his corporeal existence. Milton dignanf, and could afford to be, since I did so, but intimated that Purdy was a was completely unimportant, with no Name your pseudonym ol Milton Amm. This con- responsibility for deali” with the favousite subject0 fused Pierce evm more. But Acorn’s American &nwmne”t in cmuch situa- book (The Bmtn’s the EwgetJ was fmal- tiO”S. Chances am Iy published in 1960. Mel Hurt@ agreed with a few df my h%y The Blur in Belwen !vaa accepted milder fulminations. to my somewhat we’%8 have your by Jay Macpherso” in 1980, but not ac- surprise. I proposed a book, a new an- tually published until three yeas later. thology, in which Cans*” writers favourite book. I” the meentime, Poems/or Ail the An- would outline their frank opinions of the nettcs appeared with Contact Press in United States in ail its aspects, with no Travel 1962. It was the fust book 1 felt wmfor- punches pulled. But sadly, I said. no one VaIlcower B Vlctmla: The Vkimh table with in this latest incarnation of would publish such a book. “I would,” Glide 1986 Nom Admn myself (for I had been changing both Hurti ssid. S9.95 papv Now Avaiibk personally and in my writing). Louis I looked at him the” for perhaps the Dudek and Peter Miller were responsible first tbne. I had almost forgotten he was for its appearance. I waited a year to see a publisher - although not quite. Small, Humour if the reviews were good (they were), dark complexioned, rather quiet, I the” submitted a new manuscript to Me thought the”; but have since chaugcd my Clelland & Stewart. Three years later mind., (Oil executives quail and The Cariboo Homes nxeived the Gover- Iegidstors quake under the fla&of Hur- “or General’s Award. tig logic and invective.) Literature I borrowed my brother-in-law’s good We worked it out together, the pro- The Old Devils suit for the awards ceremony in Ottawa. posed book. Ideas - each of ILI would It didn’t fit very well. and my shoes were come up with one i” turn, the” another too tight (I run around barefoot at and another. Bxcitement grew, and Roblin Lake). Governor General Vanier adrenalin flooded the outports. “What spent some i&e cxphhhg to me what would you call it?” Mel said. ‘77zeNew Remans. ” I said, and I visua8ze.d them fully, but appreciated hi help. (Ap- right Iu front of me, smoki”g cigars and parendy he had read them, which was fart@. The “w Remans, the bnitatio” astonishing.) ones, who could newtheIess have At the dinner for awards winners and tau8ht thek predecessors a great deal. Canada Council notables, Jack Me- Thii of that title, happily I grew Ckdland. in his shy u”assu”d~ manner, almost sober. i”timated that the-awards were-not suffi- After the book came out in 1968, Mel cicntly pub8cIzed. A .Ca”ada Council sent me on a promotion tour amss the ofticer with a Preach name asked me if I country. He phoned mc after one televi- agreed with Jack McC.&ai$ yes. He sion interview, urgIog that a strong line then told me they would make sure I be take” o” behalf of the book. I think “ever received another award. A”d I he wanted me to shake my fst i” the in- never have. terviewer’s face. And in New York o” William Buckley’s tdtision show, with x cwm8 OF Canadian publishing is Dennis Lee and Larry Zolf, I froze can- Toronto, as everyone except Van- pletely and couldn’t say a word. D&mis couverkes probably knows, a”d it takes was a little better, but ZoIf did mOst of unuautd qualities of character and drive the talk&and acquitted hinwelflikethe for a publisher to succeed In one of the pro he was. Even the planted trained snlaller cities. Like Bd”lonton, for I”- seals in Buckley’s audience abplauded. Biography stance, and Iike Mel Hwtig. A strong Gn another TV show next day, I laurenen Ollvler On Aul”g Canadian nationalist, Hurt& ran a book resolved to stop being a mild-mannered 128.91 dab ComQ En May store in the Alberta capital for several and w&et-tempered Canadian. I jumped Alone: The Aumbiogrphy years, then decided to take on the gin&s right i” with both feet, claimed that both Richold E. Byrd $12.95 lapr Coming h jme of eastern publishi”g. That WIU I” the the U.S. and Soviet Union were the mid-1960s. when Clarke Irwin, Oxford, Brcatgt dangers to peace in the world. Ryerson, McClelland & Stewart, and a both had halitosis to the rest of the few others now defunct were the world, and economic nationalism WBS dominating fm. the U.S. sgency of foreign caquest. I I tit Hurtig at a litesary party in Ed- chaUe”ged WillIan Shatner, a Canadian monton in 1967. At that time I was nat- actor also on the show, to ret& my Ruth Ratdell tai”g o” about U.S. takeovers and views (and “either of us asked for the SIB.95 do& Now A,-akb!e economic nationalism in Calla&. A otker’s autograph). The Hemln Me~hants U.S. subsidiary auto plant in Canada Later that afternoon I took a cassette wc PhIwPs had been forbidden to sell trucks by its ta$e to a high-rise apart”w”t where a parent company - either to Chii or lady I”terviewa awaited. After five Cuba, I can’t rwnanber which - and minutes of talk, she claimed I had in- Methuen kublications thi was just the latest in a long serier of sulted her country, placed her had over The books you want. U.S. put-downs of rebellion on the her heart. and ejected me. I left without protest, but back on the slreet indii- tlon was born in my breasr: that damn Long. with Harold Town drawings. “You’re just not romantic,” he said cassette tape wa$ mine and Linda That book was a compendium of other with a kind look, and diw his cloak whatever-her-namewas had kept it. people’s work, which sold like crazy; closer around him. I went back to the hiih-rise, took an mine would contain only P&y. Also, I It took me weeks to re& composure elevator to the top floor. walked up hoped, Harold Town’s dra-. And after this bitter pi& In the meantime I another lllght to the grey-painted lobby, its remlrins burgeoning sales would keep worked on the book that had bee-o pro- knocked on a metaLcovered door, and me in beer for a week or two. posed instead of my love poems collec- walted. A disembodied voice spoke I got in touch with Jack McClelland tlon (which actually did get published, beyond the door. I explained my mls- ‘and broached the idea. His reply in- and was called Love in D Burning sion; she said, “Walt just a minute.” I dicated that Harold Town might be in- Building). This new book was to be 811 waited 10. The disembodied voicespoke terested, so I sent them the maousuipt. anthology of “Best poems in Canada,” again. banding me ti the tape Shortly after which three. sophisticates edited by me, and accompanied by through a crack io tbe door and not let- from the big city dueended on my slm- Harold Town’s d&wiogs. ting me see her face. She had erased all pie country abode: Jack l&C... Harold Time patsed. I worked on the poem- my immortal words, I found out later. Town, and the beautiful editor, Anna selection and a long academic intro. That may have beeu just as welI: as a TV Szlgelhy (now Porter). Then it -e to my cars, via the dw and radio performer I would starve to .First there was a long pause, during tmnic wild grape vine. that the “best death. which we t&d to read each other’s poems” anthology was being delayed. But The New Remans di fairly weU minds. Then Jack McC. said. “Your Something had gone badly wrong. I It sold some 25,000 copies la Caoada, io poems are hard-boiled. We had expected suspected the reason for this, but the U.S. maybe three and a half. My them to be romantic.” couldn’t be sure. Therefore I made the wife and I travelled to Greece and Now my wife has the same complaint long trip from my simple country abode Turkey on the proceeds. I remember sit- about me. but I hadn’t expected a male to request an audience with Jack McC. ting in an Athens bistro writing a poem publiiher to feel that way. “Un- and ask him what was what or oat. and drinking Botry’s brandy and think- mmanticl” I said. (And Lawrence of Yes, he told me gravely, somethiog ing: “The U.S. of A. is paying for this Arabia galloped his pure white Barbary unforeseeo had happened: there was a d&k.” And I was happy. steed through my left ventricle, @s- small objection fmm Harold Town mounting in a cloud of golden sand. Fif- about the contract terms. W.tich LN t9m I came back from Europe with the ty mounted horsemen ia the Red De.wt bewildered me: !here was no coutmct. I idea for another book of poems. new draw swords and swear fealty to their had taken it for gmoted there would be a and old love poems. Irving Layton had peerless leader.) “Romaotic?” I ssid. 5050 split between Town and myself. I edited a similar book a couple of years “No; hard-boiled,” Jack McC. said. uw wrong. Town wasted 75 per cent of before. Love Where the Nights An Harold Town nodded agreement. whatever royalties accrued from the

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------~ ‘_ _- .___-._- _ ..- _... - _... __._ book. Jack McC. supported him in tbii would have been no objection on my have been bad for them. the incident demand. wine that Tow” did “test of part to publishing a book with McGraw- died down, and Storm Warning was the work anyway. Hill or any other American publisher in published with McClelland &Stewart in I MY feelbus were hwt:‘Jack McC. was the United States itself: but wkb a U.S. due course. It sold fairly well, perhaps ; my publish& u well as Town’s, eyen if publisher in Canada, that was a different aided by this brief furore. as Jack McC. Town and McCklIsnd were close kettle of linotme. Nevertheless. I sinned had suspected it might. However. corn friends, as they were. I felt hard done a Ryerson contract afta some ;& by pared to the previous Purdy-edited by, even betrayed. And thii despite tbe the editorial staff. Ryerso” anthology. pifreen. Winds. hard knowledge that no poetry an- Then I started to worry about it. which now belonged to McGraw-Hill, thology sells worth a damn anyway: a rat chewing that contract ln my mind like a sabzs were only moderate. @f&en vnds and a mouse would starve on the pm- dog with a bone. After a few days of has sold at least 500 copies a year for 15 weds. Well, Toinn had bata have some cogitation, it seemed to me that years. I wonder what sata secrets they i.’ other sources of inmme, Since his publii with McGraw-Hill was just borrowed from Nostradamus. 75pewxnt demand was made several another item in the long record of Cana- months after the book’s inception - dlan sell-outs to tbe U.S. “But you sign- SEyEtt.u SMALL= publishers have also and no prior agreement had beeo reach- ed a contract; tbc legal staff in my head done books of mint: Black Moss, Paget ed regarding royalties - I retused. told me sternly. I know. I know, but it’s Pruis, Quadrant Editions, BlackIish The Torvn/P”rdy book aborted. not right to go with a U.S. publisher, I Press. and The Crossing Press in the Somebody gave me the name of a rebutted. It’s not right to break a con- United States. Tbe editor-publishers of lawyer, one possessing some literary tract either, and you could go to prison these presses offer an intereating ma- knowledge. He took on this rather trivial for it. That last xarcely veiled threat trast to their counterparts in tbe larger case, apparently because he was familiar decided me: I would not publish with and more professional outfits. Their en- with my books. My lawyer had lunch McGraw-Hill Ryerson. thusiasm is like bubbling champagne; with Jack McClelland a couple of rimes. After I went to see Jack McClelland their eyes gleam at the thought of a The figure named to reimburse me for and told hbn the story, things seemed to publishing coup. Often they work at my arduous labours was $500. I refused move at a faster pace. The light of battle sometbll else to support the drug habit it and asked for a thousand. Then I got gleamed in his eye& Decisions were of publlshil books. in touch with Michael Macklem at made swiftly; people rushed in and out Some operate on a frayed shoestring, - Oberon Press to me for publication of his oftice. It was out of my hands by subsidized by the Canada Council. of any future books 1 might write. then, with Jack stage-managing the Others, like Ala” Safmik of Blackfti Howewr, after another lunch with my whole affair. Press, take pride in getting by without legal battalions, Jack McC. settled. And At the Toronto Soar I talked to Peter grants. The aristocratic Peter Brown of he did sn with some grace - at least,his Newman, then editor-bt-chief. -and Paget Press~publlshes art editions, and face showed no rewntment or embar- briefly to a star reporter. When tbe rubskill them with other work. Marty rassment at our next meet& But I am story appcaxd that Purdy rethsed to Gavals of Black Moss is the eternal embarrassed, because I can’t remember publish wltb an American branch-plant, amateur, and also a titer of note. my lawyer’s name. He didn’t charge me command dedslons were called for. Andrew Wheatlcy of Quadrant for his service.% I had hew heard of Jack McC. decided that I should go previously operated a book store in . such a thing before in all recorded underground, disap&ar for tbe rest of Montreal. He vanished several months human history, a lawyer who didn’t bill tbe day. I was infected by all this cloak- woo. owing money and books to a long his client. He probably doesn’t and-dagger stuffi mbdlns of McGraw- list of titers, among them Mavis remember my name either. Hill or rival publishers might be on my Gallant, Julie Charm”, George Gait, There was one aftermath of the’affalr: trail. I felt self-important and amused at mywlf, and several others. pumour has Harold Tow” portraits of poets, tbe same time. it that Wheatley is regrouping his forar originally slated for the non-published I was spirited away. like ZOO pounds beyond the Rock&, perhaps in Van- anthology, are still tloatibg around in of thistledown. to (the beautiful editor) couver, from whencb he plans to sally tbe shape of posters. They are, I think, forth and astound the publishing world. quite striking. one of Irvblg Layton, in cd on dab ai M&ew. My instmctioos It is noteworthy - at least to me - which he looks exactly like the former were to avoid being seen at windows. that only one of the five publishera mm- Ismell prime minister; Golda Melr, I ad- and not to answer tbe door in case un- tioned has ever sent me a financial stat* ti especiaUy. meat and royalty report. In tie [redmom I drifted-into uneasy Publllhers - with one exception - M tw t had edited Millw Acorn’s sleep, tbm awoke to hear noises I are fascinating people. I am 11 son t00eh selected poems, I’ve Tasted lyv Blood, couldn’t identify, which seemed to be in for thdr blandishmats, for their cbann and tbe anthology pifrcen Winds for the apartment itself. Take no chances, I and panache. Jack McC. is. of cowse, Ryerson Press. By that time Lome thought, and dived into the bedroom the most prominent, and also the most Pierce had been succeeded as man&g closet, closing the door behind me. and personally attractive. And 1 cwtsinly do editor by the Rev. John Webster Grant. remained there in the darkness quivering miss sitting across a table from hbn once For more than a year I had been gather- nervously. Somebody was deftitely in a year, trying to fuure out what he’s the aoartmuit. and I wondered who - thinkii, interior lucubrations reflected b;iublished as Slorm repo&s. MiGraw-Hill lawyers with hardly at all on exterior integument. son, but in 1970 Ryerson sold out to writs of habhabcrrs co~us, bailiffs with leg- And Peter Brown of Pager Press has McGraw-Hilt, an American branch- irons and handcuffs? But they never charm and enthusiasm that are infec- plant publisher. No contract had’been found me - crouched among Anna tious. One gets carled away by them. signed with Ryerson for Slorm Warning. SzIgethy’s unduthiitgs. along bypatha of publishing romance, . After the_ sale to McGraw-Hill,_- _ I It was a teapot tempest. of EO”Tse. I -lnto dead-end alleya and non-pmfit cul visited the Ryerson oftices for dtscus- think__.~. McGraw-Hill had no intention of de sacs. I love them, all but one, and I slons about the book. I felt confused rar;mg me 10 court ova oreamng, my see them in both dreams and nlgbt- about the change of ownership. There 2 Ryerson contract. The publicity would -.O _ e._....i_i__ ._..%_.h ~._.~.__...~~.,._.._

Gregarious to the end, Elizabeth Smart (19181996) led a Bohemian Iffe that had ale6 come to Include an enormous quantlty of psychic pain By John GoddarPr

LwBEni sbwtT was a spirited, novels, some poetry, and a ccdlection d Gmnd Ckniral Station I Sat Down and uneonvenliond woman with a short prose. A volume of journals, Wept, besc.d on ha involvement with prodiiio~s cap&y for love and Ncnssory Seer&, is to be published Barker. pain, twin themer of her succinct, so”” by Deneau. Her plots were thin, She finished the book in 1941, hut it lyrical writings. By the time she ha story lines vague. but she had an wasn’t published until 1945 - in died in London at age 13, her face ‘unerring ear for syntax and internal Bngland; after she moved there. When bore the rwaga of a life intensdy rhyme, enab8ng her to write phrases an Ottawa book store imported six lived, but pwple who knew her like: “the bland sand of Bmckley mpies, her mother bought them and thought of her as youthful. Beach.” She took astonishing leaps in burned them, using ha wnnecticms in She was gregarious to the end, metaphor. She once wmte of a desire to high places to prevent mme &es from living a Bohemian life in a stone put feelings of love in a safe PI&e, “into entering the wuntry. None were avail- cottage in Suffolk with her a nest . . . as far away and es glossed able in Canada until 1975. rumpled clothes. unrulygarden, and ml- over by history as the Red Indian’s right Critics refer to the book as “paetic lectkm of 5,000 books. She made fre- to be fix” prose,” but Smart disliked the term. “It quent trips to London, popping in at the She wrote lines of rare tenderness: gives the wmng impression,” she said in French House pub in Soho, dining out “Under the watert4I he surprised me a 1982 interview. “It sounds all Iah-dee- with friends, and sleep@ on tbe much batbii and gave me what I could M dab.” She preferred to think of her at her youngest son’s Rat. She did there morr refuse than the earth can refuse the writing as “concentrated” or “distilled” suddenly atIer breakfast 011 March 4, of rain.” And she had a witty sense of pmse, and compared it to dehydrated a heart attack. juxtaposition. as when she interspersed soup: “You get alI the substance without Ha contribution to Canadian liter- questions from a belligerent U.S. border the water.” ature was singular if meagre: tw slbn guard with lbw fmm the Song sl Smart went on to have three more Solomon: “What relation is this man to children by Barker, aRbo”gh she and he you? (My beloved is mine and I am his: never lived together. She interrupted her. he feedetb among the lies.)” Literary career tc~ write for women’s Smart wes born into Ottawa high magezines, raise the children, end put society “II Jan. 27, 1913. the sewnd of them all through private schools, while four childfen, three girls and a boy. She Barker shirked his paternal wspoq_ knew Mike Pearson es a young men, sibilities by murting the Muse. Atter Frank Scott, Eugene Forsey, and also raisiig twa gmndchildren, she Graham Spry. Her father was a pioneer- published a semnd slim novel in 1978, ing patentand-trade lawyer and h8r The Assumption of the Rogues and mother e” engaging hostess, perpet”aUy Raca,!~, detailing the anguish of a throwing lively pertiu for the diplomatic mother of four children abandoned by crowd. her lover. But Smart regarded her mother es By then, she had accumulated en bossy, domineering, and tradition- en”rm”“s quantity of psychic pain - bound. a stifler of Smart’s ambition to from her mother, fmm Barker. from the go tc. university and pursue a career. The swain of single panthood. She c&d mother-daughter reckoning wea drawn- still be fun, generous, interested in new out end bitter. In her early 20s. Smart people. but she would somaimer gmw fled OUawa for New York. Mexim. and sullen late in the evening. She cried out California, had en affair with a French regularly in her sleep, awakening house v.u-, and wrote a prose piece about it guests in adjoining m”ms - an unsettl- c&d “Dii a Grave and Let Us Bury ing experience for anyone stayins there Our Mother.” for the fust time. Smart then got involved with the In the fall of 1982, phe fblfded along- English poet George Barker, who was held desire to return fo Canada, bemm- . married; the three of them were among ing writer-in-residence at the University the fmt people to live mmmunaUy at of Alberta in Edmonton for a yeer, tbm Bii Stu, California. Pregnant with moving to Toronto for a few months. Barker’s child, Smart moved into a But she found fellow Camdiem too ‘former school house in Pender Herbour, earneat for her taste. too eesily shocked on the B.C. cast north of Vancouver. by her immoderate drinking, and she There she wrote her classic novel, By returned to her cottage in Suffolk. 0

-_.“._-I.l-...-..~._L ._-~~~ ..~-_- _,__.. ..; .-I~ .._~ ._.. ..~._ ..-. . .._. .._._ _ - _ encompassing one, for Buss daims Ultimately, however. they are designed Laurence generously “attempts to to be spokespersons for the two sides in rescue the paternal historical heritage” the Battle of the Sure-s. As the title sug- 8folher and Daa8hter RelationshIps and integrates what is valuable in the gcsts, the speakers are “masks,” per- in the Manawaka World of Miguel patriarchal past through the “accep- sonae who verbalize the opposites that Laurence, by Helen M. Buss, Eng8sh tance of positive mate fgurcs such as dash at-all levels df the worlt: III&/ Literary Studies, University of Victoria, Christie., Jules and Dan McRaith.” female, life/death, fantasy/reality, 88 pages, $6.50 papa (ISBN 0 9206L?4 21 Though some skepticism sinks in mythic/mundane. 8). about the use of Jungian “types” (which Melfi’s work is self-consciously often strikes feminists as reduclionist “experimental.” and the result is both & Sylvia il4. Brown and dictated by yet another male intriguing and ‘unsatisfyibg. M&i’s A xxU4-r ADmllcIN to a series of more expctt), this minute textual criticism themes are a8 too familiar, having been I than 30 treatises on major authors, this convincingly argues that the daughter worked to death by feminist titers’for compact work attempts to make even must become the mother in order to decades. and the speakers sddom engage Margaret Laurence’s most subtle and grow responsible and womanly. the reader on more than an intdlectual unconscious meanings clear. Buss suc- Laurence’s works indicate that the level. As a work of fiction. A Dialogue ceeds in providing insight - rare in forgotten “mother” language express- with Masks is flawed: as a creative ap- Laurence criticism - into the impor- ing the instinctive Ems principle will pmach to somewhat stale material, it is a tance of female contacts in her have to be relearned before the rcpres- worthy effort. 0 characters’ growth. She shows us Hagar, sive Logos principle of ideological in The Stone Angel, finally allowing language destroys the world. The “other women to touch her life in a exegesis of Rachel’s blessing, “God’s The Green Tomato Years, by Gloria sacramental as we.8 as a psychological pity on God” is telling - acmrding to Kupchinko Frolick, Williams-Wallace, . sense.” We explore the “iconography of Buss thii is the “matriarchal God who 142 pages, 516.93 dotb (ISBN 0 88795 the Demeter-Kore relationship” tttat gives pity to the patriarchal God.” Buss 042 1) and $8.95 paper (ISBN 0 88795 furnishes the mythic structure for “the sees Laurence as holding a paradiiatic 044 2). sanctity of the mother-daughter rda- position for many Canadian women tionship” most appsrent in The Fire- writing about women today, and sees By Wnneli Pehkonen Dwellers between Stacey and Katie. her wk as the archetype of the “grow- “LIKE TOMATOES that sre picked, due to Rachel’s domineering yet socially ing need to connect with ancient f&ale early autumn frosts, when they are still powerless mother in A Jesl of God is her principles.” Her new work of scholar- g=, many, too many, of the young worst enemy because May Cameron has ship thoroughly explains why. 0 people who grm up in Westem Canada defined. . herself and the role her during tj~e Depression never reached their full potential.” With tbue words, Frolick introduces her first collection of psychology.” Much c&temporary short stories, a series of vignettes about analysis would fall into the “blame&e A Dialogue with b&k& by Mary the Ukrainian community in Alberta mother” syndrome. but Buss looks on Mdti, Mosaic Press, 114 pages, $8.93 during the 1930s. Unlike Bharati Racbd’s struggle to escape her mother’s paper (ISBN 0 88962 300 7). Mukherjee’s Darkness, where each hold as a mater need to escape the con- newcomer is alone in hi cdlision with foment of acceptable roles imposed on North American cultua, Prolick’s women by a male dominated society. IN HER FIRST work of long fiction, Melti stories are an evocation of a tightly-knit Laurence’s more articulate chamcten explores the same themes mat preoccupy society. These people may be in a her publihed poetry and short tiction: stmngc land but they keep their balance Morag, each commence their starch for the difficulties besetting male-female by hanging on to each other. Clashes be a ROwerfUl female f=ure tbmuah writins of relationships and the shortcomings tween the Anglo-Canadian order and the I &out “the lives of the victims of tbi marriage as an institution. Like A Queen Ukrainians tend to take the form of patriarchal world.” Motbedus Morag, Is Holding a Mummltled Cat (1982) and patronizing assumption on one hand ;! in The Diviners, is especially fit. tbrougb A Bride @I Three Acts (1983), A and resignation on the other. Overt her caperienu of loss, for a quest into Dialogue with MI&S portrays the in- hostility would be too easy to confront the unconscious. Ha convasation and teraction of men and women as a power and overwme. writing is a continual ‘?edefinition or strugxle. and marriage, Mdfi su%guts, one piece that examines this issue - recreation of language . . . beyond et&ragcs husband; &td wived to see and the best story in this fme book - is denotative and conventional meanings each other as possessions ratha than as “Summer of ‘38.” While their fathw is of words” as she tries to fmd her lost lndivlduds. away, tlu II-yearold narrator and her heritage in a ‘%trong, purposeful vision The book is structured as a dialogue sister Kristina are rent for the nmuncr to of motherhood.” The ultimate resolu- between two fwru (they CL+ hardly the Mission House run by two earnest tion of this epic is a much wider, all- be called “charact~s”), one male and United Church women. Miss Care and one fcmale. who discuss and debate their Miss Holly set the girls to work and draw emotional- and sexual relationships. polite’ but firm boundtics between NOTE Melfi mrticulariaes her roe&en onlv to themselves and their charges. As the Particuiarrly posi:iw cririor;i notices the actenr of portraying hem as a I& ladies hasten to infon one set of callers, are marked at the end with (I star. * ried couple who have rented a lakeside “those two little foreign girls are only cottage to reinvigorate their marriage. staying with us for the summw” - im- plyblg that they arc less of a concern honest reflections of himself and the than the British families on relief that times in which he lived.” are the usual recipients of their charity. There an two important clues to this Tbe &Is overhear this (they arc not boolr: fmt, Kmll’s quotation of Colt- allowed to stay in the parlow they have ridge about his dream of paradise and spent the afternoon cleaning for these returning with a rose; second. tbe initial visitors) and the narrator is deeply upset: fragment, which reads, “I am a shadow “In tbe darkness of our dorm. Kristina in another man’s dream. Other voicea did her best to comfort me, patting my till my mouth, other passions my heart, back, and talking to me in a tow other thoughts my mind.” KmU has soothing voice.” The girls are forced to dreamt he is “the Judge,” and tbe rose rely on themselves for comfort in this is a splash of red on the cover. 0 mawellous study of the way attitudes are formed and propagated. The common theme in these stories is solidarity. Neighbows may tiff or disap- The Caaadtaa Dmmattsl, Vohms .&h &her fo; help or gossip. This does One. Politics and the PlaywrIght: TI-IISISMYOWN not mean that the book is an ethnic George ayss. by Cbristopber Inner, Cmqford or Thrush Grange. The dark Simon&Pierre. 130 pa8.es. $11.95 paper siiie of life in a small town, cspeciatly in (ISBN 0 88924 151 I). matters sexual, is always present. Tbe By Jason Sherman troubled girl who bas a half-Japanese baby, a lovers’ suicide, the psychotic son THE EDITOR OF the Canadian Dramatist of tbe town’s first family, a woman dy- sexier pmvidca its first volume, a long- in8 of an abortion performed. by a overdue stody of George Ryga, whose farmer’s wife are all there to trouble alienation from mainstream theatre is Sandy Lake’s serenity. So is the bard shown to be less of an OrtraciHtion than curl; and the monotony. So is the love a conscious, somerimes paranoid refusal and tbe strength of the group. to embrace tbe same middle-class moral- Fmlick’s debut is impressive. Each ity and acrtbctier Ryga so dcaplscs. one of tbcsc stories is rich enoueb to be Christopher tones writes of Rysa with expanded fnto a longer work without an understanding that relies as much sacrifting interest or action. They left upon sympathetic readings as it does me nantbxg more. 4 upon slightly antagonistic arguments. He uses Ryga and Ryga’s work as points for general diwussions of such subjects Iatlmnte Fragment% An Irreverent as the political playwright and Canadii Congratulations. Cbrontcle of Early Haltfax, edited by my&makers - background material Robert B. Kmll. Nimbus, 135 pages, that. taken together. places Ryga in $12.95 paper (ISBN 0 920852 42 4). something of a void: a writer’wbo wants to create images for a (muhi-cultured) BOOKS IN CANADA ey Sparling nm society that can hardly be expected to THIS IS A mystery book in tbe scnsc that identify with those images. the reader never knows for sun if it is 1nne.s embraces the role of the “objee on your factual or a hoax. In other words, it is an Live” critic, refusing to allow any appar- ingenious conception. And “concep- en~personal biases to inform hir.study. tion” is an excellent choice of word But with almost every protracted discus- because of the almost continuous sion of Ryga’s tier work come now FIFTEENTH womanizing in its pages. “The Judge,” of dissatisfaction with the playwright’s whose notebooks and letters these dmmaturgical skills, be it stilted or ANNIVERSM fragments are supposed to be. goes rrhotig and drinking at night and is an exmplary citizen during the day. He does reveal sensitivity toward tbe inno- from ’ cence of a teenaae Earl whom be saw from ravishmeal: Gforhmately, from bis standooint. her mother is so arateful that sbe~trtes to end bii bachelorhood (v~bicb he cbcxishcs bcforc anything). Tbcse fragments date from Jan. 1, 1776, to Jan. 30, 1835. The location is obscure dialogue, implausible Halifax. Tbe “editor.” Robert B. Kill, cbamcters, or confusing structure and JAY TEE GRAPHICS LTD. claims in his foreword that “While story-line - problana that are not mere- searching wiUs probated in Nova Scotia lyliiitcd to early versions of the works Unit 7. 34 Sims Oescent in 1835, I discovered that of the Judge.” in question. After years of sear& Kroll found these Iones, who combines wit. intcUc.ct, Richmond Hill Ontario L4B 1BB fragments at Yale Utiversity. He aawns and persuasive power with a deceptively (416) 731-1893 that the Judge’s “private writings are shople ability to conflate the widest

-_-.I_-_ _. ._-. .._ ..- --... - . . -----.--_ vi& Political c%mitmeat than f& his Blind PaIutlng, by Robeti Melan~“, skills of cratl. translated from the French by Philip But then the whole book is a.q”ation Stratford, V&lc”le Press. 109 pages, of balance. of choosing just the right 38.95 papa (ISBN 0 919890 67 9). work or biographical detail. Inna had to choose from a wealth of material in ‘By Pau! Stuewe several disciplines. His process of THE FRENCWENCUS”, text of Blind 6lbnllation has served him well: this Paindng is a revised edition of P&lure book, like so many of the plays Innes awugie. for which Robert MeIaa9oon discusses, ends without really ending, won the Governor General’s Award for and it is this sort of self-perpeluating Poeiry in 1979. Like many Qu4becois criticism that can make for an important writers. he has been strongly lnflue”ced smtea of studlcr. 0 by the Prench nouveau rotnw~ school’s Prodwer - emphasis upon sense perception rather westero than intellectual association as the-basis Prairie Books for llteraly creation. Thus these short, Sagkataon, Saskatchewan . precise poems record Melan9oon’s Fogottw Soldiers, by Pred Gaffen, immediate apprehensions of a reaIity Theytus Books, lll”strat@. 152 pages, where individual details are far sharper publlahers of 819.95 paper (ISBN 0 919441 IO 6). than bmad outlines or general pattans: By Roy MaoLam what the reader sees unquestionably &, natml history, for the writer, in an existential sew fun- THIS BOOK DOES somewhat the same dame@Iy differcot from the wuld- young a&It, Row-to, thiig for Canada’s native peoples as Roy have-beens, should-bes or looked-likes Ito’s We Wenl lo War recently did for of other modes of expression. cookbooks, history, Japanese Canadians. Although less At his bat, he makes extreuxly effec- current affairs, sysl~natic and comprehensive than Ito’s rive “se of thi rigomus aesthetic. Where book (presumably the result of limited many poets now operate as gossip e, biograaphy. funds), it does succeed in conveying col”maists for the cultured reader, assi- something of the bravery and duously stringing together brief achievements of Indians and M&is in the references to shared coacepts aad Canadian forces overseas during two mutually valued objects, Melan9o” in- world wars. sists that we look closely at a few thiags Gaffen offers brief accounts of the and try to see them clearly. The cause- 0 service of individual soldiers, frequently queoces cso be as eoli&tenIua and in- relylog upon dtatloos for medals. This t&orating ss the shimr&ag &rfectlon heImitutefbrRonPuhlicpoli contributes to the episodic and evm of “Summer”: hhutdemhubpolitQm fragmeota& nature of the book. Yet .LYCLSY . . ..&-A mwm1 ^...^.. “1:_ u,wr.I-.._^ “LIcl LI^c “,“~,z+l,,,r;luLi^____LI__I A m ‘or publisher in tb; field BEEouuts are some rogues as well as of pu“b- he policy, includin heroes - and some quite unexpected lhe whole sky. A wrblff, Policy Options, a participants in the Pirst World War. brl~Jwt, shakes lmss opinion, Choices, (One U.S. black, weary of the racial pre- anuhofbluc. letter, and. over a hundred judlce in his homeland, managed to pass This sueoity is achieved through himself off as a Canadian Indian and Melan9on’s accsptaace of other as well K2iZZnK?oK!K appareotly served overseas with some as self in s world where he “belonged/ national Economics, Trade, distloction.) and desked to bdoag only to the possl- Social Polic Technolog For the most part, the service of In- ble” (“Blind PaiutIog IV”), and in .I’ Information Esconomy, Sma “iI1 dians in all three armed forces was not wvhich the poet must r&me to destroy I Business, and Resources. only notable in itif (ranping in the the %range designs” that mem to “per- , Second World War from Hong Kong to sist despite/our fragile wisdom” (“Bliad : For information and a cata- Italy), but it also offers a brief comment Painting,‘!“). As exemplified iu the ma- logue, send to: . on the dfff%z”lt poshvar adaptation to a jority of the poems preseilted here, this civilian life where prejudice was still demanding regimp enablea Melsn~on rampant. Also included is ao even to break through to levels of con- briefer comparison with the wartime templative Ioslght se&m encountered w;perleoas of New Zealand Maotis, in any coutemporary witlog. Australian aborigines. and U.S. Indians. There are pitfalls inherent ia tbis This is a modest hook, too Limited to do appmacb as well, of course, .si”ce con- justice to its subject, especially the social templative iosiit cao easily turn into a impllcatIoos. but it is at least a beginning much more &wile variety of analytical for a more mmplete account of the passivity. At times, Mela”9on’s vobuueer service of those native people3 Iaogusge is simply too prosaic to convey who, llke.the Japiinue Caoadlans. had the intensity of his passions. and he little enough reason to risk their Lives for occasi~aUy indulges lo over-extended Canada. 0 memphors that run against the grain of

,;, . . .._::.= ___ -: .w-.-.,>. .-_._-v..-_.-.l.. ,.. -...... ,_I c-.~. :-. . . ..__.-. .i. -,,. .-.-7: .._ c _..r... his essentially naturalistic poetic prac- She closes the poem by drawing together ticc. But such lapses fmm grace are in- the ocrallel work& of music and “the frequent blemishes upon a very im- sentince:~ pressive collection of poetry, which Michacls’s imagery is well sustahwd Philip Stratford’s sclf-effccb& literal thr&hout the work. Although it is often dazzling. it also always serves the of li~oistic barriers. 0 dccpcr intent of each poem. Michael6 ccrtsinly knows what she is doing here. and in doing it has 8iveo us an uocom- The Weight of Ore&s. by Anne manly good first book. * Michsels, coach House Press, 56 pws, $7.50 papa (lSBN 0 88910 318 5). Women in the Woods, by Joy By Louise Long0 Kogawc. Mosaic Press, 80 pager, 88.95 .wm m2mms make.5 an impressive paper QSBN 0 88962 294 9). debut in her fuat book of poetry. Her By Frank Manley work is well-crafted and emotionally resonant end studded with gems, such es DESP,TB THE imagery sw.-Wed by the one fmm “Memoricm”: “The dead title of this, the fourth book of poetry leave us starving with mouths full of from Joy Kogawa, the poet’s visiin is love.” Her themes of love, loss, cod the obscured n&her by forest nor trees: the A Reoauionship human stro&c arc almost stenderd insight found here is enlightening. poetic fare. but what she makes of them Ostensibly about the “plight (and flight) Rqaair Mauuaoa~ certainly is not. This, also from of a woman and child.” Woman in Ike Unique approach lo strengthening “‘Mcalori~? WOOCLF encompsssw many sspects of relationshipsof all kinds. Illustrated life - it is poetry that reach= out. book plus game board, 72 game The book begins with ao axiom in “Bird Song!’ - “Flung from OUI nests/ for $18.95. Recom~anded by ax- like the shell wmps the sea in the late spring/and ordered to fly/ or parts. Ideal gift for all occasions. Nothing to curry, die we are/waned to the air” - and Leading book outlets or order direct some stones to fi// our pockets, ads neatly with a hymn to faitb in fmm Braemar q ooka.Ltd., Box lo give wlght to what we have. “Water So&‘: 4$p A, Victoria, Canada There is more than a tinge of mortal- ity to these poems, but Michacls’s superb use of language and her emotiomdIy-weighted inright keep them from stumbfbtg into the morbid. This is from the title poem: Sometimes I%I vermin those who & WPY knowom?Udngmorefhanlrrmru. . . orone thins Iem The poetry contained by these two The dy bock IY wrke again poems is the elliptical journey of Is our bodies c/o&g together. Kogawa’s dramatic persona thmu8h Th& #kc language Ihal stuns, experiences ranging from the epic to the. sum, bralhar into yw. whimsical. Naked, w had voices1 Perhaps the most engaging virtue of In the last section of the book, this collection is the passion for life that Michaels explores themes of sexuality Kogaw has, especiaUy when much in and creativity through one’ particular the world offends the poet’s sensibility. and shaping friendship. In the long Take, for example, her satire in “Last poem “War+ for the Body,” the two Day” - “That day . . . in the elevator/ friends, one a writer and the other a no-one tried to be unusua8y friendly” musician, decide that “music is - or in “Bxptimeat,” where a IO memory,/the way a word is the memory searcher tortures animals to gain respect- of its meaning.” The poem thm ex- ability: “He poblishu his article/in plows not ocly the demands of ma&g Psychology Today/and makes an addi- art but also the price it excels: tion/to his eonicolam vitae.” In “Give In c voice that came /mm the highw Us This Day” (perhaps the best poem ,vu dew&d the blacknerr where here) Ko8awa finds in Shcdrach - an Deep, dark and pcwerful. mudc wks, opponmt of Nebuchadnezzar. in the Book ofDaniel - a symbol for faith in “A quality of strangeness an age of clicnation: “Shcdrach’s angel and inter&y not common will fmd w/in the Hean’s fiery places.” in our own literature’: This motif is prominent in other poems cynthio ozti of their own. such as “Herr We are a Point of You qmke of a kind of hunger Sanity”: “Oh leap down leap down/to thrrl m&s pleawe perfect. tbc thirst/to the flame.” Kogawa often $9.95 paperback Then you said how it was to be opted “sc( fm and colour (grceo) to Sc88eSt and t&ed by o holl full ofpmple. rgenwation and hope. ._. _.__.-.-- ___..___ _

Cat~al to Kogawa’s skill is her ability right of economists themselves to speak suggeststhe need for a more critical to say volumes with only a few words (a on social issues. The participants col- approach to the activities of socie.l*i for refreshing altcmative to the verbosity of laborate effectively in diicussittg the animal welfare such as Greenpeace. many of her contemporaries). In “One concept of economic justice and its Perhaps we shotdd’pour the cooling Night’s Standing,” the lover departs theoretical and practical limitations. waters of reason and moderation on the “leaving her to journey/with one sense The cagers and diiussions rattee often holly emotional issue of the Cana- less/towards senselessness.” Kogawa’s widely. &ciaUy good are theeontribi- dian seal harvest. 0 careful diction binds the images tiotts of philosooher and divine Murditb together, giving each poem a reflexive ML&and th; economists Milton and mystique that encourages multiple read- David Friedman, who take the discus- ings. * sion sessions in band when ~ecesssty. Dnn&erot~sWalers: One Man’s Seprch Praise is also due the editors for their for Adventure, by David PbUpott. Me fair-mindedness; on the other hand, they CleUattd & stcwart, 179 pager, $19.95 have allowed an impermissible number cloth (ISBN 0 7710 6996 7). 1 TIte Momlity of the Market: Religious of misspellings and other lapses. Noric- and Kconomlc Perspectives, edited by tbelus, they have every right to boast a By John Greenwood Walter Block. Geoffrey Brennan, and unique collection cd papers and corn- INTHESPRNO of 1979David Pbilpatt set : Kenneth Elzinga, The Fraser Institute, mmtery on a provocative topic. 0 out alone in a 30-foot sailboat to citcum- 601 pages, 914.95 paper (ISBN 0 88975 navigate the globe. The 53-year-old 074 2). Toronto developer was about halfway across the South Atlantic when a ripped By Cyril Strom Seal An American Viewpoint, sailputanendtothetripandverynearly TR~UBL.ELIBY the belief that the ecclc- by Janice Scott Henke, Breakwater his life as well. That was Itis rxst expe siastical establishment has arrived at a Books, 211 #ages, $19.95 cloth (ISBN 0/ riena of ocean sailittg. PiliIpott is an “left of centre, anti-market 919519 61 X) and 59.95 paper (ISBN II able man, and his acxmmt of the voyage orientation,” Vancouver’s conservative 919519 63 6). is compelling, pa&tdarIy because he Fraser Institute held a symposium on the goes to some lengths to shed light on his issue in 19gZ.‘Tbe organizers asked By Claire Brownecombe reasons for ut&.rt&ing the mammoth whether anything inherent in the HENKE.A CtJLTtqtALanthropologist and expedition. teachings of the major Western religions licensed New York State wildlife Sailing amuttd the world, he explains, disposes them against laissez-Jaire rehabilitator married to a consetvation is not strange behaviour for someone capitalism, and whether political and officer. offers a unique perspective on who hss achieved as much as he ha% In socio-eccmomic positions can properly the Canadian seal hunt. the business world he rose quickly; be derived from reliious doctrine at a& Animal welfare mows have waged an before he was 40 he had been bwoIved in they invited a gmup of mostly liberal hltmse war of protai against &. seal some of the largest building projects in theologians and mostly conservative slaughter, but there is another side to the North America, and by his early 50s he economists to present papers and written story. The Canadi’an seal hunt is well ran a successfttl development company comments. and ta discuss them. regulated and well supervised. The of his own. But still looking for contests, Dii hosts always banish talk of animals ate killed humanely in that club- he got on his l&peed in 1977 and religiin and polities from the dinner bing renders a seal pup unconsdous. pedalled fmm Tomnta to Florida in 17 table. Tbe sharp and contentious tone of Seals shed copious tears as * natural days. The following year he rode his much of the debate hm, in contrast to physiological process, not because of bike across the coltlttty. that at many learned conferences, will grief over a dead pup. The ocean voyage, PhUpott says, WBO remind the reader why. Whether they be Inuit or Newfouttd- just the nexl step. Always thorough and The conferees imd it difficult to systematic, he limits his account mostly address in a systematic way the con- of major importance, a fact seldom to what he sees and does, so a& a while ference.%questions, as posed. The prob- svcssed by popular environmentalists. the trip does seem like a list of weather lem is partly one of defbtition. The He&e questions the right of one culture conditiotts punctuated by “cqtdpmettt organizing concept “inteemsUst/exter- failures.” Bttl tbc situations he describes ttalkt,” introduced here to distinguish ufistyiiare differcut. - are often extreme. and when he has to explanations for a given political posi- Seal Wars offers some insight into the spend whole days tied to a bunk during tion that rely on religious dogma alone work of professional biologists, their his first Atlantic gale, it’s not difficult to from those that look elsewhere (to the fmdinss, and the oroblem of maintain- imagine, even fmm his invenlory of sociology of the clergy, for example) ing a&&c ttu~bers for independent events, the size of the waves. Interesting serves neither the conferees nor tbe specks in a constantly changing envimtt- things are always happening: once hi editors well. The two terms are used by t&t. More speeiUc_s*Mt~~~informa- boat is occupied by a flock of fearless the participants throughout, but seldom Lion to offset the sensational misinfor- and constantly defecating seabirds, and with much mntidence. No one actpally mation spread by the protest movement for a time he drifts in the D&imms. identifies any such intcmalist explana- would, perhaps, have made this book And the tale becomes properly g&ping tiott, the theologians claiming, tmexcep- still more effective. Material in the when Philpott’s boat is wrecked in a ter- tionally, that their values simply il- lengthy chapter “The Seal Saviours” tible storm and h! is left to drift toward luminate economic and political debate. might have been condensed and some the iceflows of the Antarctic. Too oflen the issue becomes resolved repetition avoided if the animal welfare As an account of a modem shipwreck into the questioning of the competence societies,their distortions and some- the story is remarkable. Clearly Pbilpott in fomtal economics of the religious times shoddy tactics had been discussed is not a writer by trade - his style is arid spokesmen. A more pertinent and in general rather than in particular. rather than imaginative - but beneath generous approach prevails, however, Consmation is necearary, but there the demib of the voyage he dutifully when the discussion turns to the problem are many factors to be considered. In notes, the sheer magnitude of his mpe- of value-free analysis in general and the Serrl Warn Janice Scott Henke strongly tience is manifest. 0

J-Y_ . . :_-.. .wr. :_ .?,T’.. -_-s.:. c._i---.-i-.. _.~i_.__-n__- ._..._.. ___.__.,_... _.___ ,..__ ._ Hello Cnmdsl The Life and Timrr of shares of Maple Leaf Gardens stock he Fosler Hewitt, by Scat Young, Seal rolled it into shares of Baton Broad- Books. 216 pages, $17.95 cloth (ISBN 0 casting, one of many investments lhst 770 42100 8). made Hewitt very wealthy at the time of his death. I” his later years, he lost much interest in hockey, feeling that expan- WE snc~ms i he scored” No o&r in- sion had diluted the quality of the game. troduction is necessary. Young’s book His last great broadcasting moment provides the details beyond the introdue came in 1972 with the first Canada- don. It’s a book that is heavy on the Russia series. It was only appropriate - 1 hockey-related details and light on per- that Foster Hewitt should be there., and sonal revelations. As it should be. For Scott Young captures the moment wok Autumn Vengeance Hewitt was Hockey Night in Canada for derfilly. 4 By Ems Watts more than 50 years. Young writes in a simple but not A Lend, A People slmpllstic style and portrays Iiewltt as Editor: Michael Nowlan hard-working. innovative. and Wby It’s Hard to Fire Johnny’s dedicated. In the early ’20s Hewitt was a Teacher: the Stntus of Tenured Teachers Now in paperback! reporter with the Toronto Star, which la Manilob” and Canadn. bv Michael owned one of the lilt radio stations in Czuboka, Communigraphi& ~14page& Toronto. Tbirteed days after the Star’s $19.95 paper (ISBN 0 920073 02 6). first broadcast Hewitt was appointed editor of the “Radio Department.” He By Ann Lukifs was 19 years old. KASTUPAN KAVSHAL burned her In the early summer of 1931 Corm students’ linal - papers. Teacher Smythe’s Maple Leaf Gardens war being Michael Kopchuk was not “sufficiently built. Scythe, a big believer in the fluent” in French. Vice-principal Albert power of radio, told Hewitt to decide Baldwin telephoned a false bomb threat vfhere he felt the broadcast booth should to Swan River Junior High. And be located and to tell the architect. another teacher, Harvey Wheaton, Hwitt mettt three hours walkbtr u” and called bis superior a “pompous ass” and down & stairs of a l?.-story-E&m% suggested that he “screw himself” and buildittg on Albert Street. On each floor words to that effect. Hewitt would stop and look out the win- These are only a few of the incidents dows on the street below. Using this that prompted school boards in method he determined that on the fifth Manitoba to try to “fire Johnny’s floor, 56 feet above the street, he found teacher” during the past two decade!. Stanley But not every attempt at dismissal tis successful: Baldwin was oply demoted for his bomb threat. while Kopchuk, despite his impeccable teaching record. EL lost his job because he muld not teach in Fret&. In this informative, highly readable, and often entertaining book, Mlcbael Czuboka. superintendent of Manitoba’s Agassiz School Division. explores the thorny issue of “teacher tenure” and the seemingly widespread assumption that tea&en can’t be fired. He pays special "You owe it to yourselfto tead attention to the word “tenure” and TdeMagzXing~oom...With shows, through a detailed analysis of a sense ofhumout that is arbitration hearings and mutt case-s, his best view. The bmadcast booth, “the how its meaning has changed over the uncompromisingly twisted gatdola,” would be 56 feet above the ice years. The vast number of hearings. andaprosestyletomatch... surface. which comprise the bulk of the book, this is an UncoIIlforcably Akbounh Hewitt’s relationshiu with should convince the most skeptical funny book. It makes us Corn Smythe was solid, relatlo~ with ctitiw of the education system that Harold Ballard were shaky. Hewitt school boards can and sometimes do tire recognize out fine emotions r&r&d Ballard’s wholesale wreckbtg of teachers. and quick tears for what they the gondola during renovations of the Still, Czuboka demonstrates how dif- reallyate...” - C&q Hem& Gardens, believing it should have been presented to the Hockey Hall of Fame. teacher - and conversely, how-good 514.91 papa, 324 pag5.5’llx 7% The final blow came when CKFH teachers are often victims of btcompk (“F.&I.“). tbe radio station of the Leafs. tent school boards. AlthougJt his study lost its broadcasting rights when focuses on Manitoba, he also surveys the Ballard’s financial demands became legislation govembtg tenure in other exorbitant. provinces. The highly publicized When in 1971 Hewitt sold his 12,000 dismissal of former Alberta tea&r

.._ ._._ -. -~ _.- ._-_. . ..-__._.. _ -_._ ...~__.I ,._- ._ _._.. ._- _ .___ _...._.. _. ___ James Kecgstra is one of a numba of under unplanned capitalism.” His la- tenure casesdiscussed. tmductlon sets the tone for the book. Johnny’s Teacher is flawed by a Workimg’Liws is at its best when pro- number of typographical errors and a vidll a port& of B.C.% fascinating format that resembles a teach&raining labour history unclouded by political manual. Despite his admilted “admini% dogma. But politics and labour arc in- trativc prejudices.” however, Czuboka separable in B.C., and this book makes displays unusual sympathy for alI parties that palntwy clear. 0 A Novel by Macek Halter involved in teacher firings. Says Czuboka: “Tenure casea are like divorce proceedings, inasmuch as everyone’s ‘dirty laundry’ is washed in public. Even Jamalca Under Ma&y: Dilemmas of “A book that lives up to its the ‘winning’ side loses something in the Soclallrm aad Democracy, by Michael Biblical tide; one hundred process.” 0 Kaufman. Between the Lines, 282 pages, genetatiom and two thousand S29.95 cloth (ISBN 0 919946 58 5) and years ofJcwkh history jammed $12.95 paper (ISBN 0 919946 59 3). into a tale so ekcttic with Working Liver, by the Working Lives By IWat9hew Behrens religion, violence, mmance, Collective, New Star, illustrated, 211 YORK UNIVERSITYprofessor Michael lytickm. and family saga that at paw, $29.95 cloth (ISBN 0 919573 48 7J Kaufman is a superb researcher and a times it almost thteatens to give and $15.95 paper (ISBN 0 919573 49 5). keen political analyst, but those two taleatssloaearenotcMoghiathls tbeGoodBookitselfatunfor By Grant Shi1iing tbemoney...Halterpullsoffa book, which examines the eight years of THHISBOOK. published in celebration of People’s National Party (PNP) rule and realmurdeforce...Afeastflom Vancouver’s centennial, is divided into the dilemmas that brought an cad m the stxt to finish.” - KirRu Rcvrirtvr three main sections: working, living, and Manley govermnent. S2W~.lG8 pgE.6 x9 organizing. Each section is equally With the rumblings in Haiti aad the thorough. Complete with vivid historical reopeolag of wounds in Oreoada, Kauf- photographs, the book makes for an at- man’s book ls a timely study of non- tractive package. However, the narrative revolutionary change in the Caribbean. drags. The problem lies in the overt However, the text is oncven@mpiog political orientation of the writing. from the dry and factual to the collo- Fiuhemy & WhitesidelBcwabook~ There is a fme line between saluthig quial. With the latler. Kaufman aban- working lives and making a political dons his rigidity and touches the reader statement. When terms such as “lm- with ao ingratiating style, but then seems pCrialiSt, ” “capital galas - we lose.” oosure of his analysis and cots back to and “fight for social justice” arc used straight facts and f~urcs. with great frequency it is apparent that At the root of Kaufman’s study is a the line is crossed. To the Idt. simple conclusion: the problem of B.C. politics can be defined in one socialism in a nation like Jamaica is not word: polarity. The- emergence of a so much predicated upon internal middle-ground party has yet to manifest elements (though his flue hiitoricsl itself, and in the land of the red scare the accounts and detailed deacrlptioa of Social Credit patty has held on to power for the last 10 years. Militancy ia reaction to heavy-handed Irimming by the Socrcds has characterlled the labour movement in B.C. Now a bestseller Fifty authors have contributed under the banner of the Workins Lives Collcc- “Compelling reading.” live. A cwtaln amount of group-think - Toronto Star has takm place in the writing of the “A rare r&ctlon of an active book. Give this group its due, however. MP.” - Mocleon’s Although the book was published with the assistance of tbe Cememdal com- class and etbnicity point to possible “suIprlalng revelations.” mission, the authors were brave enough roadblocks) as from elemats outside. - Globe and Mall if not to bite the hand that feeds them.‘at The U.S. saw Ma&y as the threat of a least to nibble on it. In this the par of good example and, during a period when Expo 86, Working Lives is a reaction to colonial govcmmeots fell in Grenada much of the Expo propaganda. and Nicaragua, it did not want to “lose” In the book’s intmductlon, AIlem a major baulte exporter la Jamaica. Seager refers to the “labour-hating fae Kaufman’s smry of depcndeacc and tion of the ruling Social Credit underdevelopment ls archctypal of most coalition.” He goes oa to state thal nations currently suffering the woes of “Expo throws inlo bold relief important debt and economic crisis. Perhaps the contemporary issues, particularly the conclusion ooc draws about this book ls looming problem of reduced living stan- slmiir to the fate Kaufman ascriber to dards and structural uncmploym6nt Manley himselC not defeat. just pcrlodlc caused by the ‘tcchoologlcal revolution’ setbacks. 0 Second World War. For the most part, but I see notbihing in his observations that our writers were confined to Canadian would not have been written by a British subjects until they could match wits and sea captain. Sir George Simpson, born styles with the beat writers anywhere. in Scotland in 1787, Is included by virtue First you grow op. Then you leave of his residency in Canada and close home. Rildare Dobbs tries to explain association with the Hudson’s Bay Com- this phenomenon in two sentences in his pany. But since he identifies himself introduction. “In pioneering times several times through this piece as an %y George Oalt Canadians tie too busy exploring our Englishman abroad, I haven’t any idea own vast territory to think much about why Dobbs sees him as a Canadian Away from Eome: Canadiaa Wdters travel beyond oar borders. Later they traveller. in Exotic Places. edited bv Kildare began tn look outward.” True as far as Simpson’s piece on Siberia is among Dobbs, Deoeau, 3i4 pages. ti.95 cloth it god, but I think Dobbs, a well the more compelling extracts in this ml- (ISBN 0 88879 119 4). regarded essayist, has missed an oppor- lectlon. It might have a place here, I tunity to make some lnclsive comments think, if Dobbs had drawn the reader’s FOR A OOOD travel writer, dlsta”ce on the Canadian experience. His short attention to the fact that even if early makes the eye grow keener. Removed introduction is unambitious and not British colonists in Canada called them- fmm home, and culturally alienated very informative. selves Canadian, abroad they quickly from the foreign territory he is passing A more apt title for this collection reverted to their native loyalties. Slmp- through, the traveller can comment on might be Adrifl. There appears to be a son, I imagine, may have seen Canada as both home and abmsd with freed and lot of flotsam, if not jetsam, here. The the British equivalent to Siberia, simply sharpened perceptions. In his essay on editor casts a very wide net, offering “a a northern exteoslon of Scotland. and Paris, included in this anthology of selection of travel writing by English- any anthology of early British travel travel writing, Mordecai Richler wrote: speaking Canadians from the 1840s to writing would no doubt w$mme him. A Canada is a ...... the present day.” His catch includes Canadian writer he was not, though in- Armstmng passed me a note. “A some tine and delicate fiih, but also sights into the development of Canada’s Prabyrerlan oval.” some old rubber boots, and a couple of self-image might be gained by cornpar- Unsubtle, to say the least, but also the specimens that do not really originate in ing hII book with similar works of a later typical posture of literary North Canadian waters, unless you draw a very date. Americans in Eumpe. Abroad you fmd generous fishing boundary. Was Sir Dobbs cautions readers against judg- good sex. good wine, better books, more B+vard Belcher. whose visit to Fiji is ing thii book on what has been left out. I exciting cities, more sophiitlcated peo- excerpted here. a Canadian travel agree with him. I did wonder why Parley ple. So goes the myth, not as powerful writer7 He was born in Halifax in 1799, Mowat’s Sibir was not tapped instead of now as it was 30 years ago. In some ways our culture has overtaken it. Travel witing by Canadians was a rare genre until recently. and even now is not much practired. Western llteratux may be& with poetry, if we place Homer at the dawn of recorded words. But the Iliad and the Odyssq were oral creations, and it is doubtful whether “Homer” was a single voice. Westem literature as we know and read it can just as credibly be said to begin much later, in the classIcal period. And perhaps the greatest prose work of that age was a travel book, masquerading as history, written by Iiemdotus. The tradition, then, Is long and rich.. but it has tended to be contlnaed by con- fident and imperial cultures. A culture that has profound doubts about itself, or strong isolationist leanings, will have fewer reasoos to take on the world, ev~1 through literature. Good travel writing is one index of a Literature’s breadth, as well as its international strength. Fifty years ago what Canadian writer would Thirteen new stories by the author of Intertidal have wanted to compete with D.H. Lawrence’s Sea and Sardirda or Robert Life, reflecting the subtle nuances of Byron’s The Road to OxianSt The most admired travel writers of any age. like contemporary sexual relationships and the VS. Nalpaul and Lawrence Durrell in strong link between mothers and daughters. ours, have been among the most ad- mired on any scale. With a few notable exceptions, like Morley Callaghan, Canadian writers did not achieve inter- A Viking Book from Penguin Canada $13.95 national stature until well after the

_- ____ ..__...__ -.---_ .~___ ..-___-_ __._.. For me. it has a slapdash Third-World the footsteps of his restless salesman be& stm&er with a Mavis Gallant piece look - poetic justice, I suppose. Spe+ father, he spent his childhood ln the and something fmm Margaret Law- in8 of justice, I’ll give the penultimate Deep South of the 1940s and his axe’s Africa” travel book. But many word to Dobbs: “The editor has had to adolescence in the Pittsburgh of the other excellent writers are in: Morley work to the maxim, ‘If you c&t be jest 1950s. In the 1960s he married a Callaghan and Job” Glassco with bits [sic]. be arbitrary.’ ” Someone most Brahman and settled in Montreal. Now from their Paris books; Charles Ritchie have thought he WBS instructing the he lives - where? On page three of his on London; Norman Levine on Corn- typesetten 0 new book he datu the lntmducthm from vati, Dobbs himself with ao elegant Iowa city. last October; but on page i essay on Momcw; George Woodcock the publisher says he’s at Columbia. The on the South Seas; and Clark Blaise and ambiguities continue. Bhamti Mukherlee with a” extract fmm Nearly all Blalse’s published tictlon their husba”&-and-wife book on wndtts of variations on the theme of his calculta. confused identity. Lusts, the second of ’ As Dobbs points out, this anthology is his two novels, is a partial exception to the t&t of its kind, and no one should thll. But the new hook retums to the carp because a favourlte book or essay inti theme, stating it precisely in its , has bee” excluded. Most of our best title, Resident Alien, and in two directly l3yI.M. Owen literary travelle.lxmake ml appwm”ce. autobiographical essays, “The Voice of The se&Ion turns up some curiosities Unhoosenwnt” and “Memories of too, like the excerpts fmm IBrought the Resident Allen, by Clark Blake. Unhousement.” In between come four Ages Home by C.T. Cuurrelly. a Cana- Penguin, 1% pages, 87.95 paper (ISBN stories so closely Linked that together dian archaeologist who travelled in 0 14 008234 4). they make a novella. Bgypt in 1901. Few readers wda 40 will Another Comlry: Wriliqs by and The hem ls called, thii tbne, Phil have hea@ of hi or his book, pub- About Henry Kreisel. edited by Shirley Porter, “6 Carrier. He has much the lished in 19%. It’s a worthwhile Neuman, Newest Press. 362 pages, same family background as the author, discavery. $19.95 cloth (ISBN 0 920316 87 5) and and as Fmnkie Thibidault I” A North Dobbs has also included some $9.95 paper (ISBN 0 920316 85 9). Ame&m Education and David Green- The Light I” the Piazza, by Elizabeth wood (~6 Boisvert) in Lunar Attruc- and a from spe”cz.r, Pe”guln. 233 pages, $7.95 lions, but ohlike thwn is take” back to Jama de Mille’s 1860 publication The paper (ISBN 0 I4 008712 3). Montreal fmm Pittsburgh at the age of Dodge Club. In most countries de Mille I2 snd is educated in Frrnch there - to my taste no more than a fluent I’ua ALWAYS,Hcl”OnT that the “lost ex- before retund”8 to the States and revert- hack - would have been forgotten by pressive lines in the “Canadian Boat ing to the name of Potter. In middle age now, but we are so anxious to show that Song” publllhed snonymoosly in 1829 he writes a successTul autobiography, 19th-century Canadians could string are not the much-quoted ones about the which is translated into French; so that vvords together and spell that we keep lone shielii but the refrain: he goes to Montreal to promote the him alive. Only one of the periodical Fatrare Ihesemead% these hwry woods Prrncb edition -and, as it turns out. to pieces, a hilarious essay by Gary Mar- have a gratifying and highly symbolic chant on his year with the Buenos Aires affair with his translator and a deathbed Herald, comes dose to the quality of (Or words to that effect; there docsn’t reconclliatio” with his father, Rejean pmse and perception in the book seem to be a book l” my house that co”- carrier, who is known in the hospital as excerpts. Travel books, which spring out talus the poem.) Not just from owland, Reggle, I’amdrimin. of total immersion in and concentrated you see: from our fathers’ land. That’s The whole sequence is rich in sym- observation of a fore&” culture for bem characteristic of English Canadians bolism that is fully~integrated into the many weeks or months, bear little I.&- fmm the beginning - “ot of French narrative, not stuck on Like omammt. tion to travel articles (no matter how Canadians, whose fathas’ land dls- I’m inclined to think this ls Blalse’s best well written), which are the product of a owned them in 1763 and turned alto- work. It was a good idea to set the two short jaunt as a tourist. 1 think they sit gether alien to them three decades later. fragments of autobiography beside it. a\vkw.rdly side by side. But other Canadians remain alla - I’d have liked it better stiU if we could A word about the look of this book. from the Thirteen Colonies, the British have had the whole autobiography. But I” the table of contents John. Glassco’s Isles. W&em Burope, Eastern Europe. we most submit to bel”8 tantalized. rldornoirs o/~o”tparna.w are not men- and beyond. (And the” there are the In- Like Clark Blaise. Henry Rrelsel has tioned, though they are excerpted in the dians. who are exiles in their fathers’ published only two “owls and a small text. That is the fust of a” appalling land; but that’s another story.) “umber of short stories; but because array of typos and other tech&al So, no matter how Canadian we are these have bee” spread over a much gaffes. Running the eyea through Away and feel, we are in some sense resident longer paiod he isn’t as well k”ow” as From Home is like driving fast over a aliens; “o matter how fumly attached to Blaise, and not nearly as well known as sheet with speed bumps. It’s wnstantly the fair meads and hoary woods (and I he ought to be. So Another Country, a jarring and makea you want to go some- wouldn’t live anywhere else), we still grab-bag of a book partly by and partly where else, .eve” when you’re enjoying detine ourselves - and each other - about him, is very welcome. the scenery. There wer lost of stenences patUyintennsofooranwstmlhomc- Rrelsd ls anothcz special case of the Sk this. At one point I started counting lands. Canadian as exile, a representative of a typos, but gave up whe” I reached 50. The deftition of Clark Blaise is more dlstlngulshed 8mup of people whose With sa many foreign ulace-“anxa and complex thhan most. As he says, he is presence among “li we owe in equal parts foreign-lag&e wok, it was bard to “the only Canadian writer born in to Hitler and to the British bureaucracy. tell where the misspelIl”g~were. Clearly .&go, North Dakota” - of a” Bngllsh- In 1940 Canada had awed to take ova the publisher did not do his part in Canadian mother and a French- from the Brirish a certain number of seeing this book through pmduaton. Canadian father. Constantly moving in prisoners of war. But, things bdng as .~.. I_ . .-- _. ,, _

they were et the time, not many “The Light in the Piazza” ls about an prisoners had been taken. so Britain American motha visiting Florence with made up for the shortfall by shipping her retarded X-year-old daughter, and over a number of interned %nemy dealing in her own way with the situa- aliens,” who of course were mostly aati- tion that arises when a young Florentine Nazi refugees. Among them was the falls in love with the daughter and is IS-year-old Hebuich Kreisd, who bad determined to marry her. “The escaned from Vienna four months after Cousins” describes the European tour the &hluss. of five young Alabamans, as recalled by Kreisel had known no Eaallsh before two of them when they meet in Florence 1938, bat almost immediat& after his 30 years later. Both stories am subtle and anival la Eaglaad he decided not only complex, their ambiguities heightened that he would be a writer. but that he by the cool da&y of the prose. would be a wiler in English. As soon as The novella “Knights and Dragons,” “One qf the bmt books ever written he was interned he starteda dii in his which is the cemrepiece of the book, is rbout Iiolbwmd= -Rex Red new language, and kept it up until by another Elizabeth Spencer, a verbose 3e dreams of HolIywoad in the shortly before his release in 1941. It is, and turgid writer, whose style is as badow of the horror of World War reproduced in full in this book, together heavily scented as the Mississippi springs I unfold brilliantly in Timothy with several short stories and poems he she describes in other stories, and who Sndley’s second novel. also wrote at the time. Likes to end episodes or stories with The book also indudes a very interest- solemaly symbolic codas: qow, revised and with a new utmductlon by Timothy Fladley. ing essay of Krelsd’s called “Language She was of there whom life had held a $lw and Identity.” in which he talks about captive, and in freeing herself she had this decision. A fellow-internee told him met diisolution, and was a friend now about Joseph Conrad, who at once to any landscape, a companion to cloud became one of his heroes though he and sky. couldn’t get hold of any of his books. As It’s this Spencer who at such solemn a matter of fact, K&d’s mastery of moments trips over her own syntax - English is much greater than Cornad’s. “thaw whom life had held (I captive,” It’s interesting to compare writers who did you notice? -and in the description have made such a change. Like many of Venice from which the title is taken other people lately, I have been lookii can write “St. George slew the dragon at lsak Dinesea again. Her English ls on every passlag well”; in fact the wells highly inaccurate but graceful. Conrad’s in V&x are as stationary as wells is accurate but terribly ponderous. anywhere else. _... ..-._ ._. x r4 Krelsel’s ls flawless. Perhaps that just Reviewing The Stories of Biimbeth proves that being a ptifessor of Bagllsh Spencer inSaturdayNight in 1981, Isaid is more helpful in ths matter than being that “Knights and Dragons” was a coffee-planter or *sea-captain. “almost entirely deplorable.” Well, I There’s a vast amount and variety of was younger then. Rereading it this material in Another Country iad- lime, and forgetting that I’d said that, 1 quite enjoyed it. But even in my new illuminating 1 &pec.lally by maturity I can still deplore that it wasn’t Michael Greenstein - some less SD. such written in the elegantly simple prose of ar one called ‘*Henry Wsek A ihe- the other - the real - Elizabeth diaa Exile Writer?” (Aaswer, 10 pages Spencer. 0 later: yes.) But what I really want to say lnenightlnthelIfeofMlBurga, about the book is that it sent me back to x-actmss, nearly forty and pregnant Krelsel’s two novels aftu many years. I rith her fourth child. was astonished yet again at the excel- rfarlan Engel’s most wry and tender lence of 77~ Rich &fan. Was there ever a oval, available again, with a naw more accomplished fmt novel? In The ~tmductioa by Audrey Thomas. $7.91 B@tn&, it still seems to me that discus- sion of the fascinating moral dilemma it poses rather overpowers its novdlstlc qualities. Yet another displaced person is By Mary Alnslle Smith Elizabeth Spencer, who came to Mont- real from Misslsslppi by way of Italy. In Mlchde Laidsberg’a Guide to The Light in the Piazza Penguin has cd- Chlldrea’s Books, Penguin, 272 pages, lected three of her Italian stmies. It $12.95 paper (ISBN 0 14 007136 9). makes a good supplement to the 1981 Doubleday volume Tire Stories of MICHELELANDSBERG remembers being Elizabeth Spencer, b-use for some transformed as she grew up by the power reason that book didn’t indudewhat is of books. Her childhood in the Toronto the title story here, and because the tblrd of the 1940s was sheltued and ordinary, story here, “The Cousins; has been but books provided her with “other Penguin Books written since. They are both Spencer at lives” full of stimulation, adventure., Canada her best, I think. and romance. They had a permanent ef- _

- --- _.--_-__-_-~-~ --_.__. feet on her life. and her love of ed as possible. Her guide attempts to their strengths, and also takes time to children’s literature stayed with ha into provide equal discussions of books consider those that she feels are bad and adulthood. Michele Landvberg’s Guide showing boys and girls in active., central false, even damaging to their readers. lo Children’s Books is a product of thii roles. Such books can help combat con- Some of her opinions are expected; I love and enthusiasm, as well as of ventional gender stereotyping, some- othas are a bit surprising. She inveighs Landsberg’s experience as a writer, a thing that Landsberg believes can be against “commodity” books - “those’ critic of children’s books, and a parent. even more devastating for boys than for based on cartoon. toy or film characters, The guide is no mere listing of girls. with sentiments and vocabulary vilely fwoufite books. Landsberg uses it to She deals with racial sLweotypes in calculated by market survey” - that state a number of strong opinions and childien’s books and, although strongly take up warehouse and shelf space driv- passionate beliefs. Foremost is her feel- against censorship and the idea of a hag worthy children’s books out of print. ing that children who do not know the “sterilized literature” free of any sexist She detests Judy Blume, the pheno- pleasures of reading are children de- or racist references, advocates basic menally successful U.S. author whose prived. Books can bring joy and stability comnmn sense where adults have a paperbacks ha& sold nearly 30 million to children’s liw and provide deeper choice of books. for instance for claw copies. Landsberg objects not to and truer perceptions of the world than mom use. Blume’s frankness of language - the flickuing images and shallow plots She speaks stmngly against “biblio- although many parents are upset by that of television. Wise and earing pare& - therapy,” finding repugnant the idea -but to her “bland and unqucrtioning and other ad& involved with children that a child, suffering from pain, such as acceptance of mqiority values, of eon- - have the responsibility to understand that caused by a death or a family break- formity, consumerism, materialism. un- what their children are reading and, up, will feel better for b& given a bounded narcissism” and to her “flat, without censoring or proselytidng, offer book, like a dose of medichw.. about sloppy, ungrammatical. inexpressive ranges of choicss and act as guide some other child with the same prob: Speech.” Iems. Good books can offer comfort or Landsberg feels that Robert Corm&, Landsberg m-&es it clear Ihat adults escape, but not in any facile way. another, widely read U.S. author of who fail to do this arr depriving not only The guide is arranged thematically. “pioblem” novels for young adults, their children but also themselva of a Landsberg de& fit with books for produces books full of “hystuicat shared pleasure. very young children and beginning violence” and “sw.e.ping revulsion.” Since reading has the power to shape readers and then with major themes in She also makes a very convinting case children’s pereeptions of the world children’s literature, such as the quest that Roald Dahl’s Chrrrlie and the around them, Landsberg argues that for identity, fantasy, timetravel, and Cboeolrrlc Fucmy, a favourite with books can be a potent tool in making growing up. She discusses her favourite many children and adults. is saditic, these pexeptians as humane and balane- books in each category, pointing out racist, and “tinged by an unadmitted

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animosity toward modem children.” valuable if the time and trouble mold Uvely insights into a massive and largely Ott&popular authors have saving have been taken to expend it to cover the successful social adaptation, Broadfoot, graces but do not escape alI critical books and authors mentioned in the text himself a veteran. offers m abundance. barbs. Among Canadian writers, she ad- as well. It is frustrating to read * synop- As one of the veterans notes, those who mires Dennis Lee for hi “inspired word sis of a book in the treeswy, Emember returned to Canada to attend univer- play” in Alii2ator Pie, but thinks that that Landsberg djscusses that book sities, to marry or to attempt to restore a bis preoccupation with various smelly much more thoroughly in one of ha marriage, to search for houting, to begin parts of the body in his later volumes of chapters, but have to search to Und the businesses or to take up jobs were the children’s verse is playing for cheap exaa page. sane generation who have daertnined to thrills. Mordecai Richler’s Jamb ?Ivo- Landsberg’s guide is undeniably a ’ a great de- what Canada is today. Two Meets the Hooded Fan2 appeals to valuable aid to adults, but it will pro- How they got started, sometimes IUD her as a story in which children get the bably generate some guilt es well. fiven cessfully, sometimes only haltingly, is set better of unjust adults. but it contains the most caring parents with the hiihest forth in The Veterans’ Yeats with “an overload of b&bowed jokes, ideals fmd themselves succumbing to imeghmtion, wit. clear recolleaion, and cUeh6 and sagging plot lines” and complacency and consumerism occa- good humour. “moments of embarrassing sentimen- sionally. Of course children should reed Oral history of B rather more hap- tality and falseness.” Kevin Major’s use good books, just as they should cat hazard variety is pmvided by Joyce Hib- of Newfoundland dialect and humour properly; still, pop and potato chips, bert in her Fragments of War: Stories helps to make his novel Far From Shore television and comic books sometimes from Survivors oJ World War II. Her believable and sympathetic, but in his slip into their lives. But forget the guilt1 anthology of 30 varied wartime expa subsequent book, Thirty-S~Eqcwaw, Lsndsberg’s book offers positive and riences. none more then a few pages his “hard-nosed ‘reelism’ about New- refresh& suggestions for ways to en- long, is uneven. Some of these unpreten- foundland swech mttems . . . under- courage childrm to enjoy a richer and tious recoUections (divided among the more noutisbing cuts. the. sipposxa. humanity of his reading diet. 0 three services) are of high adventure. cmrecten.- others rather pedestrian. Some are Landsberg is aware that her views on exotic, some close to home. They range some books will spark wntrovers~ and fmm the recoUeaions of a merchant that some people will take person& her seaman torpedoed off Malaya to B ““Is- attecks on books they have enjoyed ing sister in Berlin, from a Ferry Com- reading. But she feels that children’s mand pilot to Hong Kong prisoners, literature is important enough for us to from a Polish officer in Italy to a Rus- state and argue our views and to sian emi& in the Calgary Highlandem. sautiniaour tastes and juwents. AU are drawn from demonal acmunts OveraU, the tone of the guide is By Roy RRacLaren positive, affirming the large number of enjoyable children’s books. Following The Veterans’ Years, by Barry Broad- the text is B section Landsberg calls “A foot, DohIss & McIntyre, 249 pages, The&e History in Canada/ Tressury of Children’s Books,” approx- $19.95 cloth (ISBN 0 88894 473 K). Wlstoire du PAbht2 au imaely 350 titles, with capsule plot sum- Fragments of War: Stories fmm Sur- Canada maries, ananged by age categories. Most vivors of World War II, by Joyce of these are British or American, with B Hibbert, Dundum Press, illustrated. 247 A lively, IIIustmted iournal publlrhed twice few translations from other countries. pages, S24.95 cloth (ISBN 0 919670 95 4) yearly, locussing on all aspecfs of the About 15 per cdnt are books by Cena- and $14.95 paper (ISBN 0 9196’0 94 6). history of.both English and French language the&e in Canada from itseadl~t dians. Landsberg acknowledges the need The Sky’s No Llndt. bv Raymond years to fhe ~rese”t. In addltlon to book for children’s reading materiel to reflect Munro, l&y Pager, &&xe& 320 reviews. the iournal Dubfishes artfcles on a theii national culture, but contends that t%xes, $19.95 cloth (ISBN 0 919493 69 broad rangebf ._ Canadian children’s literature is still toplc?l Including 6). resident and tour- developing and lacks the hiitory and inrr wmmmies. depth of U.S. and British children’s FOR mosg WHO like oral history, Barry literature. Most of the Cmadii books Broadfoot serves it up well. His’selection L she has included in her treasury hold of colourlhl detail and lively recollection their owe among the “representative is almost unerring. Passage at& passage best works from the EnglislGspealdng and anecdote upon anecdote help to foimaics oalen- world.” bring to life the immediate postwar dam. adatudlesof Landsberg’s list is a good one. full of years. as veterans and their spouses end therocialasweflar intriguing recommendations. It would families recount their difficulties and auenmg me perhaps be more useful if it contied B theabe. THinCl bit more bibliographic information. She of civilian life a&r-& much es six years HTauC Is the officfal journal for the pmvides both hardcover end paperback in the dangers and discipline of the Aaaoclatlon for Canadian Theatre HistoryI I’Association d’hisbire du th&tre au publishers for all books and tells, to the armed forces. Cmeda. best of her current information. whether The Veterans’ Years is a wottby they are out of print. The date of first successor to Broadfoot’s Ten Lost Yews publication and the number of pages, if end Siw War Yaws end his other oral Subscriptions: $15.00 included, might have helped adults to histories. It is perhaps to cavil to note lnstitutlonk 522.00 decide which books they most went to that thae is Little here that resembles the students: s12.00 seek out. more comprehensive analysis offered of The treasury is pmvided with an index the national postwar experience in Jean to all authors, illustrators, end tithx Bruce’s -t After the Wur. Certainly listed. It wooId have been much more for those who seek enterteinment and

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.&en to the editor or. in a few cases. Rosenblatt’s existential horse laughs in . from wartime diaries and letters home; his childhood memoirs Escape~mm the the one element thal bls them together Glue J’ackny. is that each of these people, whether Like a row of hurdles, the sericr of Canadians by bll or by choice, came vignettes shows how Tomato of the to Canada following the war. 1940s was to leave its imprint upon Although the book is perhaps ambi- Rosenblatt’s psyche: the hustlers, the tious in its stated intent - to lllutrate condomadler disguised as an encyclo- how a varied cross-section of Canadians pedia salesman, the “vampire” kiddie met the aGn challenge of their youth - entrepreneur making a killing at it does saccczd in providing a valuable The sweetness of life comes across in a marbles, the “magic voyeurism” of qompendium of wartlme adventures and laugh-or-go crazy way. Moody phaa- watching nudist gIossies coming hot off some welcome new photograph? that tams steam into the same dream with llv- the piessea. the teachers with “Anglo- might otherwise have gone unrecorded. ing creatures through the silence of philla, rcveriing all thingri British,” the Raymond Munm’s T/fe Sky’s No poetry: music LO transmigrate by. The Hollywood and real-life freaks, the Limif is a sad little book. He recounts in jest created by repeated end rhymes in horses and wagons, the june bugs. and a somewhat breathless fashion (with smmet XVI of “The Sleeping Lad+ his first taste of angler’s angst al Eagle much remnstmcted dialogue.) hi service slithers Like a creel full of eels into a lake. in the RCAF between 1940 and 1942 and Roethkean resolution: Rosenblatt’r prose lacks the slecp- his subsequent career as a journalist, 0 ye that we born of Gghming and swimming elegance of his poetry. Like a press photographer. and occasional methm! corn kand on a hook, he onen tosses in pilot, mainly in Vancouver and again & again your design blooms in my cliche after cllch& “Mumtales & More” Tomnto. The many problems that have bin sounds like a term paper about anti- evidently marked his life he ascribes Semitism: “Poverty doesn’t Link people largely to hii own difficult childhood. It together in mutual suppori; it aggluti- is, all in all, a rather forlorn tale. natas hatred, hatreds like bamaclm Perhaps the less said about the book the attachii, each to another. Native eya better. 0 Roscnblatt spares us serious revel- arc directed at a scapegoat, a minority, atory navel gazing. Making faces fmm and not at the ruling classes who are able the deep, sanctuary. ecstasy, and necm- to distance themselves fmm hateful mancy can be found by chasing raln- fermentation.” . bows in the form of trout, or a dead A Jewish Studs Lx&an. Roseablatt’s lishmonger in the animating spirit of best-told tales always seem to involve the Uncle Nathan. Words are the bait. carpwarp of his Uncle Nathan’s fish Often sounds convey sense in pymtech- marltet. “The Meditation Tsnks” con- nical fission: “Polyphony, 0 honey’d tains all the intensity of his verse. You’ll python - yours is a lovely quagmire/ feel guilty about eating your next tuna By Ray Hilp where I’ve built a tire to dry out desire.” 30 hours out of the sea. A ftih with shoes leaps worlds in the Street smart, water wise., heaven benl. Poetry Hotel: Selected Poems jump of an enjambment: Joe Rosenblalt is a talented man, fnher 19sI985, by Joe Rosenblalt, Me of gods, and a school in himself. He Clellaad & Stewqrt, 24% pages, S12.95 makes you fed things that are hard to paper (ISBN 0 7710 7721 1). the monopoly j7apped ihlo orgasms touch: bee fir, tadpoles, and lhe human Escape from the Glue Factory: A heart. 0 Memoir of a Paranormal Toronto his show jumped on the bloody rock Childhood la the Late Fortlrr. by Joe & hopped back inro the.eserr Rosenblatt, Exile Edllons, II2 paga, Ihal sang for the bubbling $9.95 paper (ISBN 0 920428 72 X). A sporting mind is obviously at work. Buzzlness as usual. The reader doesn’t PomxRy mvrm is a finhouse for the always get reeled in. Sometimes the monsters that inhabit the world of Joe nature scenery appears to be unloaded Roscnblatt. A vampire is just as likely to fmm the back of a truck. Or the diction come chortling out of a virgin’s vagina suffers from a heartless bypau between as an Ogopogo is to have a bar mitzvah the psalmic and the ~vernacular. And in a sushi bar. The Rosenbatty imaghm- there are just too many poems about By Cyril Oreenland tion takes dead words such as ‘%oul” or poems: “A poem is. . . ” or “Poems “spirit” and breathes new life into them are. . . ,” or “a poem should Iiunllng Humans: The Rise of the through the stock symbols of bees, be . . . ,” or “The poem must . . . ,” Modem Malliple Murderer, by Elliot birds, but~erfliu, snd minnows. His or “I want to read a poem. . . ,” or Leyton. McClelland & Stewart, 318 soundscores about bees, “Bees Are Flii ‘They have ignored my poems.” Who pages, $16.95 paper (ISBN 0 7710 5308 With Gland Trouble,” “Natural cares? Just deliver the treasure. 8). Prayer,” and “Batratemstrial Bumble- A Joe Rosenblatt ink drawing ushers bee.” have to be read out load in the in each of the six sections of PO&~ saw3 m.uOT utrroN is a pmfessor of v/clod.% Hole/. The Fmggy Berg&e sketches anthropology at Memorial UnlvcrsiQ illustrate his musings as a metaphysical and a former president of the Canadian wildlife artist and past/oral poet. Sociology and Anthropology Assocla- The personality between the lined is tion, and the title of his new book is more alluring than the poems them- Hunting Hummu. a naive readu might selves. We discova what cavorts behind perhaps~ expsct a scholarly $lssertation

_rC. .._--__ __- . ~.._ii_ i. .d. !IY-_-Xr.. -’ BOOKS liV CANA,DbA A 0 We’re looking forward to 0 a cp the nm 6fkerI YeaIS of ’ b book reviews, book news and v author intervievrs. ~ b

GALAPAGOS: A NATURAL HISTORY GUIDI THEDIOh'NETRAGEDY by M. H. Jackson “lx&lrlcus dC/i@il//bf/C

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E&edandwitb an htmduction ly NOEL WUD§ON AIJANWAFiIK AddightfdJkstcoktimofofeomtit smrk. Mobili, Homes is the charter pub A sodal hismry Vanmuwr through the of lication in the Polestar First Fiction series. eyes of her poets. Includes 67 pass kom the past 100 years. Introduction & index. 208 pager 812.95 ISBNO-91959106-X . 136~ $9.95 ISBN0919591-09-4

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_.-._._ -~.-_.- on the cxtcrmination of the Beothuk ration. Leyton argues that the multiple claims seem grandiloquent, the personal Indians. Instead, what we have is a murdcrw is essentially a product of his memoirs are refreshingly candid. quasi-scientific but immensely in- time. The idea to form such a group came tercsting study of six of the best-known In what follows. I shall show that the from John Metcalf. who appmached multiple murderers whose bloody trail pre.industrial multiple killu was an Hogh Hood latc in 1970. Soon after, the across the U.S. covers the period fmm aristocrat who preyed on hi pcassn~; two met with Clark Blaise, Ray Smith, the 1950s to the 1970s. that the industrtat era produced a new and Raymond Fraser (the latta both Although modestly claiming that the kind of killer, most commonly a new from the Maritbncs). The group of bourgeois who preyed upon prostituw, purpose of his study is to penetrate into homeless boys and house-maids: and in friends read for the first time in the “soul” of his subjects, Leylon had the mature industrial era, he is most February. 1971. Hood’s contacts with often a failed bourgeois who stalks the Catholic School Commission of university women and othu middlc- Montreal resulted in the majority of class figures. Thus for cash histodcsl their readings being in Catholic high epoch. both the racial o&tar of the schools to an audience ill-stdtcd to thcir- killers and the characteristics of their r-t prose of the two Rays. Money vicllnr are hitly predictab*: they are thus very much men of their time. Although by no mcmts original, this is lntclle&lly challcttglng.wBut moving no personal contact with them. His the argutncot from rhetoric to rcscarch primary source of information was is difticult. As Leyton has discovered. popular books and scholarly articles. reliable criminal statistics are scmcc, This somewhat precarious foundation msking it virtually impossible for him to for social research is justified by an demonstrate the existence of att apocryphal anecdote conccmbtg James “epidemic:’ of multiple murders. At a was the prime mover. Why should pact; Frazcr. the author of The Golden hllher level of abstraction, his notion have all the action? The story-tellers Bough, a study of primitive mythology. that the modern multiple mwdercr tends chortled at the prospect of muscling in When asked if he had actually met a to kill “up-scale.” is equally unconvinc- and copping some of the loot: “Give primitive, Sir James is reputed to have ing. This is especidly so in relation to thcnt prose. give them characters, answered “Certainly notl” Albert DeSalvo, the Boston Strangler, stories, give them life,” Smith urges. Apatt fmm a nagging concern about and David Richard Bercowitz, %jtc Son All five had written about Montreal, the methodological weakness in this of Sam. The murderous rampage of and believed that students would be kind of study, which will, no doubt, in- both were conducted in an exceedingly pleased to diicovcr that writers were furiate professional criminologists, the random fashion. flesh and blood; that they were (in the detailed information about the back- This controversial book should be words of several of the group) “lo the grounds, pcrsqnalities, criminal acts, avoided by readers who have no phone book.” As Blaise observes. it was and motives of multiple murderers stomach for the aeonislnp screams of serves to illuminate a much neglected rape victims and a veritt& flood of read in high schools, cotmmtnit~ ki- field of study. And. fortunately. cxcpt blood and auts. On the other hand. affi- lega. libraries, book stores, and @cry for a tendency to embellish hi narrative cionados 07 murdct Literature who. for occasionally) universities. with gruesome details of rape, straogl- example, etioyed Truman Capote’s In Hood and Metcalf emohasizc that the ing, knifing, decapitation, and Cold Blood will probably Rod similar group was not a lit&y movement. dismctnbcrmcnt, Leyton has a vigorous satisfaction in Hunling Humans. 0 They held no llteraty principles bt com- and entenalning style of writing that mon, although all cared about writing many acadcntics will envy and deplore. and admired good style. At the time, all Except for its shock value, what par- were devoted to Canadian literature and pox is served by learning that one of the Canadian witittg as a means (not to victims, who was shot in the abdomen, mince words) of promoting themselves. had his “belly button” blown out? Even The five Metcalf, who grows more testy with age, more puzzling, in a t-ambling account of would hardly pass as a nationalist, yet hc the notorious Starkweather killings, considered the group as a “missionary” Leyton concludes with details of an apostles project in the 1970s: “To read Canadian excctttion that could have been written matter and talk of Canadian cottcctns by blicky Spillane: “The switch which By Patrlcla Morley was then rather like carryin8 the Word sent 2200 volts coursing through his to pcople who ate grubs and worshipped body was pulled three times: the fust aemplanes.” Blaise sees the group as shock stunned him, the sccottd rendered Pho@raphs, Crititi Essaya, edited by having sttccecded “in stuffing Canadian him unconscious, and the third stopped J.R. (Tim) Struthers. Vehicule Press. his heart.” $28.00 cloth (ISBN 0 919890 59 8) and cuhtm.” At the heart of Hurling Humans is $14.00 paper (ISBN 0 919890 58 X). The personal essays and memoirs by the thesis that, owing to prevailing the story-tellers forto the heart of the soclo-eeonomic and cultural conditions THH~ FIVB Tao% writers who performed volume, although they account for only in the U.S., multiple murdw hat become as a group in Montreal in the early 1970s onethird of its leogth. Anyone intcr- “a virulent social epidemic of the were held together by malccantaradcrie, &cd in the work of any one of the five 1980s.” Lcvton claims that these horrcn- touch football, and a love of style. The will want to read his wsay here. Most dous m&rs cannot be explained in volume commemorating their five years acknowledge that the readings wcrc paxt tcrtns of “insanity” or as “gcnctic togcthw is chatty, witty, and (at times) of their maturation and that the styles of freakllhness.” Far froni being att aber- exasperating. If smnc of the critical the other writers acted on them as in- flumces in varying ways. Metcslf and the others: “None of them was a poet or a workmanlike comparison of the two Hood each give detailed comments on practising drunk.” Rays. Barry Cameron approaches Blake their own literary methods and those of The group broke UP in the spring of through biographical criticism. while the others in the group. As Metcalf puts 19%. &me of the writers we& lea&g Michael Darling places him in the it “We grew together. . . . Four of us, Montreal: others, including Hood, had literary tradition of alienation. Kent a; least. were writers obsessed by the doubts about writing stories designed to Thompson profiles John Metcalf while idea of wxllence, crazy about craft.” be read aloud. Metcalf felt diswumged cheerfidly admitting that biography is Odd man out was Raymond Fraser - that the literary landscape had not “something of a fiction.” more inter- poet, story-teller and editor - whose changed, “the earth had not moved.” pretstion than data. Dennis Duffy turns garish material was strongly inlluenced Blake felt the time for Dublic readitms a summer trip from Toronto to Morris- by the fact that he had survived for some had passed. burg into an appreciation of Hood’s tic- time by writing for tabloids like Mid- Critical oiecm. mast of them brief. tion, while Lawrence Mathews examines n&M. Blaise parodies his stories ss being make up -the balance of the book. Hood’s moral imagination and treat- “in tbe Maritime tsU tale genre touched Lawrence Gsrber, writing on Ray ment of evil. with a bit of the Montreal macabre: DAD Smith, places his work in the tradition of Among the critics only Keith Gar* RAPES lNPAxvr SON: SERVES HIM FOR existentialist fiction and absurdist bian looks at the group BI a group. Like DINNER.” Fraw, whose piece is called drama. (An satin, pamdy, and a basic Garber he allows Smith’s bold claims to “The Guy in the Wngs with his Pint,” irreverence sufficient qualities to place a foreign models to typify the inspiration describes himself as being very mnscious writer with Camus. Cienet. and behind the group: Barges, Barth. Von- that he was not a” English teacher, liie Beckett?) Louis MacKendrick’s piece is negut, Nabokov. Oar&an calls them

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Suite2048631-108StreetEdmontonAlbertaTBG 1E9 705-326-4731 “diisaur slayers - the dinosaurs being ally, Garebian ends by calling them “a Tellers, to 1984. Sam Tata’s photo- the antiquated conventions that Roy serendipitous group.” graphs of the members of the group, Smith found massively predictable and Editor Tim Struthers includes a check- alone and together, add considerably to lumbering in fiction.” More realistic- list of works by the Montreal Story the book’s attractiveness. Cl

‘People may thlnk I’m wishy-washy because I don’t take stands on Issues. I refuse to, because I can see both sides of issues all the time’ By Nancy Russell ORN IN Morris, Man.. in 1943, problems for me, for therapeutic You redly seen 10 have cepmred the Sandra Birdsell writes evocative. reasons. has always been a type of daily dilemma - the not being able to wwpe accomplished short stories that life. When I started to give shape to that Blrdsdl: That was what always bothered B are grounded in the small-town writing is a different matter. I can clearly me about the very fmt works I read by prairie landscape. Her stories have pinpoint that. It would probably be women. Often they would just leap over l appeared in such jouinals as around 1976, when my father died. I was the process. One day the woman would P Gmin, Newest Review. and the very close to him, and I recorded a great be here, and the next moment she was Capileno Review and have been deal about him at that time. It was a there. Whether she was in a family or published in two collections, long, long ~mcess, his dying, about six left the family to realize her potential Night Travellers (Turnstone months - it was very painful. And and become who she wanted to become Press, 1982) and Ledies o/ Ihe when I lost him finally, I had this great - the process of becoming was missing. I House (1984). Recently judged by desire to get some things down. I felt I’d And I always felt cheated. I always the 45 Below panel to be one of the 10 lost a lot of his stories, and I wish now wanted to know, was there any struggle, best young fiction writers in Canada, that I’d asked him to tell me more of was there any ambivalence., was there Birdsell now lives in Winnipeg, where them. any going back and forth for a time? she was interviewed by Nancy Russelk BIG: Why were you so dmwn fo Ihe How did she make a living? Those so& shcm sroru? - of things were missing. Books in Canada: How did you begin Blrdsdl: Probably because I didn’t have BiC: In n recent interview in Arts Wrld~P a whole lot of time. I had three children Manitoba you Ialkeboul women Ireking Sandra Birdsell: I gU=s I’ve ahvays been at home, and I worked in many, many se&qtidence when they go lo wtite. a writer and I didn’t know it. I always full- and part-time jobs, so I could only Birdsell: I don’t know if it’s particularly kept journals and wmte things in serib- snatch an hour or two at a time. I did in writing, or if it’s in anythii where tt biers. But it was a normal process, a nor- attempt a novel, and wrote it six or - woman tries to excel. I think that women mal part of my life, and so I didn’t see it times. I found that sometimes I’d have don’t have that same kind of fan- as being unusual. It neva crossed my to go back and rewrite a whole chapta fidence. or maybe we just don’t put up mind that other people didn’t write. befoe I could move forward. With a the same f-de. Maybe the sense’of Writing as a means of working through short story, I only have to do the last few lack of self-confidence isn’t as buried. as Sandra Ehdsell pages to get back into it. hidden as in men. I think lack of sdf- BIG:, How do you feel about the female c0nftiem.e is very atron in my life as a cherec~ers in Night Travellen and writer. I haven’t travelled around the Ladies of the House? You seem lo synr- world in a sailing ship. I have stayed p&h&e with them on Ihe oee heed, but home. What a dull and boring view. It’s al theseme lime you also seem lo be able when you lack confidena that your fo see how they we being repressed. You vision or your arperjences don’t seem sympethlze with them, bur you ere the least bit interesting to anybody else. reel&de about Ue diiemmav they fuce. But it’s reading other women writers BirdsAl: From the very first time I tlmt makes you think. well of courseit’s ‘stmted writing short stories, I realized interesting. _ that I couldn’t or didn’t want my pra BIG: Whet-do YOIL think about com- judiees or my moral beliefs or lack of perisoes ofyoro&f lo Alice Muem? them imposed at any point on any of my Birds& There’s no comparison as far as chamcters. I always wanted to stand I’m concerned. She’s a totally different back from them, and let them be who kind of titer. I think the only corn- they were. A lot of people may think I’m parison is that a lot of times we’re both a wishy-washy person, because I don’t writing rural stories, and we’re writing take stands on issues. I refuse to. That’s about women. I think my way of telltng because I can see both sides of issues all a story is different from hers. My stories the time. I can see why a woman is a pro- - maybe because I’m such a new titer lifer. or see why she isn’t. - the form and shape is visible at times. MC: In “The Bird Dance” in Night You look at hers, and they just nm off . Travellen Lureen and Lawy’s marriage the page. You can’t fmd the structure or b falling oprrrl. She sees Ihet she wets the shape of it, but the story’s there, and lo escepe, but she doemY know how. it just keeps coming back and back and

.~., _..._ . _.. _ ,L-.-I-~._..- . -.-_. . -_ -I.:-.-. -. back to you as you think about it. all the time, and you can’t appreciate it. my writing, but because I need to do it ItiC: What about your posttion as o BIG: Have you ever felt dmwn to write for me Bs a person. “Western writer”? OUI o/o specflc Western envimnment? Bit2 Do you think your writlog would BirdseU: I don’t even think about that. Birdsell: With these stories, I just had to change? My vmrl; has been accepted so widely write out of the particular environment ‘Blrdrell: It might. I don’t know. I’d like across Canada. It’s not like I’m being that the characters were living in. If I to go and find out. 0 read just in Alberta or Saskatchewan or went to Live in another province or Manitoba. I don’t think my writing has another country for a year or two years, any Western navour at all. it’s quite possible I would write out of Blc: You commented once thal you /cl that landscape or envlmnment. It just being brought up on the pmiries taught happens that I’ve lived here all my life. you to pay more attention to detaik, And I think that’s what other people are lwxowe it% such an open space. doing too. Like writers in Saskatchewan Eirdsdl: I think that wherever a writer - they’re not writing a Saskatchewan grows up influences her writing. I just story. they’re writiw out of their own IN HIS REWEW of my book, Sir Arthur happened to grow up on the prairies. I plaCC. Conic (December), Desmond Morton love .Ihe prairies very much. Sometimes BE: Would you like to go way to some does not dispute my contention, whichis there’s not very much to see unril you get other place. and wrilc in another en- the thrust of the book, that Cunie was down close to it and then you see the vironment? the greatest - indeed, the only great - pebble in the pool or you see the little Birdsell: Yes, I’d like to live in another soldier that Canada has ever produced. &bells. Little tiny pretty things. coontry for a year or two. That’s one of Instead, he nit-picks about C&ie’s Whereas in B.C., it hitp you in the face my goals. Not because I need to do it for popularity with the troops, his demobilizarion plans, and his misuse of regimental funds. Of what relevancy is Cunie’s popu- larity? The Duke of Wellington was not RENB~~BER THB innocent time when stand lhe subjeclivc case. l2 By the rkllful useofhyperboleyoucan popular with his men - admired and that other Expo dared calI itself respected, even feared, but not liked. So “Man and His World”? Oh my. have the audience Ikerally glued to their seats. what? Certainly, there is no question These days we must witness such tm- 0 The ability to refrain from modifying that Cutie WBS unpopular with some of wmfortable spectacles as the Na- absolute words is wry unique. his troops, especially the conscripts who tional hfuseum of Man’s awkward 0 Only a miniscule number of spelling served overseas in 1918. But for every attempts to purge its name of sexism. errors will be tolerated. complaint that Morton can produce, I (We’re not sure why jut “National can produce one attesting to his Museum” won’t do.) And think for a Honoumble mentions: popularity. It is interesting, for example. moment about such terms = man’s 0 Never use a preposition to end a that Morton qllotes W..D.B. Kerr’s best friend, manpower, manholes.. sentence with. 0 Avoid excessive ure of exdamadon observation that curie was * “regular man’s inhumanity to man, and (God Paul Pry” for snooping through help us) the Son of Man. At the risk marks! 0 Tbe adverb will hopefully follow its soldiers’ haversacks. Yet Kerr also of provoking - yet again - the vub. WTotc: “In so far as Curtie was known wrath of Linguistic feminists, we’ll 0 Supcrlativa should be used corn- to all, opinion was rather favourable to pay a special anniversary prize of $50 paratively sparingly. him.” Morton prefers the negative for the list of well-known masculiie 0 If you have nothing to say, say h aspect, which says much about Morton. temu rendered into the most cumber- quickly. It would take foe much space to refute 0 Avoid meretricious acsquipeda- some non-sexist language. Deadline.: in detail Morton’s ridiculous assertions August 1. Address: CanWit No. III, Ilanirm. - Barry Baldwin, Calgay about demobilization. However, I will Books in Gutada, 366 Adelaide state categorically that it was a triumph, Street East. Toronto MSA 3X9. 0 The anclenl spelling rule of “i” before both for Cunie and the Canadian 9” except after “c” will always corps. Results of CanWit No. 109 rdgn. And, finally. there is the matter of CAN IT BE that Alberta is the last fron- - Barrie Wells. Edmonton Curie’s “scandal.” Even here, tier of Bnglish usage? (Has anyone Morton’s facts are not quite right. 0 Why try to write. a masterpace if you told Bob Blackbum?) Whatever the Currie, at the behest of hi regimental reason, as the entries below indicate, eMnot lwrrectly spell. tile nwst orevelenl. of words. And howls vow officers, deposited a total of $32,000 In by far the largest number of mangled government cheques to his personal rules of grammar came from con- account - not a” Uncommon action in testants in the West. Neverthdess, - BE. Murphy, Halifax the militia in those days, which Morton central Canada once aggin prevails. knows. All but $8,300 was used for The winner is Alec McEwen of 0 Pmnouns must - in number whh .Egimental purposes: the rest Cwric Ottawa for a list of grammatical what it refers to. fraudulently used to avoid personal perversities that includes: 0 The combining of subject and bankruptcy in August, 1914. He repaid 0 Avoid redundant lanaage by eontin- predicate must make sense together. it three years later - not betiuaune he bad ing your stat~mcnts to the true facts. 0 Avoid cliches like the plague1 q Mixed metaphors are nothing but red - Lee McLeod, Calgary forgotten about it, as Morton suggests, her&w that cloud the issue. but because Sir Sam Hughes. the 0 Hopefully you wlU never employ an 0 Avoid the double that, unlas you find minister of militia and defence. through adverb to qualify a sentenec. that thal that is unavoidable. an intermediary, told him not to worry 0 Between you and I, few people under- - Robert Schmiel, Calgary about it. Curt&, in fact. repaid the regi- ment $10,883.34 - surely an odd example of “theft.” Moreover, Morton seems to think that he blew the whistle THROUGH A PRISM DARKLY tbir book.wlll be overlooked. That would on Carrie’s indIscretion in 1979. 1 have IT ts NDT my custom to reach for credit, be a sham& for she wss sn extmordbmry news for him. Hush, a Toronto scandal poet of lyric grlcf, and &wr Roses COP but I want to keep the record straight of rains an amazing number of fms poems. rag. plastered it all over its front page on literary enterprises that 1 am proud to Oct. 13, 1934, scooping Morton by a have been associated with. I therefore mere 45 years. some cover-up. write to correct the misstatement in Daniel Cl. Dancocks Geoff Hancock’s i&view with Robert Iiarlow (March) that in 1959 ~‘Iiarlow Desnrond MWICM repk: Sk Arthur joined BarIe Birney and others to start Carrie was a fine soldier and a very the literary magazine Prism Inter- interesting person. The limits of Dan- national.” Harlow had no role in start- cocks’s tiresome hagiography are under- Ing that journal, which came into ex- lined by his rejoinder. The details of Istence [a 1984 because of initiatives Carrie’s fraudulent conversion do not taken by Biiey and myself. Nor was have to be gleaned from an old issue of BImey involved in starting its fore- Huti they are available in the Public runner, Pr&m, whose first issue ap- Archives of Canada. We are urged to peared in 1959. That magazine was born accept Dancocks’s assertion that largely through the efforts of Jan de Carrie’s demobillltion plan was “a Brayn, who was its tirst editor, and triumph.” The evidence of a sad succes- myself, the first chairman of a Board of bon of demobilization’riots. five dead Directors that included Harlow as a soldlers, and a dismal series of courts member. martial tells me otberrvise!. Jacob Zilbez Dancocks has managed the remark- Department of Creative Writing able. feat of rendering a fascinating story University of British Columbia boring. I thought that it migtU nave lxen ValXOUVer an &dent: apparently it was on pur- pose.

NOT GUiTE ALL x’ktg FOUOWING Canadian books were CONTRARY ‘TO the contributors’ note reviewed la the previous issue of Books (January-pebrwy) connected with my in Canada. Our recommendations don’t interview of George Faludy, I have not necessarily reflect the reviews: just recently translated the complete poems of Federico Garcia Lorca. FICTION Rather, I just finished the first transla- Qurcn of the Besdscbss, by Shama Butala, tion into Bnglish of his Libra de -teaa Books. Though a few of these 14 poemas, his very first book of poems to stodu are perhaps too frelghtcd with have been published in his lifetime. meaning, together their clipped, Jacqueline d’Ambolse methadlwl prose manaw to evoke tic LennoxvIlle, Que. very tsxtare of the pmlrlcr and the pcoplc who live there. NON-FICTION The Ufe and llmu of Mls Iam Mnrple, by Anne Hart. Dodd. Mead t?dcQellmd & Stewart). A biography of a tlctional Classified r&8$8 perllne(48charactemto chlvacter la a novel tdea thal Hart. a the Une). Daadllne: flrat of 81s month for blndan at Memo&d Untwrslty, car& issue dated foltcwlng month. Address: out brilliantly. Her portrait of Agatha Books In Canada Classlfled, 988 Adelaide Chrlstle’s remarkable sleuth is sa shrewd ss 8tgF. Toronto M8A SK8 Phone: (418) I . 1803 heavlly dlscounted howto, self- POETRY Improvement books. Par mall order catalog Paper Raw, by Rachel Kom. translated ssndSllmO(mfu~sble)~Aplex,3090Olym fmm the Yiddish by Seymour Levitan, Aya plc Way, Gloucester, Ont. KlT lY4 Pws. Ram’s dsclslon to wrlie in Ylddtsb and hsr dsatb in 1982 make it Ukely that . OLD AND RARE BOOKS. CanadIana Catalogues. Heritage Books, 866 Palmerston Ava, Toronto, O&do MBQ 29 EUMNIER~“~PFORWR~Ganaraska Wdtsm’ Colony: workshops In 5 genres with publlshsd authors. Prolasslonal Input from publlshlng Industry. Single & double OD cupancy. 100 acras tended gmunds. Sports facllltlsa. Good food. 78 minutes east of Toronto. JuneZWuly 12,18BB. For brochure vnltnlte: Ganaraska Writers’ Colony, cl0 t$..w&l Rscoskle, RRfll, 8allleboro,Ont. With this issue, we’re celebrating the 15th anniversary of Books in Canada - 15 years of the best in features, profiles, interviews, and book reviews.

We’re celebrating 144 issues of year’s W.H. Smith/Books in Books in Conado - more than Canada First Novel Award for 3,000,OOO words of criticism and The Story of Bobby O’hfatley, reviews of 5,000 titles by some published by Oberon Press. of the best writers and critics in Canada. And we’re celebrating the launching of Basks in Canada, We’re also celebrating the 10th which now is on sale on anniversary of our annual newsstands and in bookstores award for first novels, now across the country. co-sponsored by W.H. Smith, Canada’s largest bookstore Celebrate with us. Subscribe to chain. Our congratulations to Books in Canada and keep up Wayne Johnston, winner of this to date with books in Canada. SUBSCWI[BE TODAY8 ______~_~~_____~~_~~~-~~- “1 I q ltlEs I want to subscribe to I too want to subs&be tu Baak8 in carlarkl Book.9 In Canada ____.- __-.--- -.- Name Name ---. Address Address __-.------

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