VOLUME 1 NO. 2 AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1971

mmsnvs TF.ACTS by v7l Clay COMMONWEALTH OF STORIES.: David IielwtgON CANADIAN ARCHITECTURE: Perer M&n TALES FROM THE MARGIN: Lowi RicouI AM A SENSATION: Judith Cbpithome ASSIGNMENT: MARTIN MYERS by Randat Wrrn

A FRIENDLYGIANT?

CHINA THE GREAT UNKNOWNText by MEDIAVISION LTD.

.%?zon and Schusterpape=rbacR s2.30: t 12pages

reviewed by Frederick Nossal

FOR ANYONE WHO has lived in China, even briefly. thisgreat land holds a continuing fascination. Its immensity, itsvast problems. its hundreds of millions of people. its power.Superlatives are often inadequate. particularly when tryingto describe the culture of China. mankind’s most ancientculture that lives to this day. It is against such a backdropthat one must view the Chinese revolution that has beenrocking the land ever since Mao Tse-lung’s regime assumedpower in Peking in 1949.

China the Great Unhnown is an interesting nnd ambitiousproject in that it tries to squeeze Chinese history as well asrecent political developments - including the Great CultunlRevolution - into a mere II2 pages. (The book. the tintstudy to appear since Canada’s recognition of CommunistChina. is a team effort by a group of Canadian Sinologints.)

This is not the book for the China scholar for he will bedisappointed that important aspects of Chinese history aredismissed in a few paragraphs. Clearly, it is impossible to

INCLUDING THEFRANKFURT BOOK FAIR

SUPPLEMENT

follow the long road taken by the Chinese people from theShang Dynasty (1766-l 123 BC) in what is a relatively briefbook, and please everyone.

And yet the average reader will learn much from readingit for the authors have taken a good deal of trouble toexplain particularly the post-revolution China. The historyfrom the Shang Dynasty onward until the takeover by theChinese Communists takes up about one third of the book.Perhaps it is interesting to note here that in the millennialhistory of China no emperor or Government has ever reallyknown how many people live there. Today the figure is saidto be perhaps 750 million, perhaps 800 million. Nobody canbe sure.

The authors are sympathetic about the tasks Mao Tse-tung faced when he took over. The job was enormous. Heandhissupportershad to remould asbatleredond embitteredpart of the world, and give the millions back their nationalpride. For the first time in centuries, the Chinese peoplebecame masters in tbeir own house. The authors say Mao.as chairman of the Communist Party, has done more toshape China’s destiny than any other Chinese leader in tilelast 1,000 years.

Some of Mao’s critics, including those witbin China.wouldargue with that postulation, and yet there is no doubtthat Mao will emerge as one of the great men of globalhistory. He is certainly one of the few historic figures whohas lived to see the impact his political pbilosophy llasmade upon his own nation and on the rest of the world.

Qiina the Great .!hzknown goes briefly into the Sino-Soviet rift, the meaning of a proletarian dictatorship,Peking’s efforts to curb the population explosion. the

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creation of the communes. the problems of achieving greaterproductivity in the countryside.

In the cities of China. a highly disciplined society has allbut eliminated gangsterism. drug addiction. prostitution.black marketeering. robbery. and burglary. II must beremembered. however. 11x11 this discipline fell apart forseveral years from 1966 until 1969 when the violence of theCultural Revolution shook China.

The book includes bits and pieces about education.religion. communications. medicine. transportation, trade.the economy and foreign relations. The Great Unknown iswell illustrated. It has nolliitig new to say about China. butit does present facts and figures about the new China in aninteresting, readable fashion. 0

FREDERlCK NoeSAL was lhr firs1 comspondenl to x1 up

il hurcau for a Western newspaper in Peking after theConlmunirt takeover. Today he is an awxiate editor of theToronto Tekpam specializing in *rian alfairr.

EDITOR’S NOTE

CbinaTbe Great Unknown representsa breaklhrougb for theas yet undeveloped Canadian mass market paperbackindustry. The book was conceived, written. and produced inCanada and the tirsl printing of 68,000 copies has beensold before its ofl?cial release date. But the most significantpart of this story is tbe fact that the American rights havejust been sold for more money than has ever been paid fora Canadian produced book. Curiously. the book was boughtnot by Simon and Schuster’s parent company but by oneof its competitors (New American Library). 0

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CITIZENROBERTSONTHE PAPER TYRANT

RON POULTON

cimke Irwin;

nviewed by David Williamson

WHERE HAVE ail the self-made, power-hungry tyrants gone? Have they van-ished, or are today’s business baronssilent, leaving the rabble-rousing tostudents and minority groups’? Are lo-day’s world leaders really the colourlesslot that they seem to be?

You ask yourself these questions asyou read this biography of yet anotherindustrial tycoon who fought his way

Volume I Number 2 August 1911

Editor - Val CleryMmqitzg Editor

- Randall Ware

Associate Ediror- Douglas Marshall

Art Director- Mary Lu Toms

Advertising Mnagw-Anthony Hawke

GmsUltant-Jack Jensen

Booksin On& irablirhed 18 timerper annum by Canadian Review ofBooks Ltd., 6 Charles St. East.Tomato, Ontario. Second ClassMail -Registration Number2593.contents @ 1971Canadian Review of Books Ltd.

Printed by Heritage Pa Co. Ltd.

NOTEAlthough’ this issue is dated August-September. we wish to assure all oursubscrtbers and readers that rhey arenotmisringany issuer of ovrmilgazine.&caUsv WI lirst issue cmne O”tsB$uly later than weexpected, we xedoubledating this tssue in order toget back on schedule. Subscriptionswill be honoured for lhe full eighteenissuw as promised.

to the top in the Victorian era. JobnRoss Robertson ( I84 I-I 9 18) was oneof the primary forces toshape Canadianjournalism. He started the TorontoTelegram in 1876, made it that city’smost successful newspaper, and used itto influence the country’s major poli-ticians. These things he did with abrand of rough-and-tumble determina-tion, behind which lurked the complexlikesand dislikesofa real individualist.

As a newspaperman in his latetwenties, Robertson went to Red Riverto cover Riel’s exploits lirst-hand. Asan editorial writer. he dogged Sir JohnA. Maedonald incessantly, yet showedhimself to be a proConservative. Asan employer. he bought unshakeableloyalty with niggardly wages. As acitizen, he supported many causes andgave great amounts of time and money:he was president of the Ontario HockeyAssociation,GrandMasterof Ihe GrandLodge, and founder of the TorontoHospital for Sick Children. While pub-lishing a newspaper pledged to keeping“clear of political fetters.” Robertsonbecame the independent Tory for EastToronto. He still found time to collectendlesspicturesandcuriosofCanadiansand IO pirate such American literaryworks as Twain’s Tom Sawpr.

John Ross Robertson had two wivesand three children. but the great manseems to have monopolized all theenergy: his offspring were unhealthyne’erdo-wells.

The impressiveness of Robertsoncomes through clearly in Ron Poulton’snew biography. Poulton chooses ananecdotal style topresent a story he hasgathered from scattered sources. In-stead of taking the subject throughchronological stages, the author hasshown the development of each separ-ate endeavour. This method seems toemphasize the variety in Robertson’slife. You wonder how he could havekept such rigid control of so manyWOrld§.

Poulton relies heavily on newspaperquotes but does not clutter the pageswith footnotes citing each specificsource. (This ia a “popular” biography,not a “scholarly” one.) Piling quoteupon quote, he takes the story wellbeyond Robertson’s death, but thedetails of such successors as Joho R.Robinson seem redundant.

There ls no doubt that Ron Poultonlikes Mr. Robertson, and the readerwill like him, too. Robertson was aVictorian giant with giant human qualiities lhat balanced his great hunger forpower. Poulton has done well in show-ing us an era and a man that cannotbe duplicated today. His book leavesyou wishing that they could be. 0

DAWD WLLIAMSON is a freelancewriter and book rcviewr who Livesin Winnipeg.

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Lavishbelween now and Christmas.. five line new Canadian titles pluslive beautiful additions to our Canadiana Reprint Series. Watchfor Ian Adams’ THE REAL POVERTY REPORT; Denis Smith’scontroversial BLEEDING HEARTS . BLEEDING COUNTRY:Duncan Pryde’s fantastic life with the Eskimos: RJtchie Yorke onthe Canadian rock music scene; Tony CashmanS ILLUSTRATEDHISTORY OF WESTERN CANADA; reprints of Samuel Hearne.Alexander Mackenzie, Henry Youle Hind, John Franklin andHugh MacLennan’s CROSS COUNTRY. If you’re not already onour mailing list, drop a note to Hurtig Publishers.I04 I I Jasper Avenue, Edmonton 14. Alberta. We’llsend along our fall caralogue and keep you informedof our future titles.

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ASSIGNMENT: MARTIN MYERSA PROFILE OF A FIRST NOVELIST

by Randall Ware

“Hello? My *arm is Atirtin Myers. ”“Yessir?”“I belleve you hove o book of mine. ”‘lfyou wait (I moment sir. I will connect you to the orderdepartment. ”‘No, no, I mean I be written a book. ”Wn sony sir. we do not look at manuscripts. ”“‘MO. you don ? undefitand. Ite written o book coiled TheAssignment which has been published and lundetxtond thatyou ore the people wko distribute it in Gmada. Iln aGmadian. ”“‘Oh. ”

AT THE ACE of 43, Martin Myers has published his firstnovel (Fitzhenry & Whiteside: cloth 59.95) and. in doing so.has joined the burgeoning ranks of Canadisn authors whosell their books to American publishers wilhout first tryingto sell them in Canada. Paperback rights have been sold andthe book is coming out in August in Britain bucked by apublisher who believes that it could be an undergroundbest-seller. Alan Arkin, Zero Mostel. Dustin Hoffman, andStanley Kubrick among others have been reading it witb aneye to making it into a movie. *‘In my contrac1. I insistedthat I would write lbe film treatment if the book wssoldtoa producer. So now what happens is that these New Yorktypes ere coming up here to look at the weird guy whowrote tile book.”

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Myers has successfully avoided the “first .novel syn-drome,” the writer’s reach into tbe past 10 discover therationale for his maturity in the events of his immaturity.Myers arrives full-blown and full-grown with a fast-pacedcomic novel, filled with puns, anagrams and other word-play. These devices do not belie lbe fact that the book iswritten wilh serious intent and is really B novel of ideas. Hisstyle is that of the %%v novel.” a soup~on of RobbeCrillet,abint of Barthelme. nnda comic style similar to thatof the best new American novelisrs like D. Keith Mzmo andRonald Sukenick. BUI the important difference is thatwhereas virtually all llle new novelists express a wearinesswith the big. cosmic questions. Spiegel the protagonist of1he novel. and Myers himself, tackle rbem with grer1 zestand much wit. As Myers himself put it. “There are noanswers. only questions.”

This kind of reasoning 113s defeated and deslroyed manypeople. bu1 Myers seems 10 1hrive on it. The strongest im-pression of liim that one gets is bis seemingly boundlessenergy and zest for life distilled through his remarkablewse of bumour.

Seveml other protiles have tried to suggest that he ispushy and aggressive. For some crazy reason we think thatauthors must. by the nature of their discipline. be wall-flowers at the orgy. Myers’ &tory (nine years working intelevision in Regina. adverlising copy-writer and producer

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of commercisls, stand-up comedian) does no1 surest thatkind of temperament. The book took IWO and a half yearsIO write, during which he went broke lrying IO support birwife and children, and be is quite rigbrly looking for somereward beyond 11x11 of the pleasures of being a lilemrycelebrily. He is B man you take to instantly. warm andtalkative, and obviously as honest with you as be tries 1~ bewith himself.

?71e Assignmerl was written while Martin was rudyingfor his MA PI John Hopkins University in Baltimore. Hisreturn to school after an absence of fwcnty years wasprompted by a feeling of encroaching stagnation and tbereslization that tbe wriling of a novel was sometbing be badoften thought about. “I always do what I set out to do.” Mereceived his MA in Creative Writing, working on Ibis novelfrom 7 A.M. until 3 P.M.. then going to szbool from fouruntil six every day. Ten years’ savings vanished in a year ande half, and he came back to Toronto. Since Iben, be 1x1sbeenwriting from seven in the morning until noon. grabbinga quick sandwich, and spending the afternoon :IS a copy-writer in a large advertising agency.

Jack Kuper. author of Ll,ild of ihe Holmz~rrt and ilfriend of Martin’s suggested tbst he send the manuscript of’his book to Kuper’s agent in New York. Kuper also wamedhim tbat placement of msnuseriptr was B very slow processend he should not be alarmed if it took a year or more.

“Martin Myers speaking, ”“‘Mr. Afyem, this is Kurt Heibner (New York agent). I tme

sold your book. ”‘Whnt book?”“Your novel, The Assignment. ”‘But I only sent if to you ten days ago. ”“Harper and Row have bought it without rorrwtiom. ”

The reviews of i7ze Assigrzmenr have been uniformlyfavoumble. The New York 77mes said. “The most charmingand amusing character I have come xross sinee I firstencountered Leopold Bloom frying kidneys.” The CalgaryHem/d said, “The best first novel by B Canadisn IO appearin yeas, . . . a contemporary novel which uses avant-gardedevices and yet succeeds in emerging as n work of immensepopular appeal.” But the endorsement which seemed tomeen the most to Myers was that of Northrop Frye,Cenade’s pre-eminent literary critic. “Authorirprive. witty.and absorbing, . B kind of conspiratorial story in wbicbthe direction and nature of this conspiracy is never quitedefined, end which seems to me to be one of the centralimaginative paths of our time.”

One day Myers’ wife read to him a famous quote fromW. B. Yeats about “down where all the ladders start. in thefoul q-sod-bone shop of the heart.” The quote appears inthe front of the book, and according to Myers, was itsinspiration. Myers’ fest,anecdotal. Inamorous way of talking(one is tempted to use tlre word delivery). which closelypemllels the style of the book, might lead you 10 bulievcthst be sits in front of his typewriter and jusr transcribesbisjokesnsbe invents tbem. In fact, the novel was re-writtenthree Limes and. bad be not forced himself 10 slop. IIICnovel still might not be published. He is curretlrly bard XIwork on IIIC first dreft of his Eecond novel wbicll will IbxvcP Biblical theme.

NOTHING Suc~~osin disconcerting PII editor like earlysuccess. After only Iwo editions of Euoks 111 Cane&. oneIntroductory. one regular. and both of limited circulation,we rind ourselves embarrassed by a response that has beenovcnvhclmingly hvournble. We have had lctlrr~ and phonecalls ,u tell us. as we knew already. bow badly Canada neededa bouk magazine like ours, and 10 express surprise. whichwe do not share. that P venture like ours could get startedie Canada.

II is pleasant to be so readily liked, but we are alreadyuneasy witb the experience. We do not encourage ourreviewers to regard Canadian books as sacred cows. andsimilarly we do not wish our publication to seem s~cros~nct.WC do not want readers to revere us as B manifestation ofC;lnada’s beighrened sense of nationality. We want them torelare actively lo what we are trying to do, which is tostimulate more and better Canadian books and B growingappreciation of tbem brre and abroad.

To be worth having. the books that Canadians write andpublish brve tostand comparison with the best of their kindfrom any country. We intend to measure them by thosestandards. Our reviewers, however. are not going to beinfallible. If writers and publishers care &XI their books asmuch as they should do. and if they ever feel that ourreviews are unfair or misguided or superficial. then wecxpecr tu hear from them. .And if what they have to say ispertijlenr and valid, we guarantee tllnr their views will bepublihed here. Readers too. if they feel that we have beenICS tbsn just or lacking in perception. can be sure of ahearing, bec;luse. 3s we see if. no one is more entitled tocomment on books Iban tbe reader who Ins spent moneyon ~bem. We would add Ibat our pages are open. not just toresponse to our reviews and articles but to any commentand information relating to writing snd books in Canada.

There is no WRITE-IN column in this edition. becauseas we leave explained we du not wish 10 puff ourselves upwirb praise (which is noI IO suggesl ihal we are lacking ingratitude 10 those of you ~1x1 took the trouble to encourageus.) III our nexl edition we intend to bold open at least apage for readers to fill. SometIling must be wrong withBooks III Cbmda if ncrlbing is wrong so write in. andkeep us Iw11est.0 VAL CLERY

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EDITORIAL

Myers. like so many people. has developed a sense ofl~um~~r Iu insulate himself from tbc madness around himand 11) help understand why things are so crazy. This kind01’ thinking oflen puts him ill lun;ltic situations. MCII lheCanxdiaa agc111 liw Ibe hmcrican publisher of his bookfound out 111~11 hc lived in Toron111. be called Myers andasked him if be would come to Ibeir semi-annual salesconl‘frcncc 11) have iuncb and I” speak to tbe assembledwlesmen and executives ;~boul his book. tic jumped at the

Im,,i,s,cd ,“l ,loxc I,

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THE CANADIAN INDIANA History Since 1500

by E. Palmer Patterson

The only definitive history of the Canadian Indianwritten in a highly readable fashion. Illustratedwith photographs and maps.

Price $6.95

Available October. 1971

The Collier-Macmillan Canadian History Series

THE CHANGING PEOPLEbQ Palmer * Nancy LO” PatmmmA brief history of the Canadian Indian

ESKIMOS OF CANADAby Ann Hewey PowerThe Northern People

BUILDERS OF THE WESTby John GlIberrThe opening of Canada’s West

THE FURTRADEby James Mar&Oev~lopment of the fur trade

NEW FRANCEby Edward BorinsLower Canada in the 18th Cenrury

DISCOVERIESby James MaahThe great explorers

PIONEER UPPER CANADAby John GilbertOntario In the 1800%

CONFEDERATIONby Anne HEMY PowerFounding of a Nadon

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Our At&nCorrespondents

THE NEW ANCESTORSDAVE GODFREY

new press392 wee*; ci.xh $10.00

FARQUHARSON’SPHYSIQUE

AND WHATIT DID TO HIS MIND

DAVID KNIGHTBook Service

478 pges; clor1r $820

r&curd bp Michael Levin

Eiwy civiliration tends to ove)cestimate the objective orientationof its thought and this tendencyis never absent. When we makethe mistake of tbinkirrg that theSavage is governed so.Qiy byorganic or economic needs, weforget that he levels the samerepmach at us. .

Lavi-Stmuss. The Savage Mnd

WHY SHOULD Canadian novelists writeabout Africansettings? What have Can-adians to learn from these novels byKnight and Godfrey and from othersby Margaret Laurence se1 in Africa?Can we learn something about Canada?These novels have been enthusiasticallyreceived: Godfrey’s for the power anddepth of the characters, the sweep andimagination of the writing; Knight’s,by Godfrey himself, as the definitiveCanadian novel of adultery. But littlecuriosity is shown in these responsesabout Africa and the meaning of thatenvironment.

Godfrey slices through the layers ofa society ruled by a revolutionarydictator much like Nkromah’s Ghana.The novel is carried on the shiftingframe of the protagonists’ view ofevents and on the frame of their rela-tionships much as in reality such inti-macy cuts through the politics of newnations. Knight confines us to theexpatriate compound of lbadan Uni-versity of Nigeria before the Civil War.

Farquharwn k Physique reveals his life.marriage. affair and death and his seli-discovery through adultery and vain-glorious suicidal courage.

Each develops an outsider’s view of

Africa. Cudirey has rightly complainedthat Knight never takes us beyond theexpatriate world. the world of foreignwhite heirs to the colonists’ role.Godfrey himself does not take usbeyond the small group of his pro-Iagonists struggling within themselves,their powerfully drawn dark charactersmaking the revolution and destroyingeach other. But we have barely aglimpse of the rural and traditionalpolitics of the lost ancestors of thenew nation.

The two novels. however. do com-plement each other completing a pic-ture of West African life that neitherreveals alone. Each reveals differentaspects of the inevitable roles of out-siders in foreign cultures. Godfrey’s771e New Ancestors reveals the com-plexityand drama of African society inthe post-independence period of rapidand far-reaching social change. Knight’sprotagonist. Farquharson. never stepsout of his Canadian mind even in hisfatal intervention in Nigerian politics,His adventures do show us the blinkeredisolated existence that a European canpursue in Africa. Ironically Farquhar-son lives a highly sensitive and self-conscious life but it is the awareness ofindividualistic personal experience; itends with the edges of his acquain-tanceships.

The last scenes in the book takeplace at Ikeja airport 011 the day of thesecond Nigerian coup of July. 1966.when lbos were killed in many parts ofthe country. In the airport Farquhar-son has finally found lhis wife who hadleft him taking their son several daysearlier. He has just cleared Immigrationfor departure and is about to join hiswife when he intervenes to save theIbo Immigration clerk from “Hausa-men” soldiers. Even the threatenedclerk recognizes the futility of thisintrusive gesture and sends him off to

his wife. bul Farquharson chooses todie uselessly. for a moment delaying ~11intertribal war. Farquhanon through-out the book has been discovering hismanliness through adultery. but hismistress is a former student fromToronto. Adventurer! lie has sought

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new strength in his personality throughnew kinds of authority. new kinds ofescape. but always in a semi-privateenvirunment. Throughout the book welearn how little he understands aboutAfrica. Farquharson never escapes theidea that he can act on this newenvironment. but he rarely touches itand when he does it is a stereotype heencounters. His protagonist may belimited. but Knight deftly convinces usthat he does know his part of Africa.how irrelevant the expatriate presencecan be. how the expatriate can isolatehimself from the African environmentand yet imagine himself acting on itand influencing it.

Nawft! task i di paas mask; i bifain plenti. (praise)

GODFREYS New AIIC~SIOK are strug-gling to create meaning from the ideasof the revolution that created the newnation of Lost Coast. Ideals and per-sonal frustmtion. political organizationand idealism. repression and corruption, the “dash”and political prisoners.political se&aggrandizement, self-right-eousnessand personal salvation wnflictand intertwine as we view the Revolu-tion in Lost Coast through the exper-iences of Godfrey’s characters: theRedeemer, in terms oiwhom life underthe Revolution goes on. is increasinglyisolated from the people in whose namehe leadr;Gamaliel Harding, his devotedsupporter. perfect in his credentials ismurdered in the midst of a mob grownout of a political rally: Michael Bur-dew. a young English teacher. isdriven to revealing the colonial pastand its necessary rejection: Ama Awo-tchi Burdener is caught between herhusband’s committed but inept politi-cal involvemmts and her family’s polit-ical punishment and declining fortunesunder Ihe Redeemer’s displeasure; FirstSamuels. alienated from the Redeemerbut purifying the revolution throughinsurrection.is the assassinof Camaliel.Each blends personality. family loyaltyand politics. The dark power of Cod-irey’s writing delivers brilliantly theintensity of commitment that his char-acters make of their whole persons tothe creation of new political environ-mew. of polilical practice out ofideals.

But whal are Canadian novehstsseeking in Africa? For Knight it is

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INFORMATION CANADAThe following selections am! available:

InformationCanadaPublishing Division171 Slater streetOttawa, Canada KlA OS9

Bookstores in Halifax. Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg. Vancouver

difficult to answer; we can identify Godfrey ha wriltell a powerful.with his novel easily and learn a bit dark ~wvel. His characters are driven.about how CUSO volunteers live, bul compelled illto relationships wilh eachlittle else. Farquharson’s world is that other. The struggles or B post-revolu-

of the man who attracts us to Ameri- tionary African state are fought outcans, individualislic, acting out of among alld are molded by lbe personalprotestant conscience, seeing his be- drives uf the zwors. No disecrveries ofhaviour from sex and fatherhood to self. 110 acling to please. to imitatepoliticsas a continuous unbroken band some inner perl’rcl model. but strug-of personal expression. Bul in the end gling tortured persuns makingthe revo-the transfer of personal desires into lutioil and uIldermbGlg it. drivenpolitical ation is trivial alld fatal. personalities as commitwd nlld asKnight puts the individualistic Cana- MI~PI as any individualist satisfyingdian into the perfect experime!ilsl his cowcience. But Cudfrey forcessituation; the bonds of society are us to see the rlilture uf il natkm.loosened just slightly. Aad, Farquhsr- the inlegration of a lliltioli well i nson in realizinghis physique, his potm- eollllict wcr lhe future. He reminds usGal for heroism, indulges in politics as IJISI no matter how indifferent onepersonal expression. and arranges his might be to social structure, how freeown insignificant death. It is the final aid self-controlled ow is, the culture

conceit of Ihe individualist that his draws us together. our ewironmentpolitical expression is significant. But draws us in alld together. But hehe dies only because an army lieu- le;lves us ill ns ambiguous ?.tate abouttenant wants to avoid trouble. perso~~al expression atld the African

revolution. 1211 we tell if the darkdepths of the descendants withoutuxestors. the revolutionaries, betrayand destroy lhe new politics? Is it thedirectkm - the revolutionary rejectionof tradition - that releases the newimperial guilt of Burdener. the corrup-lion of Camaliel in the mune of theRedeemer. the isnlatiun oi Krumanfrom the people:’ Would the Ancestors’traditional politics be less passiolwd.kss destructive. less extreme?

A final note: other reviewers haveasked if one of these books is thegreat Canadian sovel. Reject the mock-ery of ihat adman’s plastic dream, butread them. because Godfrey and Knightare defining fhe cwnscioumess that willbe greatness here in Canada. 0

M I C H A E L LEVIN ir an anthmpol-ogist r h o lived for IWO ycnrs i nWest Africa.

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EDIFICE COMPLEX- ---_

CANADIAN ARCHITECTURE 1960/70by CAROL MOORE EDE

WIN/~ md AIorEachmlelurh L’S.‘W. 264 ,mm’s

WHEN 1 FlRST SBW Ci7Mdbm m&da&c-fure 196Of70 on the bookshelf, I wasdelighted. At long last a book on con-temporary Canadian architecture! But.as I glanced through it, I felt a growingseose of disappointment. Instead of adetailed study of recent architecture. itappeared to be littlemore than acollec-tion of black and white photographs.with almost a0 text whatsoever. WhenI saw the accompanying price tag ofS25.00, I put it back on the shelf anddecided to wait until it came out inpaperback - which might mean a longwait. Fortunately ao invitation to re-

view it allowed a closer look soonerthan anticipated.

Gmadion Archirecrure 1960/70 i sessentially a photographic study of 24buildings built in Canada over the pastdecade. They are neatly divided intocategories of Educational. Public, Com-mercial. Industrial, Religious and Resi-dential. Each building is introduced bya few lucidly written paragraplu show-ing how the architect faced the problems of site, budget, the nature of thecommission, etc. At the end of thebook there are brief biographies on eachof theeighteen architects. Interestingly

enough. two-thirds of them were bornin western Canada. Apart from a loneeasterner, the other five are from suchdiverse countries as Israel. Poland,Greece. Australia and the United States.

The buildings ware selected andphotographed by Carol Moore Ede,whoalso wrote the text. In her preface.Miss Ede states her belief that Canadianarchitecture has moved from the archi-tect’s personal expression of an art toa more comprehensive approach tobuildink SIN also feels that her selec-tion of buildings reHects a new appreach toarchitecturcbased on prcsent-day needs. Eager to tind if this wastrue. I looked through the book to seeif the examples chosen did show anarchitecture concerned with humanneeds. What struck me was how manyof the photographs revealed vistas ofhuge monolithic walls and cold con-crete interiors. Memories came back ofbeing in one of these buildings in win-ter with water dripping down damp,dungeon-like stairwells. Do these maplesof exposed concrete really meet ourneeds for comfort on freezing winterdays? I was also surprised IO see how

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many of the buildings appeared to bedesigned for architects rather than theunified approach Miss Ede speaks of.The churches, in particular. seemed tobe perfect examples of exhibitionistarchitecture, if only by the very seduetiveness of their design.

It soon became apparent that thebook was concerned with presentingarchitecture with a capital “A” - ex-cept for a rather eccentric potterystudio and a bronze casting shop, whichforms a delightful exception. As strlk-ing and as original as many of thebuildings are, they all fit into the tradi-tional pattern of monumental architeotme. They are lifted out of their sw-roundings and presented as isolatedmonument4 - even where far-reachingplansare envisioned, as with Habitat OTScarborough College. No attempt ismade to show architecture in relationtoa larger environment, or to show less“pun” forms of architecture such asurban renewal projects, public housing,malls, parks, or other types of archi-tecture created to make a more livableenvironment.

One way of replying to this criticismis to point out that all the buildingsshown represent the best known worksof the past decade. One might evendefend the choice by showing howmany have. won Massey Medals, exceptfor the fact that many architects feelthis is an outdated award which nolonger reflects current trends. In manyways the selection could be describedas vary conservative and conventional.It does inch& some highly innovativeworks, such as Habitat. ScarboroughCollege and Place Bonaventure, butother examples am quite prosaic. WhatI cannot understand is why buildingssuch as the National Arts Centre, theOntario Science Centre, York Square- or even the service station at Maltonairport - are not even mentioned.

This is my main criticism of thebook - that it is not truly represen-tative of what has been going on inCanadian architecture ovar the pastten years. The author makes no attemptto justify her selection or to discussthe buildings from a critical point ofview. Surely there could hava been amore complete statement, situatingCanadian architecture withii a broaderinternational perspective. Surely an in-dication could have been given of thepast. present and future directions of

10

Canadian architecture.Perhaps the titleof the book led me toexpect too much.

What we have then. is a collectionof photographs illustrating a vary per-sonal selection of buildings. The build-ings are well documented with up to26 photographs, plans and drawingsfor each work. Many of the photc-graphs am of excellent quality, andwith the help of the captions, theygive a strong visual impression of eachbuilding. However, many of the illustra-tions are repetitive, some have ex-tremely poor definition, and othersare very“posed,“giving more attentionto the photographs than to the archi-tecture. I would have liked to havesaen more architectural details, somelee obvious views of interior and ex-terior spaces, and even some ?mt-so-perfect” views for critical study.

Although I did learn somethingabout a few examples of Canadianarchitecture. my final impression wasof being somewhat cheated - by thedeceptive title of the book. by its highcost, by the lack of critical discussion,and by the narrow view of architectureasisolatedmonuments. But until .som~one elsa comes out with a more corn-prehensive study. it remains the onlybook on contemporary architecture inCanada. This in itself is enough masonto recommend it. even with its ob-vious shortcomings. 0

PETER MELLEN is Associalc Profcs-sor ol Art History at York Univcnityand author of the bcrt-sclling TheCroup or Scvcn. His latest book isJean Cloucl: Compklc Edition ofDrawings. Paintings. and Minialum.%

CHILDREN’SBOOKS INCANAD

THE WEE FOLKby MARY ALMA DILLMAN

The Talbot Ress. Hdifzxpr7pt=ro1.95: 67pages

THE WEE FOLK is a book of storiesabout a very large group of elves livingin Nova Scotia, and what it is likebeing an elf with most things biggerthan you are. One story is about anelves’ convention at Teaberry Hollowand a human boy who rascue~ a babyelf called Pinky from floating awayfrom the shore in a picnic basket. Inanother of the four stories a raven andan old woman save another elf calledDanny from drowning in a river.

The author makes vary good stories,but the art isn’t exciting enough. Iwould like to sac what the artiststhought of during the exciting parts.The pictures are pleasant, but notexciting enough. It is different frommcst books I’ve seen because the coveris looking at you and not somethingelse. It’s a lot more exciting than mostEnglish books I’ve read and a lot morepleasant than most American booksI’ve read because there’s too muchtighting in them. But it doesn’t tellmuch about Nova Scotia.

I think childran from about seven toten would enjoy reading it, and itwould be good to read out loud tochildren of about tive or six. Cl

rEMMA is a nine.year.old writer whoattends school in Toronto.

I

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includes over 188 reproductions. this is an ideal giftwho is faced with the pmrpecr of speaking effectively

bock fcr anycns interestad in Canadiana or art.10 a swa”ge 9m”p of pecpfa. 17 September. $10.00

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PARSONS ON THE PLAINSJune Bhada

John McDougall. edited bv Thomas BredinThis ncvel. mere funny than sad. deals wilh a teen-ager uvhose mothsr, in pursuit of sccial recognition.

Taken fmm three books written by a CanadianPioneer. ex~lcrer. and diplomar. Parsons cn the Plainsholds the thrill of maMite high adventure.ORObM. S8.95

JOSEPH BRANT: A Man for His People

neglects her scn ar her laler expeme. October. 88.95

BANEFUL DOMINATIONGlen FrankfurterThis is a fully documented record ranging from1581-1971 of why Canada has been and is banefullydcminarsd by other nations. 17 Se~mber. 811.59

Helen Caister Robinson What You Can Do Ahout POLLUTION NOWA fascinating biography for teenagers about a mid- John Fisher

lllthcentuw Indianchief who-educated in English A rare and wncisedccumentarion cf pcllution acm?il

schoclr end became a misionaw. translaterand leaderCanada. in causes and whn can be done by the

cd his people. October. 86.50individual 10 awan or stop it.17 September. Paper 82.95

I1

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?WOWI. .I AM A SENSATION

G. GOLDBERG and G. WRIGHTMcaelland & Stewart

plrperbsck $3.95

reviewed by Judith Copithorne

Stretching away on all sides 01mostpeoples’mweness are vistasof uncer ta inty . . . the un-certainties prem us down .Some people my esk those samequestions, but their lives unfoldcertaindes in spite of them. Theywe mmvers. 7lzeir lives lapped inrich sensation. look out on fill-neas...

m*~ ts the beginning of I iz* (I Sen-setion, McClelland and Stewart’s newanthology edited by Gerry Goldbergand George Wright.

It is a beautiful book and large too.It has more than 100 contributors(roughly half of them Canadian), anS%-by-1 1 Format and I58 pages. Thevisual appearance of the book is asappealing as the text. The paper isheavy bond and the quality of thereproduction is excellent.

The visual work consists of blackand white, high contrast photographsand drawings. Some of the drawingsare taken From comic strips - llze5YlverSurfwandDr. Stmzge - and coo-tain their pertinent metaphysical ob-servations, combined with exquisite

line and powerful Form. IF there is sny-one who isn’t aware of Marvel Comicsthis is an excellent introduction. Alongwith Dr. Strange come the voluptuousetchingsandvisionory words of WilliamBlake.

As soon as the book arrived myvisitors started reading it. One personasked if it were a high school readerand another said that if he had had itas an English text he would have “gotinto” poetry much more easily. Thedrawings and photographs have ao im-mediate impact on the reader. drawingattention to the page which then con-tains other material based on the samecentral theme.

My First impression on opening lam0 Senselion was excitement. it has thesame chaotic, organic splendour of Fer-tility which all things have lhat grow.The book is divided into I I sec-tions, each indicating some broad as-pect of the human condition such aslove. war. and our animal identity.Each chapter is prefaced with a hexa-gram From the I Ching. The use of theIc3liIrg to indicate complex emotional.social and physical relationships isauthoritative and consistent.

Section seven is titled “It has beensuggested that learning is primarily asensory and emotional experience.” Itcontains works by F. R. Scott andAlden Knowlan as well as b. p. nichol’s“Prayer” which ends with the words. . teach me to be sure.” The sectionon love contains works by LeonardCohen, P. K. Page and “Fire Garden”by Gwendolyn MacEwen.

Perhaps the strongest section is theone mainly on war. Its hexagram indi-cates that one’s heart should be firmand sure before proceeding. In it youcome on Barbara Beidler’s incrediblypowerful poem about napalm beingdropped on a village in Vietnam.

This is a diflicult book to considercritically;it coverssuch a wide range ofmaterial. The main problem seems to beto distinguisii the Fad from the realimpulse. to determine what is genuineand what is used simply lo appeal tothe public whim of the momenl.

There are now also a good manyCanadians doing excellent work in theseFields. A book similar in content andintent but using all Canadian material,including work From the indigenouscultures, would be a really interestingnext step.

Whatever questions there are aboutI MZ (I Serrsation it is a positive andcreative work. The last section is onprophecy, visions of the Future. Itshexagram is the last one in the Bookof Changes, before completion. Thereare a lot of quotes: From Alvin Toffleron Flrture Shock. Marshall McLuhanand The Book of Revelations. It endswith the Russell-Einstein Appeal ofJuly 9, 1955.

“There lies before us, if we choose,continual progress in happiness, knowl-edge and wisdom. Shall we, instead,choose death, because we cannot Forgetour quarrels? We appeal, as humanbeings to human beings. Rememberyour humanity and Forget the rest.” 0

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FRANKFURT

1.

BOOK FAl,RI

EPICSTEEL

THE LASTSPIkEPIERRE BERfON

McCIeUand L? Stewartcloth $10:00:478plyes

reviewed by George Woodcock

IF ANY BVENT~U Canadian history hasthe kind of condensed grandeur thatmakes an epic, it is the building of theCanadian Pacific Railway, and PierreBerton may indeed be the man who hasmost successfuUy put it into an epicform appropriate to the modem age.

Before such a claim raises the eye-brows of sceptictsm, let me point outthat no epic action ever seemed so tothe man who lived through it or totheir contemporaries. When Ring Aga-memnon led tha thousand ships awayfrom Greeca to lay siege to the corsair’sstronghold of Troy, ha was obviously

reacting.to the down-to-earth politicalimperativesof his time, compounded asthey were of tribal pride and piraticalrivalries; it was later generations thatmade theGreekexploits into so strangea combination of truth and fantasythat for long enlightened historiansdoubted if Agamemnon or,AchiEes orHector ever lived or if Troy had evenexisted. Only the persistence of thatgreat romantic archaeologist Schliemann proved the basic truth of theI&d by digging Troy out of the gmundand Ending in a desolate valtey ofGreece the massive citadel fmm whichAgamemnon set forth and to which hereturned to the treacherous welcome -prepared by his faithless wife Clytem-nestra.

The imperatives of state interestmade later Greek kings and tyrantsencoumga the bards who, to make aliving, turned the tales of Agamemnon’sextremely badly managed militaryoperation(it tookhim 10 years, exactlyas long as it took the CPR to get itscharter) into the splendours of theRind. And if we aamine any other ofthe great epics of the past we usuallyEnd that there is a political andprobably a national urge behind it all.The epic is the statement in contem-porary literary form of the myth in

whose shadow a nation emerges. TheA&id in ancient Rome, the tales ofEl Cid in Spain, the Song of Roland inFrance, thaMorte d’Arthur in Britain -all these (t&s) populated with menmagnified into heroes .who performedsuperhuman tasks, came into their ownat times when rather crude assemblagesof peoples were be@ forged intonations.

Canada today is in that condition.During the past two or three decadeswe have beengoing through the processof str@n and consolidation that withluck may turn us into tile modernequivalent of a nation - hopefully inour case a working federation ratherthan a nation-state in the old European ’ -sense - and we have had to fiid onrepic, as the Americans found theirs inthe Civil War. Since we live in a.technological age it & ihe pioneers of ’our timg that we naturally. choose asepic heroes; just as iron-age Greekschose men of the bronze age, so in apost-railway age we choose railway.builders. And no story more fits ourneeds, as the poet E. I. Pratt recognized20 years ago, than that of the creationof theCanadianPaciEc Railway. In 27~Lest Spike he turned the story into apoem, and the subject of, the GreatCanadian Epic was chosen. But poetry

l2a

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me hedge it with qualifications. I amnot saying that Berton has written ihe

best History that could be written ofthe founding of the Canadian Pacific.He is far too involved in hisbubject to.have written the kind of meticulously~objective study which modern fashionsin historiography demand, even thoughhis facts are unchallengeable and his’research had obviorisly been considera-ble and thorough; he has not thegrand sweep of a Toynbee or wen aCreighton that is needed for the otherkind of professional history, whichamounts to the creation of universalmyths. What he does have, remarkablydeveloped, is that instinct of the well-versed and imaginatife reporter whichis nekded to turn bare facts into thefabric of a modem epic. In t& wholeof the two volumes that comprise llzGrmtRailww~,perhapsthemost signit%cant phrase is one that undoubtedly .slipped io half-consciously: “ . . . thoseilluminating stories of human interestthat are the journalist’s grist.” Berton,of course, is nothing if not a journalist,but he differs from mcwt others in beingable to transfer himself into the pasiand by a great imaginative concentra-.t&n to be able fo treat the facts 6f thatpast as if they were happenings today.It is the creation of “stories of human

interest” that are so vivid .that we canimagine ourselves experiencing themthat is one of the techniques of the

epic, which always seeks to uniteheroic strerigth with human weakness,and marvelloos events with the detailof everyday life.

no m&e does the wail of its enginesmean to solitary men and women thatthey an not completely alone; indeed, ’if the CPR had-its ivay .now, the rest ofus would just forget about it and allowits managers and shareholders to maketheir profits quietly out of land- andminerals and by any other way thancarrying. us over the world’s mostspectacular railway. It is precisely atthis point, when institutions or menforget their history, that they recedeout of the meaningful present andbecome fair prey for the epic writer.

is no longer the modem epic form;rather it is the reportage or docome%tary in prose. The English-languageepic of the Spanish Civil War, forexample, is George Orwell’s Homageto Gztalm~ia; that of the OctoberRevolution is John Read’s Ten Daystlintflzook the World; and both Orwelland Reed were inspired journalists.Perhaps Pierre Berton and his l71eC&t Railway are in the same corn-pcoy. ‘.

Having suggested such a claim, let

This is precisely what Berton is-doingin his two-v&me history of the CPR,and he is even helped by the factthatthe railway as our fathers knew it isalready becoming part of the past. It isno longer the single and indispensablelink that unites our straggling nation;

The epic intent is even more evidentin this second volume’of TYze GreatRoilwny thao it was in the first, whichended with the linal granting of thecharter to the Canadian Pacifii in l8,Slafter a decade of complicated andoften &graceful political manoeuvres.during that first volume a great deal ofattention had necessarily to be devoted,to those politiCai actions, and it is hardto squeeze much epic grandeur out ofSir John A. or his Liberal a+ersariesafter the climax of their nation-buildiiefforts at Confederation. The epicelement _ in the story of the CPR isbrought in by the engineers and sur-veyors and contractors, and by thethousands of navvies - Caucasian andChinese - who turned Maedonald’s.political promise to British Columbiainto the physical bond that for twogenerations kept Canada intact.

Berton gives free and sometimesflamboyant play to their achievements.The political mandeuvres fall into thebackground. It is the fantastic endur-ance of the survey teams (many ofthem literally explorers of unknowncountry), the enormous technical featof carrying the railway across theShield and over the Cordillera, and thegreat social fact of the CPR as thepopulator of waste lands and thecreator of cities in empty landscapesthat forms the vital substance of thepre+ volume of The Great Railway.

All epics revolve around a strugglein which the right side eventually wins,and in this case the foe is the landitself (it was an age before environ-mentalists and eeo-philosophers, andthe CPR pioneered, among other things,the destmction of much of the Cana-dian wilderness.) Berton tends to keepthe sense of struggle high throughout,justashestreamlinesinto appropriately

_: .

grandiose f&in the myths that sw-rounded men like Van Home, fustgeneral manager and mastei organizerof the CPR. I am not suggestQ that _Berton tampers with facts, but he doesselect and arrange them with a ratherbaroque imagination, so thathis central _f&ores are clearly his heroes (a ratherrefreshing aberration, actually; in anage obsessed by the anti-hero).

.Yet in spite of the high colour andthe accelerated prose, which sometimesgives a hectic feeling to events thatmust have seemed pretty banal in theirtime, Berton has written not only anentertaining but also a very informativebook, full of odd facts and eccentric’erudition. His journalistic mind_ hasassured that he never forgets the veryprofound ways in which the con-struction. of the railway affected-thelives of many thousands of ordinary

. ._..

people in the 18809, and he presents amore thorough account than I havefound anywhere elDe of the &y theactual labourers lived and worked;there is a particularly fascinating de-scription of the methods used to pushthe railway across the prairies at a-’speed that on one momentous singleday exceeded .six miles (a feat of rail-way construction. unri~a8e.d &ice, inspite of our vastly more sophisticated 1machinery). Berton has lost none ofthe interest in collective manias whichhe displayed in his Kiotzdike, and he _ -zestfully describes the various. landbooms that followed the railway acrossthe country. He narrates the story ofthe second Riel rebellion in a way thatpersuasively suggests that Van Homewas more tasponsible for the defeat of

conrbuud on n?xr pngt?

126

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,

FROM endangered by foreign (and largelyAnlelican) take-avers of our econonly.

-’ In publishing, tbis awakened a popular

THE EDITOR - .resentplent ofincreasing Amencan con-trol and the sudden growth of anumber of small but active Canadianpublishers who lobbied the governmentinto a concern over the need to en-courage and sustain a book industryof our own.

THE LtT?%iRY image we E”@ish Cana-dians have projected during our firstcentury has bee” less than prepossessing. And eye” today, having reacheda proportionate equality with Britain

‘and the United State.s in the annual“umber of new titles published, ourfame abmad seems to depend largelyon a few Canadians in exile - MqrdecaiRlchler, Norman Levine, and BrianMoore - or on such writers as ArthurHailey and Malcolm Lowry who wereonly fleetingly Ca”a+n. And. yet wedo have fme writers and excellentpublishers in Canada who deserve tobe lolow” abroad.

Our linguistic.md economic kl&ipswith the Britishand the Americans longdiscouraged the gmtith of a publllblngindustry of our own. Abroad our pub-lishers have had to stmg@e for a comerof a market already well-supplied; athome they have had to struggle againstthe temptation to engage in the profit-able business of importing books ratherthan the hazardous if worthy businessof publl&.ing new C&die” ‘writers.Until rkcenily, dnly a ‘minority ofCanadian published engaged whole-heartedly in either stmggle.

But changes have been taking placewithl” Caimda which should soon beapparent abroad. A long-delayed senseof national identity, awakened in I967by the celebration of our aunl~ertiryas8 Confederation, bmught the reallza-tion that our sovereignty was being

Bwki In Guru& is a creature ofthese trends. Already in our briefexistence we have bee” attacked, byCanadians, for our predominant atten-tion to Canadian books. Our answer isthat, while we accept the ideal thatliterature should transcend frontiers,wehear it adopted too often nowadaysby those multinationalists whose cri-terion of literary and educational worthis profitable msss-marketability. Ourprime iask, aswe see it, is to encourageat home a” appreciation of Canadiantirlters and their books. Thmugh thisdebut at the Frankfurt Book Fair, weseek to encourage a&nilar appreciation~abmad:Necessity hss implanted inCanadians the virtue of open-minded-ness towards other literatures. We hopethat while we give more attention toour own writers we can retain thatvirtue. Andwe hope that the world wlllrespond in kid by listening to whatwe belatedly have to say about our-selves. That would be a proper inter-nationalism.

The Directors of Booti In Gutadagratefully .acknowledge the @madianGovernment’s Department of Industry,Trade and Commerce in distributingtbls special edition at the FrankfurtBook Fair. 0

EPIC STEEL continued fmm - i2b

the Mdtis than lack-lustre G e n e r a lMiddleto”. And he wastes “one of thecomedy accompanying the diioveryof the mute. through the Rockies andthe Selkirks by that outrageous ma”but brilliant surveyor, Major Rogers.

Major Rogers was a” American, andthere is a” irony about the fact that somany of Berton’s heroes - includiiithe formidable Van Home - camefrom south of the border. It is a littleconftig - almost as if Agnmemno”had won the Tmjan war with Trojan

-mereenerles - to find that the featwhich was meant to keep us fmmabsorption by the United States wasperformed so largely by America”citizens. ltis tbekind of salutary lessonthat epics should administer. 0

GEORGE WOODCOCK. one of Ca-nada’s best-Gown writers andcritics, is editor bf Gma&nLitemrUre He lives and works inBritish Columbia.

STONINGPIERRE.

SHRUG:TRUDEAU IN POWER-

WALTER STEWARTnew press

cloth 57.95; 288 payer

revibnrd by DuBarry Campau

IN THE OPENING chapter of this book,its author WaIter Stewart says in part:

“Given his background, the wonderis not that Trudeau has done as badly .as he has, but that he has hot tie,worse. He is not, after all, a politicianhammered into shape by the bruisingand e+cating scramble up the rungs ofpower; he is a Montreal snob slung intogovemanceofa nation that manyotherme” have decided was ungovernable. I -give .hbn full marks, in the circum-,stances, for doing his best.

“But measu_md again& the goalsTrudeau set himself, and against thenormal standards of political judgmentin Canada . . . I think he has done abad job and should be replaced.

‘LThe rest of this book is devoted toexpldning why.”

. .

The explanation ,lncludes a most .thorough examination of the 3% yearsof the Trudeau adminlstratio”. The _War Measures Act,, inflation, socialwelfare, foreign affairs andCanada4I.S.relations are analyzed closely in termsof Trudeau’s influence over and at&tude toward them.

On balance, Stewar~Tlld~ Trudeau’srecord as prime Minister a disastrousone, but he dlsannlngly e0”eede.s bim

.afewconstructiveachievements,among -them the Official Languages Act andthe Canada Development Corporation.

However, Stewart points out that“either of these coticepts originatedwith Trudeau or even with members ofhis Super-Group, as Stewart calls theme” in the government and clvll servicewho ace closest to the Prime Minister.

In fact, the only quality ofTrudeauthat Stewart seems to admire tinreserv-e@y is his television prowess, which he

12c

_... _._.__ . ._-- ._ __.~ -. -.._

Trudeau’s coming to p&e;.Despite Stewart’s admitted -bias

against his subject and ‘his obvioushope that this book will be usedagainst him in the next election,Stewart has done such an astonishinglycareful surv& of Tru&au’s caraer asprime minister, and dgcumented insuch detail each’deleterious point hemakes, that it is impossible not to beimpressed by the evidence he produces,nzgardless u.f one’s own political preju-dices.

Furthermore,’ Stewart, with adroitcunning, has written his book in read-able, entertaining prose witha breezi-

ness no doubt acquired, if not used, as~M~c~aan S dttawa corresponde?t. ‘.

He himself saysha has no doubt butthat Trudeau will be voted in againwith a substantial majority to backhbn up in Parliament, but by writing.about him as he has, Stewart is givingthe electorate an opportunity to evalu-ate, uphold or disparage the Trudeauadministration and to aquira a gieaterdegree of political literacy and i&l-ligant involvement. Cl

DUnARnv wmP*u i s a well-known Toronto critic and jour-nalist. Her column reviewingcurrent paperback books willsuun be appearing ragularly,inBooks in Chada

SAD STOl?Y OF THE DEATH. OF KINGS

KING OF E G Y P T, KING 0F DREAMS’GWGNDOLYN McEWEN

MacmillanCIOUI $9.93 :287 pqes

c&+-d by Randall Ware

TO HAVE BEEN born into the late 1940sand early .195Os is to have b&en delivarad into times that cared not for’history itself or the lessons it held forthe order-sacking intellect. I am 24years old and have never ‘felt thathistory had anything much to teachme. This opinion .is, I think, fairly’representative of my generation andmust surely that of the people maturingafter me. Films. hap$.nings, rock con-carts are the new history, no history.The electric present replaces the avail-able past. The historical method yieldsto the hysterical process and no onestops to point out likenesses in thesepolarities.

Wall baby, this.may do it to yourhead, but Gwendolyn MacEwen haswrittenanhistorical-based-on-the-facts-no-bullshit-but-someehanges novel thatnot only demonstrates that THEYREALLY WFRE A LOT LIKE US! -but also that both hi&y, and thenovel itself, can speak movingly and

12d

directly to our 24-frames-per-secondcultural nodes.

King of Egypt, King of Dream isthe story of Akhenaton, ruler 0fQyptfrom 1367 to 1350 B.C., his rise anddemise. A sickly lad who passes hisfirst years not moving from his darkmom, vom@ing, feverish, unable towalk properly, and haunted by voicesand visions that torment his head fromthe inside even as his overbearing andpower-hungered mother torments itfrom without. Physically repulsive., yes,and destined to assume the thronewhen his somewhat aberrant and ag-gressive father goes to join his ka(transcendental self, spiritual twin) inheaven.

But Akhenaton is a visionary, &dhav@ been forged in the saprimtefuries of his parents, he ‘emerges astheir m@ror opposite. He dissipates,.during the cuursz of his reign. theempire that Amanhotep, his father,had so painstakingly grafted (both

senses) onto Bgypt. Because he hatedwar and &lance and would neitherfght nor &fend, many suffered andthe empire crumblad. His aye was ontbe Isrger$ttem.

A knot of reasons pmpallad himonto the course that is the substanceof tha novel and the reason‘ for whichhe is best remembered today. ForAkhenaton introduced the concept ofmonotheism into Egypt and into ourlives. Why did he do it? Was it that thewelter of different gods, each with his . .

own province, was confusing? Was itperhaps that the people needed new

- symbol& These could be yen aS masunsfor the rise of Atonism, but only afterthe fact. And tha fact was that Akhenaton had transformed the termrsdancing inside his head into a quasi-.mysticalvision of purity that suited his.psychology even if it did not producethe goals it implied. The new relig&~is accepted reluctantly and eventuallydieswithits craator. We ara left lookingat a prismatic man; a mystiqal dema-gogue, a C~OSJ between Hitler and aflower-child, an individual. Akhanatonis known as the first individualist.Indeed, he is a model for what trueindividualism can represent and a cau-tion for how it adapts to the socialjig-saw. I

The novel is rich in character andcharacters. Nefertiti, his wife, drifts inand out of the story but stays with youa long time after it is over. Ay,Akhenaton’s faiher-in-law, is one oftouchstolies of his life. Philosophicaland practical,he illumines Akhanaton’scharacter by contrast. The end of thebook is devoted to “The Secret Papyrusof Ay: Circa 1337 B.C.” This chapterserves to put the whole book intoproper histurical perspective and toshow what occurred after the death of’Akhenaton. Itsgreatestvalue, however,is that it gives us Ay’s insights tit0Akhenaton. and help us mwa towardthe defmition of a character who is notreadily detined.

Gwendolyn MacBwen’s prose is ad-mirably suited to her subject majtar.Obe gets the unmistakable feeling thatthe writing of tbe book was a s@w andpainstaking task. The story is writtenin a straightforward manner, the pmseis ecoVomical and clean, and we aremercilully spared tha miasma of ir-relevant historical data that so many

.

.E3

A Collector’s Item

.canadaA Photographic

Interpretation

Amleto Lorenzini, PhotographerThe late Igor Stravinsky, who was intensely ipterested in the Nationat Ballet, wrote \the portfolio’s dedication. . - \

A magnili& qortfolio of phologmphs of the National Ballet Company of Canada. Printed in Italy, thisbeautiful collector’s item has only now. afler four yeas. been made avallable in Canada, and will be published ina lboited edition of 1,000 numbered copies. Maony Caoadiaos thrilled to the enchanting perfommeces by theCompany during Cenlennirl year at Piece des Am in Montreal and throughout Canada - productions swh as

.

BJyaderb, Romeo sod Jofit, The Lilac Garden, Senmade, nod Smn Lake. These however, w-en llic fmished -pmducf. What about the hard work and long hours of r&earring - the very real but far kraglamorousside of .P dancer’s life? Present at the rehearsals in St. Lawrence Hall. Toronto, Amleto Lwruini’s brilliaot artistrycaptures fhe mood of the bane1 “behind-Lhcleenc”. The resultioS collection is ao artistic coUeboration betweenthe photognphcr and the printer. Eonio Trevisae. a masler craftsman of tbe Italian printing tradition. Preseotedin a lqe. 13%” x 18%” portfolio case. the 32 black-and-white prints were developed ina”pointiUirtic” ellectthat soflens the picture, and printed on heavy “fabriano” paper -perfect for individual framing.

_- _. _..

I

Important Education ProgramGENERAL PUBLlSHlNC CO. LlH,TED

NewsGeiie- 64 pp. paper: expendableTkii rrcempmyieg studybook provides specific rmdy of Ihe vadeusrclions and features of tie nevrpappcr i tse l f . It b useful uorientation for pupIll not abeady Dmilirr titk tbb medium.

October Limited editiob d 2,000 coidej S50.00

THE PURSUIT OF INTOjWATION,Dr. Andrew 1. +x4,,,

TRE FORGOTTEN CHILDREN,

1 N0lXlNG IS MY NUMBER,I Dr. Aolhony hf. Marcus

One of the few Canadian Book Poblihlng’Companiu owned by Ceoadiene

.I2e ’

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novelists feel compelled to pour uponus. Here, the story’s the thing. Auseful glossary of Egyptian names andterms is included.

I found King of Egypt, King ofDreums to be a moving book. Akhe-naton tries to incorporate the god, thebeast, and. the man into one. Theillustrationofbisattempt can,1 believe,teach us more about prts of ourselvesthan all. the Desmond Morrises, LionelTigers, and Robert Ardreys we canmuster. When the intellect fues the_imagination, the novel thrives, historybecomes redolent v@th meting, andfor a brief time we are transported outof our-tempomliiy. 0

BI- LINGUA .FRANCA‘SECONb I M A G E

Gxnpamtive Studie in @ebec/Chadian Litemture

RONALD SVTHER&AivDnelv press

doth $7.50; 189 ~lrger

reviewed by Hownrd.Roiter

._

RONALD SUTHERLAND has produced,with his Second Iniage, a fascinatingand tantalizing volume. Sutherlandteaches comparative Canadian. Litera-ture cd the Universit6 de S&rbrooke,and he has. a thorough awareness ofCanadian literary production both inEnglish and French. In Second Imagehe tries to delineate the commonthemes and preoccuptions which areshared by Canada’s two literatures. Ineffect,Suthedand calls them one litera-ture in two forms. Hisvolume, however,reminds this reviewer of ClementMoisan’s i’?ige de la litt6mha cana-dienne, a study of comparative Cana-dianliterature which appeared in 1969.Moisan’s study was rather weak, ffledwith facile genemliitions and faultyevidence. Almost no serious book-length work bad been done in corn-parative Canadian literary criticism,and Moisan’s book was avidly wel-comed only because it was a voice

crying in the wilderness - almost theonly voice. Sutheiland’s Second Imageis mti more perceptive add solid thanMoissn’s superficial ob&vatio”s, but italso leads with the chin and inviteiattack. Nonetheless, in terms of serious,

readable scholarship Sutherland hastaken the first step and his pioneeringeffort should be applauded.

Sutherland finds that both Canadianliteratures share a number of commonthemes: man in harmony with thelvd and God’s cycles of nature, thebreakup of old established value syykterns and .$he generational tensions and

..clashes whichensue, and the existentialsearch for truth. It is exhilaratink towatch Sutherland. oscillate between,mnguet’s mnte Arpentcs and Frede-rick Philip Grove’s Our &ily Brezzd inhis attempts to describe the treatmentof man and the !and. In depiting fhecontemporary search for truth whichemanates from a total existential empti-ness, Sutherland, with great agility andknowledge, picks his way throughJacques Godbout’s Le Bureau Sur laIhble, Douglas L.e Pan’s 7he DesertersLeonard Cohen’s Bmutiful Losers andHubert Aquin’s Bochain Episode.Sutherland’s juxtaposition of W. 0.Mitchell’s Who Has Seen the Wind andRejean Ducharme’s L’Avelk des Aq16s is expertly done and effectivelyillustratesSutherland’s point that chil&hood in both literslures is portrayed asa time of acute misery and conscioussuffering.

Sutherland also demonstrates howthe two Canadian literalures are per-meated by a puritan sensibility, in onecsse coming from an inbred Calvinismand in the other a die-hard Jansenism.Tbis sensibility has produced seVeralrecurring literary themes: a “Saturday-night fling” syndrome, followed bySunday morning purification, ihe ideathat pleasure is really quite sinful andnot to be enjoyed, and fhe image of“the%nperfect priest.” Sutherland usesa number Df no& to iUustrate thisPuritan shadow, especially MacLen-n&s E a c h Mnt &WI a n d RothCarrier’s Lo Guerre, Yes Sir! His diicussion of the initial reception in thelate 1930s of Jesn-Ch@es Harvey’sLesDerni-Ovili& should be’obliitoryreading for the middleqed French-Canadian lovers of “libert? whocrawled. out of the woodwork only

‘when the love of “‘liberty” becamefashionable iwthe 1960s.

Suthedand also has the Courage todenounce the racism of Caron LionelGroulx’s L’Rppel de lo Rece. Groulxhad badly misguided racist sentimentsand subscribed to a type of protn- -fascist, biological racial theory. Some-body has to say that fhe emperor iswearing no clothes, and never wore anyclothes, and Sutherland says it well.

Why has Groulx’s reputatfon re‘mained so high in French-Canadian .intellectual ciieles? Why has. his. in-fluence formed several generations ofinfluential historians who have tram-muted the originel message butretsinedcertain essential ideas? Here is the rubof the whble matter. Suthe$nd wants.to prove that “It can be safely said . . .that French-Canadian and English-Canadian novels of the twentieth cen-tury have traced a -single basic line ofideological development, creating awhole spectrum of common images,attitudes, and ideas _ . . There are atthe moment no fundamental cultural:differences between the two major

-eUmii groups of Canada . . . Theredoes .wisist a single, common nationalmystique _ . . the mysterious apparatusof a single sense of identity.” _

True, certain common elements co-

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exist in Canada’s two cultures. Suther-land, however, has a socro-politicsI axeto grind (“assuniii that we -want to _preserve this single nation” . . . etc.) ‘._and he stacks his literary cards heavilyin faiour of h& thesis. Some of his

_

evidence is downright slim, and hisgeneralizations are often facile andunsubstantiated. He often strays intothe non-literary (e.g. Quebec cars at100 mph wrapping themselves aroundtrees) to marshal every ava*ble bit ofevidence, and lb-&s bis own undeniable ,

Canadian loyalty to select morsels ofprose which support his uni-c~ltuural 1premise. Prof. Sutherland’s emotionsss aCanadian often crush his adherenceto the objectivity which usually under-lies tbestudy ofcomparative literature. .

Prof. Sutherland nowherd explains _the fact that Abbe Filix-Antoine.Savard’sMneud. M&r&reveur leavesEnglish Canadian readers utterly coldand disenchanted, whereas French-Canadian literary critics of some emi-.nence and general readers have longaccepted ii as a “classic.” Prof. Su@er-

land ianores the fact that the writinasof French-Canadian intellectuals aboutthe October crisis reveal a deepeningchasm which fundamentally separatesthem from EnglishCanadians, and thischasm is based on widely differingattitudes to life, death, freedom, andthe dignity of individual liberties.

Second Iinage, however, in spiteof Prof. Sutherland’s evident ‘wer-enthusiasm, must be recognized as acapable pioneering work which sbolrld,hopefully, open a new horizon ,incomparative Cariadisn literature. 0

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as “surplus value” and, “repressiveapparatus” lose their .mind-numbingweight when they are used withinteg-rity and precision. The Marxist methodworks freshly here. Bergemn uses it toshatter Quebec’s own cherished mytho-logies. In its harsh light, explorersturn to plunderers, heroes and mir*sionaries ta genocidal rogues. It revealsnothing to corbfort the federalist - onewonders, indeed, if Montreal is nottoday, as it was one year ago, “in thetrough of a huge wave preparing tocrash’? - but it does dispel some ofthe shadowy obscurantism around thediscussion of Quebec’s.past.

.MARXCHEZ-b.l~iJ.S

THE HISTORY OF. .. QUEBEC

A RzhicateS Handbook -MDRE BERGERGN

New ha& Resspup” $1.50: 245 &lages

revlcwed by Philip Sykes

AT ONE RWDING, you hnow why this

translation and is even going well in aco,,& bc,& ve,&,".The~~"&tbat

took hold. L&mdre Bergemfi’s littlehistory of Quebec was an instant bestseUer.there, a quick success in Englii

The author teaches literature at SirGeorge Williams Uoivwsity, but hisoutlook is light years from that of thenow-cqnventional Patti Qu6b6cois aca-demic who, smugly I think, is dikinclined to see massive American ownkr-ship and control as any menace to anindependent Quebec. Bergeron, in qon-test, separates his history into TheFrench Regime (1534-1759). The En-glish Regime (1760-1919). and TheAmerican Regime (192~?). In plainwords - vigorous still, despite oddmisspellings and coy colloquialismsin tlie English translation - he traceshvo line! of descent in French Canadiannationalism. One is romantic - re-Ugious, or pastoral, inward-looking, aretreat to the hearth of the bnbitmt.The otheiis revolutionary - its heritageincludes the armed Patriotes of 1837,the anti-conscription rioters, the jour-nal Ihm’ pris and, by implication, thksympathizers of the FLQ. .

It’s uncomfortable, of course. Onewould have liked something moremoderate. But&en Bergeron’s record-.__:. ..~

it provides a whole view., What de+peration underlay the approval of somany Qulbdcois of that scabrous FLQcommuniqu6 last fail? And-what con-nectedlast fall to the events and peopleof the past - to Duplessis, the con-scrip$on crisis, Riel and Lord Durham?There are some answers here.

Fabian reform would not be easilysupportable. Here are some threads

- iUg Of blood and bet”IyaI, a case. t-or

in ti author’s hard line:

In a time of confusions, the “Pa-triot& Handbook” is explosive withcertitude. The complexities .of 400years am “ftid” in a hard Martianfocus. But, though true to the guiding’dogmas and the propagandist tone,

this account has none of the stalenessof its genre. Even such leade? phrases

Lord Durham, progenitor of con-federation, the governor-general whosereport in 1839 led to the union ofOntario and Quebec and to responsiblegovernment, was a liberal and a “racistdespot.” Liberalism led him to recom:mend responsible government for theBnglisb colonialists. But his belief inAngl&Saxon superiority demanded a.imion that would turn French Cana-dians, the numerical majority in Dur-ham’s time, into a political minority,permanently outvoted by a combina-

tion of Ontario and the Quebec English,ripe for assimilation, a process thatwould “better their condition.” Theycould, in Durham’s view, have thehappy fortune to become inore in-_dustrioua ?Fd more English!

_

The Asbestos strike, 1949, revealed- .the hits of political democracy:,“JohnsManviUe, the U.S. capitalistcompany, exploits the Quebec workers.To continue this exploitation, thecompany has to use the government it -controls by means of the party treasury.It orders the government to put downthr; workers. Caretaker Duplessis ordersthe Provincial Police to beat up the . ’workers. The cops do their .?ob’ ‘. . . .Here we see plainly how the bourgeoispossessor class also possesses the state.”

Jean Lesage’s Quiet Revolution,196066, was impelled by co’ntinentaleconomic forces: “The role played bythe former Negro-Kiogs, Duplessis andthe Clergy, ivas not useful enough toour colonizers, Americah and English-Canadian capitalists, in the modernsystem of exploitation. The require-men t was .no longer a Negro-Kingpreaching hard work and au austereexistence, but a Negro-King who couldmake the Qu6bbCcois believe they’had towork hard and live extravagantly . . .they had to. con&me. and consume. . .A new elite was needed, a liberal layelite who would adopt and preach theAmerican wny of Iif2, gradually Angli-cizing the Qudbdcois to make theminto ‘real’ Canadians I second-rateAmericans who are submissive pro- * _ducers and servile consumers for Amer-ican hnperialii. So our iolonizeirsupported our small and middle bour-geoisie mo@ly and financiaUy, con-centrating on the pmvincial Liberals.The party came to power in 1960.. . ”

It isapartiiand pmbablyadanger-ous view. Nonetheless, Bergeron’s retiprd bristles with surprises, original de-bunking, unminad veins of hard truths. _And it 8 what they are reading in Que-bee-inCEGEPsandManpowerUneups. -It should be iead in Moose Jaw and Ot-tawa, too, reid and understood. It may,.on the political scale, he a bit late forthat,but on thescaleofhistory.it isnev-er toolate.io look truths in the face. 0

(1 ‘*:PHILIP SYKES. an editorial writer

‘12g

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SAtiCANADA

FIRSTTHE DISCOVERERS

An lllustmted HistoryLESLIE l? HANNONMaehId & Smwrt

cloth $16.95 until Ded 31; Z6Opagcs

r~iewcd by Douglas Marshall

SOMEw”ERB BETW~XN the book andthe non.book lurks that hippogryph ofpublishing known as the. half-book,often rat&r desperately sobtitlEd “AnIllustrated History.” It is a disturbingbeast. Faced with a pure-blooded book,a critic at least knows where he’s at;the animal is subject to the broadcommands of literature.. Non-booksareeven less of a problem; it’s merely amatter of determining whether, in thecoarse values pf the marketplace, thereader is given enough gloss and glitterfor his gold. But when a publis;heJcunningly brings forth a hlppogryph.the critic’s terms of reference keepswinging dIzaily fmm library shelf toboiler-room floor and back again.

The history illustrated by zhe Dis-coverem concerns “the seafaring menwho first touched the coasts ofcanada.”I.like that word “touched.” The poeticcompromise between “explored” and“invaded” is the hallmark of the workof a great hippogtyph editor.

laze LXscoverrm is not half bad ashalf-books go. Unfortunately, it’s nbthalf good either. (With hlppogryphs,critics are constantly forced into lito-tes.) The main text is an entertainingpopular suvay of the opening up ofCanada fmm the time-misted folays ofalmost legendary Vii down to thescientific soundings of that humblehumanist. Captain James Cook. Mr.Hannon, a native of New Zealand whoadmires Canada with a convert’s pa,sion, has been more than generous y4thdetail and anecdote. \Ve are treated toinsights about everything from -themiraculous annedda tree that curedCartier’s men ofscurvy (it was probably

white cedar) to the sex life of SamuelChamplain (doll, except for-m obviouspfedeliction for very young girls).Above alI, Iiannon.has the professionalwriter’s ability to bring the scale of hisstory vividly into focus. Conquest ofthe northwest passage, he notes, was‘%tiU almost too tough a task for the115,000-ton tanker &W&zttan, whichcould have carried Cabdt’s i&thaw atthe davits.”

And yet there is something &is-jointed and dissatisfying about the way‘this somy has been put together.Hannon remains a journalist ratherthan’ ao historian. Hi 18 “chapters”are really competent magazine articleshung loosely on a chronological thread.With admirable skill, he has collectedand collated prodigious stacks of knownfacts. wisely, he has let the joor@ ofthe discoverers themsalves carry theharrative forward as often as possible.

But, more researcher than scholar,he has failed in his attempt to bring afresh perspective to the oft-told tale.He is too conscientiously objective forhis reader’s good. He slows the storydown by ‘weighing evidence io printwhen he should have made up his mindbefore’ hand. There is no sustainingpattern. Encmstedwithexcessive decerative data, top-heavy with multiplepoints. of view, Hannon’s splendidvassal capsizes into Imz.oherence._ Admittedly, what structure the textdid have has largely been sabotaged bythe a;t editors. The book is at once avisual feast and a dog’s breakfast. There _arc some superb four-colour photo-gra@s’of our eastein approaches byJohn de Visser (presumably out-takesfrom the book he did with FarleyMowat) and Don Newlands. The mu-scorns, libraries and colleges of twocontinents have been plundered to

provide an opium-smoker’s dream ofprints and maps and diagrams andcaricatures of kings. There is even, onpage 131 of this paragon of half-books,a picture of SomethIng that looksvaryU&e a hippogryph.

Again, however, the lavish artworkdazzles and confuses where it shouldUluniinate and inform. The’ ayeis askedto wander, without apparent reason,from astrolabe to runic alphabet byway of the South Sea Isles. Portfoliosof irrelevancies keep popping up at

‘random (three pages of joUy Rowland-son drawings, for instance) and noteven some ingenious cutliie writing.(“The Bngland Captain Cook left behind is . . . “) can convince us thbybelong in a book about Canadianexploration. And there is a perfectlydreadful picture - “one artist’s con-ception” - of poor Henry Hudsonbeing set adrift that can only haveJeuttled its way into fhe book duringa last-minute.crisis.

tit lapse is noteworthy, because,generally, this half-book maintains avery high stylistic standard. It Is not Inany way cheap;money and imagination

have been expended on it in pmfeksional quantities. It is worth -,and onefeels this has been costed out _&wb tothe last cixnma - almost exactljr thenot-quitecxorbitant price ($16.95 uktil -Dec. 31) that is Peing asked for it.Even hare, thbugh, there has been acurious compromise: magaaine-siaeband 260 pages thick, the volume isheavy and bulky enough to be awkwardto hold, yet, with these demi-tassedimensions, it has none of the aptiealto sheer ostentation that goes with atrue coffee-table book.

All told, I can’t help thinking both’Haonon and the reader would havebeen better served if 77ze Dircovereixhad either been more of a book or moreOF a non-book. Conceived as a $5.95book, the ‘story would have had acoherent structure imposed on it andbecome ao’cxeIlent buy for the averagereader. Conceived as a $25 non-book,it would haye lured ln tiohose readerswho purchase by the square yard. Asit is, it will delight illiterate childrenwith its pictures, be dipped into bya few. stalwart book-club members,flicked through by subscribers to maga-z@e promotions and then r&eat likeallhippogryphsinto literary extinction.It Seems a shame. 0

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THE SMALLPRESSES

by Randall Ware

PUBLISHINO is a responsibility. Not only is il incumbent onpublishers to represent minority opinion and unpopularvlewpoints, but it is also esxntial that they work witb theirauthors so that the writer’s craft is developed to a pointwhere they are prepared to be introduced to the public. Inmany cases, people who have had their manuscripts rejectedby “major” publishers will publislt them on lbeir own. Or.rather than having their egos wounded by a rejection. lbcywill undertake to publish a book privately. Many of thesebooksarevaluable. The market for these books may be only500-1000 copies and so they could not be profitably pub.lisbed by a large publisher. But, one finds an increasingnumber of privately-printed books that needed a goodeditor or some pointed marketing advice.

There thoughts were motivated by my rending of fiveSrories (Jaw Breaker Press, P.O. Boa 545. WestmountStation, Westmount 215, Quebec) by Leonard Russo. ThisX&page paperback contains five separate pieces which aremore vignettes than stories. The stories are short yetfleshed out with detail. The small detail or the inconse-quential incident which a good writer seizes on IO illuminatethe whole is used in these stories but somebow they just donot seem to work. There is no feeling of insight given or ofthe compressed power of the best short fiction. Tlte mostexcitingsituation take on a Lo-hum, mundane quality.

i%e National Lumpoon (219 Century CommunicationsCorp., New York) has produced in their August issue asupplement &voted to Canada. called Canada, The RetardedGiant to the North. It includes typical Canadian jokes.a short cotuse in Canadian history, and e funny story aboutsomeone seeing road hockey being played for the first time.The piece, written by Americans I think, is fascinatingbecause itsays as much about American attitudes to Canadaas it says about how we look at ourselves. Tbc magazinecosts lS/andshould be available on your local newsstand. 0

chance and, when the day came. he spoke for lifty minutes.His talk was given a wildly enthusiastic reception. Thepresident of the company took him aside and thaokcd himfor tiring up the salesmen. He then asked Myers if he wouldmind not staying for lunch, because. if he stayed, hisconstant exposure to all present would only take the edgeoff of the enthusiasm everyone was feeling. Myers left.

Martin Myers, the man who moulds his characters intoarchetypal forms, reminds one of nothing if not of thearchetype of the clown. A literary Emmett Kelly, laughingat everything, making everyone else laugh with him, andtrying, underneath it all. to drive home an urgent messageto those he is entertaining. 0

THE GREENEINGOF PENGUIN

Seven new titles by one of thegreatest story tellers of our timedre now in paperback.

TRAVELS WITH MY AUNTFlamboyant Aunt Augusta who carries her re-pressed nephew off to a series of improbableadventures around the world, is Greene’s mostrichly comic creation to date. Katherine Hepburnwill play her in a forthcoming movie.

$1.25IT’S A BATTLEFIELDThis bizarre, imnic tale of Drover, the communistbus driver under sentence of death vividly evokesLondon during the ‘30’s.

$1.25

LOSER TAKES ALLBertram. an unsuccessful, fortfyish accountant sud-denly findswealth and power within his grasp whenhis “system” pays off in the casino et Monte Carlo.

$1.15THE THIRD MAN AND THE FALLEN IDOLThe stories from which Sir Carol Reed and theauthor made two classic films.

$1.15THE MAN WITHINGreene’s key themes of betrayal, pursuit and thesearch for peace run through this, his first pub.lished novel. 91.25

THE LAWLESS ROADSA singularly beautiful book about the author’stravels in Mexico in the late thirties, following thebrutal anti-clerical purges of President Calles.

$1.25JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPSWhite men were not particularly welcome in Liberiawhen Greene visited this bizarre republic foundedby former slaves.

$7.25

There dre 20 moreGreene Penguins---just askatyour bookshop.

13

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DIGESTIVETRPSTS

WHERE TO EAT INCANADA 1971

edited byANNE HARDY & SONDRA COTLIEB

Oberon Rempaper $2.95: I76 pwes

THE EDIBLE WILDby BBRNDT BERGLUND and

CLARB E. BOLSBYRzgurian FVess

dorh $6.95: 188~r7.w

dcmd by val ck?ty

Tell me what you eat andI’ll tall you whu you are.

Ylxs”Pm AcAlNST this well-worndictum, one would have to concludethat most Canadians are either lazy ortimid. Only the most perverse of usreally prefer bad food to good. Weknow that hidden in most sizable townsis at least one tolerable esti”&place.And yet how often do we just swingsheepishly into the tint available drive-in and pretend that eating hamburgersand drinking beer is fun?

Where to Eat in Gmaai~ is a” over-due signal of revolt against the BurgerKings and Kentucky Colonels whomwe have allowed to impose a Pavlovianserfdom upon our appetites. Althoughinitially it can do little more than mapisolated centres of gourmet resistance.it could inflict some damage on theenemy in the long run. Over threedecades, the Good Food aide, onwhich this book seems to have beenmodelled, has noticeably humbled theCod-and-&+is-off attitude that wascommon amongst British caterers andundermined the AngloSaxon beliefthai enjoyable eating-out was onlyslightly less disgusting than publicfornication.

J_ike its prototype., the Canadianguide takes no advertising from res-tauranteurs; allows them Lo buy neitherinto nor out of its listings; doesn’t per-mit its research eaters Lo announcethemselves or to accept complimentarymeals; and invites its readen to con-tribute comments themselves on re+taurants already listed, or unlisted, ontear-out report forms supplied at theback of the book i presumably for

14

amended and extended fulure editions.An admirable move towards parlici-patory gastro”o”ly.

As a vagranl eater, I found thereports on widely-sca(tered resLaura”tsthal have fed me were reasonably “earthe mark. I’d be willing to hazard mydigestion in lhe res(aurrm1s I don’tknow on the basis of the assessmentsof those I do know. The sins of ommis-sion seem more “umerous than the sinsof commission. but that is forgivablein a fit edition. And I mean to reporttwo welcome oases discovered in thenorthern Ontario mining belt, whichis generally held to be a Sahara ofsuslenance.

By way of hors d’oeuvre, there is aninteresting and well-thought-out pref-ace on the regional variations to befound in menus and d&or, and ajustified lame”l at the general neglectby chefs of locally produced fish, fruitand vegetables which should be re-printed and distributed by all provincialministers of tourism.

Of course quite a few of our largernewspapers have a weekly column oneating out. I don’t mean those genteelhacks who are paid to laud certainrestaurants in a prose style akin losynthetic cream, but columnists whotry Lo assess the merits of one or twolocal restaurants every week as objeo-tively as their palates allow. One on-happy eNeel of such attention is asudden popularity that so outstrips thecapacities of Ihe staff, or so whets thecupidity of the proprietor, that therestaurant’s qualily is rapidly demol-ished. There is no way that this can beavoided, and I just hope thal Ihis guidedoes not cause a similar deteriorationon a national scale.

Guide books, like restaurants, aretoo complex 10 be perfect. Althoughwith appropriate modesty, this guidedoes nol attempt (0 emulate the starsystem of Guide Michelit~. il has notyet arrivedat any formalscale ofvalues.Although it does quote prices here andthere in its reports, there is no commonand convenient indication of whetherprices are high, moderate or low. orwhether meals are of good value. Whatthe editors seer” to have arrived al is anervous and ambiguous use of super-latives. To say lhat a restauranl is themost elassicaliy French in Chinguacousyis toglaze reality in much Ihe same waythat Lhe owner might do. Critics mustserye their comments plainly and pointout that the place is s burger jointtrying to better itself.

My most vehement complaint, how-ever, coneems Lhe staffing of Where to

Ear in Cmada. Fourteen of the 15editors listed are women, and the lif-teenth is an initialled ambiguity. asexual disparity that surely lays OberonPress open to a charge ofjob discrimi-nation. Men eat out much more thanwomen, and probably understand andappreciate restaurant cooking betterbecause il is largely done for them bymen. I hazard that men do eat out sooften because the hand lhal rocks thecradle is not necessarily any great shakesin Ihe kitchen.

WATERLILY

The Edible Wild (published by Pagu-ria” Press) is the active equivalent ofthe passive Oberon guide (which infact tells you “where Lo get fed inCanada’). It is the ultimate do-it-your-self book since it tells you how to sur-vive. Itsaulhors - Berndt Berglund andhis wife, Glare Bolsby, both experts inwilderness survival - claim il to be *‘aeompletecookbookand guide lo ediblewild plants in Canada and EasternNorth America.” And they’ve done agood enough job lomake eve” me. oneof “atore’s city-dwellers, wish I weremore of a wild man.

What immediately impressed me asa cook-book freak was the writing andthe layout. The book is crisply organ-ized into sections dealing with EdibleShootsand Leaves, from Black Mustardlo Yellow Clover; Edible Roots, Nutsand Seeds; Edible Fruits; Wild Bev-erages (no. not for Bacchanalian or-gies); Tobacco and Sugar Substihtes;and Wild Seasonings. For each plantlisted there isa straightforward descrip-tion of characteristics and appearance,as well as a good “o-nonsense drawing,This is followed in each case by detailsof how the plant may be used in the

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bush -cooked, uncooked, as a garnishfor fish and game, or whatever. Cattail.for instance, can provide firelightersand bedding as well as sustenance.Stinging Nettle can be made inlo strongtwine. Many plants have also a medi-cinal use, usually the discovery ofIndians, whom the authors very wiselycoosulted on their subject.

To the uses of each plant in thebush, there are added some half-dozenrecipes for its use in home cooking.These again are models of clarity andpracticality, and they seen, to open upwhole new territories of eating, notjust to outdoor and health-food buffsbut to anybody with an adventurouspalate. How would you like to tryStewedMilkweedPodswith Frog Legs?Or Purslane and Liver Casserole? OrScalloped Evening Primrose Roots withCheese? Creamed Dandelion Leaves,Chinese Style? Boiled Beef and Bur-dock? Chocolate Arrowhead TuberCake? Here at last is a rationale forthose of us who lazily prefer to let oursuburban gardens do their own thing.I’m even tempted to sneak in a fewof the more exotic weeds from thecountryside.

Apart from information on whatyou may eat, there is an excellent andimportant chapter on what you shouldavoid-plants like Jimson Weed, PoisonOak, Ivy and Sumac, and Water Hem-lock. Fungos is dealt with perhaps toocautiously, but identifying the oftendelicious edible varieties of fungus istricky and probably deserves a guidemore detailed even than this, preferablywith colour plates.

This is a book that could make atranscontinentalhitchhike a more com-fortable and satisfying experience, andcouldsalvage many hunting and fishingtreks into the wilderness from beingmere masochistic ego trips. And itweiglu a lot less than the dead load ofcallned and packaged food with whichmost campers and trekkers handicapthemselves. One grouch, however, thatI hold against cookbooks generally -that the form of the book negates thepracticality of its contents. It is a hard-cover binding, on very absorbent paperthat one good rainstorm could recycleintowoodpulp.Too bulky fora pocket,too stiff for easy packing, too vulner-able for the fireside. Sorely this is abook that really deserves a flexibleplasticized binding and water-resistantpaper. As it is, it would be safe fromdamage only on a library shelf. Ah,wilderness. 0

“AL CLERY

Commonwealthof Stories

FOUR HEMISPHERESEdited by W.H.NEW

copp aarkpc,t,,vback $4.50.438 F@S

n&-wed by Lkvid Helwig

WHEN t WAS at school in the lateForties, how much of the map was stillcoloured red! I remember the day weall marched to the dusty old town hallfor a celebration because Newfound-land had become part of Canada, nolonger a separate British colony. Wewere part of the red on the map - theEmpire. The king and queen and thetwo little princesses were featuredplayers in the family scrapbooks.

Last spring in England, my youngPakistani landlord who had been raisedin England, educated at Oxford, wrotepoetry in English and bought hisclothes in the King’s Road. told methat he must go back to Pakistan, thatshopkeepers had been rude to him asnever before because of his race, thatLondon no longer seemed the capitalof the world to him. That he mustgo home.

The Gwnmoawealth is dying,the Cnmmonwealth is dying,the Cimimomvealth is dyingit S very nearly dad.

Will Ted Heath’s smile bring Rho-desia back into the fold? Does any-body care?

Four Hemispheres is a collectionof stories from the countries of theCommonwealth. 31 stories by 38 dif-ferent authors (one written by a teamof two), intended presumably for saleas a text book for courses in Common-wealth studies. It’s an engrossing WI-lection. full of variety and energy, andit raises some interesting questionsabout colonial experience. That meansthe experience of most of the world(as colonizer or colonized) from theseventeenth century on.

The Commonwealth is. Oat of all,brrgua franca. that most universal coin-

age. the English language. What in theworld, one might ask. should causeAmos Tuluola to be writing in thesame language as Lee Kok Llang? Butthe whole book is based on the richunlikelihood of just such things; muchof the global village speaks with thetongue of our own dear queen, makingthis book possible.

The second point is that there aretwo Commonwealths, the white oneand the dark one. the first made up ofcountries like Canada and Australiawhere the indigenes became invisible(if not dead) men, and the second.most clearly exemplified by Africaand India, where the white men, what-ever they might do to the nativepopulation, could not make them dis-appear, so that Canadian writers arecalled Godfrey or Smith while Africanwriters are called Ngugl or Achebe.

Both the Commonwealths are con-cerned at times with the bonds ofEuropean social and religious values ina new context. This raises the interest-ing question of how much difference

I-HEWORLD’SPOPULATION:Problems of Growth

edited by Quentin Stanford

Thi book fdls an important needfor a non-spccialirr inrroductionto the basic elements of the verycomplex problems of the popula-tion explosion. It presents 33articles and extracts taken fromthe most recent pedodicalr andbooks. rogerher with essays bythe editor, grouped in threesections: part I presents basicinformation on r~rms and the*ties. history and predlcrions offumre gwwch; Part II considersrhe root, of rhc present popula-tion crisis in terms of births anddeaths, and the implications ofpresent rater of growth; Part 111discu.ser .%&ci0nr in rener ofcontrolling births and promo+economic development.480 pp., paper, $5.95

enother Crmadian book fmm

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there is between sex and class anxietyin the colonized, as shown here inAbioseh Nicol’s l7re JudgeS Son orJames Ngugi’s A Meeting in the Darkand in the colonizers, as in MauriceDug&s Along Ridwut Road l%atSunmer or Katherine Mansfield’s Atthe Bay.

Canada and Australia have in com-mon with each other the terrifyingsense of a hostile land. seen here inSinclair Ross and Henry Lawson, butit strikes me that this is to sume extenta variation of the “White Man in&rica” theme, the problem of a mantrying to propitiate gods who don’tspeak his language. Still, in Ross andLawson, the land seems mostly aban-doned, godless. Dave Godfrey’s 7lrehbd-Headed Collector is an explorationof the need to find gods for anempty land while Amos Tutuola’s 7heTreacherous Queen and the King in theBush of Quietness is B story whollyindigenous, the gods and kings and

queens embodying themselves in theland and the land in themselves.

Not many of the stories take placein cities. Morley Callaghan’s A WeddingDress stands out by its placing in theanonymousmetropolisof ZOth-centuryAmerica.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s A Loss offiifh takes place in B large city, but thepressure of city life is altered by theeffect of the pressure of Hindu tra-dition.

Similarly. several of the West Indianstories take place in cities. Porl ofSpain or even London. but these cities.as seen here. are not Metropolis. Ingeneral the West Indian stories have akind of freedom from the obsessionsof the rest of the Commonwealth; thereis pain, certainly. but not much neu-rotic anxiety. I cm only speculate thatthe wide range of racial backgrbunds,the tendency to at least sane racialmixing and a background of slaveryending early enough to confuse the

simple colonizer/colonized paradigmtrue this. but in the stories of GeorgeLamming, V. S. Naipsul and SamuelSelvon. there is a kind of space andlight that are remarkable.

But if I had to choose a single storyto take with me to a small desert islandcolony. I would pass over even PatrickWhite’s superb Down rzr rlre Dump forMargaret Lsurence’s 77~ P&me SeaThis isa story of such irony and gentle-ness, such a mixture of comedy andrichness. with Africa seen as bothhome and exile, that it raises theambiguities of the Commonwealth’sexistence to the level of perpetual light.

Cod Save the Queen. 0

artscanada Canada’s International Art Magazine.Handsome to look at. Stimulating to read.Each issue has an underlying subject-a themereported with intelligence and discernment.artscanada is superbly illustrated; a valuableand permanent source of information on thevisual arts.

Theme - October 1971: The Presence of ColorColor painting in North America. History of MonochmmePainting in Eastern and Western art.

Theme - December 1971: Eskimo Art and Its EnvironmentEskimo Art from prehistory to the present.artscanada is vital reading

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THE SIXDECADE

WARTHE UNHOLY WAR

DAVID WAINESchareru1 Books

PrrpElbrrck 33.50: 208 mw

THE UNHOLY LANDA. C . FORREST

McCIeiland and Steuwtctoth 56.95; I 73 pa.ces

mwed h_v Morris Wolfe

tN * REcBwr issue of Gznmmtary,Nathan Glazer suggests that there hasnever before been a period of philc-Semitism like that since 1945, and thatthe massive victory of Israel in theJune war of 1967 is bringing this periodto an end. If Glazer ls right, it may bethat it’s now becoming possible to con-sider the Middle East through otherthan guilt-coloured glasses. Two recentand profoundly disturbing books -David Walnes’ Tire Unholy War: Ismel& Palestine 1897-1971 and A. C.Forrest’s The Unholy Land -attemptto wrrect the historical imbalance.

Waines is a member of the Instituteof Islamic Studies at McGill University.In his carefully documented and effeo-tively understated history. he traces theproblem from the late nineteenth ten-tury to the death of Nasser in 1970.Although some nineteenth centuryJews believed that assimilation was thesolution to the anti-Semitism whichEuropean Christianity had fostered,others like Pinsker and later Hera1 calledfor the establishment of a Jewishnation. Partly to assuage guilt feelingsabout anti-Semitism, says Waines, part-ly because a Zionist presence in theMiddle East would protect her owninterests - particularly the Suez Canal- Britain supported the Zionist move-ment. Little thought was given byeither the British or the Zionists to the

wishes of the indigenous Palestinianpopulation.

Following the defeat of Turkey inWorld War I, Britain and France ertab-lished “spheres of influence” in the“liberated” Arab countries. Accordingto Waines. it now became clear toPalestinian Arabs, despite British as-surances to the contrary. that indepen-dence would not be granted Palestineuntil Jews constituted a majority ofthe population. In the meantime, theyrealized. Zionists would exercise dis-proportionate advisory power in acolonial administration. Then as now.those Jews who advocated a bi-nationalneutral state were ignored.

111 1937 a British commission pro-posed the partition of Palestine intotwo sovereign states. Angry Arabs re-belled, and 5.000 were killed by theBritish troops who quelled the revolt.A revised solution was proposed in1939 - the establishment of a jointstate in which both peoples exercisedauthority. But. says Waines, events inGermany and the indifference of Cana-da, Britain and the United States toJewish refugees forced the Zionists totake matters into their own bands; theresults were terrorist acts by the Haga-nah and large-scale illegal immigrationof refugees into Israel. Meanwtdle Italyand Germany tried unsuccessfully towoo the Arabs.

In 1947 the United Nations votedfor the partition of Palestine. At theend of March, 1948, fearing that theUN resolution might be rescinded. theHaganah took the offensive. On April12, all 254 inhabitants of Deir Yassin,an Arab village west of Jerusalem.were murdered and their bodies throwndown a well. Other Arabs fled. saysWaines, when they were threatenedwith the same treatment. Despite pleason their behalf by the Jewish mayor ofHaifa. the Arabs of that city wereintimidated into leaving. British troopsstationed outside Haifa refused Arabrequests for protection.

By May IS, 250,000 Arabs werehomeless. Waines says that Ben Guriontold his cabinet that no refugees wouldbe allowed to return; be told ‘lime thatexpansion was essential to accommc-date a future population of ten million.On December IO, 1948 the GeneralAssembly called for the repatriation ofthose Arabs who wished to return andthe compensation of those who didn’t.Israel ignored the resolution and, withthe exception of token gestures. hascontinued to do so.

lO!Jt?.)

heard -

CERALD LAMPERT. director of theCreative Writer’s Workshop, has justannounced that he has formed twoliterary tours to travel across Canada.The one running from Toronto toNewfoundland will feature Earle Birney,Margaret Atwood, Ralph Gustafsonand others. The other. running fromToronto to Victoria, will include FrankScott. Bill Bissett, Doug Barbour, andDorothy Livessy. They have beenscheduled to read in eighteen universi-ties in October and November. Inaddition, they will pick up poets on thetour and have them read outside theareas in which they are known. WatchBooks in Canada for the schedule oftheir appearances.

John Robert Colombo. editor of theTamarack l&view and one of Canada’sbest-known poets, has been assemblinga comprehensive volume of Canadianquotations. For the last year, John hasspent fifteen minutes a day skimmingtbrougb Canadian books borrowedfrom the library and friendly second-hand bookstores. noting quotablephrases and cross-indexing them. Asection of the book will be devoted toquotations about Canada uttered bypeople outside the country. includingAdolf Hitler and Jolm Kennedy. Theemphasis is on obscure and littleknown quotations. If you know atricky Canadian phrase, you may sendit to Mr. Colombo via the editors ofthis magazine.

Austin Clarke, author of When Hewlls Free and Young and He Used roWwr Siks. forthcoming from the Houseof Anansi. has been signed by thelarge American publisher Little, Brown.They will publish his novel, MeetingPoint. in the spring and a new novelcalled Storms of Fortune next fall. Heisgoing to be touted as a major author.

David Godfrey, Governor-General’sAward winning novelist, and EldonGarnet. a Toronto poet, have joinedforces to form a new press, PressPoreepic. They intend to publish tic-tion and poetry in hardcovers. Bookswill be produced in editions of aboutone thousand. q

17

_ _.. _..

By 1966, there were 1.4 millionrefugees, another 500,000 having beencreated by the wai of 1956. Eightypercent of Israel’s land was land thathad been abandoned by refugees; itincluded half of Israel’s citrus grovesand ten thousandshops and businesses.Waines states that regulations and re-strictlonr of various kinds have madesecond class citizens of those Arabswho remain in Israel. As well, he says,Israeli officials have called for thecurbing of an “unnaturally high birthrate among Arabs” while arguing thatJews should have large families.

A. C. Forrest, editor of 77~ Lb&dclrurch Observer, has spent conslder-able time in the Middle East since1967. i%e Unholy Lund is a summaryof what he has learned during thistime. Unfortunately, the book is care-lessly written and Forrest’s argumentis weak and infuriating in a number ofways: I. He doesn’t always make hissources clear. He says that TheodorIierzloriginally hadproposed that Jewsbs converted to Christianity and “‘suegested seeing the Pope to that end.”No source that I’ve consulted bearsForrest out on this point. 2. He is mis-leading. Twice he points out that theEgyptians “have reclaimed approxi-mately, the same acreage that Israel hasduring recent years”; he doesn’t makeclear that what he means is total acre-age, not proportionate acreage. 3. He isgauche. He defends himself againstcharges ofanti-Semitism by saying thatsome of his best friends are “the lead-ingrabbisofToronto.“4.He overstatesand/or doesn’t. document his charges.‘I. . . The Israelis make the South Afri-can whites look like babes in the woodwhenit comes to practtsing apartheid,”he says, and leaves the comparison atthat.

Despite the, above criticisms - andthere are others - it’s a mistake todismiss Forrest’s book. What 1%; criti-cized are the’regrettable excesses of aman who has witnessed injustice andwho’ has encountered considerable a-buse in his attempts to speak of whathe has seen and heard. It’s true thathis voice is strident. It may be, as oftenhappens, that he’s the wrong man try-ing to do the right thing. Nonetheless,there are charges against Israel in ?%heUnholy Lund that cannot be dismissed.

Deir Yassin in 1948 isnot an isolatedexample of the inhuman treatment byIsraelis of Arab Civilians. Forrest de-scribes the Kafr Qassim affair of Octc-ber 1956 in which “!sneli soldierssystematically killed 49 Arab villagers

18

as they returned home in ignorance ofa curfew which had been imposed atshort notice.” (David Waines describesthe same incident. According to Waines.the brigadier who gave the originalorder was found guilty of a “technicalerror” and fined one piastre.)

Israel, says Forrest, has consistentlyviolated a number of articles of theGeneva Convention.particularly Article49. which prohibits removing civiliansFrom an area which has come undermilitary occupation and settling one’sown people there. He presents a num-ber of examples of such violations. Hequotes John Davis, former Commis-sioner General of UNRWA, who haswritten that “the extent to whichrefugees [have been] savagely drivenout by the Israelis as a deliberatemaster-plan has been insufficiently re-cognized.” Forrest echoes Arnold Toyn-bee when he says that it’s **a strangeparadox that Israel would refuse toabide by the conventions of inter-national laws which were written as adirect result of the Nazi treatment ofthe Jews.”

Forrest states that Israel used napalmagainst the Jordanian army in 1967:he says that he has pictures to prove itbut that church editors and others haverefused to print them. ‘To condemnnapalm in Vietnam is all right,” hesays. “To report its use by the Israelisisconsidered anti-Semitic.” He suggeststhat because Mitchell Sharp representsa constituency which has the secondhighest concentration of Jewish votersin Canada (52%). and because of thegeneral effectiveness of the Israel lobby,it is unlikely that Canada will speakout against Israel’s policies or practices.

1 had the feeling during much of thetime that I was reading Waines andForrest that there is a great deal moreto be told - For example, about theextent to which the Arab-Israeli dis-pute has become a confrontation byproxy between the US and the USSR,about Arab brutality to Jews and toother Arabs - and that the telling ofthe Middle East story over the nextFew years may prove as shattering asthe telling of the Vietnam story. 0

MORRlS WOLFE liver in Guclph.Ontario.and is a kqucnt contributorto Saturday Nigh, and the ClohcMagazine.

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AN EDITORREGRETS

YOU MAY HAVE seen them on citystreets - men or women dressed withshabby gentility who walk along groan-ing deeply, frequently throwing uptheir hands in a feeble gesture of self-defence mingled with despair. They arenot drunks or lunatii defending them-selves against imaginary airborne hor-rors. They am editors merely noticingthings around them.

A book editor, you see, is a msnwho has tuned his critical faculties toa high pitch so that he can instantlydetect instances of misuse of language.Obviously, if he’s going to spend hiscareer searching for well-written piecesand then polishing them to what heconsiders to be perfection - in termsofclarity,simpliityand accoracy.withall the niceties ofspelling, punctuation,grammar, syntax and style duly ob-served - it’s both right and necessarythat he should have tuned his facultiesto this pitch. This will produce goodbooks.

But it will also make his life almostunbearable. For the real, raw, vital,noisy world outside his dictionary-linedo&e has little time for these niceties,even if it’s aware of them. Indeedeveryone “out there”seems determinedto flout them; so determined that theywill cheerfully interchange “flout” and“flaunt.” It’s this kind of mistake thatdrives an editor crazy.

“Hopefully” is another. It seemsthat everyone has given up that par-ticular fight (look up its real meaning).But worse is in store. It seems that weare about to lose the splendid word

“regrettably.” Whisky advertisementsin New York buses are telling passengersthat “Regretfully the price of the faredoes not allow you to . .” Meanwhileat least one editor is regretfully think-ing that this advertisement was nodoubt written by a copywriter with atleast one university degree behind him.

After something like that it’s hardto get upset about scribbled price tagsin small family stores that advertise“Potatos” and “Cabages.” On a par-ticularly good day an editor can evenenjoy this. in the way that he can enjoythe Austrian hotel’s farnoun promise toprovide “a French widow in every bed-room,)) or the mysterious phrases onmenus in Indian restaurants or on themessages found in fortune cookies. Buteven here knotty editorial problems canaria. Twice recently my fortune cookiehas provided me with the news: “Athrilling time ahead, be on your guard.”

Now this is obviously an entirelydifferent level of editorial problemfrom the case of the French widowwhere you simply slap in an extra “n.”It’s the “thrilling” that worries me.I’ve lost sleep wonying, not about thefact that I’m supposed to be on myguard, but about what adjective thewriter really wanted in place of “thril-ling.”

If a humble fortune cookie can dothat to an editor. think of the havocwreaked on his nervous system byflashing neon signs that tell him about“Lo Price Donuts Toni&” Then thereare the billboards where the sign painterhas decided tosolve the old problem ofthe apostrophy “s” by putting one inevery word that ends in **I.” So thewincing editor sees: “Coming Attraation’s! Toples’s Dancer’s!”

There am many, many other ex-amples - if you don’t believe me, startreading storefront advertising. You’llunderstand then why a sensitive editorhas to be constantly on his guard or,stunned by some commercial barbar-ism, he’ll wince himself right off thesidewalk under a bus. Come to think ofit, that may be what the fortune cookiemeant. But “thrilling”? 0

STET

CaHe makes he makes

whot what to

orhers only others is

Sense; onlyamood.

. . - _ _.__~~:~ _ _.___ .____. -_ -. _

--

MARGINALlATALES FROM THE

MARGINby FREDERICK PHILIP GROVE

Rymon Ressclorlr s7.95: 319 page*

FRBDERlCK PHlLIP GROVE stands onsociety’s margin; his is the voice of aman incompletely assimilated, rejectingmaterialism and mechanism, yet per-versely fascinated by them. We sense inGrove that “acute feeling of being atthe edge of things,” which MillarMacLure suggests is central to theCanadian sensibility. This aspect ofCmve is given new emphasis by thetitle and content of this collection ofhis short stories.

In Tales from the Margin DesmondPacey has brought together 25 of the68 Grove stories extant. Bouquets toPacey for retrieving these stories frominaccessibility andcomplementing themwith a provocative, readable introduotion. More compliments to Pacey forthe brief notes, textual comments. andcomprehensive publication record ofthe extant stories.

From the margin Grove commandsa view of the extremities of the humancondition. At the limits of mentalstability are the mad Aiph Standishin ‘“The Lumberjack,” the patheticallyobsessed Mrs. Massinger in “A PoorDefenceless Widow,” the grotesqueriesof a waning marriage in “The House ofMany Eyes.” “The Spendthrift,” “TheDead-Beat, ““Relief,“and several otherstories concentrate on people living inextrerhe poverty on the margins of aproperty-based economy. On the bor-ders of society are the virtual socialoutcasts in “Riders” and “ClenholmOils Limited.” The frightening pre-cariousness of living at these limits isusually exacerbated by geographic iso-lation - in small prairie towns. onstruggling prairie farms, in the lonelyBig Marsh country of Manitoba.

Tales from the Mm&z. unfortu-nately, is marginal in other senses lessto Grove’s credit. It is disappointingto tind that Grove is not as good ashort story writer as he is a novelist.His success with the short story is verylbnited; the best in this collection fit

only marginally into the genre of shortstory. “Saturday Night at the Cross-roads,” for example. is a sketch em-phasizing atmosphere and scene overaction. The sensitive depiction ofK&d’s store. symbolic of intensehuman life and love in the midst ofthreatening wilderness. is reminiscentof Over R&it? Tmilr and lhhe 7hm ofthe Year. Grove writes more passion-ately. more lucidly when grapplingwith idea and theory in “In Search ofAcirema.” his allegory of western civili-zation, lhan in most of the conventionalshort stories. “The Desert” is memorable for its essayistic aspect, forGrove’s sense of the symbolic possibili-ties of the prairiescape. which at onceennobles man and reminds him of im-minent oblivion:

Yet the story is crippled by a whollysentimental conclusion out of keepingwith the dominantly tentative lone.

In the short story so much - newperspectives. rich ironies. perplexingparadoxes. complex emotions - de-pends on the ending. More so thanprolixity. stylistic lapses, and overlyobvious structures, Grove’s endingsweaken these stories. The reader’simagination is stimulated by the agonyof the eternal dreamer in “Water,”until the last paragraph destroys allpossiblespeculation.The tone of heart-less exploitation in “Salesmanship” isdissipated by an awkward attempt loevoke Marston’s slangy indifference. In“The First Day of an Immigrant”Grove imposes on an engaging accountofharvest Niels’ incongruous reflectionson social prejudice.

The margin which Grove and hischaracters occupy is wide: it is theregion where most men live; there islittle room left in the middle for the“uormal.” On the other hand there isa broad expanse beside Callaghan, Ross.Lowry. Munro and Laurence at thecentre of the EnglishCanadian shortstory. Grove is not likely to occupythat space. 0

LAURlE RlCOU is an English Pro-l’essorat the Univcrsiry or Lclhbridg.H e wrote his tbcsis on “Tbu PrairieLandrape in Canadian Lilcrature.”

CANADIANPOETS

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FADINGRESONANCE

THE HUNTING DARKROBIN SKELTONMcClelland & Steewart

~~rbnck S2.SOc 80 tkws

t~tewcd by Eldon Garnet

WHEN A MAN enters the dark, tradition-ally he enters an underworld of mys-tery, undefined shapes and shadows.He leaves the definition and clarity ofthe light for the depth of the darkness.It is for this depth that Robin Sk&onhunts.

The door by which he attempts mostfrequently to enter the recesses of thedark is through memory. The attemptis to move into the past and reveal itshidden meanings. He comes back toevents, to personal histories which seemto be slipping through his memory.Here everything physical has changed,“‘everything is altered but the heart/I hurt myself with.”

Although it is a genteel entry intothe past it is not one dominated by thesentimental. A gray feeling hangs overthe poems where the past is a mixtureof the sentimental and the dark.

Nostalgia silts the mouthwith smoke and stale beer.

In his memory there are ruins. Thereareempty houses crumbling,a girl &adat thirteen of T.B.. a friend’s suicide.There are friends now gone. memoriescovering them “like frost/ hardeningthe hard clay.”

It is through the process of memorythat Sk&on tries to move toward acentre. “When you can say long ago ofyour memories,” be says. “you havearrivedat the centre.“It isat the centrethat there is softness. that the darknessand the turbulence are dominated by akind of harmony. As an antidote tothe present that seems dominated bycoldness he sees an order in a previoustime where there was some kind ofharmony. So in the cold present heshivers and tries to warm himself withmemories. the harmony of what hasbeen.

The coldness of the present takesthe form of a subjective inner turbu-lence. There are touches of the RobertLowell method; the confessing in poet-ry of inner suffering. It is the declara-tion and description of this turbulencewhich forms Skelton’s dark present.But before he call sink too far into aself-pitying world of confessional despair he invariably undercuts himself.applyinggentle self-mockery.ridiculinghis own problems. He understands hisproblems are only important to him-*If:

Now I boreorlrers with (1 trrrbuletrcethey cmtttot shareand I don ‘t wish them to:the trouble’s mine.

Skelton comes close to indulging inconfessional autobiography only IOturn around and play as though it hasbeen a ruse, a set-up for a playfulnesswith the “I.” At times he reduces him-self to the ridiculous by placing himselfbeside the grand. He appears on thebeach peeling his dry skin while hethinks on Ulyaes and the ash-graysmoutders of Troy. The mundane tax-tore of everyday life is exemplified inthe comic contrast: the thoughts maybe pressing outward. but they are heldin the tight confines otactual, everydaylife.

He sits writing in a room where:presidents rtever come,but girrc do,boys, and children.and the clt-aner.

He writes longing for a depth and aresonance. He searches for this allusiveresonance in the past, in memory, andin images from classical sources, buthere the soundings are shallow. theresonance is not full. His search in thedark depth of memory is too personalan experience: the chords of a richsound are not sounded. It is when hecombines self-mockery, exemplifyinghis nothingness. with a search in thedarkness of a universal memory thatthe resonance most often OCCUTS. 0

Yes, I wish to subscribe to BOOKS IN CANADA.I enclose 89.95 for one year’s subscription.

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Make cheques payable to:Canadian Review of Books Limited. b Charles Street E;lst. Toronto 5. Ontario.

CURRENTCANADIAN

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The kwmak and Letters of Sir AJexaederMackenzie; edited by W. Kaye Lamb: Mac-miUa”; S19.95: 923.9.The Law end You: A Layman’s Guide toCanadian Law; F. A. R. Chapman: McGraw-Hill: S8.95: 347.097 I.Lonetine~~dCommonicalion: Sigmund de,anos; new press: paper 52.95.Louis Riel: The Rebel sod the Hem; HartwellBowsTEld: Oxford: S3.50; 97 I .050924.Mecnrb of Dundum: Marion Maccne:ClarkeImi”;cloth 512.50.Makpa: Margery Hinds: Ryerson;S4.95; F.Maoitoba Believe-It-Or-Not: J. W. Chafe;M d S; cloth 56.95.Monclt: Letters sod Journals 1863-1868:edited by W. L. Morton; M & S; 53.75:97 1.04092.M y Canadieo Joerod: Marchioncss o fDoffed” and Ava:C”lesCa”adianaC”llecti”“:paperS3.75.The New Exiles: Roger N. Williams: Nelson.Fmter. Scott: cloth S9.50.NWlt of the White~&ar: Alexander Knox;M~millan: S5.95; F.The N&h1 We Stole the Momliar Car: MaxBtaithwaite;M & S; cloth 56.95.Old Ningmmon--Lake: Peter John Stokes:U”fT;S15.0O:917.1339.The Paper Tyno,: Ron Poulton; ClarkeItwi”;clotb S6.50.T,,eParq’sOver: JamcsJ”hnst”n; Longnlan;SlO.00; 329.971.Pa”, Kane’s Frontier: J. Russell Harper;U “fT:S27.50.deluxe edition 575.00: 741.P”““doo~ The EfRoence of Afthence: F.Tavlor: P. Kettle. R. Pulnrm: Mcthuen:paperS2.95; 614.i.Portrait of Canada: lay and .Audrey Wah.ph”t”8raphs by Job” de Visur: McGraw-Hill: 57.95: 917.1.Power conuo1ed: cdlted by Abraham

A&oowledgneot of Life: Collected Poemsof Bertram War; ediled by Len Casparini;Ryers”“; paper 13.95, cloth $5.95; 819.1.Art of Mali’ Bee& Stanky F. Aoders””witbltaymon H”U;Longmaos;paper 51.50;?dcloth $5.50; 641.873.M of Wyndhrm Lewis: Walter Michel;M Br S;cloth $35.00; 709.42.Bylef”, Dombtatioo; Glen Frankfurter:Longmmr; cloth 911.50.T h e Betray& Henry Knisel: M BL S; paPer5 2 . 5 0 .The Bosh Gatdem Nortbmp Wye: How ofANAN~l;cloti~ S7.50: 819.09,C&a;~;;;rm&~;;m2i!bzvn Wonders:

Cooad; s 28tb Patiiament: Metbuen; clothS12.50; 309.1713.Caoadim Biogra hical

JStudiiJEtudes Bie

8mphiques Cm ~eooes: Henry Allioe; I. M.Bumsted;Ll of T; cloth $4.50.TheCaoadino Economy in the Gnat Dep~s3”“: A.B.Safarian;M&S; S3.75: 330.971.Caoadiao Fotei#a Policy 1945.195% RobertA. MaeKay; M & S; Paper 53.75; Cloth912.50; 327.7 I.TJte Caoadiao political System: R. J. VanLoon and M. S. Whlttington; McGraw-Hill;$12.00; 320.971.Canadian Women and the Law: Marvin ZukerpndJuneCaUw”“d;C”ppChrk;psperS2.50.Cutiir Diroven the St. Lawreoce: WilliamToye, illustrated by Laszlo Gal; Oxford;94.50; 9 7 1 .The Climate of Power: Irene Baird; Mac-miUa”:S6.95; F.Copperhead: James Henderson; Raod”“,House; S6.95; F.The Critical Path: Northmp Frye: Fitzhenryand Whiteside;cl”th S6.25.Critical Views on Caoadiae Writers No. 7:Ernest Buckler; edited by Gregory M. COOL:Ryerson;S3.75; 819.3.Cry Wild: The Story of a Canadian TimberWolf; R.D. Lawrence;Thomas Nelson; S5.95:599.74442.David Thorn so”, Fur Trader. ExPlonr.Geognpher: ames K. Smith: Oxf”rd:$3.50;Pnq= n,.Gl.z.

Defecton Ate Dead 8feo: Frank Smith:MacmiUut:cl”th $3.95.The Edible Wild: B. Berglund and ClaireB&by; Bums & MacEacher”; cloth 56.95.Essays oo the Len: edi ted by LaurierLoPierre. Jack M&wad. Charles Taylor andWalterYoung;M & s;s2.95; 329.971.Expedition Yukon: edited by Mami Fisher;ThomasNel~“; 514.95; 796.522.Forbidden Voice: Alma Greene; Hamlyn;cloth $4.95.The Great So” Fran&o Fire sod Earth-quakez John Robert Colombo; Fiddlehead;paper S2.50.H~fax:~onwaRaddall;M&S;elotl~ 57.95.lndivl and B&dmo Art in Caoads: la”Christie Clark. photwtapby by DominiqueDatbois; Ryerson: $12.95; 709..011.Ieta the W o o d s Bevond: CY Hammoo:Macmillan;cloth S5.95.James Do”

t!as: Father of British Columbia;

Dorothy lakely Smith: Oxford; $3.50;“7,~1”9’)4~_ ._.___ -..John A. Macdooakk The Man and thePolitician: Donald Swainson: Oxfortl: S3.50:923.271.;~3n2~achax David Flint; Oxford; $3.50:

Rotstein; nsw’press:paper 52.9%The Pre.Li”guistic Heights: Nelson Ball:Coach House Press: paper $2.50.Pofll” Island: Ada md Frank Graham:Book Se&e: elotb S6.25.T&yd Fox Bill Howell: M B S: cloth_..._.Return of dte Sphinx: Hugh MacLmnan:Macmillan: paper S I .95; cloth $5.95; F.S t . Urbaio’s Horsema”: Mordecai Richler:M B s; 57.95: 1:.The Search for America: Frederick PhilipGrow bi B S: $2.95: I;.S e c o n d Imy: Ronald Sotberbnd: “cwprcsr: clotI s7.50.Ta,es f r o m t h e Margin; Sclccted SborlStories of Frederick Philip Grovc;rditcd byDesmond Pacey: Rymon. 57.95: F.T a l e s o f Nokomis: Palmnrlla Jobnsto”:McGmw~Hill: 54.95: 398.2.“This Good, Good Earth.” Oar Fi8bt forSurvival; Ralph 0. Brinkhual and Donald A.Chant;Macmillm: 58.50: 614.7.TimeTooch YeGenUv: Mel Thirlk: Itwrson:

cloth S6.95. paper S2.95.Trees of Canada and the Northern UnitedStates: P. Ii. bfontmmerv: Rwrso”: 54.95:582.160971. I .~True to You I” My Fashion: AdricencClarkwon: new press: cloth 55.95.The Unfinished RevoIl: Some Views onWestern ,ndepe”dcncr: John Barr and OwenAnderson; M b s: s3.95.The Unholy Land: A. C. I:“rrest: M (L S;56.95: 956.A Veterao of 1812: Mary A. Fitzsibbon;Coles Canadiana Collwlio~: paper 5395.What You Can Do About Pollution Now:Job” Fisher: Longmans:

Ifaprr S2.95: 614.7.

Where To Eat In Cann I: Anne Hardy andSandra Gothub: Oberon Press: paper 92.95.The White Dawn: A” Eskimo Sarjl: JamesHouston: Longmm: s7.95: 1:.

Wllfrid Lanier: Barbara Robertson: Oxford;53.50: 923.271.William Burroughs: The AlgFbrs Of Need:Eric Mattram: Coach HOUS+ Press: paperS2.50.William Lyon Mackenzie: David Flinl:oxford; 53.50; 921.030924.The Winter of the Fisher: Cameron Langford;Macmillan: S6.95: F.Wolf Ron: A Caribou Eskimo Tale: James“““s~o”: Lonpmm: 54.25: F.

COOP BOOK CiNTRE OF CANADA

CLASSIFIEDADVEPTISINGFOR SALE - Magazine first isslyes. fine mn-dition. Life. Ken. Picture. Nevv York Woman,Flair. ‘47. Tempo, Coronet. Picture Post.Click, P.M.. Holiday. many others. Many“speciar issues of Stage. Bcribnen. Harpers.Fortune, Punch, Saturdw Review. Town 8Country. Apparel Arte IEdward VIII “Coro-nation”~, Esquire, etc., etc. Entire collectiononly. ce,, o r UJrite E. Go”,* - Toronto923.7288. 59 Rorrell Hill Rosd.

LARGEST SELECTION of torrent filmbooks and magazines in the world. Backissues of magazines and ““t of print books.Discaunts to institutions. Cine Books. 692AYonge St.. Toronto 5, ant.

NEW FRONTIERS - Lest remaining mm-~lete sets 115 iauesl and serials of literaryperiodical edited by late Margaret Fairlcy.editor of Spirir of Canedian Demacn~y and.Sekted Writings of WWiam Lvon Mackenzie.Published 1962-85 . Single copies S5 - WriteProgress Books. 487 Adelaide Street W..Toronto 133.

WANTED: 64.00 - 4 issues - s”bsuibem -THE PARlB REVIEW. I”,‘, lit. I&. 48-39171 PI.. Flushing, New York 11388 USA.

POlN7-8 OF ATTENTION: 11 p”er”s byN&o” Belt and 6 Bilk Screen prints bvBarbara Ceroea Limited to en edition of 50signed copies. prints signed by the ardst.22 pp., cloth, 547.80. Order fmm Weed/Flower prerr, 758A Bethorst St., Toronto 4.

WANTED to porchale ““t of print Canadianp”er~,Ce”adian literary periodicals, row ofunderground newspepers. entire mllactions,lots. or individual items, Village Bookstore.29 Gerrerd St. West, T”r”nto 101. Dot.I4161 363.6816.

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THE GREAT UNKNOWN

An amazing, controversial account ofChina today - profusely illustrated withcolour and black and white photographs.

$2.50 at all Bookstores

Simon & Schuster of Canada Limited225 Yonge Street North Richmond Hill. Ontario

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