Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada ed. by William H. New (review)

Reviews Akunin's famous protagonist Fandorine is a private eye conducting his investigation independently. Akunin's other famous protagonist is the nun Pelageia, an amateur detective. Olcott himselfdoes mention Yelena Yakovleva's novel AllJokingAside , which features "a former investigator who has gone over to the private sector" (93). So while there may be a certain anti-individualism generally displayed in Russian history, this is not the uniform point ofthe post-Soviet defektiv. With a powerful influx of individualism and personal idiosyncrasy in the real world ofcops and robbers of the 1990s, there cannot help but be a corresponding role for the individual in the fictional world of the defektiv. Indeed, one of the distinct characteristics of post-Soviet detective fiction of the 1990s is the forcing by circumstance for state-employed policemen to pursue investigations privately. We see such detectives in popular tv series such as TheMarch ofTuretskii, based on Nieznansky's writings. Sergei Chelishchev from Andrei Konstantinov's novels was further popularized by the tv series BanditPetersburg. Omitted references to counter-examples that are within works cited in Olcott's bibliography, as well as works that welldeserve to be on the list (e.g., Konstantinov and Nieznansky), ultimately serve to weaken Olcott's conclusion as to "the almost complete failure" of the Russian defektiv "to elaborate the private detective as a genre hero" (33). The weaknesses of the volume notwithstanding, Russian Pulp will be instructive for specialists, students, and general public interested in Russia, its people, and its culture. * William H. New, ed. Encyclopedia ofLiterature in Canada. Toronto: University ofToronto Press, 2002. 1347p. Norman Weinstein Boise State University Canadian writers have increasingly attracted an enthusiastic international readership in the last halfcentury, and William Toye's The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature was the sole guide to the breadth and depth of that literary heritage when it appeared in 1983. A second edition was published in 1997, with over a thousand entries by around three hundred contributors, and a concise version in 2001. Positively reviewed globally, one wondered about the need for another such encyclopedic text on this topic. Wonder no longer. William H. New and his several hundred contributors have thoroughly superseded the Toye volumes with a completely impressive reference volume ofawe-inspiring scope. With nearly double the number ofentries found in the second edition of The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, there is SPRING 2003 + ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW * 113 no question about which is the more comprehensive volume. But apart from the sheer bulk ofNews Encyclopedia ofLiterature in Canada, what is most valuable is the rigorous re-conceptualization ofwhat constitutes Canadian literature. Part of the task ofany guide to this literature is to do justice to the linguistic diversity of Canada. Here is a literature written in English, French, and various aboriginal languages. It has been classified within the academic world under various rubrics. During one semester in one university in one nation it may be part of a PostColonial Literature course. Somewhere else on the map at another time it might be offered to students as part of Commonwealth Studies. Its Francophone heritage may be part ofa French language program. The Native American, or (to use the Canadian term) First Nations, literature could likely be a part of an anthropology course. All ofthis is to suggest that there are a daunting number ofways to analytically slice the pie of Canadian writing, and New is a wide-ranging pluralist . Proofofthis are entries never conceived byToye as being needed for a literary reference to Canada. Toye molds his efforts around the notion ofa literary guide being chiefly entries on individual authors interspersed with historical overviews ofgenres, literary movements, and publishers. New's Encyclopedia does the same in an equally readable and informative style for the most part, but takes the additional leap of including entries on core concepts outside ofliterature that have sparked literary development. For example, the articles on the concepts of "North" and "Landscape " are compelling cross-disciplinary pieces that could serve as an imaginatively novel introduction to reading any Canadian writers. These have been generative ideas for New in his books ofliterary criticism; he has been long fascinated by the metaphoric implications of the vast northern...