Fear of the Open Heart: Essays on Contemporary Canadian Writing by Constance Rooke (review)

HUMANITIES 147 Half-Breed was transformed into the play Jessica by a group of actors led by Linda Griffiths. The essay is interesting, but it suffers from the fact that Glaap did not have access to the play's text. The book's most impressive essay is '''A Sound of Singing": Polyphony and Narrative Decentring in Malcolm Lowry's Hear Us 0 Lord: In this article, Sherrill Grace uses Bakhtin's concept of polyphony to demonstrate that 'this text is a celebration and articulation of a.vision of reality within a semiotic system that breaks conventional generic bounds and opens up narrative discourse and structure to heterogeneity, multiplicity and differance: Modes ofNarrative is aninterestingly mixed bag ofapproaches, styles, and topics in which most scholars and students of literature in English will find rewarding and useful contributions. (AXEL KNOENAGEL) Constance Rooke. Fear of the Open Heart: Essays on Contemporary Canadian Writing Coach House Press 1989. 197. $14.95 paper This gathering of Constance Rooke's articles and papers on Canadian literature (the subtitle should, incidentally, read: 'Essays on Contemporary Canadian Writing in English') contains thirteen essays, nine of which have been published before. The writers discussed are Mavis Gallant, Alice Munro, Margaret Laurence, Sheila Watson, Michael Ondaatje, P.K. Page, John Metcalf, and Margaret Atwood. The second essay in the book, a mouth-watering paper entitled 'Munro's Food: provides me with an organizing metaphor. Fear of the Open Heart is a varied hamper of literarycritical dishes: some are substantialcourses,some gourmet items, a few just standard fare. There is obviously an accomplished cook in the kitchen, though the garnishing could have been improved. Rooke is an engaging critic because of the freshness of her enthusiasms and her boldness in insisting upon an independent position. There is no doubt that she has the courage of her convictions; thus she knows that many will challenge the opening gambit in one essay, 'P.K. Page is Canada's finest poet: but, to her credit, she says it anyway. As a result, the best essays are those in which she feels free to follow her own leads and reveal her personal - occaSionally, even idiosyncratic - interests. Sometimes , when she puts on a nationalist or a feminist hat, she seems constrained . For instance, 'A Feminist Reading of The Stone Angel' threatens to reduce the novel to propaganda and so inevitably scants the art; by contrast, 'Hagar's Old Age: The Stone Angel as Vollendungsroman' is full of original insights and expansively rich in its literary emphases. Her greatest strength, so far as I am concerned, is as a practical critic. The two essays on individual stories by Metcalf are especially admirable - these are not only 148 LETTERS IN CANADA 1990 models of intelligent and sensitive reading, but also much-needed championingofan excellent writerstill underrated by the Canadianliterary establishment. Rooke argues her case cogently and convincingly. Detailed studies of a Gallant short story and a Page poem belong in the same category. Unfortunately, the essays are not presented to best advantage. The individual items give the impression ofhaving been thrown together; there seems to have been no attempt to mould the material into a coherent book. The opening title-essay gives the impression, because it was originally written for a feminist publication, that this book will also concentrate on women writers; Ondaatje and Metcalf therefore appear with something of a jolt. No one has bothered to standardize the layout. Some essays have 'Notes,' others Works Cited' (and one gets mixed between the two). Most give page references, but the Gallant essay (because it first appeared in a book that reprinted the text) does not. The two essays on The Stone Angel even cite different editions. These are minor matters, but someone should have attended to them. 1 wish Rooke had written even a brief preface to bring some kind of unity to the whole. But her criticism is the main thing, and when Rooke throws caution and fashion to the winds the book takes flight. She has the capacity that she recommends for a reading of Coming Through Slaughter, to 'enter the book, travel in a visceral way through the images.' Moreover (praise be), she is not...