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HUMANITIES 157 his note on the text, which is appended to the introduction, is meagre and insufficient. He notes that the letters come from two depositories - the Humanities Research Centre at the University of Texas at Austin and the Special Collections Division of the University of British Columbia Library - but he does not provide a location file for each letter should the reader want to check or follow up a particular item. And, although he states that his sources include 'typed originals and carbon copies, as well as holographs,' Tiessen does not include a statement on copy text: which of these various states are we reading? What happens when there are two or more states? Are there variants, and if so, why are they not recorded? Ignoring variant readings sometimes decreases the significance of an item. For example, by running together the lines of Lowry's June/July 1944 telegram to the Noxons, Tiessen misses the delightful lineation and plaintive poetry of the holograph original. Because there are copious Canadian references throughout the letters, Tiessen should have provided explanatory annotation for non-Canadian readers. Even Canadianists will be unfamiliar with Noxon's literary works, discussion ofwhich occupies a fair amount of the correspondence. Merely citing when the Malcolm Lowry Review published Noxon's works 1986 and 1987 - does not really help to illuminate this aspect of the correspondence; notes are absolutely necessary here. It would also be interesting to know Tiessen's rationale for grouping the letters as he does. Do the letters themselves suggest these chronological divisions, or are the sections editorially imposed, and why? All in all, the editorial apparatus for the correspondence should be more substantial. Despite its bibliographical shortcomings, this volume is a valuable new reference book. It fleshes out the hitherto shadowy figure of Noxon, and sketches with her own words a balanced portrait of Margerie Lowry. The book's most important feature, however, is what it contributes to our knowledge of the life and work of Malcolm Lowry: it provides new biographical and critical information, illuminates aspects of Under the Volcano and the poetry, and documents the most prolific period of Lowry's life. The Letters of Malcolm Lowry and Gerald Noxon, 1940-1952, handsomely produced by University of British Columbia Press, is a welcome addition to Lowry studies. (KATHLEEN SCHERF) Susan Copoloff-Mechanic. Pilgrim's Progress: A Study of the Short Stories of Hugh Hood ECW Press. 161. $25.00; $15.00 paper This book is an interesting and informative analysis of the thematic structures of Hugh Hood's six short-story collections; the flaw is that it still reads like the master's thesis that it was (McGill 1985). Copoloff-Mechanic begins by overstating the critical disagreement 158 LETTERS IN CANADA 1988 about treating Hood as a documentary realist or as a moral allegorist. In fact, as she notes, most critics have accepted his self-designation as a combined 'moral realist' for almost twenty years. The controversy is really over whether he successfully achieves this synthesis, and (like some other Hood admirers) she tends to side-step this issue with the intentional fallacy, or what Dennis Duffy has called 'justification-bylabelling .' Her labels, however, can be very helpful and perceptive. She convincingly demonstrates how Hood structures each of his collections into a thematic unity to illustrate his vision of the interpenetration of the sacred and the secular - the universal in the particular. Therefore, the two halves of Flying aRed Kite portray the dangers of Wordsworthian romanticism as it dissolves physical reality, in contrast to the trinitarian, incarnational apprehension of the noumenal in the phenomenal. The emblematic red kite symbolizes the joining of heaven and earth, and the characters in every story are evaluated according to their ability to integrate the two. Similarly, Around the Mountain: Scenes from Montreal Life is composed of twelve monthly journeys - ascents and descents - 'through an allegorical landscape' towards this'synthetic mode ofvision.' The Fruit Man, theMeat Man and the Manager presents five triads which explore the possibilities of human communion in art and love as models of divine communion. Each of the four triads of Dark Glasses moves 'from dimness, to darkness, to enlightenment' depicting various flawed...

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