Between Europe and America: The Canadian Tradition in Fiction by T.D. MacLulich (review)

146 LETTERS IN CANADA 1988 T.O. MacLulich. Between Europe and America: The Canadian Tradition in Fiction ECW Press. 266. $25.00; $15.00 paper The idea of a Canadian literary tradition is a much-discussed topic these days. It is either assumed as self-evident, asserted with passionate confidence (as here), or dismissed as the chimera ofblinkered academics (by John Metcalf). MacLulich's book, as its title indicates, tries to marshal evidence for his contention - now widely held, I would have thought that a peculiarly Canadian form of fiction has evolved which both partakes of and'is becoming independent of the older fictional traditions of Europe and the United States. MacLulich argues his case in very general terms. This would be acceptable enough as a procedure ifthe terms were themselves uncontentious and clear-cut. Unfortunately, his assumptions about the distinguishing characteristics of British and American fiction seem to me over-simple and decidedly challengeable. For MacLulich, European literature is predominantly 'class-conscious or aristocratic,' surely a strange linkage of adjectives. He therefore welcomes (for there is a conspicuous political ideology lurking behind the value-judgments here) the North American challenge to 'polite literature.' It is as if Charles Dickens had never existed! To gain MacLulich's approval, it seems, writers must be 'democratic' (by which he seems to mean committedly egalitarian) in their attitudes. Since he considers this to be a characteristic feature of the New World (which frankly amazes me), he generally supports the historical trend by which Canadian writers have tended to tum to the States rather than to Europe for their models. All this is surely crude, and leads to some curious arguments and odd emphases. Mavis Gallant receives hardly any attention, presumably because she has moved against MacLulich's current, and although Robertson Davies is treated more extensively than any other writer, with the possible exception of Hugh MacLennan, MacLulich is obviously unhappy with him. He approves of Fifth Business but, despite a self-conscious denial, it seems clear that this preference stems from the belief that 'only in Fifth Business ... has Davies successfully made his own country a place of romance and mystery.' MacLulich is nationalistically resentful of Monica Gall's going to Europe to acquire 'culture' in A Mixture ofFrailties, and is bothered by a suspicision that 'both Davies and MacLennan are committed through their styles to an old-fashioned picture of the author as an educated gentleman.' The presence of the word 'educated' in that sentence is worth pondering. The trouble with this kind of approach is that it becomes the victim ofits own rhetoric. Moreover, it judges literature ultimately by the political respectability of the sentiments expressed through it. MacLulich never seems to consider the possibility that where writers derive their material is far less important than how they transform it or what they make out of HUMANITIES 147 it. There is too much categorization here, and not enough discussion of individual works of fiction. This leads MacLulich into some curious statements. At one point he refers to 'our early works of realistic or modernist fiction,' and has previously presented modernism as the champion of realism against idealism. I do not see how a useful discussion can be conducted on these terms. On page 88 he appears to link Ernest Buckler, W.O. Mitchell, and Davies (surely an odd trio) as having made 'sociological realism a primary goal in their fiction.' (The argument is far from clear, but I cannot interpret the page in any other way.) Later, Ostenso's Wild Geese, Stead's Grain, Grove's Settlers of the Marsh and Our Daily Bread, Frank Parker Day's Rockbound, and Knister's White Narcissus are all lumped together as 'early realistic novels.' MacLulich's realism must be broad indeed if it can encompass Ostenso's larger-than-life Caleb Gare and Stead's anti-heroic Gander Stake, the structured artifice of Settlers of the Marsh and the Gothic atmosphere of so much of White Narcissus. Literary-critical distinctions tend to blur. Thus he can refer to 'such books as W.O. Mitchell's Jake and the Kid (1961) and Who Has Seen the Wind (1947)' as if the extraordinary difference...