Profiles in Canadian Literature ed. by Jeffrey Heath (review)

440 LETTERS IN CANADA 1981 when he chastizes Walter Blair for daring to criticize the last section of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or when he seeks a little revenge at the expense of critics (Stephen Bonnycastle and Morton Ross) of his own work. More problematical is the narrowness of Cude's focus. He chooses only four classics to study, Fifth Business, As For Me and My House, St. Urbain'sHorseman, and most surprisingly Atwood's Lady Oracle. While he notes that his book is 'only a beginning' and that other classics lurk out there awaiting suitable examination (he mentions The Temptations of Big Bearand The Wars), itis clear that A Due SenseofDifferences is a collection of previously published essays - five appeared in the Journal of Canadian Studies - and that the only new ground here is Cude's attempt to lay down his critical principles. He offers no explanation, for instance, why The Stone Angel is not included. It certainly has consensus approval and shares with the texts he does analyse a complex, somewhat obsessive, self-justifying, first-person narrator. One can only puzzle over his principles of selection. Still, while lamenting the tone at times and feeling disappointment that Cude was not more informative or venturesome in his approach, one can still deeply admire his attempt. His pursuit of complexity does seem at times to make his judgments a little quirky. I find him rather hard on Mrs Bentley, for instance, and have trouble even beginning to follow his enthusiasm for Atwood's clever but empty-hearted novel. Overall, however, the goal he stands for is entirely worthwhile. Canadian literature clearly needs more attempts to evaluate the quality of its individual works not only by close critical analysis but by active comparison to the classics of other cultures. Allowing for his limited scope, Cude sets a fine example for future criticism. (M.A. PETERMAN) Jeffrey Heath, editor. Profiles in Canadian Literature, volumes 1 and 2 Dundum Press. 112; 108, illus. The marketing conceptis ingenious. Let each profile ofa Canadian author be a self-contained 5500-word package complete with critical essay, biographical date-list, quotations by and about the author, and a selected bibliography. Now your high-school Canlit kit is ready-to-go, separately marketable in pamphiet form ($1.10 for 'individual profile in envelope: $29.50 for the lot), or, as collected here, 27 profiles in two volumes ($14.95 each). And more volumes are prOmised. The on-going character of the project makes it idle for the reviewer to point outimbalances and omissions. But the pattern is already clear in any case. This is mainstream Canadian literature packaged for easy consumption . The profiles will provide factual data and 'useful quotes' for a thousand high-school essays. What, then, will students absorb from this convenience? As expected, the project is consistent with the myth established for Canlit on-the-make in the early seventies:I will call it the 'surfacing' myth or the myth of the Canadian imagination finding its roots. Just as the individual has 'surfaced' from an encounter with the land, so Canadian literature has thrown off its colonial or garrison mentality. 'Our writers have shed theirbonds,' states the editor. 'Shaped by the land and shaping it in return, Canadian artists have ceased to be exiles in their own country and have begun to feel imaginatively at home.' This idealization is supported by the usual tautology of critical essays avowedly 'literary rather than historical or sociological' in their perspective. Lo, Canadian literature is born - a canon of masterpieces, a fulfIlled national expression above history, above society, above change even. Graphics support the idealism. Each profile is topped by a wood-block style portrait of a monkish scribe, quill in hand, hour-glass before him on the table. Each profile has for its colophon that dreaded official maple leaf. Instant tradition! But, you say, Canada is too regional to claim a coherent national expression? No, indeed: these authors, who in the words of the editor 'are finding their rich summer voice,' are 'like the land itself, they are diverse.' This editing of imaginative experience into an official version is reinforced by the weakest essays and by the...