In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

HUMANITIES 451 influences of Norse culture upon a rude and motley population, this book goes far beyond being merely a prairie version of Anne of Green Gables. Despite an introduction that tells us little more than is in the text, which itselfis riddled with misprints, this new edition will surely stimulate more interest in awriter whose Canadian novels certainly repay attention. (TERRENCE L. CRAIG) David Staines, editor. The Callaghan Symposium Reappraisals: Canadian Writers University of Ottawa Press. 124ยท $7.50 paper For a summary of this book as a 'reappraisal' it is hard to beat the chairman's remarks bringing to an end the final panel discussion of the 1980 Callaghan Symposium at the University of Ottawa: 'Morley Callaghan has been praised for his later work, he has been pntised for his early work, he has been praised for his short stories, and he has, in effect, been damned for the whole lot.' There is not a great deal that is new in the symposium, but the attempt to approach this much praised and much condemned Canadian fiction writer from 'untried perspectives' is more rewarding. The first of these, if not entirely 'untried: aims to see Callaghan's fiction afresh against the background of his early career as a journalist, and it is attempted with great charm and vividness by another 1920S journalist manque, Leon Edel. Edel's richly discursive lecture is illuminating when it touches on journalism and literature, Montreal and Paris in the 1920S, Canadian and American writers both he and Callaghan met. But is his conclusion about the lifelong impacton Callaghan of the early exposure to newspaper writing really valid? Has Callaghan in fact 'remained rooted in that early restricted garden of journalism,' or did he perhaps all the while belong to a quite different kind of garden? Other fresh perspectives include that of Daniel Aaron (comparing Callaghan as a DepreSSion-era novelist with Nathanael West and Thornton Wilder); Ray Ellenwood (a comparison this time with Jacques Ferron); and Barbara Godard (a discussion of French translations which tells us a good deal about both Callaghan and Quebec). The three remaining lecturers, Patricia Morley, Barry Cameron, and Larry McDonald , try to find new ways of looking at the moral and religiOUSaspects of Callaghan's techniques and meanings. The recorded panel discussion ending the book reads a bit like a transcript from an old 'Fighting Words' programme. Urbane and witty and wise summaries by Brandon Conron, Glenn Clever, and Donald Stephens are almost but not quite upstaged by the irreverence of David Helwig, for whom Morley Callaghan's novels, though the critics may 452 LETTERS IN CANADA 1981 make them sound like 'rather wonderful devices,' turn out to be 'chairs that fall down when you sit on them.' (F.W. WAIT) Elspeth Cameron. Hugh MacLennan: A Writer's Ufe University of Toronto Press. xv, 421, illus. $24.95 Hugh MacLennan's novels have been the object of much controversy in Canadian criticism. They have been praised as rigorous investigations into the national consciousness, as sober analyses of universal questions of individual and social morality, as probings of pressing religious and spiritual questions. At the same time they have been criticized as tedious, unimaginative, and clumsy, as having serious flaws in characterization, for being far too didactic and preachy, for weaknesses in the social and political views implicit within them. That MacLennan is an important novelist who deserves our close attention there is no doubt, not only because he has had significant national and international success and a large influence upon a generation of younger writers, but also because his art raises interesting questions about the function of the novel and the role of the artist. For those who believe that one cannot divorce the art from the artist, and that the essential value of art is its 'engagement' with society, MacLennan is either a model or a model gone wrong. For those who believe that art must be judged independently of its social context and that it should be technically experimental before it is socially useful, MacLennan went wrong right from the beginning of his career. The split is deep and will not be reconciled; it is a consequence...

pdf

Share