Collected Works of George Grant. Volume 1: 1933–1950 ed. by Arthur Davis, Peter Emberley (review)

348 LETTERS IN CANADA 2000 Arthur Davis and Peter Emberley, editors. Collected Works of George Grant. Volume 1: 1933B1950 University of Toronto Press. xxxvii, 502. $80.00 In recent years, the University of Toronto Press has embarked on the publication of the collected works of two prominent twentieth-century Canadian thinkers, Northrop Frye and George Parkin Grant. These are major undertakings, and one can only admire the daring of the publisher and the devotion of the editors. The book under review here is the first of a projected eight-volume collection of Grant=s works. At its completion it will be a treasure of inestimable value made up of new editions of Grant=s major books, unpublished manuscripts, public and private letters, and more. In the introduction to this volume, editors Arthur Davis and Peter Emberley set out their guiding principles with admirable clarity. With the blessings of Grant=s widow and the support of a loyal coterie, Davis and Emberley began the daunting task of imposing some unaccustomed order on Grant=s papers. Readers of this volume in particular will be delighted to find much elusive material from Grant=s early years. For instance, from 1943 to 1945, Grant was national secretary of the Canadian Association for Adult Education. In that capacity, he wrote extensively for the Association=s magazine, Food for Thought. Davis and Emberley reproduce a good number of Grant=s columns, which reveal a young man already speaking with authority on major issues of the day. Grant=s role as public moralist had begun. Perhaps the centrepiece of the volume is Grant=s D.Phil. thesis from Oxford, >The Concept of Nature and Supernature in the Theology of John Oman= (1950). Available before only at the Bodleian Library, this judiciously edited version is a boon for those interested in the development of Grant=s theological thought; here some of his lasting concerns are broached for the first time. In terms of human drama, however, the reader is drawn to Grant=s journal, written in Toronto in 1942 as he regained his health. It is of more than passing interest that Northrop Frye also wrote a diary in that dark year (soon to be published in Frye=s Collected Works, mentioned earlier). The image of these two Canadian intellectuals committing their private thoughts to paper at virtually the same time and place is, to say the least, intriguing. The editors of this first volume have chosen 1933 and 1950 as the chronological limits. Almost precisely in the centre of that period lies the Second World War. Grant=s personal response to the war is complex and contains elements of paradox. We know from previously published sources that Grant declared himself a pacifist; at the same time he wrote: >to kill for a purpose seems to me utterly justified.= This leaves the following question: how could someone who thought that there were exceptions to strict HUMANITIES 349 pacifism not be moved to empathize with the victims of Nazi tyranny? From an early date, Dorothy Thompson, whom Grant read and is said to have admired, was clear about the intentions of the Third Reich. Throughout this period in Canada, the question of immigration was never far from public awareness. Some prominent Christian thinkers in Canada took up the cause of immigrants. But as this volume makes clear, Grant, despite his access to the media and his growing prominence, was silent. William Christian, I believe, was very close to the mark when he wrote in his biography of Grant that >George almost missed the war.= What does it mean to say that Canada=s public moralist (as he has frequently been called) >almost missed= the most cataclysmic events of his age? The collection of Grant=s writings from 1933 until 1950 will prove invaluable in any attempt to understand this and related questions. In their introduction, Davis and Emberley write: >Whether or not readers agree with Grant, they need to read his texts in order to make that assessment. We have provided those texts and we believe that critical work will follow.= These words are unassailable and have already proved prophetic. It is safe to say that the Collected Works...