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

HUMANITIES 363 recognized. The biography gives an interesting and detailed account of how he lost his first job as a section player with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in the infamous >Symphony Six= incident. The orchestra was due to go on tour to the United States in 1952, the zenith of the McCarthy era, when a list was given to the orchestra of musicians who were banned from entering the United States because they were accused of having ties with Communist groups. Staryk had played at various Ukrainian events organized by groups the CIA had listed as >Communist.= These performances were a way of earning much-needed money and of polishing his repertoire, but he had never been politically involved. All six musicians who were listed had their Toronto Symphony contracts summarily terminated, despite the fact that they were citizens of a country where being a Communist was not against the law. Ezra Schabas states in his biography of Sir Ernest MacMillan, who was conductor of the Toronto Symphony at this time, that MacMillan tried to intercede on Staryk=s behalf, but Staryk was certainly unaware of any move to help him, and he had to scramble for what little work he could find. It seems that in the matter of his relatively short stays with the major orchestras (two years with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, three with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and four with the Chicago Symphony) Staryk=s uncompromising standards and lack of political subtlety, the very skills which enabled him to survive, brought him into confrontation with management and colleagues. Lewis, who studied with Staryk in Seattle, has written with great affection and admiration for his subject. Although there is no question that the book would benefit from careful editing to remove errors and to moderate a few anecdotal comments about colleagues, it should be regarded as an important source work on an outstanding Canadian musician. (KATHARINE RAPOPORT) Patrick Toner. If I Could Turn and Meet Myself: The Life of Alden Nowlan Goose Lane. xiii, 340. $24.95 It has been nearly twenty years since Alden Nowlan=s untimely death at fifty, and a full-length biography may well be overdue. In his poems, novels, short fiction, and journalism, he often drew on his personal experiences as a child of poverty in the Annapolis Valley, as a reporter in New Brunswick, as a cancer patient, and as a husband and father. But if he told the truth, he told it slant. Patrick Toner=s biography offers us an opportunity to work through the interplay of memory, imagination, and self-construction that informs Nowlan=s writings. Nowlan has become a canonical figure of Maritime writing in many major Canlit anthologies. But like many Maritime writers, including his 364 LETTERS IN CANADA 2000 friend David Adams Richards, he reacted strongly against the regionalist tag imposed on his work by what he perceived to be a condescending cabal of central Canadian critics. Nowlan preferred to think of himself as a writer of universal themes, and as such, felt himself unjustly represented by academic critics. Perhaps keeping faith with his subject, Toner takes a decidedly nonacademic approach to the recounting of Nowlan=s life. He begins by representing himself as a fan and concludes as an advocate: >With the love of his work comes a duty to defend him, to explain him against those who might understand him too quickly and make unconsidered judgements about his work. There is justice in Michael Brian Oliver=s claim that AAlden Nowlan may well be the most misunderstood poet in Canadian literature.@= Reviewers of Nowlan have been split between those who seek to criticize or contextualize his work and those who seek to defend him and protect him from pigeonholes. Toner aligns himself with the latter position. This is not to say that Toner ignores the less appealing side of his subject. Nowlan comes off as a contradictory figure: a shy man in public who could be both a generous host and dictatorial and volatile with his intimates, particularly when drinking; a man who disdained academics yet accepted preferment from the University of New Brunswick; a youthful contributor to socialist newspapers who became a speech-writer...

pdf

Share