II. Fiction

262 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY speaks (Yorkton, Sask., the author; Russell's Studio, 63 PP'J 75c.) . PECKNOLD (D. M.), "Thoaghts ... and by~gone memories" (Port Alice, B.C., the author, P,O. Box 215, 34 pp. ) . POETRY SOCIETY OF ENGLAND, NOVA SCOTIA CENTRE, Nova Scotia book of verse; Halifax bicentenary ed., 1949, vol. I (Halifax, the Society, 1949,61 pp., SOc.) . PINCOCK (J. C'H.), Hidden springs: a narrative poem of old Upper Canada; and other poems (Waterloo, Ont., Mrs. F. J. T. Maines, "Gladholmc," R.R. 1, 1949", xii, 66 pp., $2). RtCHAN (8. H.). The unresting sea; ill. by RUTH E. TURNER ROBBIN S (Barrington Passage, N.S., the author, n.d., 41 PP'J $1 ). Ross (J. A.), The singer and his song, and other poems (Ottawa, Tower Books, xii, 79 pp., $1.50). RYERSON POETRY CHAPBOOKS , Beggar makes music, by GOODRIDGE MACDoNALD (11 pp.); Call my people home, by DOROTHY LIVESAY (24 pp.) j The flute, and other poems, by KATHERINE HALE ( 16 pp. ) j Tanager (cather, by KATHRYN MUNRO (12 pp.); Three meridians, by GEOFFREY DRAYTON (8 pp.) j The treasures of the snow, by ARTHUR S. BOURINOT ( 16 pp.) (Toronto, Ryerson, $1 each ). SASKATCHEWAN POETRY SOCIETY, The Saskatchewan poetry book, 1950-51 (Regina, the Society, 2514A, 15th Ave., iv, 46 pp.). SIGURDSON (A. S.), Pencil-stub stanzas: a book of light verse (Vancouver, the author, 4333 Parker St., 91 pp.) . WAltR (B. H.), In quest of beauty : selected poems (Carillon poetry chap-booksj Foleyet, Ont., Crucible Press; Toronto, the author. 84 Cloverlawn Ave., 40 PP'J $1). WOOD (GERTRUDE). Through the year (Glen Barn, Sask., the author, 27 pp.• 75c.). WREFORD (JAMES ), Of time and the lover (Indian file no. 4; Toronto, McClelland & Stewart. 92 pp., $2.75). II. FICTION CLAUDE T. BISSELL In The Nymph and the Lamp Thomas Raddall makes a sharp departure from the tradition of the historical novel to which in past years he has made a numher of notahle contributions. He turns from the files of history to a contemporary setting. The Nymph and the Lamp is also a departure from the general level of achievement of the Canadian fiction published during 1950. In a rather undistinguished year, it is the one novel of authoritative excellence. One of Raddall's most admirable qualities as an historical novelist was the easy and confident way with which he assimilated background and mood. Now that, presumably, he is drawing upon his own experience, this quality is even more apparent. The Nymph and the Lamp is, above all, a novel that creates a deep sense of place. Even with the contemporary setting he has not sacrificed the appeal of the strange and the remote. Most of the action of the novel takes place on the desolate island of Marina (in sober fact, Sable Island ), a long, narrow stretch of sand in the North Atlantic, some eighty miles from the Canadian coast. True, this is not the romantically sinister island of history and fable, the graveyard of the North Atlantic , that figures in so many accounts of shipwreck and piracy. By LETTERS IN CANADA: 1950 263 1920, the year when the action of the novel begins, Marina was becoming a quaint relic of another age, existing on the .reputation of the past and on the quixotic bounty of officialdom. Still, even in the twilight of its life, Marina could stir the imagination. There was, first of all, the very physical face of the island, pitilessly exposed to all the savagery of nature, its gaunt symmetry largely unchanged by the repeated inroads of wind and water. There were also the people on Marina, the real islanders as distinct from casual workers, wrapped in their cocoon of routine and superstition, aware of the great world outside only when the supply ship made its widely separated calls. Above all there was the wireless station which had become the very heart of Marina and which had brought to the island a little group of godlike men who could reach out and subdue time and space. Here, surely, is rich material which calls for bold and imaginative treatment, and Raddall is equal to the challenge. The feeling...