L.M. Montgomery and Canadian Culture ed. by Irene Gammel, Elizabeth Epperly (review)

humanities 457 mathematics, but having dubious claims as a purely logical axiom. Linsky justifies it on the basis of his realist interpretation of the theory of types. Linsky covers a wide range of both primary and secondary sources, but the book would have been improved if he had made more use of the very rich resources of the Russell archives at McMaster University. This extraordinary collection is a magnet for Russell scholars throughout the world; a large part of it is currently being published as the multi-volume Collected Papers. (ALASDAIR URQUHART) Irene Gammel and Elizabeth Epperly, editors. L.M. Montgomery and Canadian Culture University of Toronto Press. xviii, 268. $25.00 Irene Gammel and Elizabeth Epperly present L.M. Montgomery and Canadian Culture as `the first systematic effort to investigate the question of the Canadianness of Montgomery's writing,' a collection which `maps the important cultural, social, and popular domains of Montgomery's impact.' Based in part on international symposia held at the L.M. Montgomery Institute at the University of Prince Edward Island, the book comprises seventeen pieces ranging in topic from the role of Barney Snaith's car as a symbol of `social, geographical and psychological freedom' in The Blue Castle to the inscrutable reasons for Anne's enormous popularity among Japanese women today. Authors range from historians Jennifer Litster and Owen Dudley Edwards of the University of Edinburgh, to Elizabeth Waterston of the University of Guelph (a coeditor of L.M. Montgomery's journals), to literary critic Calvin Trillin and novelist Margaret Atwood. A Foreword is supplied by Adrienne Clarkson. Brief references to Alice Munro, Margaret Laurence, and Jane Urquhart suggest the impact Montgomery's works had on these writers; and Frank Davey explores the connection between Kim Campbell's public image and Montgomery's Anne. In an interview, Sharon J. Hamilton, author of My Name's Not Susie: A Life Transformed by Literacy, discusses how Anne became such a powerful role model for her that, ultimately, she changed the trajectory of Hamilton's life as a foster-child. But in general these articles demonstrate Montgomery's writing as reflecting certain elements of Canadian culture, rather than actively shaping them. This is perhaps most clear in the pairing of Mary Henry Rubio's `L.M. Montgomery: Scottish-Presbyterian Agency in Canadian Culture' and Margaret Atwood's `Reflection Piece B Revisiting Anne,' where Atwood discusses Marilla's speech to Anne ('I believe in a girl being fitted to earn her own living') not as the `radical feminism' some interpret it to be, but as an example of `Maritime self-reliance,' recognized as`Scottish-Presbyterian agency' by Rubio. Articles by E. Holly Pike on the 458 letters in canada 1999 Emily novels, by Elizabeth Waterston on Montgomery's less than successful poetry, and by Roberta Buchanan on `The Conflict between Woman and Writer in L.M. Montgomery's Journals' B as well as a final piece by Deirdre Kessler, which refers to Montgomery's `life filled with the cowardice of dressing ``to the flesh'' ... a life filled with the laws of church and husband and the dicta of the guardians of the status quo' B demonstrate the limits of Montgomery's ability to live or write outside the established norms of her culture. Although a number of the articles take for granted Montgomery's `feminism,' especially as manifest in the predominantly female community of Avonlea, a final comment about the popularity of Anne among the Japanese resounds loudly to the contrary.`Montgomery's characters and plots reconfirm rather than question traditional definitions of the role of Japanese society,' says Clare Fawcett, an anthropologist from the English-language school at the L.M. Montgomery Institute. `Anne grows up and shuts up just as Japanese women retire to the kitchen.' Whether she's interpreted as subversive or conservative, this collection leaves no doubt that Montgomery does indeed have a significant place in Canadian culture B whether high, low, or `pop' B and that, conversely, Canadian culture has a significant place in her writings. And it's refreshing that there's enough scepticism in the volume to mitigate the more reverential `Montgomery says' element. It seems fitting, too, that this compilation...