Dear Editor and Friends: Letters from Rural Women of the North-West, 1900–1920 ed. by Norah L. Lewis (review)

492 letters in canada 1999 mixture of interesting and tedious dialogues. Every volume of this type is necessarily arbitrary B it would be impossible to coalesce an inclusive collection. The range of writers represented here is good, slightly more Ontario-focused than it might be, but overall a combination of newer voices and stalwart presences in Canadian literature. The collection is grounded by Richler's grumbling taciturnity, Margaret Atwood's irrepressible mischief, Timothy Findley's transcendence, Joy Kogawa's projective solemnity, and Michael Ondaatje's offhand self-effacement. The characters that they bring to interviews are recognizable, familiar. The best aspects of this volume are its surprises, new articulations of old questions. Dionne Brand discusses the randomness of racism, Douglas Glover demonstrates a speedy, self-critical sharpness, Thomas King admits to hating the prairie even though he knows it roots his humour. Nicole Brossard muses about Le Sens apparent, `I wanted to fall in love and so I had to write a book.' McCaffery riffs into a wonderful disquisition on the letter as an emblem of logophilia. And Kogawa, in context of her discussion of minority writers and anger, makes the fascinating declaration that `it is much harder ... to practice the imagination of privilege than the imagination of marginalization.' The compelling interviews here are those that contain stories, miniature narratives rather than definitive statements of political affiliation and retribution . Oddly, many avoid telling stories, as if being fiction writers means that they must hug their narratives close to their chests. But the worst aspect of a bad interview is when either one of the two in the binary is determined to pronounce on larger philosophical issues. Widely represented here is the usual denial of any complicity with theory or self-reflexivity. Suspiciously, in a book of dialogues with fiction writers, the word `truth' came up often, raising its determinative head in almost every interview. The most interesting questions and answers probe the sources of writerly discomfort and the pleasures of the palimpsest. The Power to Bend Spoons concludes with Daurio interviewing Frank Davey on manifestations of literary power in Canada, an interview that is exceptional for its astute intellectual focus, on both parts. Davey is lucid, intelligent, ferocious in his discussion of Canadian literature's complicities and resistances. `All of us live alongside narratives which variously guide and interpret us, telling of our place in the world, what we would like to do, and how we relate to others. The more narratives we have, the more freedom. Such a reader, such a writer, such a cultural critic, is a gift to a nation negotiating its narratives. And The Power to Bend Spoons thus succeeds in its illusory magic. (ARITHA VAN HERK) Norah L. Lewis, editor, Dear Editor and Friends: humanities 493 Letters from Rural Women of the North-West, 1900B1920 Volume 4 in the Life Writing Series. Wilfrid Laurier University Press 1998. xvi, 168. 20 black and white photos. $29.95 I enjoyed reading this book. `Accounts of ordinary people,' the focus of the Life Writing Series of which this is the fourth volume, are my meat. With its photographs, index, and list of additional readings, Dear Editor is an entertaining introduction to the correspondence `clubs' which played an important part in female discourse in lonely pioneer areas. Here, the editor focuses on letters from the `North-West,' by which term she means the four western provinces. Her dates of inclusion are 1900 to 1920 and her excerpts come from six periodicals, probably the best known of which is Grain Growers' Guide. There is a short introduction and a very short conclusion. The `clubs' offered ongoing discussion of everyday life, of political issues such as dower rights and woman suffrage and in sharing of resources. Those correspondents who could afford to offered money, clothing, patterns, seeds, reading material; those in need asked for all of the above and also for simple moral support. In two excerpts in this book, children are offered for adoption; in another, temporary wardship is sought for a boy whose family cannot afford to feed him. Letters were always written through the editor of the relevant women's page and correspondents were required to use pen...