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352 letters in canada 2001 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 tension between symbolical vision and concrete reality.= Part 5, >Comparative Imaginings,= includes a discussion of the liberating effects of fiction on the imagination of children, the common ground of myth and literature in a proposed course on modern drama, the paradox of permanence and transformation in the use of Greek myths in modern plays, and the image of China in the poetry of the French poet Victor Segalen. In theory and practice Eva Kushner provides a wide-ranging and open view of comparative literature in Canada and beyond. This is a book that uses the words >dialogue= and >paradox= in different and suggestive contexts. It invites the reader to explore the possible worlds of literature and to compare them, to communicate across time and culture. This is an important and worthy invitation. (JONATHAN HART) David A. Wilson. The History of the Future McArthur and Company 2000. 280. $29.95 It will be readily apparent to readers that the author had a great deal of fun writing >my own damn book.= The book really is fun to read. David Wilson provides a wealth of detailed information spanning the ideas of medieval and early millenarian movements to the often naïve yet strangely touching visions of utopia in the early modern period to the dark nightmare worlds of contemporary dystopian literature in the English-speaking world. He gleefully tells his readers B on no less than two occasions B that a common feature of all >self-respecting= utopian literature is the absence of lawyers. While he recounts stories from the prophetic, futurist traditions presented here with humour and wit, Wilson treats them all with a seriousness and respect by acknowledging needs and longings of the people who wrote them, whose visions, no matter how bizarre, express the strivings for what Marx once described as >heart in a heartless world.= The social and political function of futuristic literature contains both hope and assurance that no matter how terrible life may be, >everything will work out in the end.= The millenarian, prophetic, folkloric, utopian, and dystopian narratives are too numerous and detailed to recount here, save for an example or two. There are hilarious accounts of groups such as the seventeenth-century Ranters, who preached and practised free love and enthusiastic cursing. For them, >the millennium would be full of spiritualized human beings living in peace, harmony, equality, love, and freedom, combining constant fornication with non-stop swearing and laughing loudly at the damned.= Such portraits are tinged with a tolerant and good-natured sympathy that understands the desire of people to enjoy life in a world fraught with violence, conflict, and widespread suffering in the context of the English Civil War. Not so benevolent is Wilson=s attitude to H.G. Wells, whose idea of utopia embraced the values of rationality, science, technology, and humanities 353 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 biological engineering. Women would find their purpose in producing many strong children as their contribution to society. If women cheated on their husbands, they forfeited all support for themselves and their illegitimate children. Wells remained silent on the question of the fidelity of men to their wives. >All in all,= writes Wilson, >when considering his passion for eugenics, his sexual double standards, and his own assumptions of superiority, it is hard to read H.G. Wells without wanting to vomit.= Wilson=s straightforward style and willingness to evaluate ideas is a welcome change from much academic writing, although not all readers will agree. In my view, Wilson=s greatest strength lies in his sensitivity to the yearnings underlying efforts to predict the future and thereby control the course of history. This sensitivity results in a more nuanced understanding of what might easily be dismissed as a preposterous literature. When Wilson describes the psychotic delusions of the Anabaptist leaders of Munster in the mid-sixteenth century, which generated terror, unspeakable violence, and their own ultimate slaughter, he concludes that theirs was a rage borne of >scarcity, disease, insecurity and fear= which degenerated into >the comforting simplicities of a black-and-white...

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