Margaret Atwood: Language, Text and System ed. by Sherrill E. Grace, Lorraine Weir (review)

462 LEITERS IN CANADA 1983 'changes, partly by exposure to other patterns, partly by choice, partly by the accidents and unconscious alterations of time.' However, the uneven transitional state of Canadian criticism is well caught when one turns the page at the end of New's essay to find Michel Fabre's 'From The Stone Angel to The Diviners: An Interview with Margaret Laurence' and encounters the opening question: 'What would you say is the major theme of The Stone Angel?' To ask such a question of Laurence (who was remarkably - though not of course surprisingly - polite in her reply) in 1981 is nothing short of astonishing. It reminds one that Davey has provided some desperately needed alternatives to thematics, but it also shows that in deciding to reprint 'Surviving the Paraphrase' in 1983 Davey is in no danger of flogging a dead horse. (I should, however, in fairness note that Fabre also contributes a useful essay on The Diviners.) George Woodcock has chosen these essays with care. They are divided into three groups: 'The Writer, Her Craft and World: 'The African Apprenticeship: and (the longest) 'Manawaka:A World within a World.' This collection ignores Laurence's children's books but otherwise offers a remarkably comprehensive study of her work, including her non-fiction. It is interesting, however, that Woodcock includes only one item - and that a brief review - on The Fire-Dwellers. That critics in general have not found this book as stimulating as the other Manawaka novels is a fact that would repay thoughtful investigation. By including several interviews and a number of Laurence's own articles and personal statements, Woodcock (like New before him) has added a useful dimension to this collection. While revealing seemingly inevitable ups and downs of critical standard, in its variety of approach as distinct from quality A Place to Stand On helps to answer Davey's call for a wider range of literary-critical response. (w.r. KEITH) Sherrill E. Grace and Lorraine Weir, editors. Margaret Atwood: Language, Text and System University of British Columbia Press. x, 158. $17.95 In their introduction to this collection of nine essays on Atwood's novels and poetry, the editors argue that her oeuvre forms a 'system' which readers must'dismantle' in order to 'discover the focal points or nodes which dominate the system.' Since I did not know that Atwood had a system I was interested to see how it might be identified and, once identified, dismantled. I also wondered why this system required dismantling since it is marked, the editors stress, by the 'elegant Simplicity of its structure.' Confused by these apparent contradictions (which actually constitute a weak and frequently cliche-ridden attempt to rationalize this HUMANITIES 463 collection in terms of fashionable 'deconstructive' thought), I approached the individual essays themselves with two standardsofjudgmentin mind: does the essay show me something new and thought-provoking about Atwood's work? and is the writing clear, direct, and capable of engaging my attention? Sherrill Grace's 'Articulating the "Space Between'" proposes that Atwood's system embodies 'dualities, but dualities understood as mutually interdependentaspects ofa continuum ofrelationship .. .' Somehow, I am not sure how, Atwood overcomes 'the polarization of world and self' through 'a dynamiC third way: This idea, which really amounts to the identification of Atwood's dialectical stance, is not new; indeed, critics have repeatedly explained this dialectic in much clearer terms than Grace provides. Linda Hutcheon is more specific and insightful. By examining Atwood 's use of metaphor, Hutcheon is able to explain, for example, why The Edible Woman has poetic affinities with The Circle Game, and how the narrative structure of Bodily Harm can be understood as a movement away from metaphoric and lyric intent. Although I wanted Hutcheon to tell me more about how her theories apply to Surfacing, the essay forced me to rethink the relation between Atwood's poetry and prose, and to recognize just how complex that relation is. While Hutcheon manages to convey her ideas in a straightforward, convincing manner, Barbara Blakely provides an incomprehensible, feminist-oriented response to Atwood's poetry, an 'exploration of the world of woman and man' which Blakely sees 'through a feminist paradigm...