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156 LETTERS IN CANADA 1990 seems to be an effort to clear the ground of ideology and dogma, making way for an unimpeded celebration of myth. It's precisely a feminist approach, however, that could explore the places where O'Hagan asks us to pause in the headlong rush towards the ineffable.In defending O'Hagan against the charge of misogyny, Tanner thinks it enough to point out that Tay John is 'rich in resonances of fertillty and procreation with regard to earth.' I too would defend O'Hagan against the charge, but I would not do it by pointing to his worship of the eternal feminine; I would rather point to his ironic exposure of our need to worship the eternal feminine. Tanner sees the pattern of 'time-and-time again' in the novel as a 'spiralling circle' that supports the 'plangent poetry' of the novel as it affirms an order beyond man's thinking. When Tay John is exiled and walks in circles, when he cuts off his hand, and when he finally walks off into silence, I do not find it comforting to invoke the 'concept of the unfathomable and its endless ordered cycles.' Despite my admiration for Ella Tanner's eloquence and despite my gratitude to her for lighting up numerous passages in Tay John, my response to her poetic approach is shaped by an urgent political context that makes me want to speak very plainly. I don't think O'Hagan wrote Tay John as a way of worshipping the essence of Indian/ Wilderness/Woman, nor do I think it helps to construct happy endings that turn a blind eye to the dismal reality of aboriginal experience in Canada. (MAGDALENE REDEKOP) Laurel Boone, editor. TheCollected Letters of Charles GoO. Roberts Goose Lane Editions. 664. $39.95 Laurel Boone deserves our congratulations for bringing this long-term project to fruition in a handsomely formatted volume that documents a long and significant literary life. Included is every surviving missive from Roberts's hand that the editorial tearn was able to locate. The annotations are both thorough and unobtrusive, and the sections of editorial commentary (including an introduction by Fred Cogswell, who put in many years as supervising editor) are admirably cogent, honest, and concise. A judicious selection of photographs enhances our grasp of the broad cast of characters who crossed the stage of Roberts's busy life. For a project of this magnitude, the editing is virtually faultless, with remarkably few typos in the text or omissionsin the index. This volume ofCollected Lellers comes out of the project, initiated many years ago at the University ofNew Brunswick by the late Desmond Pacey, that also produced Roberts's Collected Poems (1985). These two scholarly texts, in conjunction with John Coldwell Adams'sbrilliantly titled 1986 biography (Sir Charles God Damn) and Laurel Boone's forthcoming bibliography, confer up~n Roberts the distinction of HUMANITIES 157 being the only nineteenth-century Canadian poet to receive the degree of serious academic attention normally devoted to major figures in other national literatures, and which to date in English-speaking Canada has been reserved for a paltry few (principally E.J. Pratt and A.M. Klein). One finds oneself reading (or at times scanning) this volume bifocally, with one eye on Roberts the poet and the other on Roberts the man. Revelations and disappointments reward both lenses. Fred Cogswell's introduction diplomatically cautions that 'To [Robertsjletter-writing was normally a chore to be carried out only when absolutely necessary: And indeed, the bulk of the surviving letters are business correspondence or routine social acknowledgments - many of the latter preserved, I suspect, for the sentimental value of their autograph rather than the significance of their contents. Hence this volume contains greater riches for the researcher interested in reconstructing the financial vicissitudes and daily grind of Roberts's professional career than for the critic seeking fresh insights into his fiction or verse. Some of Roberts's views on his own work and that of others can be gleaned from scattered comments. The names of Matthew Arnold and Oscar Wilde drop into several early letters; on separate occasions he announces his dislikeofHowells and Baudelaire, reveals some...

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