The Bumper Book ed. by John Metcalf (review)

of its involvement. Ahab was, in his own lunatic way, a marvellous man. But if we were in the whaling business most of us would choose Starbuck, for whom money was the measure. Governments should keep to Starbuck 's business, and leave the artists to busy themselves with Ahab. (J.E. CHAMBERLIN) John Metcalf, editor. The BumperBook ECW Press. 238. $20.00, $12.00 paper The Bumper Book presents Canadian literature as an amusement park. Sam Solecki's Amazing Meta-Curmudgeon! See B.W. Powe, the Anguished Dialectic Man! Experience the horrors of Canada Council politics! See yournational identity in the Hall ofImmiscible Mirrors! And there's more: merry-go-rounds illuminated by the truth about academic Canadian literary life, a poet's own roller-coaster, and audience-participation theatre. Kick the stuffing out of such straw dogs as Robertson Davies, Sinclair Ross, and Ernest Buckler! Beneath all the hoop-la, however, the seriousness of the book's editoris clear. Attendance at the amusement park of Canadian literature is far too low. There are no crowds. The fairgrounds seem almost eerie when one remembers that Raymond Knister addressed the same issues some sixty years ago, complaining that the only reading public in Canada was the academic one. The collection contains jokes, poems, and essays of reminiscence and criticism. The best joke is the publisher's hawking of an ECW Press Festschrift (for a mere $10,000), complete with annotated bibliography, guaranteed to make anyone 'a NAME Canadian writer' overnight. 'Suzi Knickers' Book Bits,' a cross between scrv and Entertainment Tonight, runs a close second. Irving Layton, Louis Dudek, George Johnston, and Ralph Gustafson each contribute poetically to what W.J. Keith calls, in his essay on 'The Quest for the (Instant) Canadian Classic,' The Bumper Book's 'cock-snooking and cheeky iconoclasm.' Of the eighteen essays presented , at least half are anecdotal. All of these contribute to the Canadian literary history of the last two decades. In Fraser Sutherland's 'In Defence of Laura Secord' and its sequel, 'Frisking Laura Secord,' placed at the beginning of the book, the former managing editor of Books in Canada sets the tone. He trashes first Morley Callaghan for his 'colonial mentality' and then the 'age of flaccidly ecumenical careerists' that now benights Canadian literature. John Mill's 'Notes of a Natural Son' furthers Metcalf's editorial strategy of poking tender spots in the Canadian national character . Mills insists that the Canadian soul - repressed and isolationist in essence - will remain blank until blood has been shed for the cause of a national identity. George Bowering's 'Being Audited' steers the reader out of this funhouse into a poignant and humorous exposition of the HUMANITIES I 5I artist's economic disenfranchisement in Western society. This theme is taken up by Douglas Gibson, Michael Macklem, and W.J. Keith, in their autobiographical essays on the relationships between Canadian writing, the financial problems peculiar to Canadian publishing, and government patronage. Among the remaining essays, George Woodcock and Martin Kevan take the Canada Council seriously to task. Woodcock's distrust of government interference in the arts is balanced by Kevan's point that very little Canada Council money 'goes directly to artists for the creation of new work: The essays of Brian Fawcett and Alan Weiss stand out in their condemnation of the futility of publishing poetry in a society that hardly reads it, and the inane anti-intellectualism of debunking the role of the university in Canadian writing. Norman Snider's nay-saying essay on Robertson Davies's fiction, and Morton Ross and Lawrence Mathews's excoriating critiques ofCanadian literary criticism instantiate W.J. Keith's well-balanced argument that there is too much nationalistic and profitminded puffery in the canonization of 'Canadian classics: B.W. Powe's discourse, 'Never Hunt Anything Small: a dialogue between the critic and his soul, penetrates to the heart of The Bumper BooKs purpose: 'The real fight must be for readership, books, the word, and against postliteracy : Keith Garebian's condemnation of contemporary Canadian theatre, 'Seasons of Discontent,' is so brilliant, witty, and down-and-dirty that it alone justifies the reader's investment. The editor, too, is to be commended...