The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature ed. by William Toye (review)

isolated phrase; where an informed critic pays more attention to the art of fiction than to the sociology of political relationships; and where Naipaul can be appreciated for what he writes, not castigated for what some critics think he 'really' feels. (WILLIAM J. HOWARD) William Toye, general editor. The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature Oxford University Press. 843. $45.00 This is the first volume of the Oxford Companion series to be devoted entirely to Canadian literature. It follows upon Norah Storey's 1967 Oxford Companion to Canadian History and Literature and William Toye's later Supplement (1973). As a basic work of reference, it is a major addition to Canadian studies, both French and English. It does not, however, stop with our two major literatures, but also includes sections on Yiddish and Ukrainian writing, as well as specific individual entries on Czech, Polish, German, Hungarian, Italian, Chilean, and other writers who have lived and worked in Canada. There are, in addition, sections on Inuit and Indian literatures. The latter, by Penny Petrone, not only is a valuable help to those interested in the history of Indian rhetorical and linguistic traditions and in the work in English by Christianized Indians in the last century, but also goes a long way to helping us understand the achievement of novelist Rudy Wiebe in portraying oral Indian speech in The Temptations of Big Bear. The new sections on regional literature are generally quite valuable. The genre sections have been expanded and, on the whole, are competently handled. Perhaps the very important Quebecois novel (1960-82) deserves more than a rather reductive set of plot outlines. In 'Novels in English 1960 to 1982: a decision was made to separate major writers from what are labelled 'Other Talents, Other Works: This is an awkward division that might have been avoided had the contributors and editor heeded their initial heading - 'Novels' - and not dealt instead with novelists. The categories dealt with in the 'Other Talents, Other Works' section (experimental, minority, satire, childhood, women, regional, popular) could have been used, if expanded to represent more accurately the output of Canadian fiction today, to structure the entire treatment of the fiction of the last two decades. The rather cursory treatment of an important recent phenomenon - popular fiction - would also have been avoided. While there are sections on mystery and crime fiction and on science fiction and fantasy, there is none on historical romance, the popular genre with the longest history in Canada. An entry at least the length of the science fiction and fantasy section is warranted, especially since SF is labelled by the authoras a 'minor genre in Canada.' (That entry, however, deals with all genres and both major literatures.) HUMANITIES 441 The sections devoted to individual works of literature raise the question of what constitutes the canon in Canadian literary studies today, and the spectre of the (1978) Calgary Conference haunts the decisions made. Other entries on philosophy, biography, and history raise the issue of the definition of the literary, but their presence here is both welcome and useful. The individual entries on writers are, perhaps unavoidably, uneven in quality and in degree of personal detail offered. The author of the Leacock section seems to have missed the irony (and its function) in Leacock's ambivalent response to 'Mariposa.' Some entries are very revealing about writers' personal lives; others are very impersonally factual. Some more firm editorial decision should have been taken on the kind of biographical entry to be encouraged. With 192 contributors, the quality of writing here is inevitably going to be uneven. Frequently the writer is an obvious expert in the field; the odd time, I really did wonder, however. What we should never forget, though, is how much research and time goes into writing even the shortest of entries. Some writers should probably be singled out either for the sheer number of entries contributed or for their fine quality: Joan Coldwell, Frank Davey, George Woodcock, Ben-Z. Shek, Sam Solecki, Louise Forsyth, Chaviva Ho~ek, Marilyn Rose, Richard Giguere, Da~id Hayne, Patrick O'Flaherty, Rosemary Sullivan, Zailig Pollock, Patricia Smart. The list could, and should, go on and on. Of particular...