Letters in Canada 1972

LEITERS IN CANADA 1972 We welcome to this issue of 'Letters in Canada' Professor Laurent Mailhot , who takes charge of the section entitled 'Thedtre,' and Professor Jacques Blais, who reviews works in the category 'Poesie,' succeeding Professor Jean-Louis Major, whose annual surveys have enhanced these pages for the past four years. Professor Donald V. Wade has found himself obliged, because of heavy university administrative duties, to withdraw as reviewer of religious books, and we are pleased that Professor W.G. Oxtoby has consented to replace him in this important and multi-faceted portfolio. Two other reviewers have left us after many years of distinguished service to 'Letters in Canada': Professor Robin S. Harris, in charge of 'Education,' and Mr Tony Emery, of 'Art.' Important books in these two areas will henceforth be reviewed individually in the 'Humanities ' section. (n.M.H.) FICTION The landscape of Canadian fiction is getting ampler and fuller. It is nO longer a question of searching out and cultivating a few home growths these become more abundant and almost luxuriant. If that quasi-canonical issue of our identity is a really hidden doubt about spiritual geography, then evidence is accumulating on that quickly: the past in historical reconstruction , variously apocalyptical hints of what is to happen or is happening , and much documentation at levels of imaginative apprehension from personal obsession to public advice. It may not all finally achieve that long desired trick of getting us up by our native bootstraps but it will not be for lack of contenders. For the interested reader there is comfort in having his own fictional world the rule, so that he can be free to make in it his own choice of exceptions and qualities. And with the safety of plenty, there can be the luxury of the larger view. This can emerge directly out of the fiction itself in the perspective of pattern and quest it offers as its true substance. And in some of the most striking novels of this past year this has been the ultimate burden, to reveal their own patterning as ground and extension. Robertson Davies's UTQ, Volume XLll, Number 4, Summer 1973 ...