Short Stories, A.M. Klein ed. by M.W. Steinberg (review)

were essentially literary: the editors wished to show the full range of Klein's ideas and interests, but beyond that, to include those sections which had special literary merit. While there is an indication that the reach of his concerns has been covered, there is none that a balance of themes has been maintained. For example, only about ten percent of the two hundred and thirty odd sections deal with Canadian subjects, and of these, a significant number deal with local Montreal issues. It would seem that Klein was not very interested in national or provincial ~atters. Was this true? Since the introduction does not address this question, it is difficult to know. The essentially literary principles of selection point to another weakness of the book, a basic confusion in its purpose. This is the first volume produced by the A.M. Klein Research and Publication Committee which is in the process of publishing a series of works including a Complete Poetry and a Complete Short Fiction. It was decided that two volumes would be devoted to the journalistic work, one dealing with literary and cultural matter, the other with political and social ones. The division is highly problematic since many of Klein's articles fit into both categories, but why bother to separate the two? A clearer picture of Klein would have emerged if there had been a more natural juxtaposition of his social and cultural concerns . Presumably, this sort of separation was conceived to emphasize that Klein was not just a literary figure. The purpose of Beyond Sambation was to show that Klein was also a public man, a community leader actively grappling with the political and social problems of his time. Since the principles of selection have been mostly literary, that goal has been at least partially undercut. Though trying to draw attention to Klein's significance beyond literature, the editors have reemphasized that in their view he must be judged essentially for his literary contributions . This is unfortunate. Whether or not his views were original or profound, whether or not many people agreed with him, he was a leading spokesman of Canadian Jewry and one of the most important Canadian intellectuals of his generation. He needs to be 160 considered as a complete figure in a particular historical context and not just as a bright thread in the.tapestry of our poetic tradition. The non-literary activities of Klein and the circles into which they took him need to receive more attention. Maybe now they will. Beyond Sambation is clearly an invitation rather than a considered assessment and this is why it may be the weakest- and yet, despite its failings, one of the most important of the volumes in the collected works. It is an invitation to grasp the whole man and the milieu in which he operated. It is a challenge to fit together more consistently his poetry and politics, his era and environment. Klein was a social actor, not a hermit scribbling away in a lonely cell. His voice and lines are familiar but not the way he moved around on stage and how he played to the galleries. That most appropriate photograph at the front of the book comes to mind once more. It has caught Klein in the full flight of a public oration, but the camera has singled out him alone. It is time now to look more at his audience, and Beyond Sambation implicitly asks that this be done. KEITH WALDEN Trent University SHORT STORIES, A.M. Klein. Ed. M. W. Steinberg, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1983. Pp. xix +338. In 1943 and 1944 A.M. Klein wrote two remarkable tales, "Detective Story, or A Likely Story," and "We Who Are About to Be Born: A Parable." They are both very short, three and four pages in length. "The prospect of what he was about to do exhilarated him." So begins "Detective Story." It outlines a daring plan, never before conceived, never before executed. The plan is in fact a crime "unprecedented in its ravages and perfect in its accomplishments." The crime here contemplated is without motive, and yet the perpetrator knows that a motive would be sought...