The Invention of Canada

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

The Invention of Canada is a sociologist’s attempt to extend the
empire of the social sciences by colonizing literary studies. I use the
image deliberately because it indicates the ideological terms in which
Itwaru’s argument is conducted. He examines novels by immigrants
written between 1947 and 1979, and is intent on documenting
dissatisfaction with Canadian attitudes. Why he chooses to do this by
invoking literary texts is not clear, though the tactic seems guaranteed
to attain the required result, since stories of prejudice, injustice,
and struggle are more likely to attract novelists than accounts of
uneventful acceptance and successful settlement. Significantly, he
displays little interest in novels as novels, and even less skill in the
discipline of literary criticism.

The first writer discussed is Ethel Wilson, who is accused of
presenting racial stereotypes. This is odd because Itwaru is fond of
type-characters himself (employers are automatically assumed to be
heartless exploiters) and his portrait of Wilson itself comes across as
stereotypical. He makes the elementary error of mistaking Topaz
Edgeworth’s stereotypical attitudes for the narrator’s; this is
because, reading carelessly, he fails to recognize Wilson’s customary
method of blending authorial reportage with a character’s viewpoint
and idiom. The result is an offensive caricature. Similarly, Austin
Clarke’s subtle and complex presentation of racial distinctions is
stifled beneath a crude propagandizing reading that totally misses
Clarke’s mature artistry.

This is an embarrassing book to review, because its inadequacies cannot
be properly documented in a limited space. Heavily Marxist in
orientation, it is written in a jargon-ridden and graceless prose.
Itwaru seems unaware of the extent of earlier literary-critical
commentary on several of these texts; for the most part, revealingly, he
relies on New Canadian Library introductions. His punctuation is
bizarre, his bibliography inconsistent and sloppy.

Itwaru has an axe to grind, and he grinds it angrily. I would be the
last to deny that a solid critical case might be made along the lines he
indicates—but Itwaru is clearly not the critic for the task.