Places Far from Ellesmere

Carolyn D. Redl is a sessional lecturer of English at the University of
Alberta.

Places Far from Ellesmere, a “geografictione,” as van Herk wittingly
subtitles it, combines geography and fiction; it makes geography into
fiction, cutting the edges of boundaries between physical and
psychological and leaving the reader to ponder whether geography is a
product of the imagination. Is geography defined by physical, external
places or by the mind and for the mind? Places parades as
“geografictione,” but it is, as well, autobiography, poetry, and
literary criticism.

Edberg, Edmonton, Calgary, Ellesmere: these four places lend themselves
as backdrops for the four autobiographical divisions of van Herk’s
life. In the first three places, however, she remains aloof, merely
describing the scenery of each place during her particular time of
residence. In her treatment of Ellesmere, van Herk is far more
sympathetic and intimate, often overflowing rhapsodically in the
exuberance of her discovery.

In the Ellesmere section, van Herk is most poetic. About Lake Hazen,
she writes: “Warming, the puzzle-ice in the lake begins to melt itself
into open patches, push itself around. Somewhere in your hearing sleep
the ice crawls onto shore, a dying chime, the high clear music of
nature.” Repeatedly, the narrative erupts into rapturous descriptions
of Ellesmere, descriptions disappointingly absent from the earlier
sections and perhaps suggestive of van Herk’s ambivalence towards her
usual locales. In Ellesmere, she is, after all, visiting.

And to Ellesmere, van Herk brings Anna Karenin on a visit, too. She
imaginatively places Anna on this land, which was being explored and
named when Anna Karenin was being written and published. The section
becomes—in addition to geografictione, autobiography, and
poetry—literary criticism. Comments on Tolstoy’s techniques for
development of character, for example, are frequent.

This book is a radical and significant departure from van Herk’s
previous work. It is a daring revelation of a finer aspect of her
imagination.