The Borders of Nightmare: The Fiction of John Richardson

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.

There is no middle ground in the appreciation of John Richardson, author
of Wacousta: either you consider him central, “The Father of Canadian
Literature” (James Reaney’s term), or so intrinsically third-rate
that it is impossible to take his writings seriously. Personally, I
belong to the latter group, though I continually read critical studies
of his work in the sincere hope of being proved wrong. Michael
Hurley’s book begins quite endearingly, and his enthusiasm is evident
in his endeavor to demonstrate how subsequent Canadian writers are
indebted to Richardson for “imaginative patterns.” Unfortunately,
The Borders of Nightmare fails—like its predecessors— because it
cannot make its case in the only terms that ultimately matter:
Richardson’s literary power, his skill (or otherwise) in using words
effectively and convincingly.

Hurley seems to think that, if he can link Richardson’s effects with
those of later and widely acclaimed literary works, Richardson’s own
achievement as a major writer will somehow be assured. For example, the
De Haldimar-Wacousta relationship is described as “like that of Linton
and Heathcliff” in Wuthering Heights. But no one who has responded
fully to Emily Brontл’s masterpiece is likely to be impressed by the
clumsily written and overmelodramatized Wacousta. And how can anyone
find a resemblance between the tawdry Hollywood-B atmosphere of The
Canadian Brothers and the scenes in the World War II trenches presented
in Timothy Findley’s The Wars? (I would grant Hurley his argument that
Findley’s paranoiac imagination bears some resemblance to
Richardson’s, but The Wars is deeply moving because of the force of
Findley’s style, which Richardson’s cannot match.)

Drawing, unlike many previous commentators, on the unabridged text of
Wacousta, Hurley demonstrates quite convincingly the complexity (though
not the subtlety) of Richardson’s structural balancings and
juxtapositionings. But patterns remain patterns, and cannot be
transformed into art by Richardson’s flatfooted style and coarse
piling of bloody horror on bloody horror. This rather repetitious and
thesis-like book will satisfy only those already convinced of
Richardson’s (supposed) genius.