"That House in Manawaka": Margaret Laurence's A Bird in the House

Beverly Rasporich is an associate professor in the Faculty of General
Studies at the University of Calgary and the author of Dance of the
Sexes: Art and Gender in the Fiction of Alice Munro.

This study of Margaret Laurence’s short stories, which were published
over a number of years and collected in a single volume, is one in a
series of critical monographs of individual works by significant
Canadian authors put out by ECW Press. (The series also includes
analyses of Laurence’s A Jest of God and The Diviners.) The format
includes a brief chronology of remarkable dates in Laurence’s life; a
short discussion of this work in relation to the oeuvre; a summation of
its critical reception; and a reading/interpretation of it.

If A Bird in the House has not been seen as Laurence’s greatest
literary achievement, Kertzer’s appreciation of it as both a bridging
and a singularly challenging text is very convincing. Choosing to
interpret the collection as a woman’s confessional memoir, the critic,
with clarity and careful consideration, leads the reader through general
definitions to thoughtful, close readings of each story. While he
sidesteps a feminist reading, his arguments for doing so are sensible
ones. Acknowledging that “there is no denying that Laurence is
concerned with the fate of women in a man’s world,” he explicates
the themes and genres of female development; this is a welcome and
appropriate approach to the test.

The study is free of the jargon so typical of contemporary literary
methodologies; it will be a helpful educational tool for students of
Laurence’s fiction.