Multiple Exposures, Promised Lands: Essays on Canadian Poetry and Fiction

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.

A sad poignancy surrounds this book. It is dedicated to the memory of
Margaret Laurence and Gwendolyn MacEwen, and the foreword makes
reference to personal reminiscences of fellow writers, a few of whom had
died prematurely. By the time I came to review this book, Tom Marshall
had also died prematurely.

Marshall had built a modest reputation as poet and novelist, and was
also the author of two (in my opinion, indifferent) literary-critical
books—one on the poetry of D.H. Lawrence, one on Canadian poetry.
Under the circumstances, it would be pleasant to be able to hail this
final publication as an impressive summation of his academic work.
Unfortunately, this is not possible. Multiple Exposures, Promised Lands,
as the rather desperately inclusive title hints, is a not very well
integrated collection of articles, conference papers, and reviews. Some
are cobbled out of smaller pieces and fail to cohere. Thus a review of
Elspeth Cameron’s biography of Irving Layton is juxtaposed with a
review of Layton’s own prose-memoir Waiting for the Messiah, but these
say hardly anything about Layton’s poetry so have no real place in the
book. The items are not separately identified so far as place of
original publication are concerned, and are only sometimes dated. It is
hardly surprising, then, that the book doesn’t flow.

Insights occur fitfully—in the thoughtful discussion of Sunshine
Sketches, in a personal reminiscence of Gwendolyn MacEwen, and in an
essay on “traces” of Margaret Laurence in subsequent Canadian
novels, including those by Marshall himself. But too many of the items,
adequate in their own time, do not justify reprinting. This, then is a
premature collection—but now, alas, it is all that we shall get.