Farley Mowat: Writing the Squib

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 Canadian Biography Series includes not only writers, artists, and
intellectuals but also prominent figures from the worlds of popular
entertainment and sport. Because different readerships are involved, a
consistent approach is difficult to maintain, though most subjects find
their own level, as it were. But Farley Mowat, not surprisingly, is a
special case. Writer (for both adults and children), ecologist, popular
agitator, popular historian, humorist, flamboyant personality—he is
all these and many more. This versatility poses a considerable challenge
for his biographer.

John Orange has taken a perfectly defensible though somewhat bland
middle-of-the-road course. Interpreting his biographer’s role in a
strict sense, he offers a useful chronological account of Mowat’s
life, stressing the multifaceted nature of the man, continually shifting
emphases by moving from enthusiasm to enthusiasm, from book to book. If
a highest common factor is stressed, it is Mowat’s engaging
romanticism. We are offered a fast-paced, sometimes bewildering account,
and when we come to the six-page Chronology (placed rather oddly at the
back of the book) we make a lightning tour through the material once
again.

Yet, given the variety of experience to be covered, it is difficult to
see what else Orange could have done. Literary readers might well ask
for greater detail about his books (some of which are no more than
mentioned), further discussion of his inveterate blending of fact and
fiction, an informed critique of his theories about polar exploration or
the Viking expeditions, and more searching stylistic analysis. Others
might hope for more intimate details about his personal life, and more
of the wacky (if sometimes dubious) anecdotes. Under the circumstances,
it would be impossible to satisfy everyone. What we have here is a
basic, informed, sympathetic introduction with no obvious axe to
grind—and that is no small achievement.