Vision of Jude

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 publishers of this translation present it in a very peculiar manner.
The cover shows a male figure disappearing into an Arctic sunrise. At
the back we are told that the author “has had a lifelong passion for
language and literature,” that he possesses two M.A.s and one Ph.D.,
and that the novel as originally published won three prestigious
literary awards, two of them in Quebec. All this sounds impressive.

It is true that the central figure was once an Arctic explorer, but we
hear little about that. It is also true that his story is told from the
viewpoints of four women who become involved with him—a technically
ambitious device that could have been used to advantage. But I find no
evidence of interest in either language or literature.

In fact, this is a standard-formula sex-romance, complete with scenes
of (rather peripheral) violence, the now-to-be expected “tough”
obscenities and profanities, and a number of minor characters producing
racist statements to make it all sound daringly contemporary. The chief
purpose would seem to be to create a plot in which all the characters
jump into each other’s beds with monotonous (and I do mean monotonous)
regularity.

Visions of Jude ought to have been aimed at the throwaway-paperback
market: casual reading for those whose dull lives need to be stirred by
erotic escapism. One narrator remarks: “It was like a scene out of a
Harlequin Romance.” Another comments: “My life is a soap opera.”
Yes.

Wayne Grady’s translation is successful insofar as it doesn’t read
like a translation—though why anyone should have bothered to translate
this novel is beyond my understanding.