Character Parts: Who's Really Who in CanLit

Joseph Jones is a reference librarian in the Koerner Library at the
University of British Columbia.

This dictionary of some 500 Canadian literary characters reveals their
real-life counterparts. Only one of these instances resulted in a
lawsuit at the time, although half a dozen others raised the
possibility. The compiler’s one rule was that “someone somewhere had
made the linkage.” An appendix of more than 40 pages documents sources
that include books of biography and criticism, articles, reference
works, and websites. The absence of dissertations is striking.

The dust-jacket blurb promises entertaining stories. If you don’t
know who Sparrow Drinkwater or Gooch or Percy Marrow are, find out. More
often than not, though, entries are confined to a few biographical facts
about a character’s original—a quick lookup. Only occasionally does
a character’s fictional life get any treatment. Some entries indulge
in terms of passing evaluation that seem gratuitous: interesting,
trivial, nasty, wondrous, anaemic, sloppy, forgettable, excellent,
silly, magnificent.

In design and layout, this book displays the high quality typical of
its publisher, Knopf. Thirty-three illustrations enhance the text. The
information architecture, admittedly a difficult matter, could be
improved in three respects. Source citations should accompany the
entries rather than be listed in a separate section at the end. Having
cross-references both within and following the entry is unnecessary and
cumbersome. The primary approach to content is by literary character,
but most users will start from the person fictionalized or the literary
work to be decoded. Having to use the index for this requires two steps
rather than one.

Coverage is provided for some 350 works published between 1769 and 2003
by more than 100 authors. Nine authors are represented by about 100
works, and 11 works account for more than 100 entries. Some of this
concentration represents the project’s inevitable dependence on the
availability of studies of the authors’ lives and works. Busby himself
is working on a biography of John Glassco, so it is not surprising that
Glassco’s Memoirs of Montparnasse is the most-cited work, with 14
entries.

This is the first reference book of its kind for Canadian literature.
The compiler’s substantial efforts deserve commendation.