A Report on the Afterlife of Culture.

Stephen Henighan, author of When Words Deny the World (2002), is probably the foremost literary critic writing in Canada today; the bane of our entrenched cultural establishment. Here he continues his attack on those responsible for the sorry state of Canadian culture, including ignorant politicians, philistine teachers, feckless university administrators (he splendidly exposes the imperialistic policies of “postcolonialist” English departments), insidious bookstore-chains, corrupt prize juries, etc.

However, had I not read his first book, I would be more enthusiastic about this one, which lacks the unity of focus that characterized the first. Since he is an expert on writing in Spanish as well as a translator, the early part of the book is full of accounts of international fiction writers (mainly but not exclusively Spanish-speaking) who are little known in the English-speaking world. His report on the problem of translation is absorbing, but he can do little more than recount the plots, and, for me at any rate, these did not encourage me to search them out.

Toward the end, he returns to Canadian issues, but the articles, originally contributed to newspapers or magazines, are severely limited by space restrictions. He is excellent on the sociopolitical contexts of literature, but is forced to confine himself to discussing content when his central concern as a serious writer is with verbal style and sensitivity.

This Report, then, is not to be judged by “artistic” or “literary” standards of excellence, but by the fact that Henighan, whatever he writes about, is informed, unbelievably widely read, incisive, courageous, and never minces words. That means that he is invariably interesting. He gives the impression that he knows he is fighting a losing battle, but, for whoever is listening, he exposes the attitudes and methods of the enemy. More power to him.