Locations of the Sacred: Essays on Religion, Literature, and Canadian Culture

Ashley Thomson is a full librarian at Laurentian University and co-editor or co-author of nine books, most recently Margaret Atwood: A Reference Guide, 1988-2005.

The author, a professor of religious studies at Queen’s University
since 1973, has long been interested in the reflections of the sacred in
Canadian literature and life. By “sacred,” James means not to
organized religion but rather the religious imagination “as manifested
in various products of the Canadian literary culture and in certain
movements and episodes in Canadian life, whether recreational
experiences or an individual’s search for meaning or the historic
crisis of a particular group.” “Locations” refers to metaphoric
places “above the earth, within the self, in human relationships and
community, in the domain of history, or in the encounter with death.”

In the book, James analyzes the work—primarily fiction—of Margaret
Atwood, Morley Callaghan, Robertson Davies, Marian Engel, Joy Kogawa,
Margaret Laurence, Hugh MacLennan, Alice Munro, Aritha van Herk, and
Thomas York. He also examines a real-life event, the Belcher Islands
Massacre. His general theme is that it is impossible to locate the
sacred in any permanent or lasting way; rather, depending on the artist
or work, the sacred may be located in experiences as diverse as a canoe
trip, an encounter with the natural world, or the struggle of ethnic
minorities.

As might be expected in a book that includes several previously
published articles that were reworked by the author, there’s a certain
amount of repetition. Furthermore, James’s use of specialist language
will limit his book’s appeal to a scholarly readership. It is a
readership that will be rewarded with some valuable insights.