New Directions from Old

R.G. Moyles is a professor of English at the University of Alberta.

Before and shortly after the turn of the century, Canadian short-fiction
writers were considered among the best in the world: Gilbert Parker,
Charles G.D. Roberts, Sara Jeannette Duncan, E.W. Thomson, Alan
Sullivan, and Marjorie Pickthall were accepted by the best periodicals
of their day and read by millions. Morley Callaghan, Raymond Knister,
Sinclair Ross, and Malcolm Lowry carried on the tradition. And today,
our short-fiction writers—Alice Munro, Rudy Wiebe, Guy Vanderhaeghe,
Kent Thompson, W.P. Kinsella, and many others—have become
“world-class” practitioners of this art form. They have not, as Tim
Struthers points out, received due critical acclaim.

In this, “the first critical series devoted to Canadian
storytellers,” Struthers sets out to rectify that situation, and does
so admirably by focusing our “imaginative energies on understanding
and enjoying” them. “We must,” Struthers continues, “dedicate
ourselves to the appreciation of story forms and, more specifically, to
what John Metcalf terms ‘the cherishing of language.’” Though the
emphasis here is quite clearly on a formalist and evaluative criticism,
in this present volume the approach is quite eclectic, with formalist
articles on such writers as Ethel Wilson and Mavis Gallant, but an
interview with Rudy Wiebe, some excellent photographs by Sam Tata, and a
bit of mixed media by Leon Rooke. The whole is exciting, readable, and
enlightening. And, as George Woodcock indicates in his dedication, it is
a testimony to the tenacity of our short-fiction writers, who, against
great apathy, remained true to their artistic instincts.