The Long March: Notes on the Way, 1981-1984

Bert Almon is a professor of English at the University of Alberta and
author of Calling Texas.

Suvin’s poems are remarkably erudite, but not particularly obscure. His sources are Chinese poetry, with some influence from Bertold Brecht. The images and attitudes of Chinese poetry are accessible: a stoical humanism is expressed through details drawn from nature. Suvin’s postscript describes his work as “written under the impact of and in deliberate dialogue with classical Chinese poetry.” He tends to be banal when he is not showing the Chinese influence, so the dialogue has clearly given him thematic weight as well as artistic models. His parallels between our own tragic time and T’ang Dynasty China are convincing: both periods can elicit a response of tragic (but not cynical) resignation. The ideological content of Suvin’s humanism is apparently an independent Marxism (he is steeped in Walter Benjamin and Adorno) but his critique of contemporary culture is a little vague — he deplores fascism and the malaise of capitalist society, that much is clear. It would be interesting to see what a sustained effort to speak in his own voice would generate. The present work is engaging but not compelling because of weaknesses of style: his rhythms are awkward, and his language is not concentrated in spite of his love for Chinese poetry, a poetry famous for its terse, imagistic power.