Louis Dudek's 1941 Diary

Description

113 pages
$12.00
ISBN 0-921852-11-8
DDC C811'.54

Author

Publisher

Year

1996

Contributor

Edited by Aileen Collins
Reviewed by Bert Almon

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

Review

This beautifully produced book is a transcript of a diary kept by the
poet from 1941 to 1942, as he was feeling his way into the writing of
poetry. Dudek was working in Montreal for an advertising agency at the
time, and thinking a great deal about literature and philosophy. The
diary gives an interesting (and typical) portrait of a young artist.

A blurb on its back cover describes the book as a time capsule—which
is certainly accurate. It reproduces a page of the diary
photographically and has two selections from Dudek’s early poetry as
an appendix, giving context to his youthful struggles to write. The text
is actually rather brief, and about half of it consists of quotations
(mostly from Joyce’s Ulysses). This volume will be of interest to
Dudek scholars rather than to the general reader.

Citation

Dudek, Louis., “Louis Dudek's 1941 Diary,” Canadian Book Review Annual Online, accessed October 10, 2024, https://cbra.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/4823.