Stacey's Choice: Margaret Laurence's The Fire-Dwellers

Alan Thomas is a professor of English at the University of Toronto.

For many enthusiasts of the Canadian fiction renaissance of the 1960s,
the novels of Margaret Laurence stand on a shelf reserved for cult
objects. But The Fire-Dwellers, while respected by some, has not been
freely accorded that status. Stovel’s discussion begins with the
question Laurence addressed to herself: “Who on earth ... is going to
be interested in reading about a middle-aged housewife, mother of
four?” Stovel responds swiftly that (naturally) women are, and that in
terms of subject matter the novel can be regarded as a feminist
“breakthrough.” She also regards the novel’s flowing narrative
voice and minimal punctuation as postmodernist. Such techniques, it
could be pointed out, are thoroughly in keeping with much earlier
modernist narrative experimentation.

But Stovel’s mission is to establish Margaret Laurence as both
feminist and postmodernist. Her blunt advocacy will be well received by
the student readership at which this useful series of books is aimed,
but it is not the most subtle of arguments. The book’s facile style of
presentation fits the critical level; analysis and description is broken
down into bite-sized chunks and delivered in pop-cult language.